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Late Politics
Although in her youth she had been known as the “Queen
of the Whigs,” in the course of the later 1860s and 1870s she came to prefer Benjamin Disraeli, the leader of the Conservative
Party, to William Ewart Gladstone, the leader of the Liberal Party. Disraeli impressed Victoria as being more concerned with
Britain's international prestige and with the strengthening of its empire. She strongly supported Disraeli's government from
1874 to 1880. In 1876, when Parliament made her empress of India, she showed her gratitude to Disraeli by opening Parliament
in person and by creating him earl of Beaconsfield.
William Ewart Gladstone British Prime Minister William Gladstone,
leader of the Liberal Party, served four terms during the reign of Queen Victoria. He helped define the Liberal Party by working
on reforms to improve the lives of the working class and fighting for Irish home rule. He was the rival of Conservative Benjamin
Disraeli, to whom he once lost, then regained, the post of prime minister.
When Disraeli's government was defeated
in the general election of 1880, Victoria made little secret of her disappointment in being compelled to name Gladstone prime
minister for a second time. Gladstone impressed her as too much a popular demagogue and too ready to tamper with the kingdom's
institutions. When in 1866 he proposed home rule (domestic self-government) for Ireland, the queen felt that he was undermining
the British Empire. Despite Victoria’s dislike, Gladstone continued to treat the queen with courteous respect.
During the last 15 years of her reign, the Conservatives
dominated Britain’s government most of the time under prime minister Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Ceci. Victoria was
sympathetic to Salisbury’s views on foreign affairs and the empire. She strongly supported her government’s involvement
in the Boer War (1899-1902) in South Africa, even though the anxieties of the struggle and the criticism that Britain received
from other European powers took their toll on the queen.
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