View source for Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

{{Short description|British prime minister (1830–1903)}}
{{redirect2|Lord Salisbury|The Marquess of Salisbury|other holders of the title|Marquess of Salisbury}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2024}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix    = [[The Most Honourable]]
| name                = The Marquess of Salisbury
| honorific-suffix    = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|KG|GCVO|PC|DL|FRS}}
| image               = Robert cecil.jpg
| caption             = Portrait, 1886
| office1             = [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom]]
| monarch1            = {{ubl|[[Queen Victoria|Victoria]] |[[Edward VII]]}}
| term_start1         = 25 June 1895
| term_end1           = 11 July 1902
| predecessor1        = [[The Earl of Rosebery]]
| successor1          = [[Arthur Balfour]]
| monarch2            = Victoria
| term_start2         = 25 July 1886
| term_end2           = 11 August 1892
| predecessor2        = [[William Ewart Gladstone]]
| successor2          = William Ewart Gladstone
| term_start3         = 23 June 1885
| term_end3           = 28 January 1886
| monarch3            = Victoria
| predecessor3        = William Ewart Gladstone
| successor3          = William Ewart Gladstone
{{collapsed infobox section begin |Ministerial positions
 |titlestyle=border:1px dashed lightgrey;}}{{Infobox officeholder |embed=yes
| primeminister4 = Himself
| office4          = [[Lord Privy Seal|Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal]]
| term_start4      = 12 November 1900
| term_end4        = 11 July 1902
| predecessor4     = [[R. A. Cross, 1st Viscount Cross|The Viscount Cross]]
| successor4       = Arthur Balfour
| primeminister8   = Himself
| office8          = [[Foreign Secretary (United Kingdom)|Foreign Secretary]]
| term_start8      = 29 June 1895
| term_end8        = 12 November 1900
| predecessor8     = [[John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley|The Earl of Kimberley]]
| successor8       = [[Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne|The Marquess of Lansdowne]]
| primeminister9 = Himself
| term_start9      = 14 January 1887
| term_end9        = 11 August 1892
| predecessor9     = [[Stafford Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh|The Earl of Iddesleigh]]
| successor9       = The Earl of Rosebery
| primeminister10 = Himself
| term_start10     = 24 June 1885
| term_end10       = 6 February 1886
| predecessor10    = [[Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville|The Earl Granville]]
| successor10      = The Earl of Rosebery
| term_start11     = 2 April 1878
| term_end11       = 28 April 1880
| primeminister11  = [[The Earl of Beaconsfield]]
| predecessor11    = [[Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby|The Earl of Derby]]
| successor11      = The Earl Granville
| office12         = [[Secretary of State for India]]
| term_start12     = 21 February 1874
| term_end12       = 2 April 1878
| primeminister12  = [[The Earl of Beaconsfield]]
| predecessor12    = [[George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll|The Duke of Argyll]]
| successor12      = [[Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, 1st Earl of Cranbrook|The Viscount Cranbrook]]
| term_start13     = 6 July 1866
| term_end13       = 8 March 1867
| primeminister13  = The Earl of Derby
| predecessor13    = [[George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon|The Earl de Grey]]
| successor13      = [[Sir Stafford Northcote]]
{{collapsed infobox section end}}}}
{{collapsed infobox section begin |last=y |Parliamentary offices
| cont=y |titlestyle = border:1px dashed lightgrey;}}{{Infobox officeholder |embed=yes
| office          = [[Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom)|Leader of the Opposition]]
| term_start      = 11 August 1892
| term_end        = 22 June 1895
| primeminister   = {{ubl|William Ewart Gladstone|[[The Earl of Rosebery]]}}
| predecessor     = William Ewart Gladstone
| successor       = The Earl of Rosebery
| term_start1     = 28 January 1886
| term_end1       = 20 July 1886
| primeminister1  = William Ewart Gladstone
| predecessor1    = William Ewart Gladstone
| successor1      = William Ewart Gladstone
| term_start2     = May 1881
| term_end2       = 9 June 1885
| primeminister2  = William Ewart Gladstone
| predecessor2    = The Earl of Beaconsfield
| successor2      = William Ewart Gladstone
| office3         = Member of the [[House of Lords]]
| status3         = [[Lord Temporal]]
| term_label3     = [[Hereditary peerage]]
| term_start3     = 12 April 1868
| term_end3       = 22 August 1903
| predecessor3    = [[James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury|The 2nd Marquess of Salisbury]]
| successor3      = [[James Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury|The 4th Marquess of Salisbury]]
{{Collapsed infobox section end}}}}
| office4         = [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]]<br />for [[Stamford (UK Parliament constituency)|Stamford]]
| term_start4     = 22 August 1853
| term_end4       = 12 April 1868
| predecessor4    = [[John Charles Herries]]
| successor4      = [[Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 19th Earl of Shrewsbury|Charles Chetwynd-Talbot]]
| birth_name          = 
| birth_date          = {{birth date|df=yes|1830|2|3}}
| birth_place         = [[Hatfield, Hertfordshire]], England
| death_date          = {{death date and age|df=yes|1903|8|22|1830|2|3}}
| death_place         = Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England
| resting_place       = [[St Etheldreda's Church, Hatfield]]
| party               = [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]]
| spouse              = {{marriage|[[Georgina Alderson]]|11 July 1857|20 November 1899|reason=d}}
| children            = {{indented plainlist|
*[[Maud Palmer, Countess of Selborne|Maud, Countess of Selborne]]
*[[Lady Gwendolen Gascoyne-Cecil|Lady Gwendolen]]
*[[James Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury|James, 4th Marquess of Salisbury]]
*[[Lord William Cecil (bishop)|William, Bishop of Exeter]]
*[[Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood|Robert, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood]]
*[[Lord Edward Cecil|Lord Edward]]
*[[Hugh Cecil, 1st Baron Quickswood|Hugh, 1st Baron Quickswood]]
}}
| father              = [[James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury]]
| mother              = Frances Mary Gascoyne
| alma_mater          = [[Christ Church, Oxford]]
| cabinet             = {{hlist|[[First Salisbury ministry|I]]|[[Second Salisbury ministry|II]]|[[Unionist government, 1895–1905#June 1895 to November 1900|III]]|[[Unionist government, 1895–1905#November 1900 to July 1902|IV]]}}
| signature           = Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury Signature.svg
| signature_alt       = Cursive signature in ink
| education           = [[Eton College]] (did not finish)
}}
[[File:Shield of arms of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC, FRS, DL.png|thumb|Garter-encircled arms of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC, FRS, DL]]
'''Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɡ|æ|s|k|ɔɪ|n|_|ˈ|s|ɪ|s|əl}} {{respell|GASK|oyn|_|SISS|əl}};<ref>{{cite EPD|18}}</ref>{{efn|Styled '''Lord Robert Cecil''' before the death of his elder brother in 1865, '''Viscount Cranborne''' from June 1865 until [[James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury|his father]] died in April 1868, and then the '''Marquess of Salisbury'''.}} 3 February 1830{{spaced ndash}}22 August 1903), known as '''Lord Salisbury''', was a British statesman and [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] politician who served as [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom]] three times for a total of over thirteen years. He was also [[Foreign Secretary (United Kingdom)|Foreign Secretary]] before and during most of his tenure. He avoided international alignments or alliances, maintaining the policy of "[[splendid isolation]]".

Lord Robert Cecil, later known as Lord Salisbury, was first elected to the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] in 1854 and served as [[Secretary of State for India]] in [[Lord Derby]]'s Conservative government 1866–1867. In 1874, under [[Disraeli]], Salisbury returned as Secretary of State for India, and, in 1878, was appointed foreign secretary, and played a leading part in the [[Congress of Berlin]]. After Disraeli's death in 1881, Salisbury emerged as the Conservative leader in the House of Lords, with [[Sir Stafford Northcote]] leading the party in the Commons. He succeeded [[William Ewart Gladstone]] as prime minister in June 1885, and held the office until January 1886.

When Gladstone came out in favour of [[Home Rule for Ireland]] later that year, Salisbury opposed him and formed an alliance with the breakaway [[Liberal Unionists]], winning the [[1886 United Kingdom general election|subsequent 1886 general election]]. His biggest achievement in this term was obtaining the majority of the new territory in Africa during the [[Scramble for Africa]], avoiding a war or serious confrontation with the other powers. He remained as prime minister until Gladstone's Liberals formed a government with the support of the [[Irish nationalists]] at the [[1892 United Kingdom general election|1892 general election]]. The Liberals, however, lost the [[1895 United Kingdom general election|1895 general election]], and Salisbury for the third and last time became prime minister. He led Britain to victory in a [[Second Boer War|bitter, controversial war against the Boers]], and led the Unionists to another electoral victory in [[1900 United Kingdom general election|1900]]. He relinquished the premiership to his nephew [[Arthur Balfour]] in 1902 and died in 1903. He was the last prime minister to serve from the [[House of Lords]] throughout the entirety of their premiership.{{efn|[[Alec Douglas-Home]] was very briefly a member of the House of Lords at the start of his premiership, but he renounced his peerage and subsequently sat in the [[House of Commons]]}}<ref>[https://history.blog.gov.uk/2013/04/24/prime-ministers-in-the-house-of-lords/ History of government: Prime Ministers in the House of Lords, ''history.blog.gov.uk'']</ref>

Historians agree that Salisbury was a strong and effective leader in foreign affairs, with a wide grasp of the issues. [[Paul Smith (historian)|Paul Smith]] characterises his personality as "deeply neurotic, depressive, agitated, introverted, fearful of change and loss of control, and self-effacing but capable of extraordinary competitiveness."<ref>Smith 1972 cited in Ellenberger, "Salisbury" 2:1154</ref> A representative of the landed aristocracy, he held the [[reactionary]] credo, "Whatever happens will be for the worse, and therefore it is in our interest that as little should happen as possible."<ref>{{cite book|author=Andrew Roberts|title=Salisbury: Victorian Titan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-ZU9rQ_BjVEC&pg=PT328|year=2012|publisher=Faber & Faber|page=328|isbn=9780571294176}}</ref> Searle says that instead of seeing his party's victory in 1886 as a harbinger of a new and more popular Conservatism, Salisbury longed to return to the stability of the past, when his party's main function was to restrain what he saw as [[demagogic]] liberalism and democratic excess.<ref>{{cite book|author=G. R. Searle|title=A New England?: Peace and War 1886–1918|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5SGI2Y8vyC4C&pg=PA203|year=2004|publisher=Oxford U.P.|page=203|isbn=9780198207146}}</ref> He is generally [[Historical rankings of prime ministers of the United Kingdom|ranked in the upper tier of British prime ministers]].

