Perhaps no man had more temptations to break with Mr. Gladstone than Lord Granville. He would have slept more softly could he have found it in his conscience to cast his lot in with the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Argyll, the Duke of Westminster and others, all near and dear kinsmen, who had fought side by side with him in many a tough fight over a long period of years. In a letter dated July 9th, 1895, the Duke of Argyll taunted him with the overwhelming value he set on party fidelity. “I have sometimes asked myself, ‘Is there any conceivable measure that Granville would _not_ accept rather than split the party?’ and I have never been able to answer this question to my own satisfaction.” Lord Granville’s answer was characteristic. “I could, if I chose, give you instances of when I have disagreed with Gladstone, and upon which I may disagree with him again; but I am convinced that as long as he remains a political leader he is a _conservative_ power which will not be replaced by Salisbury, Churchill, or some of the best Whigs.”[24] So Lord Granville and his brother, Mr. Frederick Leveson Gower, remained faithful to Mr. Gladstone. We may not all of us agree with the political creed which they thus endorsed, and to which they lent all the weight of their great name; but one thing is certain: no two nobler gentlemen ever trod the pavement of Westminster Hall. Personally and socially it would be difficult to imagine two men more widely apart than Lord Granville and Mr. Gladstone. The one a scholar, a mathematician and a theologian; the very highest expression of an Oxford common room, who, in spite of Eton and Christ Church, never seemed quite at home in what is commonly called the great world. The other a sportsman and highly-cultured patrician who would have shone as brilliantly at the Court of the _Grand Monarque_ as he did at that of Queen Victoria: a man who had acquired all the pliancy which long usage of diplomacy confers, and who yet, being a man of contrasts, was as firm as adamant where conscience and political conviction were at stake. From what he conceived to be his duty he was immovable. To be invited to spend a week-end or three or four days at Walmer, a pleasure which I so often enjoyed, was to see Lord Granville at his best—and what a best it was! When, in 1865, he became Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, that ancient dignity of which my own ancestor on my mother’s side, Bertram Ashburnham, was the second holder in King Harold’s time, the old castle was but a poor dwelling-place. Lord Granville determined to live there, and so, with the help of Mr. Devey, a famous architect of that time, he added to the accommodation, made many improvements, and turned it into a most delightful and picturesque sea-side home.