The circumstances under which Northcote's leadership came to an end by his elevation to the Upper House (June 1885) as Earl of Iddesleigh, as well as those under which he was subsequently (1887) removed from the post of Foreign Secretary in the then Tory Ministry, evoked much comment at the time, but some of the incidents attending them have not yet been disclosed, and they could not be discussed without bringing in other persons with whom I am not here concerned. Conscious of his own loyalty to his party, and remembering his long and laborious services, he felt those circumstances deeply; and they may have hastened his death, which came very suddenly in February 1887, and called forth a burst of sympathy such as had not been seen since Peel perished by an accident nearly forty years before. In private life Northcote had the charm of unpretending manners, coupled with abundant humour, a store of anecdote, and a geniality which came straight from the heart. No man was a more agreeable companion. In 1884, when the University of Edinburgh celebrated its tercentenary, he happened to be Lord Rector, and in that capacity had to preside over the festivities. Although a stranger to Scotland, and as far removed (for he was a decided High Churchman) from sympathy with Scottish Presbyterianism as he was removed in politics from the Liberalism then dominant in Edinburgh, he won golden opinions from the Scotch, as well as from the crowd of foreign visitors, by the tact and grace he showed in the discharge of his duties, and the skill with which, putting off the politician, he entered into the spirit of the occasion as a lover of letters and learning. Though political eminence had secured his election to the office, every one felt that it would have been hard to find in the ranks of literature and science any one fitter to preside over such a gathering.