==Early life: 1830–1852==
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil was born on 3 February 1830 at [[Hatfield House]], the third son of the [[2nd Marquess of Salisbury]] and Frances Mary, ''née'' Gascoyne. He was a patrilineal descendant of [[Lord Burghley]] and the [[Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury|1st Earl of Salisbury]], chief ministers of [[Elizabeth I]]. The family-owned vast rural estates in [[Hertfordshire]] and [[Dorset]]. This wealth increased sharply in 1821, when his father married his mother, Frances Mary Gascoyne, heiress of a wealthy merchant and Member of Parliament who had bought large estates in Essex and Lancashire.<ref name=Roberts2000>Andrew Roberts, ''Salisbury: Victorian Titan'' (2000)</ref>{{rp|7}}

Robert had a miserable childhood, with few friends, and filled his time with reading. He was [[bullied]] unmercifully at the schools he attended.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|8–10}} In 1840, he went to [[Eton College]], where he did well in French, German, Classics, and Theology, but left in 1845 because of intense bullying.<ref name="ODNB">Paul Smith, "[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32339 Cecil, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-, third marquess of Salisbury  (1830–1903)]", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''.</ref> His unhappy schooling shaped his pessimistic outlook on life and his negative views on democracy. He decided that most people were cowardly and cruel, and that the mob would run roughshod over sensitive individuals.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|10}}

In December 1847, he went to [[Christ Church, Oxford]], where he received an honorary fourth class in Mathematics, conferred by nobleman's privilege due to ill health. Whilst at Oxford, he found the [[Oxford movement]] or "Tractarianism" to be an intoxicating force, and had an intense religious experience that shaped his life.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|12,23}} He was involved in the [[Oxford Union]], serving as its secretary and treasurer. In 1853, he was elected a prize fellow of [[All Souls College, Oxford]].

In April 1850, he joined [[Lincoln's Inn]], but did not enjoy law.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|15}} His doctor advised him to travel for his health, and so, from July 1851 to May 1853, Cecil travelled through [[Cape Colony]], Australia, including [[Tasmania]], and New Zealand.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|15–16}} He disliked the Boers and wrote that free institutions and self-government could not be granted to the Cape Colony because the Boers outnumbered the British three-to-one, and "it will simply be delivering us over bound hand and foot into the power of the Dutch, who hate us as much as a conquered people can hate their conquerors".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|16}} He found the Native South Africans "a fine set of men – whose language bears traces of a very high former civilisation", similar to Italian. They were "an intellectual race, with great firmness and fixedness of will" but "horribly immoral" because they lacked theism.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|17}}

At the [[Bendigo]] goldfields in Australia, he claimed that "there is not half as much crime or insubordination as there would be in an English town of the same wealth and population". Ten thousand miners were policed by four men armed with carbines and, at [[Mount Alexander]], 30,000 people were protected by 200 policemen, with over {{convert|30,000|oz}} of gold mined per week. He believed that there was "generally far more civility than I should be likely to find in the good town of [[Hatfield, Hertfordshire|Hatfield]]" and claimed that was due to "the government was that of the Queen, not of the mob; from above, not from below. Holding from a supposed right (whether real or not, no matter)" and from "the People the source of all legitimate power,"<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|18}} Cecil said of the [[Māori people|Māori]] of New Zealand: "The natives seem when they have converted to make much better Christians than the white man". A Maori chief offered Cecil {{convert|5|acre|0}} near [[Auckland]], which he declined.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|19}}

==Member of Parliament: 1853–1866==
[[File:Lord Robert Cecil aetat 27.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Cecil {{circa}}1857]]
Cecil entered the [[British House of Commons|House of Commons]] as a [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] on 22 August [[Stamford (UK Parliament constituency)#Elections in the 1850s|1853]], as [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|MP]] for [[Stamford (UK Parliament constituency)|Stamford]] in Lincolnshire. He retained this seat until he succeeded to his father's peerages in 1868 and it was not contested during his time as its representative. In his election address, he opposed [[secular education]] and "[[ultramontane]]" interference with the [[Church of England]] which was "at variance with the fundamental principles of our constitution". He would oppose "any such tampering with our representative system as shall disturb the reciprocal powers on which the stability of our constitution rests".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|20}} In 1867, after his brother [[Lord Eustace Cecil|Eustace]] complained of being addressed by constituents in a hotel, Cecil responded: "A hotel infested by influential constituents is worse than one infested by bugs. It's a pity you can't carry around a powder insecticide to get rid of vermin of that kind".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|21}}

In December 1856 Cecil began publishing articles for the ''[[Saturday Review (London)|Saturday Review]]'', to which he contributed anonymously for the next nine years. From 1861 to 1864 he published 422 articles in it; in total the weekly published 608 of his articles. The ''[[Quarterly Review]]'' was the foremost conservative journal of the age and of the twenty-six issues published between spring 1860 and summer 1866, Cecil had anonymous articles in all but three of them. He also wrote lead articles for the Tory daily newspaper the ''Standard''. In 1859 Cecil was a founding co-editor of ''Bentley's Quarterly Review'', with [[John Douglas Cook]] and Rev. [[William Scott (Vicar of St Olave's, Jewry)|William Scott]]; but it closed after four issues.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|39–40}}

Salisbury criticised the foreign policy of [[Lord John Russell]], claiming he was "always being willing to sacrifice anything for peace... colleagues, principles, pledges... a portentous mixture of bounce and baseness... dauntless to the weak, timid and cringing to the strong". The lessons to be learnt from Russell's foreign policy, Salisbury believed, were that he should not listen to the opposition or the press otherwise "we are to be governed... by a set of weathercocks, delicately poised, warranted to indicate with unnerving accuracy every variation in public feeling". Secondly: "No one dreams of conducting national affairs with the principles which are prescribed to individuals. The meek and poor-spirited among nations are not to be blessed, and the common sense of Christendom has always prescribed for national policy principles diametrically opposed to those that are laid down in the [[Sermon on the Mount]]". Thirdly: "The assemblies that meet in Westminster have no jurisdiction over the affairs of other nations. Neither they nor the Executive, except in plain defiance of international law, can interfere [in the internal affairs of other countries]... It is not a dignified position for a Great Power to occupy, to be pointed out as the busybody of Christendom". Finally, Britain should not threaten other countries unless prepared to back this up by force: "A willingness to fight is the ''[[point d'appui]]'' of diplomacy, just as much as a readiness to go to court is the starting point of a lawyer's letter. It is merely courting dishonour, and inviting humiliation for the men of peace to use the habitual language of the men of war".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|40–42}}

==Secretary of State for India: 1866–1867==
In 1866 Cecil, now known by the courtesy title Viscount Cranborne after the death of his brother, entered the third government of [[Lord Derby]] as [[Secretary of State for India]]. When in 1867 [[John Stuart Mill]] proposed a type of [[proportional representation]], Cranborne argued that: "It was not of our atmosphere—it was not in accordance with our habits; it did not belong to us. They all knew that it could not pass. Whether that was creditable to the House or not was a question into which he would not inquire; but every Member of the House the moment he saw the scheme upon the Paper saw that it belonged to the class of impracticable things".<ref>[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1867/may/30/committee-progress-may-28 House of Commons Debates 30 May 1867 vol. 187 cc1296–363].</ref>

On 2 August when the Commons debated the [[Orissa famine of 1866|Orissa famine]] in India, Cranborne spoke out against experts, political economy, and the government of Bengal. Utilising the [[British Blue Books|Blue Books]], Cranborne criticised officials for "walking in a dream... in superb unconsciousness, believing that what had been must be, and that as long as they did nothing absolutely wrong, and they did not displease their immediate superiors, they had fulfilled all the duties of their station". These officials worshipped political economy "as a sort of 'fetish'...&nbsp;[they] seemed to have forgotten utterly that human life was short, and that man did not subsist without food beyond a few days". Three-quarters of a million people had died because officials had chosen "to run the risk of losing the lives than to run the risk of wasting the money". Cranborne's speech was received with "an enthusiastic, hearty cheer from both sides of the House" and Mill crossed the floor of the Commons to congratulate him on it. The famine left Cranborne with a lifelong suspicion of experts and in the photograph albums at his home covering the years 1866–67 there are two images of skeletal Indian children amongst the family pictures.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|86}}

===Reform Act 1867===
{{Further|Reform Act 1867}}

When parliamentary reform came to prominence again in the mid-1860s, Cranborne worked hard to master electoral statistics until he became an expert. When the Liberal Reform Bill was being debated in 1866, Cranborne studied the census returns to see how each clause in the Bill would affect the electoral prospects in each seat.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|86–87}} Cranborne did not expect Disraeli's conversion to reform, however. When the Cabinet met on 16 February 1867, Disraeli voiced his support for some extension of the suffrage, providing statistics amassed by [[Robert Dudley Baxter]], showing that 330,000 people would be given the vote and all except 60,000 would be granted extra votes.

Cranborne studied Baxter's statistics and on 21 February he met [[Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon|Lord Carnarvon]], who wrote in his diary: "He is firmly convinced now that Disraeli has played us false, that he is attempting to hustle us into his measure, that Lord Derby is in his hands and that the present form which the question has now assumed has been long planned by him". They agreed to "a sort of offensive and defensive alliance on this question in the Cabinet" to "prevent the Cabinet adopting any very fatal course". Disraeli had "separate and confidential conversations...carried on with each member of the Cabinet from whom he anticipated opposition [which] had divided them and lulled their suspicions".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|89}} That same night Cranborne spent three hours studying Baxter's statistics and wrote to Carnarvon the day after that although Baxter was right overall in claiming that 30% of £10 ratepayers who qualified for the vote would not register, it would be untrue in relation to the smaller boroughs where the register is kept up to date. Cranborne also wrote to Derby arguing that he should adopt 10 shillings rather than Disraeli's 20 shillings for the qualification of the payers of direct taxation: "Now above 10 shillings you won't get in the large mass of the £20 householders. At 20 shillings I fear you won't get more than 150,000 double voters, instead of the 270,000 on which we counted. And I fear this will tell horribly on the small and middle-sized boroughs".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|90}}
[[File:14th Earl of Derby.jpg|thumb|Lord Derby. Salisbury resigned from his government in protest against proposals for parliamentary reform.]]
On 23 February Cranborne protested in Cabinet and the next day analysed Baxter's figures using census returns and other statistics to determine how Disraeli's planned extension of the franchise would affect subsequent elections. Cranborne found that Baxter had not taken into account the different types of boroughs in the totals of new voters. In small boroughs under 20,000 the "fancy franchises" for direct taxpayers and dual voters would be less than the new working-class voters in each seat.

