"Castlereagh" by John Bew

 A huge and exhaustive scholarly biography of one of Britain's most influential politicians never to become Prime Minister. 

Castlereagh was born into the protestant landed elite of Ireland; his father soon became Lord Londonderry. After a year in Cambridge, the young Viscount became an MP in the Irish parliament; his career there ended when he fostered the Act of Union which abolished it on which he transferred to the UK parliament. As a protege of Pitt he soon rose through the Tory ranks and eventually became Foreign Secretary during the last few years of the Napoleonic Wars and, crucially, at the Congress of Vienna that determined the shape of much of Europe from 1815 until the end of the First World War. Seven years after that triumph he suddenly (in about a fortnight, it seems) became weary, paranoid and he finally committed suicide by cutting his throat.

His reputation, which is probably unfair, then and still, is of a right-wing reactionary. Bew spends a lot of time and amasses what I feel is significant evidence to counter this. 

To be honest, the biography that would have had me riveted was that of Castlereagh's younger brother Charles who, as well as being an aide to Wellington in the Peninsula campaign and sending letters to his brother undermining his boss, was a bit of a ladies man for whom the Congress of Vienna was the perfect opportunity for, well, congress. His conquests included one of Wellington's nieces, a Russian princess and the former mistress of Metternich; he also paid multiple visits to the local brothels, Later, while investigating the infidelities of Princess Caroline so that the Prince Regent could get a divorce (set a thief to catch a thief?) he bought a fake Titian for £1200 and suffered the humiliation of having the small son of his listress tell him that the man they had met in the street "comes to Mama when you go away". The fact that one of his amours turned out to be a spy was almost incidental. Later, back in England, he was ejected from the bedroom of an 18-year-old heiress (he was 38) by her governess, though, to be fair, he did go on to marry her. So much more colourful than his monochrome brother.

As usual I have quibbles about the use of foreign expressions without translation. Castlereagh is more than once described as having "mauvaise honte": it is French for bashfulness. Chapter 15 is entitled "A Lavaterian Eye": this relates to Johann Lavater (1741 - 1801) a Swiss theologian and physiognomist who popularised the belief that a person's character could be read from their face. If I, as a Doctor of Philosophy, need Google to understand a book, then it seems safe to conclude that it is not written for the general reader. The biography of Robert Peel, a younger contemporary of Castlereagh, by Douglas Hurd that I read recently was rather better written. 

There seem to me to be a few mistakes. In Chapter 2.19 Bew says that Spenser Perceval was "gunned down in the chamber of the Commons" when all other sources say it was in the lobby. In Chapter 2.20 he describes the ruler of the Prussians as an Emperor rather than a King. In Chapter 3.10 Castlereagh wears a "Whig".

Selected quotes:

• "All the genius and capacity to be found in the world are produced by that class of men who must study or be starved" (Lord Camden; Ch 1.4)
• "Castlereagh also expressed the view that all revolutions ... had been caused by 'the obstinacy with which government in all countries has opposed itself to every alteration in  the constitution'." (Ch 1,6)
• "Jerusalem Whalley ... had once walked from Dublin to the Holy City to play Eton Fives against the ancient walls for a wager." (Ch 1.17)
• "the most poignant of regrets, the remorse for a crime committed in vain." (Ch 1.17; after Samuel Johnson)

When Castelereagh went to the continent at the end of 1813 to negotiate with the allies he travelled in HMS Erebus, whose own biography I read recently.

Authoritative but lengthy and rather heavy going.

August 2021; 587 pages

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God