Disraeli was asked to go abroad with them but he declined the invitation.
It was not long before Lady Sykes had found another lover in the attractive, good-looking, gregarious Irish painter, Charles Dickens’s friend, Daniel Maclise. But when she and Maclise were discovered in bed together, Sir Francis threatened proceedings for what was known as ‘criminal conversation’ and inserted a paragraph in the Morning Chronicle giving notice that ‘HENRIETTA SYKES the wife of me SIR FRANCIS SYKES Baronet hath committed ADULTERY with DANIEL MACLISE…Portrait and Picture Painter (with whom she was found in bed at my house)…’18 Proceedings were not pursued, however, because of the other scandalous matters which would inevitably have come to light, including a story that £2,000, which had been paid to Lady Sykes in excess of her allowance, had somehow ‘found its way into Disraeli’s pocket’.19
Lady Sykes was disgraced and no longer seen in polite society in London. Disraeli, loyal to past friends, wrote her a letter of sympathy, to which she replied: ‘I regret that I should have awakened feelings of bygone years…Whatever may be my present sufferings I have brought them on myself & no one can judge more harshly of my conduct for the last 2 months than I…I thank God no one can reproach me of anything but romantic folly…I cannot think for I am distracted & feel as if there were no resting place on earth for me.’
Her life in society was over, and in May 1846 the death of the widow of Sir Francis Sykes was only briefly noticed in the newspapers.
What is apparently the last letter she wrote to Disraeli was very different from those she had written in the torridity of their affair:
What can I say sufficient to convey to you my deep admiration of your book [Henrietta Temple: A Love Story] and the extreme pleasure I felt in reading it. You know I am not very eloquent in expressing my feelings, therefore I must fail to convey to you a tythe part of the extreme gratification I have in your brilliant success…It is possible that I may go abroad with Francis – he is perfectly recovered and tolerably kind to me.20
‘I am considered a great popular orator’
THROUGHOUT THE TIME of his affair with Lady Sykes, Disraeli had lost no opportunity of seeking the approval of men of political standing and influence, such as the friendly Lord Lyndhurst.*
I dined on Saturday en famille with Lyndhurst [he told his sister on 4 November 1834]. A more amiable and agreeable family I never met. The eldest daughter is just like her mother and, although only thirteen, rules everything and everybody – a most astounding little woman…I saw Chandos [Lord Chandos, eldest son of the Duke of Buckingham] today, and had a long conversation with him on politics. He has no head, but I flatter myself I opened his mind a little…D’Orsay has taken my portrait.1
As well as with Lyndhurst and Chandos, Disraeli was closely in touch and in correspondence with Lord Durham, whom he asked to use his influence to persuade ‘young Hobhouse [Sir John Hobhouse, later Lord Broughton]’ to resign from the political contest in his favour. ‘My dear Lord,’ he wrote, ‘my affairs are black; therefore, remember me and serve me if you can. My principles you are acquainted with; as for my other qualifications, I am considered a great popular orator.’2
Lord Durham, however, replied that he was not in a position to help: he did not know Hobhouse well enough to intervene. But these were times which required the ‘presence in Parliament of every true and honest politician’ and he trusted and hoped, therefore, that Disraeli would find his way there yet. ‘If an occasion offers when I can forward your views,’ he added, ‘I shall not fail to do so.’3
These were certainly times of great political excitement; and, as Bulwer told Isaac D’Israeli, his son, Benjamin, was ‘restless and ambitious as usual’, but ‘such dispositions always carve out their way’.
It was a lively season that winter of 1834! [Disraeli wrote in his novel, Coningsby] What hopes, what fears and what bets!…People sprang up like mushrooms; town suddenly became full. Everybody who had been in office and everybody who wished to be in office…were alike visible. All of course by mere accident; one might meet the same men every day for a month, who were only ‘passing through town’…The town, through November, was in a state of excitement; clubs crowded, not only morning rooms but halls and staircases swarming with members eager to give and to receive rumours equally vain; streets lined with cabs and chariots, grooms and horses…
But, after all, who were to form the government, and what was the government to be? Was it to be a Tory government, or an Enlightenment-Spirit-of-the-Age…Liberal-Moderate-Reform government?…
Great questions these, but unfortunately there was nobody to answer them. They tried the Duke [of Wellington]; but nothing could be pumped out of him. All that he knew, which he told in his curt, husky manner, was, that he had to carry on the King’s government…‘This can’t go on much longer,’ said Taper to Tadpole [typical party wire-pullers]…At last he [Sir Robert Peel] came; the great man in a great position, summoned from Rome [where he had been on holiday] to govern England. The very day that he arrived he had his audience with the King.
In the subsequent election campaign of 1835, Disraeli decided to stand once more for High Wycombe and to do so as a Radical-leaning Tory, sworn enemy of the Whigs. ‘It is not enough to say of Mr Disraeli’, ran a letter in the Bucks Gazette, ‘that he delivered himself with his usual ability [on the day of nomination]. The difficulties that he had to encounter were most ably met and judiciously avoided; to steer between the shoals of Toryism on the one hand and the quicksands of Radicalism on the other (for he was supported by the two parties) required the utmost skill and well did he acquit himself.’
‘I stand astonishingly well at Wycombe,’ Disraeli himself assured Benjamin Austen, ‘and may beat the Colonel [Charles Grey] yet. Had I the money, I might canter over the County, for my popularity is irresistible.’4 It was, however, not irresistible enough: he received 128 votes as against 147 for Charles Grey and 289 for the Hon. Robert J. Smith.
‘I am not at all disheartened,’ Disraeli protested. ‘I do not in any way feel like a defeated man. Perhaps it is because I am used to it. I will say of myself like the famous Italian general, who, being asked in his old age why he was always victorious, replied, it was because he had always been beaten in his youth.’5
I have fought our battle and have lost it; by a majority of fourteen, [he wrote to the Duke of Wellington in a less jaunty, even servile mood]. Had I been supported as I wished, the result was certain as I anticipated. Had Lord Carrington exerted himself in the slightest degree in my favour, I must have been returned. But he certainly maintained a neutrality, a neutrality so strict that it amounted to a blockade…It is some consolation to me, even at this moment, that I have at least struggled to support your Grace. I am now a cipher; but if the devotion of my energies to your cause, in and out, can ever avail