The same day he met Carnarvon and they both studied the figures, coming to the same result each time: "A complete revolution would be effected in the boroughs" due to the new majority of the working-class electorate. Cranborne wanted to send his resignation to Derby along with the statistics but Cranborne agreed to Carnarvon's suggestion that as a Cabinet member he had a right to call a Cabinet meeting. It was planned for the next day, 25 February. Cranborne wrote to Derby that he had discovered that Disraeli's plan would "throw the small boroughs almost, and many of them entirely, into the hands of the voter whose qualification is less than £10. I do not think that such a proceeding is for the interest of the country. I am sure that it is not in accordance with the hopes which those of us who took an active part in resisting Mr Gladstone's Bill last year in those whom we induced to vote for us". The Conservative boroughs with populations less than 25,000 (a majority of the boroughs in Parliament) would be very much worse off under Disraeli's scheme than the Liberal Reform Bill of the previous year: "But if I assented to this scheme, now that I know what its effect will be, I could not look in the face those whom last year I urged to resist Mr Gladstone. I am convinced that it will, if passed, be the ruin of the Conservative party".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|90–92}}

When Cranborne entered the Cabinet meeting on 25 February "with reams of paper in his hands" he began by reading statistics but was interrupted to be told of the proposal by [[Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby|Lord Stanley]] that they should agree to a £6 borough rating franchise instead of the full household suffrage, and a £20 county franchise rather than £50. The Cabinet agreed to Stanley's proposal. The meeting was so contentious that a minister who was late initially thought they were debating the suspension of ''habeas corpus''.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|92–93}} The next day another Cabinet meeting took place, with Cranborne saying little and the Cabinet adopting Disraeli's proposal to bring in a Bill in a week's time. On 28 February a meeting of the [[Carlton Club]] took place, with a majority of the 150 Conservative MPs present supporting Derby and Disraeli. At the Cabinet meeting on 2 March, Cranborne, Carnarvon and General Peel were pleaded with for two hours not to resign, but when Cranborne "announced his intention of resigning...Peel and Carnarvon, with evident reluctance, followed his example". [[Lord John Manners]] observed that Cranborne "remained unmoveable". Derby closed his red box with a sigh and stood up, saying "The Party is ruined!" Cranborne got up at the same time, with Peel remarking: "Lord Cranborne, do you hear what Lord Derby says?" Cranborne ignored this and the three resigning ministers left the room. Cranborne's resignation speech was met with loud cheers and Carnarvon observed that it was "moderate and in good taste – a sufficient justification for us who seceded and yet no disclosure of the frequent changes in policy in the Cabinet".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|93–95}}

Disraeli introduced his Bill on 18 March and it would extend the suffrage to all rate-paying householders of two years' residence, dual voting for graduates or those of a learned profession, or those with £50 in government funds or in the Bank of England or a savings bank. These "fancy franchises", as Cranborne had foreseen, did not survive the Bill's course through Parliament; dual voting was dropped in March, the compound householder vote in April; and the residential qualification was reduced in May. In the end the county franchise was granted to householders rated at £12 annually.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|95}} On 15 July the third reading of the Bill took place and Cranborne spoke first, in a speech which his biographer Andrew Roberts has called "possibly the greatest oration of a career full of powerful parliamentary speeches".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|97}} Cranborne observed how the Bill "bristled with precautions, guarantees and securities" had been stripped of these. He attacked Disraeli by pointing out how he had campaigned against the Liberal Bill in 1866 yet the next year introduced a Bill more extensive than the one rejected. In the peroration, Cranborne said:

{{blockquote|I desire to protest, in the most earnest language which I am capable of using, against the political morality on which the manoeuvres of this year have been based. If you borrow your [[political ethics]] from the ethics of the political adventurer, you may depend upon it the whole of your representative institutions will crumble beneath your feet. It is only because of that mutual trust in each other by which we ought to be animated, it is only because we believe that expressions and convictions expressed, and promises made, will be followed by deeds, that we are enabled to carry on this party Government which has led this country to so high a pitch of greatness. I entreat honourable Gentlemen opposite not to believe that my feelings on this subject are dictated simply by my hostility on this particular measure, though I object to it most strongly, as the House is aware. But, even if I took a contrary view – if I deemed it to be most advantageous, I still should deeply regret that the position of the Executive should have been so degraded as it has been in the present session: I should deeply regret to find that the House of Commons has applauded a policy of ''[[legerdemain]]''; and I should, above all things, regret that this great gift to the people – if gift you think – should have been purchased at the cost of a political betrayal which has no parallel in our Parliamentary annals, which strikes at the root of all that mutual confidence which is the very soul of our party Government, and on which only the strength and freedom of our representative institutions can be sustained.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|98}}}}

In his article for the October ''Quarterly Review'', entitled 'The Conservative Surrender', Cranborne criticised Derby because he had "obtained the votes which placed him in office on the faith of opinions which, to keep office, he immediately repudiated...He made up his mind to desert these opinions at the very moment he was being raised to power as their champion". Also, the annals of modern parliamentary history could find no parallel for Disraeli's betrayal; historians would have to look "to the days when [[Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland|Sunderland]] directed the Council, and accepted the favours of [[James II of England|James]] when he was negotiating the invasion of [[William III of England|William]]". Disraeli responded in a speech that Cranborne was "a very clever man who has made a very great mistake".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|100}}

==In opposition: 1868–1874==
In 1868, on the death of his father, he inherited the [[Marquess of Salisbury|Marquessate of Salisbury]], thereby becoming a member of the [[House of Lords]]. In addition to the titles, he inherited 20,000 acres with 13,000 of these in Hertfordshire.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/greatlandownerso00bateuoft/page/394/mode/2up The Great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland]</ref> In 1869 he was elected [[Chancellor of the University of Oxford]] and elected a [[Fellow of the Royal Society]].<ref name="ODNB" /> Between 1868 and 1871, he was chairman of the [[Great Eastern Railway]], which was then experiencing losses. During his tenure, the company was taken out of [[Court of Chancery|Chancery]], and paid out a small dividend on its ordinary shares.

[[File:Robert Cecil, Vanity Fair, 1869-07-10.jpg|thumb|The Marquess of Salisbury caricatured by "[[Carlo Pellegrini (caricaturist)|Ape]]" (Carlo Pellegrini) in ''Vanity Fair''', 1869]]

From 1868 he was Honorary Colonel of the [[Hertfordshire Militia]], which became the [[4th (Militia) Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment]], in 1881, and which was commanded in South Africa during the [[Second Boer War]] by his eldest son.<ref name=kelly>{{cite book|title=Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes, 1900|publisher=Kelly's|page=1189}}</ref><ref>''Army List''.</ref><ref>{{cite book |author-last=Hay |author-first=Col. George Jackson |title=An Epitomized History of the Militia (The Constitutional Force) |url=http://lib.militaryarchive.co.uk/library/Miscellaneous-Volumes/library/An-Epitomized-History-of-the-Militia/files/assets/basic-html/page1.html |publication-place=London |publisher=United Service Gazette |date=1905 |pages=286–289 |archive-date=11 May 2021 |access-date=27 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210511004439/http://lib.militaryarchive.co.uk/library/Miscellaneous-Volumes/library/An-Epitomized-History-of-the-Militia/files/assets/basic-html/page1.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Secretary of State for India: 1874–1878==
Salisbury returned to government in 1874, serving once again as Secretary of State for India in the government of [[Benjamin Disraeli]], and Britain's Ambassador Plenipotentiary at the 1876 [[Constantinople Conference]]. Salisbury gradually developed a good relationship with Disraeli, whom he had previously disliked and mistrusted.

During a Cabinet meeting on 7 March 1878, a discussion arose over whether to occupy [[Mytilene]]. [[Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby|Lord Derby]] recorded in his diary that "[o]f all present Salisbury by far the most eager for action: he talked of our sliding into a position of contempt: of our being humiliated etc."<ref>John Vincent (ed.), ''A Selection from the Diaries of Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby (1826–93) between September 1869 and March 1878'' (London: The Royal Historical Society, 1994), p. 522.</ref> At the Cabinet meeting the next day, Derby recorded that [[Lord John Manners]] objected to occupying the city "on the ground of right. Salisbury treated scruples of this kind with marked contempt, saying, truly enough, that if our ancestors had cared for the rights of other people, the British empire would not have been made. He was more vehement than any one for going on. In the end the project was dropped..."<ref>Vincent, p. 523.</ref>

==Foreign Secretary: 1878–1880==
In 1878, Salisbury became foreign secretary in time to help lead Britain to "peace with honour" at the [[Congress of Berlin]]. For this, he was rewarded with the [[Order of the Garter]] along with Disraeli.

==Leader of the Opposition: 1881–1885==
Following Disraeli's death in 1881, the Conservatives entered a period of turmoil. The party's previous leaders had all been appointed as prime minister by the reigning monarch on advice from their retiring predecessor, and no process was in place to deal with leadership succession in case either the leadership became vacant while the party was in opposition, or the outgoing leader died without designating a successor, situations which both arose from the death of Disraeli (a formal leadership election system would not be adopted by the party until 1964, shortly after the government of [[Alec Douglas-Home]] fell). Salisbury became the leader of the Conservative members of the House of Lords, though the overall leadership of the party was not formally allocated. So he struggled with the Commons leader [[Sir Stafford Northcote]], a struggle in which Salisbury eventually emerged as the leading figure. Historian [[Richard Shannon (historian)|Richard Shannon]] argues that while Salisbury presided over one of the longest periods of Tory dominance, he misinterpreted and mishandled his election successes. Salisbury's blindness to the middle class and reliance on the aristocracy prevented the Conservatives from becoming a majority party.<ref>Richard Shannon, ''The Age of Salisbury, 1881–1902'' (1996)</ref> 
[[File:Robert Cecil - 3rd Marquess of Salisbury.jpg|thumb|right|Lord Salisbury]]

===Reform Act 1884===
{{Further|Representation of the People Act 1884}}

In 1884 Gladstone introduced a [[Representation of the People Act 1884|Reform Bill]] which would extend the suffrage to two million rural workers. Salisbury and Northcote agreed that any Reform Bill would be supported only if a parallel redistributionary measure was introduced as well. In a speech in the Lords, Salisbury claimed: "Now that the people have in no real sense been consulted, when they had, at the last General Election, no notion of what was coming upon them, I feel that we are bound, as guardians of their interests, to call upon the government to appeal to the people, and by the result of that appeal we will abide". The Lords rejected the Bill and Parliament was prorogued for ten weeks.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|295–6}} Writing to Canon [[Malcolm MacColl]], Salisbury believed that Gladstone's proposals for reform without redistribution would mean "the absolute effacement of the Conservative Party. It would not have reappeared as a political force for thirty years. This conviction...greatly simplified for me the computation of risks". At a meeting of the Carlton Club on 15 July, Salisbury announced his plan for making the government introduce a Seats (or Redistribution) Bill in the Commons whilst at the same time delaying a Franchise Bill in the Lords. The unspoken implication being that Salisbury would relinquish the party leadership if his plan was not supported. Although there was some dissent, Salisbury carried the party with him.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|297–8}}

Salisbury wrote to Lady John Manners on 14 June that he did not regard female suffrage as a question of high importance "but when I am told that my ploughmen are capable citizens, it seems to me ridiculous to say that educated women are not just as capable. A good deal of the political battle of the future will be a conflict between religion and unbelief: & the women will in that controversy be on the right side".<ref>Paul Smith (ed.), ''Lord Salisbury On Politics. A Selection from His Articles in the Quarterly Review, 1860–83'' (Cambridge University Press, 1972), p. 18, n. 1.</ref>

On 21 July, a large meeting for reform was held at [[Hyde Park, London|Hyde Park]]. Salisbury said in ''[[The Times]]'' that "the employment of mobs as an instrument of public policy is likely to prove a sinister precedent". On 23 July at Sheffield, Salisbury said that the government "imagine that thirty thousand Radicals going to amuse themselves in London on a given day expresses the public opinion of the day...they appeal to the streets, they attempt legislation by picnic". Salisbury further claimed that Gladstone adopted reform as a "cry" to deflect attention from his foreign and economic policies at the next election. He claimed that the House of Lords was protecting the British constitution: "I do not care whether it is an hereditary chamber or any other – to see that the representative chamber does not alter the tenure of its own power so as to give a perpetual lease of that power to the party in predominance at the moment".

