In 1866 Mrs. Disraeli fell very ill, and her husband was much disturbed about her health. These later years have an element of pathos in them, for she was really suffering from an incurable cancer. She never told her husband, although of course he knew, and he did not let her guess that he knew, and took care throughout to conceal from her his great distress at her condition. In November 1867 she was dangerously ill, and in consequence the Opposition refrained from attacking the Government, and on the 19th Gladstone referred to her illness in the House of Commons. Mrs. Disraeli had a strong personal regard for Gladstone; she could understand his great gifts and qualities. Mrs. Disraeli was created a peeress in her own right on 30th November 1868. Queen Victoria wished to confer some mark of favour on Disraeli, and offered him a peerage, but he declined because he felt that he ought to remain in the House of Commons. The Queen, knowing his devotion to his wife, suggested that a peerage should be conferred on her instead, a mark of appreciation that delighted Disraeli. Notwithstanding her illness, and at times the suffering was very great, Mrs. Disraeli went on with her usual life. She entertained a small party at Hughenden at the end of November 1872. The guests were Sir William Harcourt, Lord and Lady John Manners, and Lord Ronald Gower. Although she was sadly altered, indeed death was written in her face, and Disraeli was terribly depressed about her, she was gorgeously dressed, and on the Sunday afternoon accompanied the party on a walk, in her pony carriage, talking brightly about her pets--horses and peacocks. The next morning she came down after eleven o’clock, wonderfully brisk and lively after a bad night, and had her breakfast brought to the library where the others were sitting.[47] On 19th December she died at Hughenden, where she was buried. Disraeli’s grief was profound. He declared there never was a better wife. “She believed in me when men despised me. She relieved my wants when I was poor and persecuted by the world.” In his reply to Gladstone’s note of sympathy, he said, “Marriage is the greatest earthly happiness when founded on complete sympathy; that hallowed lot was mine for a moiety of existence.”[48] He used to say how in thirty-three years of married life she had never given him a dull moment. To Gathorne Hardy he wrote: “To lose such a friend is to lose half one’s existence.”[49] The marriage had been the making of Disraeli, and he fully recognised the fact. Replying in 1867 to the toast of his wife’s health, he had said: “I do owe to that lady all, I think, that I have ever accomplished, because she has supported me by her counsel, and consoled me by the sweetness of her mind and disposition.” Another time he said of her: “There was no care which she could not mitigate, and no difficulty which she could not face. She was the most cheerful and the most courageous woman I ever knew.”