Janet Hilderley is the author of Mr Disraeli’s “Rattle.”

Mrs Catherine Gladstone

“A Woman Not Quite of Her Time”

By Janet Hilderley

The Alpha Press

Copyright © 2014 Janet Hilderely
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-898595-55-7

Contents

PREFACE,
CHAPTER ONE A Meeting, a Marriage and Rising Power To 1840,
CHAPTER TWO Death of a Daughter, Ladies of the Night and Financial Disaster The 1840s,
CHAPTER THREE Journey to Naples, King of an Island and Good-bye to a Sister The 1850s,
CHAPTER FOUR Upsetting Miss Nightingale and Fighting for Poor Suffering Humanity Victorian Poverty,
CHAPTER FIVE A Loving Wife, a Widowed Queen and Preparing for Power The 1860s,
CHAPTER SIX Enter Disraeli, Departing Brothers and A Great Political Campaign The 1870s,
CHAPTER SEVEN A Time of Change, the Great Courtesans and Murder The1880s,
CHAPTER EIGHT Death of a Soldier, Ireland, a Jubilee and Mrs. Gladstone Enters Politics 1886–1892,
CHAPTER NINE Winds of Change and Departure 1892–1896,
CHAPTER TEN Good-bye Catherine 1897–1900,
BIBLIOGRAPHY & INDEX,

CHAPTER 1

A Meeting, a Marriage and Rising Power [To 1840

Beginnings

A non proposal

It was already midnight, this 3rd day of January 1839. A youngish man and woman stood close together, closer than politeness demanded. Friends and family tactfully disappeared, leaving the two alone, hidden in the haunting, mysterious shadows of the Coliseum in Rome. Recalling that night, Catherine wrote, a soft clear light reflected on all around and gave the most beautiful effect.

Despite all this, Mr. Gladstone did not propose

In such circumstances, a single gentleman should have done so. Gladstone continued addressing the loveliest woman of his age as if she were a public monument. Some said she was the image of George Romney’s painting of Lady Hamilton as Nature, 1782. Looking across the ruins, he told her that sixty-thousand spectators had watched Christians being martyred — wild animals yowling for blood as creaking lifts brought gladiators up for the slaughter. Amongst all the jollity, slaves scattered sand dyed red, for even the Romans could not stand the sight of so much blood.

Nearly six foot Gladstone might be but Catherine Glynne looked him straight in the eye. He clutched his top hat to him, denting the high crown. Every so often he surreptitiously pulled his shirt collar away from rubbing his high cheek bones. Well brought up to be a lady at all times, Catherine could hardly ignore ‘his perfectly proportioned body’ of which some went so far as to describe ‘as like a Greek god‘. Nevertheless it was covered by a fashionable tight coat and trousers. She wished to cry out, “William, I am tempted to throw my slipper at you!”

Gladstone talked on and on until the leaves on the olive trees began rustling. Through nooks and crannies, light crept menacingly through the old walls. Women came from nowhere, a motley sort, faces powdered with too much hare-foot, colour added to nipples and lips, eyes over bright with laudanum. And men emerging from the gaming clubs looked furtively around them, seeking further depravity. Gladstone, fascinated, placed Catherine’s shawl around her shoulders. As a gentleman he did not touch her. A virgin, at twenty-nine, desperately fighting sexual frustration, Gladstone found the evening most unsettling. He wrote in his diary, female society, whatever its disadvantages may be — has just and manifold uses attendant upon it in turning the mind away from … most dangerous and degrading temptations. But Catherine n