On 25 July at a reform meeting in Leicester consisting of 40,000 people, Salisbury was burnt in effigy and a banner quoted Shakespeare's ''Henry VI'': "Old Salisbury – shame to thy silver hair, Thou mad misleader". On 9 August in Manchester, over 100,000 came to hear Salisbury speak. On 30 September at Glasgow, he said: "We wish that the franchise should pass but that before you make new voters you should determine the constitution in which they are to vote".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|298–300}} Salisbury published an article in the ''[[National Review (London)|National Review]]'' for October, titled 'The Value of Redistribution: A Note on Electoral Statistics'. He claimed that the Conservatives "have no cause, for Party reasons, to dread enfranchisement coupled with a fair redistribution". Judging by the 1880 results, Salisbury asserted that the overall loss to the Conservatives of enfranchisement without redistribution would be 47 seats. Salisbury spoke throughout Scotland and claimed that the government had no mandate for reform when it had not appealed to the people.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|300–1}}

Gladstone offered wavering Conservatives a compromise a little short of enfranchisement and redistribution, and after the Queen unsuccessfully attempted to persuade Salisbury to compromise, he wrote to Rev. James Baker on 30 October: "Politics stand alone among human pursuits in this characteristic, that no one is conscious of liking them – and no one is able to leave them. But whatever affection they may have had they are rapidly losing. The difference between now and thirty years ago when I entered the House of Commons is inconceivable".

On 11 November, the Franchise Bill received its third reading in the Commons and it was due to get a second reading in the Lords. The day after at a meeting of Conservative leaders, Salisbury was outnumbered in his opposition to compromise. On 13 February, Salisbury rejected MacColl's idea that he should meet Gladstone, as he believed the meeting would be found out and that Gladstone had no genuine desire to negotiate. On 17 November, it was reported in the newspapers that if the Conservatives gave "adequate assurance" that the Franchise Bill would pass the Lords before Christmas the government would ensure that a parallel Seats Bill would receive its second reading in the Commons as the Franchise Bill went into committee stage in the Lords. Salisbury responded by agreeing only if the Franchise Bill came second.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|303–4}} The Carlton Club met to discuss the situation, with Salisbury's daughter writing:

{{blockquote|The three arch-funkers [[Hugh Cairns, 1st Earl Cairns|Cairns]], [[Charles Gordon-Lennox, 6th Duke of Richmond|Richmond]] and [[Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon|Carnarvon]] cried out declaring that he would accept no compromise at all as it was absurd to imagine the Government conceding it. When the discussion was at its height (very high) enter [[arthur Balfour|Arthur]] [Balfour] with explicit declamation dictated by [[William Ewart Gladstone|GOM]] in [[Spencer Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire|Hartington's]] handwriting yielding the point entirely. Tableau and triumph along the line for the "stiff" policy which had obtained terms which the funkers had not dared hope for. My father's prevailing sentiment is one of complete wonder...we have got all and more than we demanded.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|305}}}}

Despite the controversy which had raged, the meetings of leading Liberals and Conservatives on reform at [[Downing Street]] were amicable. Salisbury and the Liberal [[Sir Charles Dilke]] dominated discussions as they had both closely studied in detail the effects of reform on the constituencies. After one of the last meetings on 26 November, Gladstone told his secretary that "Lord Salisbury, who seems to monopolise all the say on his side, has no respect for tradition. As compared with him, Mr Gladstone declares he is himself quite a Conservative. They got rid of the boundary question, minority representation, grouping and the Irish difficulty. The question was reduced to... for or against single member constituencies". The [[Representation of the People Act 1884|Reform Bill]] laid down that the majority of the 670 constituencies were to be roughly equal in size and return one member; those between 50,000 and 165,000 kept the two-member representation and those over 165,000 and all the counties were split up into single-member constituencies. This franchise existed until [[Representation of the People Act 1918|1918]].<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|305–6}}

==Prime minister: 1885–1892<span class="anchor" id="First premiership"></span><!-- linked from redirects [[First premiership of Lord Salisbury]], [[First premiership of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury]], [[First premiership of the Marquess of Salisbury]], [[First prime ministership of Lord Salisbury]], [[First prime ministership of the Marquess of Salisbury]], [[Premiership of Salisbury]] -->==
[[File:John Everett Millais (1829-1896) - Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury - NPG 3242 - National Portrait Gallery.jpg|thumb|''[[Portrait of the Marquess of Salisbury]]'' by [[John Everett Millais]], 1883]]
=== First term: 1885–1886 ===
==== Appointment ====
{{Further|First Salisbury ministry}}
Salisbury became prime minister of a minority administration from 1885 to 1886. In the November 1883 issue of ''National Review'' Salisbury wrote an article titled "Labourers' and Artisans' Dwellings" in which he argued that the poor conditions of working-class housing were injurious to morality and health.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|282}} Salisbury said "''[[Laissez-faire]]'' is an admirable doctrine but it must be applied on both sides", as Parliament had enacted new building projects (such as the [[Thames Embankment]]) which had displaced working-class people and was responsible for "packing the people tighter": "...thousands of families have only a single room to dwell in, where they sleep and eat, multiply, and die... It is difficult to exaggerate the misery which such conditions of life must cause, or the impulse they must give to vice. The depression of body and mind which they create is an almost insuperable obstacle to the action of any elevating or refining agencies".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|283}} The ''[[Pall Mall Gazette]]'' argued that Salisbury had sailed into "the turbid waters of State Socialism"; the ''[[Manchester Guardian]]'' said his article was "State socialism pure and simple" and ''The Times'' claimed Salisbury was "in favour of state socialism".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|283–4}}

==== Early reforms and parliamentary majority ====
In July 1885 the [[Housing of the Working Classes Act 1885|Housing of the Working Classes Bill]] was introduced by the Home Secretary, [[R. A. Cross]] in the Commons and Salisbury in the Lords. When [[Francis Charteris, 10th Earl of Wemyss|Lord Wemyss]] criticised the Bill as "strangling the spirit of independence and the self-reliance of the people, and destroying the moral fibre of our race in the anaconda coils of state socialism", Salisbury responded: "Do not imagine that by merely affixing to it the reproach of Socialism you can seriously affect the progress of any great legislative movement, or destroy those high arguments which are derived from the noblest principles of philanthropy and religion". The Bill ultimately passed and came into effect on 14 August 1885.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|286}}

Although unable to accomplish much due to his lack of a parliamentary majority, the split of the Liberals over [[Irish Home Rule]] in 1886 enabled him to return to power with a majority, and, excepting a Liberal minority government (1892–95), to serve as prime minister from 1886 to 1902.

===Second term: 1886–1892<span class="anchor" id="Second premiership"></span><!-- linked from redirects [[Second premiership of Lord Salisbury]], [[Second premiership of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury]], [[Second premiership of the Marquess of Salisbury]], [[Second prime ministership of Lord Salisbury]], [[Second prime ministership of the Marquess of Salisbury]] -->===
{{Further|Second Salisbury ministry}}
[[File:Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, Vanity Fair, 1900-12-20.jpg|left|thumb|Salisbury caricatured by "[[Leslie Ward|Spy]]" for ''[[Vanity Fair (British magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'', 1900]]
Salisbury was back in office, although without a conservative majority; he depended on the Liberal Unionists, led by [[Lord Hartington]]. Maintaining the alliance forced Salisbury to make concessions in support of progressive legislation regarding Irish land purchases, education, and county councils. His nephew [[Arthur Balfour]] acquired a strong reputation for resolute coercion in Ireland, and was promoted to leadership in the Commons in 1891. The Prime Minister proved adept at his handling of the press, as Sir [[Edward Walter Hamilton]] noted in his diary in 1887 he was: "the prime minister most accessible to the press. He is not prone to give information: but when he does, he gives it freely, & his information can always be relied on."<ref>{{cite book|author=Paul Brighton|title=Original Spin: Downing Street and the Press in Victorian Britain|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kCgzCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT241|year=2016|publisher=I.B.Tauris|page=233|isbn=9781780760599}}</ref>

====Foreign policy====
Salisbury once again kept the foreign office (from January 1887), and his diplomacy continued to display a high level of skill, avoiding the extremes of Gladstone on the left and Disraeli on the right. His policy rejected entangling alliances–which at the time and ever since has been called "[[splendid isolation]]". He was successful in negotiating differences over colonial claims with France and others.<ref>J.A.S. Grenville, ''Lord Salisbury and foreign policy: the close of the nineteenth century'' (U. of London Athlone Press, 1964) pp 3–23.</ref>  The major problems were in the Mediterranean, where British interests had been involved for a century. It was now especially important to protect the [[Suez Canal]] and the sea lanes to India and Asia. He ended Britain's isolation through the [[Mediterranean Agreements]] (March and December 1887) with [[Kingdom of Italy|Italy]] and [[Austria-Hungary]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=J. A. S. |last=Grenville |title=Goluchowski, Salisbury, and the Mediterranean Agreements, 1895–1897 |journal=Slavonic and East European Review |year=1958 |volume=36 |issue=87 |pages=340–369 |jstor=4204957 }}</ref> He saw the need for maintaining control of the seas and passed the [[Naval Defence Act 1889]], which facilitated the spending of an extra £20&nbsp;million on the [[Royal Navy]] over the following four years. This was the biggest ever expansion of the navy in peacetime: ten new [[battleship]]s, thirty-eight new [[cruiser]]s, eighteen new [[torpedo boat]]s and four new fast [[gunboat]]s. Traditionally (since the [[Battle of Trafalgar]]) Britain had possessed a navy one-third larger than their nearest naval rival but now the Royal Navy was set to the [[two-power standard]]; that it would be maintained "to a standard of strength equivalent to that of the combined forces of the next two biggest navies in the world".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|540}} This was aimed at [[French Third Republic|France]] and [[Russian Empire|Russia]].

