Lord Salisbury and Ireland, 1859-87: principles, ambitions and strategies

The third marquess of Salisbury has received a lot of attention as a domestic politician over the last 15 years.’ Even so, continuing interpretative difficulties remain in assessing his career as conservative ideologue and leader. First, historians remain uncertain about the relationship between his early journalism and speeches, and the actions of the mature politician after 1881. Second, there is still no agreement about how far Salisbury understood the contemporary changes in British socio-political culture, and from which he and the Conservative party were to take the principal advantage. Third, there is also no consensus on whether Salisbury should be seen as a driving and creative force in Conservative politics, or whether he and his party were the lucky beneficiaries of the towering, but ultimately misguided, moral energies of W.E. Gladstone. As a result, Paul Smith, in the most recent authoritative interpretation, leaves the reader to choose between Salisbury as a cautious materialist dedicated to delaying the new democratic order, or as a risk-taking opportunist prepared to play for the highest stakes and winning, or as just a lucky political leader at the right place at a propitious moment.