Salisbury was offered a [[duke]]dom by [[Queen Victoria]] in 1886 and 1892, but declined both offers, citing the prohibitive cost of the lifestyle dukes were expected to maintain and stating that he would rather have an ancient [[marquessate]] than a modern dukedom.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|374–5}}

=====1890 Ultimatum on Portugal=====
{{Main|1890 British Ultimatum}}
Trouble arose with Portugal, which had overextended itself in building a colonial empire in Africa it could ill afford. There was a clash of colonial visions between [[Kingdom of Portugal|Portugal]] (the "[[Pink Map]]", produced by the [[Lisbon Geographic Society]] after [[Alexandre de Serpa Pinto]]'s, [[Hermenegildo Capelo]]'s and [[Roberto Ivens]]'s expeditions to Africa) and the British Empire  ([[Cecil Rhodes]]'s "[[Cape to Cairo Railway]]") which came after years of diplomatic conflict about several African territories with Portugal and other powers. Portugal, financially hard-pressed, had to abandon several territories corresponding to today's [[Malawi]], [[Zambia]] and [[Zimbabwe]] in favour of the Empire.<ref>Teresa Coelho,  "'Pérfida Albion'and'Little Portugal': The Role of the Press in British and Portuguese National Perceptions of the 1890 Ultimatum." ''Portuguese Studies'' 6 (1990): 173+.</ref>

====Domestic policy====
In 1889 Salisbury set up the [[London County Council]] and then in 1890 allowed it to build houses. However, he came to regret this, saying in November 1894 that the LCC, "is the place where collectivist and socialistic experiments are tried. It is the place where a new revolutionary spirit finds its instruments and collects its arms".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|501}}

=====Controversies=====
Salisbury caused controversy in 1888 after [[Gainsford Bruce]] had won the [[Holborn (UK Parliament constituency)|Holborn]] by-election for the Unionists, beating the Liberal [[William Compton, 5th Marquess of Northampton|Lord Compton]]. Bruce had won the seat with a smaller majority than [[Francis Duncan]] had for the Unionists in 1885. Salisbury explained this by saying in a speech in Edinburgh on 30 November: "But then Colonel Duncan was opposed to a black man, and, however great the progress of mankind has been, and however far we have advanced in overcoming prejudices, I doubt if we have yet got to the point where a British constituency will elect a black man to represent them.... I am speaking roughly and using language in its colloquial sense, because I imagine the colour is not exactly black, but at all events, he was a man of another race."

The "black man" was [[Dadabhai Naoroji]], an Indian [[Parsi]]. Salisbury's comments were criticised by the Queen and by Liberals who believed that Salisbury had suggested that only white Britons could represent a British constituency. Three weeks later, Salisbury delivered a speech at Scarborough, where he denied that "the word "black" necessarily implies any contemptuous denunciation: "Such a doctrine seems to be a scathing insult to a very large proportion of the human race... The people whom we have been fighting at [[Suakin]], and whom we have happily conquered, are among the finest tribes in the world, and many of them are as black as my hat". Furthermore, "such candidatures are incongruous and unwise. The British House of Commons, with its traditions... is a machine too peculiar and too delicate to be managed by any but those who have been born within these isles". Naoroji was elected for [[Finsbury Central (UK Parliament constituency)|Finsbury]] in 1892 and Salisbury invited him to become a Governor of the [[Commonwealth Institute|Imperial Institute]], which he accepted.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|506}} In 1888, the [[New York Times]] published an article that was extremely critical of Lord Salisbury's remark. It included the following quotation, "Of course the parsees are not black men, but the purest Aryan type in existence, with an average complexion fairer than Lord Salisbury's; but even if they were ebony hued it would be grotesque and foolish for a Prime Minister of England to insult them in such a wanton fashion as this."<ref>{{cite news|title = Salisbury's Silly Gibe| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1888/12/09/archives/salisburys-silly-gibe-serious-results-from-it-looked-for-in-india.html| newspaper = [[The New York Times]]| publication-date = 1888-12-09 |place=London |page=1 |date=1888-12-08 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

Documents in the Foreign Office archives revealed that Salisbury was made aware of a rape in 1891 and other atrocities carried out against women and children in the [[Niger Delta]] by Consul George Annesley and his soldiers but took no action against Annesley, who was "quietly pensioned off."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Alberge |first1=Dalya |title=Revealed: How Lord Salisbury hid rape by his British consul in Benin |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/21/revealed-how-lord-salisbury-hid-by-his-british-consul-in-benin |access-date=21 November 2021 |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=21 November 2021}}</ref>

==Leader of the Opposition: 1892–1895==
In the aftermath of the [[1892 United Kingdom general election|general election of 1892]], Balfour and Chamberlain wished to pursue a programme of social reform, which Salisbury believed would alienate "a good many people who have always been with us" and that "these social questions are destined to break up our party".<ref name="ODNB" /> When the Liberals and Irish Nationalists (which were a majority in the new Parliament) successfully voted against the government, Salisbury resigned the premiership on 12 August. His private secretary at the Foreign Office wrote that Salisbury "shewed indecent joy at his release".<ref name="ODNB" />

Salisbury—in an article in November for the ''[[National Review (London)|National Review]]'' entitled 'Constitutional revision'—said that the new government, lacking a majority in England and Scotland, had no mandate for Home Rule and argued that because there was no referendum only the House of Lords could provide the necessary consultation with the nation on policies for organic change.<ref name="ODNB" /> The Lords defeated the [[second Home Rule Bill]] by 419 to 41 in September 1893, but Salisbury stopped them from opposing the Liberal Chancellor's death duties in 1894. In 1894 Salisbury also became president of the [[British Association for the Advancement of Science]],<ref name="SmutsPapers1918-19">W. K Hancock, Jean van der Poel, ''Selections from the Smuts Papers'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=T0sOQOBGCwMC Volume IV], November 1918 – August 1919, p. 377</ref> presenting a notable inaugural address on 4 August of that year.<ref>''The Chemical News and Journal of Industrial Science'' ed., [[William Crookes]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=bpktAQAAMAAJ Vol. 69–70] (1894) pp. 63–67, Vol. 70.</ref><ref>Jed Z. Buchwald, Robert Fox, ''The Oxford Handbook of the History of Physics'' (2013) p. 757, footnote 62.</ref> The [[1895 United Kingdom general election|general election of 1895]] returned a large Unionist majority.<ref name="ODNB" />

==Prime minister: 1895–1902<span class="anchor" id="Third premiership"></span><!-- linked from redirects [[Third premiership of Lord Salisbury]], [[Third premiership of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury]], [[Third premiership of the Marquess of Salisbury]], [[Third prime ministership of Lord Salisbury]], [[Third prime ministership of the Marquess of Salisbury]] -->==
{{Further|Unionist government, 1895–1905}}
[[File:British Empire in 1898.png|thumb|upright=1.5|The British Empire in 1898]]
Salisbury's expertise was in foreign affairs. For most of his time as prime minister, he served not as [[First Lord of the Treasury]], the traditional position held by the prime minister, but as [[Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs|foreign secretary]].{{efn|After Salisbury's retirement in 1902, all British prime ministers have also been [[First Lord of the Treasury]].}} In that capacity, he managed Britain's foreign affairs, but he was being sarcastic about a policy of "[[Splendid isolation]]"—such was not his goal.<ref>{{cite book|author=David Steele|title=Lord Salisbury|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7i-DAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA320|year=2002|publisher=Routledge|page=320|isbn=9781134516711}}</ref>

===Foreign policy===
{{Further|Timeline of British diplomatic history#1897–1919}}

In foreign affairs, Salisbury was challenged worldwide. The long-standing policy of "[[Splendid isolation]]" had left Britain with no allies and few friends. In Europe, Germany was worrisome regarding its growing industrial and naval power, [[Wilhelm II of Germany|Kaiser Wilhelm]]'s erratic foreign policy, and the instability caused by the decline of the Ottoman Empire. France was threatening British control of Sudan. In the Americas, for domestic political reasons, U.S. President [[Grover Cleveland]] manufactured a quarrel over [[Venezuela]]'s border with [[British Guiana]]. In South Africa conflict was threatening with the two Boer republics. In the [[Great Game]] in Central Asia, the line that separated Russia and British India in 1800 was narrowing.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hopkirk |first1=Peter |title=The Great Game; On Secret Service in High Asia |date=1990 |publisher=OUP |isbn=978-0719564475 |pages=4–5 |edition=1991}}</ref>  In China the British economic dominance was threatened by other powers that wanted to control slices of China.<ref>Paul Hayes, ''The twentieth century, 1880-1939'' (1978) pp 63–110.</ref> 
[[File:Twist-British-Tail.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|President Cleveland twists the tail of the British Lion regarding Venezuela—a policy hailed by Irish Catholics in the United States; cartoon in ''Puck'' by J.S. Pughe, 1895]]

The tension with Germany had subsided in 1890 after [[Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty|a deal]] exchanged German holdings in East Africa for [[Heligoland|an island]] off the German coast. However, with peace-minded Bismarck retired by an aggressive new Kaiser, tensions rose and negotiations faltered.<ref>D. R. Gillard,  "Salisbury's African Policy and the Heligoland Offer of 1890." ''English Historical Review'' 75.297 (1960): 631–653.</ref>  France retreated in Africa after the British dominated in the [[Fashoda Incident]]. The Venezuela crisis was settled amicably and London and Washington became friendly after Salisbury gave Washington what it wanted in the [[Alaska boundary dispute]].<ref>R.A. Humphreys,  "Anglo-American rivalries and the Venezuela Crisis of 1895." ''Transactions of the Royal Historical Society'' 17 (1967): 131–164.</ref> The [[Open Door Policy]] and a 1902 treaty with Japan resolved the China crisis. However, in South Africa a nasty [[Boer war]] broke out in 1899 and for a few months it seemed the Boers were winning.<ref>Kenneth Bourne, ''The foreign policy of Victorian England, 1830–1902'' (1970) pp 147–178.</ref>

====Venezuela crisis with the United States====
In 1895 the [[Venezuelan crisis of 1895|Venezuelan crisis]] with the United States erupted. A border dispute between the colony of [[British Guiana]] and [[United States of Venezuela|Venezuela]] caused a major Anglo-American crisis when the United States intervened to take Venezuela's side. Propaganda sponsored by Venezuela convinced American public opinion that the British were infringing on Venezuelan territory. The United States demanded an explanation and Salisbury refused. The crisis escalated when President Cleveland, citing the [[Monroe Doctrine]], issued an ultimatum in late 1895. Salisbury's cabinet convinced him he had to go to arbitration. Both sides calmed down and the issue was quickly resolved through arbitration which largely upheld the British position on the legal boundary line. Salisbury remained angry but a consensus was reached in London, led by [[Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne|Lord Landsdowne]], to seek much friendlier relations with the United States.<ref>J. A. S. Grenville, ''Lord Salisbury, and Foreign Policy: The Close of the Nineteenth Century'' (1964) pp 54–73.</ref><ref>R.A. Humphreys, "Anglo-American Rivalries and the Venezuela Crisis of 1895" ''Transactions of the Royal Historical Society'' (1967) 17: 131–164 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3678723 in JSTOR]</ref> By standing with a Latin American nation against the encroachment of the British, the US improved relations with the Latin Americans, and the cordial manner of the procedure improved American diplomatic relations with Britain.<ref>[[Allan Nevins]], ''Grover Cleveland'' (1932) pp 550, 647–648</ref> Despite the popularity of the Boers in American public opinion, official Washington supported London in the Second Boer War.<ref>Stuart Anderson, "Racial Anglo-Saxonism and the American Response to the Boer War." ''Diplomatic History'' 2.3 (1978): 219–236 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/24909918 online].</ref>

==== Africa====
An Anglo-German agreement (1890) resolved conflicting claims in East Africa; Great Britain received large territories in Zanzibar and Uganda in exchange for the small island of [[Helgoland]] in the North Sea. Negotiations with Germany on broader issues failed. In January 1896 German Kaiser Wilhelm II escalated tensions in South Africa with his [[Kruger telegram]] congratulating Boer President [[Paul Kruger]] of the Transvaal for beating off the British [[Jameson Raid]]. German officials in Berlin had managed to stop the Kaiser from proposing a German protectorate over the Transvaal. The telegram backfired, as the British began to see Germany as a major threat. The British moved their forces from Egypt south into Sudan in 1898, securing complete control of that troublesome region. However, a strong British force unexpectedly confronted a small French military expedition at Fashoda. Salisbury [[Fashoda Incident|quickly resolved the tensions]], and systematically moved toward friendlier relations with France.<ref>T. W. Riker, "A Survey of British Policy in the Fashoda Crisis" ''Political Science Quarterly'' 44#1 (1929), pp. 54–78 DOI: 10.2307/2142814 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2142814 online]</ref><ref>E. R. Turton, "Lord Salisbury and the Macdonald expedition." ''Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History'' 5.1 (1976): 35–52.</ref>

====Second Boer War====
{{main|Second Boer War}}
After gold was discovered in the [[South African Republic]] (called Transvaal) in the 1880s, thousands of British men flocked to the gold mines. Transvaal and its sister republic the [[Orange Free State]] were small, rural, independent nations founded by [[Afrikaners]], who descended from Dutch immigrants to the area before 1800. The newly arrived miners were needed for their labour and business operations but were distrusted by the Afrikaners, who called them "[[uitlander]]s". The uitlanders heavily outnumbered the Boers in cities and mining districts; they had to pay heavy taxes, and had limited civil rights and no right to vote. The British, jealous of the gold and diamond mines and highly protective of its people, demanded reforms, which were rejected. A small-scale private British effort to overthrow Transvaal's President Paul Kruger, the [[Jameson Raid]] of 1895, was a fiasco and presaged full-scale conflict as all diplomatic efforts failed.<ref>Grenville, ''Lord Salisbury, and Foreign Policy''  (1964) pp 235–64.</ref>

War started on 11 October 1899 and ended on 31 May 1902 as Great Britain faced the two small far-away Boer nations. The Prime Minister let his extremely energetic colonial minister [[Joseph Chamberlain]] take charge of the war.<ref>Peter T. Marsh, ''Joseph Chamberlain: entrepreneur in politics'' (1994) pp 483–522</ref> British efforts were based from its Cape Colony and the Colony of Natal. There were some native African allies, but generally, both sides avoided using black soldiers. The British war effort was further supported by volunteers from across the Empire. All other nations were neutral, but public opinion in them was largely hostile to Britain. Inside Britain and its Empire there also was a significant [[opposition to the Second Boer War]] because of the atrocities and military failures.<ref>Iain R. Smith, ''The Origins of the South African War, 1899–1902'' (1996).</ref><ref>Langer, ''The Diplomacy of Imperialism'' (1950), pp 605–28, 651–76</ref><ref>Denis Judd and Keith Surridge, ''The Boer War: A History'' (2013) pp 1–54.</ref>

The British were overconfident and underprepared. Chamberlain and other top London officials ignored the repeated warnings of military advisors that the Boers were well prepared, well armed, and fighting for their homes in a very difficult terrain. The Boers with about 33,000 soldiers, against 13,000 front-line British troops, struck first, besieging Ladysmith, Kimberly, and Mafeking, and winning important battles at Colenso, Magersfontein and Stormberg in late 1899. Staggered, the British fought back, relieved its besieged cities, and prepared to invade first the Orange Free State, and then Transvaal in late 1900. The Boers refused to surrender or negotiate and reverted to guerrilla warfare. After two years of hard fighting, Britain, using over 400,000 soldiers systematically destroyed the resistance, raising worldwide complaints about brutality. The Boers were fighting for their homes and families, who provided them with food and hiding places. The British solution was to forcefully relocate all the Boer civilians into heavily guarded concentration camps, where 28,000 died of disease. Then it systematically blocked off and tracked down the highly mobile Boer combat units. The battles were small operations; most of the 22,000 British dead were victims of disease. The war cost £217 million and demonstrated the Army urgently needed reforms but it ended in victory for the British and the Conservatives won [[1900 United Kingdom general election|the Khaki election of 1900.]] The Boers were given generous terms, and both former republics were incorporated into the [[Union of South Africa]] in 1910.<ref>Searle, ''A New England'' (2004) pp 274–310.</ref><ref>Judd and Surridge, ''The Boer War: A History'' (2013) pp 55–302.</ref>

The war had many vehement critics, predominantly in the Liberal Party.<ref>Searle, ''A New England'' (2004) pp 287–91.</ref> However, on the whole, the war was well received by the British public, which staged numerous public demonstrations and parades of support.<ref>Elie Halévy, ''Imperialism and the rise of Labour, 1895–1905'' (1961) pp 69–136, focuses on British politics and diplomacy.</ref> Soon there were memorials built across Britain.<ref>E. W. McFarland, "Commemoration of the South African War in Scotland, 1900–10." ''Scottish Historical Review'' (2010): 194–223. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23073506 in JSTOR].</ref> Strong public demand for news coverage meant that the war was well covered by journalists – including young [[Winston Churchill]] – and photographers, as well as letter-writers and poets. General [[Sir Redvers Buller]] imposed strict censorship and had no friends in the media, who wrote him up as a blundering buffoon. In dramatic contrast, [[Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts|Field Marshal Frederick Roberts]] pampered the press, which responded by making him a national hero.<ref>Searle, ''A New England'' (2004) pp 284–87.</ref>

====German naval issues====
In 1897 Admiral [[Alfred von Tirpitz]] became German Naval Secretary of State and began the transformation of the [[Imperial German Navy]] from a small, coastal defence force to a fleet meant to challenge British naval power. Tirpitz called for a ''Risikoflotte'' or "risk fleet" that would make it too risky for Britain to take on [[German Empire|Germany]] as part of a wider bid to alter the international balance of power decisively in Germany's favour.<ref>William L. Langer, ''The diplomacy of imperialism: 1890–1902'' (1951) pp 433–42.</ref> At the same time German foreign minister [[Bernhard von Bülow]] called for ''[[Weltpolitik]]'' (world politics). It was the new policy of Germany to assert its claim to be a global power. Chancellor [[Otto von Bismarck]]'s policy of ''[[Realpolitik]]'' (realistic politics) was abandoned as Germany was intent on challenging and upsetting international order. The long-run result was the inability of Britain and Germany to be friends or to form an alliance.<ref>Grenville, ''Lord Salisbury,'' pp 368–69.</ref>

Britain reacted to Germany's accelerated naval arms race with major innovations, especially those developed by [[Admiral Fisher]].<ref>Paul M. Kennedy, ''The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery'' (1983) pp 136–37.</ref> The most important development was unveiled – after Salisbury's death – the entry of {{HMS|Dreadnought|1906|6}} into service in 1906, which rendered all the world's battleships obsolete and set back German plans.<ref>Scott A. Keefer, "Reassessing the Anglo-German Naval Arms Race." (University of Trento School of International Studies Working Paper 3, 2006). [http://www.unitn.it/files/download/9722/wpkeefer.pdf online]{{dead link|date=March 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

Historians agree that Salisbury was a strong and effective leader in foreign affairs. He had a superb grasp of the issues, and was never a "[[splendid isolation]]ist" but rather, says Nancy W. Ellenberger, was:{{blockquote|A patient, pragmatic practitioner, with a keen understanding of Britain's historic interests&nbsp;... He oversaw the partition of Africa, the emergence of Germany and the United States as imperial powers, and the transfer of British attention from the Dardanelles to Suez without provoking a serious confrontation of the great powers.<ref>Nancy W. Ellenberger, "Salisbury" in David Loades, ed. ''Reader's Guide to British History'' (2003) 2:1154</ref>}}

===Domestic policy===
At home he sought to "kill Home Rule with kindness" by launching a land reform programme which helped hundreds of thousands of Irish peasants gain land ownership and largely ended complaints against English landlords.<ref>{{cite book|first=Martin |last=Roberts|title=Britain, 1846–1964: The Challenge of Change|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gwc0Rlq8al4C&pg=RA1-PT10|year=2001|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=56|isbn=9780199133734}}</ref> The [[Elementary School Teachers (Superannuation) Act 1898]] ([[61 & 62 Vict.]] c. 57) enabled teachers to secure an annuity via the payment of voluntary contributions.<ref>{{cite book |first1=S. J. |last1=Curtis |first2=M. E. A. |last2=Boultwood |title=An Introductory History of English Education Since 1800 |date=1966}}</ref> The [[Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act 1899]] ([[62 & 63 Vict.]] c. 32) permitted school boards to provide for the education of mentally and physically defective and epileptic children.<ref>{{cite book|first=Helen |last=Phtiaka|title=Special Kids For Special Treatment: How Special Do You Need To Be To Find Yourself In A Special School?|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l4aRAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA6|year=2005|publisher=Routledge|page=6|isbn=9781135712136}}</ref>

===Honours and retirement===

In 1895 and 1900 he was honoured with appointments as [[Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports]] and [[High Steward of Westminster Abbey|High Steward of the City and Liberty of Westminster]], which he held for life.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS151709240/TTDA |title=News in Brief |newspaper=[[The Times]] |publication-place=London |date=24 January 1900 |page=9 |issue=36047 |access-date=2024-07-14 |via=The Times Digital Archive}}</ref>

On 11 July 1902, in failing health and broken-hearted over the death of his wife, Salisbury resigned. He was succeeded by his nephew, [[Arthur Balfour]]. King [[Edward VII]] conferred upon him the Grand Cross of the [[Royal Victorian Order]] (GCVO), with the order star set in brilliants, during his resignation audience.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS167963375/TTDA |newspaper=[[The Times]] |publication-place=London |title=Court Circular |date=15 July 1902 |page=10 |issue=36820 |access-date=2024-07-14 |via=The Times Digital Archive}}</ref><ref>{{London Gazette |issue=27456 |date=22 July 1902 |page=4669 }}</ref>

==Last year: 1902–1903==
Due to breathing difficulties caused by his great weight, Salisbury took to sleeping in a chair at Hatfield House. He also experienced a heart condition and later blood poisoning caused by an ulcerated leg. His death in August 1903 followed a fall from that chair.<ref name="ODNB" />

Salisbury was buried at [[St Etheldreda's Church, Hatfield]], where his predecessor as prime minister, [[Lord Melbourne]], is also interred.  Salisbury is commemorated with a monumental [[cenotaph]] near the west door of [[Westminster Abbey]].

When Salisbury died his estate was valued at £310,336,<ref>Smith, 2004</ref> (equivalent to £{{formatnum:{{Inflation|UK|310336|1903|r=0}}}} in {{Inflation-year|UK}}).{{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}}

==Legacy==
[[File:St Etheldreda, Hatfield, Herts - Salisbury Chapel - tomb of the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury.jpg|thumb|Monument commemorating Salisbury's burial at St Etheldreda Church, [[Hatfield, Hertfordshire]]]] 
[[File:Hatfield GascoyneCecil statue.jpg|thumb|left|[[Statue of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil|Statue of Salisbury]] in front of the park gates of [[Hatfield House]]]]

Many historians portray Salisbury as a principled statesman of traditional, aristocratic conservatism: a prime minister who promoted cautious imperialism and resisted sweeping parliamentary and franchise reforms.<ref>David Steele, ''Lord Salisbury: A Political Biography'' (Routledge, 2001) p. 383</ref> [[Robert Blake, Baron Blake|Robert Blake]] considers Salisbury "a great foreign minister, [but] essentially negative, indeed reactionary in home affairs".<ref>Robert Blake, ''The Conservative Party from Peel to Churchill'' (1970), p. 132.</ref> Professor P.T. Marsh's estimate is more favourable than Blake's; he portrays Salisbury as a leader who "held back the popular tide for twenty years."<ref>P.T. Marsh, ''The Discipline of Popular Government: Lord Salisbury's Domestic Statecraft, 1881–1902'' (Hassocks, Sussex, 1978), p. 326.</ref> Professor Paul Smith argues that, "into the 'progressive' strain of modern Conservatism he simply will not fit."<ref>Paul Smith, ''Lord Salisbury on Politics. A Selection from his Articles in the Quarterly Review, 1860–1883'' (Cambridge, 1972), p. 1</ref> [[Colin Matthew|H.C.G. Matthew]] points to "the narrow cynicism of Salisbury."<ref>H.C.G. Matthew, ed. ''Gladstone Diaries,'' (1990) X, pp. cxxxix–cxl</ref> One admirer, conservative historian [[Maurice Cowling]], largely agrees with the critics and says Salisbury found the democracy born of the 1867 and 1884 Reform Acts as "perhaps less objectionable than he had expected—succeeding, through his public persona, in mitigating some part of its nastiness."<ref>Maurice Cowling, ''Religion and Public Doctrine in Modern England'' (2 vol. 1980–85), vol I, p. 387.</ref>  Historian Peter T. Marsh states: "In the field of foreign affairs, where he was happiest and most successful, he kept his own counsel and eschewed broad principles of conduct, preferring close-eyed realism and reliability of conduct."<ref>Peter T. Marsh, ''Albion'' (2000) 32:677.</ref>

{{conservatism sidebar|politicians}}

Considerable attention has been devoted to his writings and ideas. The Conservative historian [[Robert Blake, Baron Blake|Robert Blake]] considered Salisbury "the most formidable intellectual figure that the Conservative party has ever produced".<ref>Robert Blake, ''Disraeli'' (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1966), p. 499.</ref> In 1977 the Salisbury Group was founded, chaired by [[Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 6th Marquess of Salisbury]] and named after the 3rd Marquess. It published pamphlets advocating conservative policies.<ref>''The Times'' (14 June 1978), p. 16.</ref> The academic quarterly ''[[The Salisbury Review]]'' was named in his honour (by [[Michael Oakeshott]]) upon its founding in 1982.<ref>Maurice Cowling, ''Mill and Liberalism'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. xxix, n.</ref> Cowling claimed that "The giant of conservative doctrine is Salisbury".<ref>Maurice Cowling, 'The Present Position', in Cowling (ed.), ''Conservative Essays'' (London: Cassell, 1978), p. 22.</ref> It was on Cowling's suggestion that Paul Smith edited a collection of Salisbury's articles from the ''Quarterly Review''.<ref>Smith, p. vii.</ref> [[Andrew Jones (historian)|Andrew Jones]] and [[Michael Bentley (historian)|Michael Bentley]] wrote in 1978 that "historical inattention" to Salisbury "involves wilful dismissal of a Conservative tradition which recognizes that threat to humanity when ruling authorities engage in democratic flattery and the threat to liberty in a competitive rush of legislation".<ref>Andrew Jones and Michael Bentley, "Salisbury and Baldwin", in Cowling (ed.), ''Conservative Essays'', p. 25.</ref>

In 1967, [[Clement Attlee]] (Labour Party prime minister, 1945–51) was asked who he thought was the best prime minister of his lifetime. Attlee immediately replied: "Salisbury".<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|836}}

The [[6th Marquess of Salisbury]] commissioned [[Andrew Roberts (historian)|Andrew Roberts]] to write Salisbury's authorised biography, which was published in 1999.

After the [[Bering Sea Arbitration]], Canadian Prime Minister Sir [[John Sparrow David Thompson]] said of Lord Salisbury's acceptance of the Arbitration Treaty that it was "one of the worst acts of what I regard as a very stupid and worthless life".<ref>Public Archives of Canada, Gowan Papers, M-1900, Thompson to Gowan, 20 September 1893</ref>

The British phrase '[[Bob's your uncle]]' is thought to have derived from Robert Cecil's appointment of his nephew, [[Arthur Balfour]], as Chief Secretary for Ireland.<ref name=Trahair>[https://books.google.com/books?id=K0zrsHO27-wC&pg=PA72 ''From Aristotelian to Reaganomics: A Dictionary of Eponyms With Biographies in the Social Science''], by R. C. S. Trahair, [[Greenwood Publishing Group]], 1994, p.72. Retrieved online from [[Google Books]], 30 July 2012.</ref>

[[Harare|Fort Salisbury]] (now Harare) was named in honour of him when it was founded in September 1890. Subsequently, simply known as Salisbury, the city became the capital of [[Southern Rhodesia]], from 1890, the [[Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland]] from 1953 to 1963, [[Rhodesia]] from 1963 to 1979, [[Zimbabwe Rhodesia]], in 1979, and finally [[Zimbabwe]], from 1980. The name was changed to Harare by the Zimbabwean president [[Robert Mugabe]] in April 1982, on the second anniversary of Zimbabwe's independence. Cecil Square, near to Parliament, was also named after him and not, as is erroneously but popularly thought, after [[Cecil Rhodes]].{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} Other Rhodesian/Zimbabwean connections include the suburbs of Hatfield, Cranborne and New Sarum.

To date he is the only British prime minister to sport a full beard. At {{convert|6|ft|4|in|cm}} tall, he was also the tallest prime minister.

==Family and personal life==
Lord Salisbury's father, [[James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury]], a minor [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] politician, wanted him to marry a rich heiress to protect the family's lands. In 1857, he defied his father and instead married [[Georgina Alderson]], the daughter of [[Edward Alderson (judge)|Sir Edward Alderson]], a moderately notable judge of lower social standing than the Cecils, outside the aristocracy or landed gentry. The marriage proved a happy one. Robert and Georgina had eight children, all but one of whom survived infancy. He was an indulgent father and made sure his children had a much better childhood than the one through which he suffered. Cut off from his family money, Robert supported his family through journalism and was later reconciled with his father.<ref name=Roberts2000 />{{rp|30–33,75,105–8}}

* [[Maud Palmer, Countess of Selborne|Lady Beatrix Maud Cecil]] (11 April 1858{{snd}}27 April 1950); she married [[William Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne]] on 27 October 1883. They had four children.
* [[Lady Gwendolen Cecil]] (28 July 1860{{snd}}28 September 1945), author, and biographer of her father; she never married. {{SS|Gwendolen}}, launched in 1899 on [[Lake Nyasa]], was named after her.
* [[James Edward Hubert Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury]] (23 October 1861{{snd}}4 April 1947); he married Lady Cicely Gore on 17 May 1887. They had seven children.
* [[Lord William Cecil (bishop)|Lord Rupert Ernest William Cecil, Lord Bishop of Exeter]] (9 March 1863{{snd}}23 June 1936); he married Lady Florence Bootle-Wilbraham on 16 August 1887.
* [[Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood|Lord Edgar Algernon Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood]] (14 September 1864{{snd}}24 November 1958); he married Lady Eleanor Lambton on 22 January 1889.
* Hon. Fanny Georgina Mildred Cecil (1 February 1866<ref>{{cite news |title=Births. |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003089/18660208/041/0003 |access-date=2 October 2024 |work=Glasgow Courier |date=8 February 1866 |page=3}}</ref>{{snd}}24 April 1867)
* [[Lord Edward Cecil|Lord Edward Herbert Cecil]] (12 July 1867{{snd}}13 December 1918); he married Violet Maxse on 18 June 1894. They had two children.
* [[Hugh Cecil, 1st Baron Quickswood|Lord Hugh Richard Heathcote Cecil, 1st Baron Quickswood]] (14 October 1869{{snd}}10 December 1956)

Salisbury had [[prosopagnosia]], a cognitive disorder which makes it difficult to recognise familiar faces.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Grüter |first1=Thomas |title=Prosopagnosia in biographies and autobiographies |journal=Perception |year=2007 |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=299–301 |doi=10.1068/p5716 |pmid=17402670 |s2cid=40998360 |url=http://www.thomasgrueter.de/PA_Biographies.pdf |access-date=24 February 2020}}</ref>

==Cabinets of Lord Salisbury==

===1885–1886===
{{transcluded section|source=First Salisbury ministry}}
{{#section::First Salisbury ministry|June 1885 to February 1886}}

===1886–1892===
{{Main|Second Salisbury ministry#Cabinets}}

===1895–1902===
{{Main|Unionist government, 1895–1905#Salisbury ministry}}
<!--
==Popular culture==
{{in popular culture|section|date=December 2016}}{{Refimprove|section|date=December 2016}}
* Salisbury features, with other prominent politicians of the day, in two parody novels based on ''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'', namely [[Edward Harold Begbie|Caroline Lewis']] ''[[Clara in Blunderland]]'' (1902) and ''[[Lost in Blunderland]]'' (1903).<ref>Sigler, Carolyn, ed. 1997. ''Alternative Alices: Visions and Revisions of Lewis Carroll's "Alice" Books.'' Lexington, KY, University Press of Kentucky. Pp. 340–347</ref><ref>Dickinson, Evelyn. 1902. "Literary Note and Books of the Month", in ''United Australia'', Vol. II, No. 12, 20 June 1902</ref>
* "Lord Salisbury" is a song by [[Al Stewart]] on his 2008 album ''[[Sparks of Ancient Light]]''.
* Lord Salisbury was played by [[John Gielgud]] in the 1979 film ''[[Murder by Decree]]''.
* In the 2016 film [[The Legend of Tarzan (film)|''The Legend of Tarzan'']], an unnamed prime minister, played by [[Jim Broadbent]], appears briefly. As the film is set in 1890, this should logically be Salisbury; however, the character's appearance greatly resembles Gladstone. -->

==See also==
* [[Victorian era]]
* [[Historiography of the British Empire]]
* [[International relations of the Great Powers (1814–1919)]]
* [[Splendid isolation]]
* [[Timeline of British diplomatic history]]

==Notes==

{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=33em}}

==Further reading==
* Adonis, A. ''Making Aristocracy Work: The Peerage and the Political System in Britain, 1884–1914'' (1993).
* Benians, E.A. et al. eds. '' The Cambridge History of the British Empire Vol. iii:  ''The Empire – Commonwealth 1870–1919' (1959) p.&nbsp;915 and passim; coverage of Salisbury's foreign and imperial policies; [https://archive.org/details/cambridgehistory0003unse_l9o9/page/n7/mode/2up online]
* Bentley, Michael. ''Lord Salisbury's World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain'' (2001).
* [[Lord Blake]] and H. Cecil (eds.), ''Salisbury: The Man and His Policies'' (1987).
* Bright, J. Franck. ''A History of England: Period V. Imperial Reaction Victoria 1880–1901'' (vol 5, 1904); detailed political narrative; 295pp; [https://books.google.com/books?id=mocPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP15 online]; also [http://ebook.lib.hku.hk/CADAL/B31388875V5/   another copy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170304193328/http://ebook.lib.hku.hk/CADAL/B31388875V5/ |date=4 March 2017 }}
* Brumpton, Paul R. ''Security and Progress: Lord Salisbury at the India Office'' (Greenwood Press, 2002)
* Cecil, Algernon. ''British Foreign Secretaries 1807–1916'' (1927) pp 277–314. [https://archive.org/details/bristishforeigns0000unse online]
* Cecil, C. ''Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury'' (4 volumes, 1921–32). [https://archive.org/search.php?query=title%3A%28%20Life%20of%20Robert%2C%20Marquis%20of%20Salisbury%20%29 online]
* {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Salisbury, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of|volume=24|last= Chisholm |first= Hugh |author-link= Hugh Chisholm |pages=72–76|short=1}} This is a long biography, written in the context of 1911, with a Conservative point of view.
* Cooke, A.B. and J. Vincent, ''The Governing Passion: Cabinet Government and Party Politics in Britain, 1885–86'' (1974).
* [[John Grenville|Grenville, J. A. S.]], ''Lord Salisbury and Foreign Policy: The Close of the Nineteenth Century'' (1964). [https://archive.org/details/lordsalisburyfor0000gren/page/n7/mode/2up online]
* [[Andrew Jones (historian)|Jones, A.]]''The Politics of Reform, 1884'' (1972).
* Kennedy, A. L. ''Salisbury 1830–1903: Portrait of a Statesman'' (1953).
* Gibb, Paul. "Unmasterly Inactivity? Sir Julian Pauncefote, Lord Salisbury, and the Venezuela Boundary Dispute." ''Diplomacy and Statecraft'' 16#1 (2005): 23–55.
* Gillard, D.R.[https://archive.org/stream/englishhistorica75lond#page/630/mode/2up "Salisbury's African Policy and the Heligoland Offer of 1890,"] ''The English Historical Review'', Vol. LXXV, 1960.
* Thomas P. Hughes, [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b200178;view=1up;seq=679 "Lord Salisbury's Afghan Policy,"] ''The Arena,'' Vol. VI, 1892.
* Jones, Andrew, and Michael Bentley, 'Salisbury and Baldwin', in Maurice Cowling. ed., ''Conservative Essays'' (Cassell, 1978), pp.&nbsp;25–40.
* Langer, William L. ''The Diplomacy of Imperialism: 1890–1902'' (2nd ed. 1950), a standard diplomatic history of Europe
* Lowe, C. J.''Salisbury and the Mediterranean, 1886–1896'' (1965).
* Marsh, P. ''The Discipline of Popular Government: Lord Salisbury's Domestic Statecraft, 1881–1902'' (1978).
* Millman, R. ''Britain and the Eastern question, 1875–1878'' (1979).
* Otte, T. G. "A question of leadership: Lord Salisbury, the unionist cabinet and foreign policy making, 1895–1900." ''Contemporary British History'' 14#4 (2000): 1–26.
* Otte, T. G. "'Floating Downstream'? Lord Salisbury and British Foreign Policy, 1878–1902", in Otte (ed.), ''The Makers of British Foreign Policy: From Pitt to Thatcher'' (Palgrave, 2002), pp.&nbsp;98–127. 
* Paul, Herbert. ''A History of Modern England'' (vol 5, 1906), covers 1885–1895. [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.167842 online]
* Penson, Lillian M. "The Principles and Methods of Lord Salisbury's Foreign Policy." ''Cambridge Historical Journal'' 5#1 (1935): 87–106. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3020834 online].
* [[Andrew Roberts (historian)|Roberts, Andrew]]. ''Salisbury: Victorian Titan'' (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999), a standard scholarly biography; 940pp [https://archive.org/details/salisburyvictori0000robe/mode/2up online]
* Ryan, A. P. "The Marquis of Salisbury' ''History Today'' (April 1951) 1#4 pp 30–36; online.
* {{cite book|author=Searle, G. R.|title=A New England?: Peace and War 1886–1918|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5SGI2Y8vyC4C|year=2004|publisher=Oxford U.P.|isbn=9780198207146}}
* [[Richard Shannon (historian)|Shannon, Richard]] ''The Age of Disraeli, 1868–1881: The Rise of Tory Democracy'' (1992).
* Shannon, Richard ''The Age of Salisbury, 1881–1902: Unionism and Empire'' (1996). 569pp. 
* Seton-Watson, R. W. ''Britain in Europe, 1789–1914.'' (1938); comprehensive history [https://archive.org/download/in.ernet.dli.2015.226175/2015.226175.Britain-In.pdf online]
* Smith, Paul. 'Cecil, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-, third marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903)', ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, September 2004; online edn, October 2009, accessed 8 May 2010.
* [[David Steele (historian)|Steele, David]]. ''Lord Salisbury: A Political biography'' (1999).
* Steele, David. "Three British Prime Ministers and the Survival of the Ottoman Empire, 1855–1902." ''Middle Eastern Studies'' 50.1 (2014): 43–60.
* Wang, Shih-tsung. ''Lord Salisbury and Nationality in the East: Viewing Imperialism in Its Proper Perspective'' (Routledge, 2019).
* Warren, Allen. "Lord Salisbury and Ireland, 1859–87: Principles, Ambitions and Strategies." ''Parliamentary history'' 26.2 (2007): 203–224.
* Weston, C. C. ''The House of Lords and Ideological Politics: Lord Salisbury's Referendal Theory and the Conservative Party, 1846–1922'' (1995).

===Historiography===
* Ellenberger, Nancy W. "Salisbury" in David Loades, ed. ''Reader's Guide to British History'' (2003) 2:1153–55
* Goodlad, Graham, "Salisbury as Premier: Graham Goodlad Asks Whether Lord Salisbury Deserves His Reputation as One of the Great Victorian Prime Ministers," ''History Review'' #49. 2004. pp 3+. 
* Lowry, Donal. ''The South African War Reappraised'' (Manchester UP, 2000). 
* Roberts, Andrew. "Salisbury," ''History Today,'' (Oct 1999), Vol. 49 Issue 10, p45-51

===Primary sources===
* [[Paul Smith (historian)|Paul Smith]] (ed.), ''Lord Salisbury on Politics. A Selection from His Articles in the Quarterly Review, 1860–83'' (Cambridge University Press, 1972).
* John Vincent (ed.), ''A Selection from the Diaries of Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby (1826–93) between September 1869 and March 1878'' (London: The Royal Historical Society, 1994).
* R. H. Williams (ed.), ''Salisbury–Balfour Correspondence: Letters Exchanged between the Third Marquess of Salisbury and his nephew Arthur James Balfour, 1869–1892'' (1988).
* Harold Temperley, and Lillian M. Penson, eds; ''Foundations of British Foreign Policy from Pitt (1792) to Salisbury (1902); Or, Documents, Old and New'' (1938) 
* Robert Cecil Salisbury. ''Essays by the Late Marquess of Salisbury'' (1905) [https://archive.org/download/essaysbylatemar00saligoog/essaysbylatemar00saligoog.pdf online]
* {{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=Robert G. |url=https://archive.org/details/lordsalisbury00tayl/page/n7/mode/2up |title=Lord Sailsbury |publisher=St. Martin's Press |year=1975 |location=New York}}
* Temperley, Harold and L.M. Penson, eds. ''Foundations of British Foreign Policy: From Pitt (1792) to Salisbury (1902)'' (1938), primary sources pp 365 ff [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.2629 online]

==External links==
{{Commons category|Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury}}
{{wikisource|works=or}}
{{wikiquote}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury}}
* {{hansard-contribs | lord-robert-cecil-1 | the Marquess of Salisbury }}
* {{UK National Archives ID}}
* [https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/robert-gascoyne-cecil Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury] on the Downing Street website.
* [https://www.historytoday.com/archive/salisbury-empire-builder-who-never-was Salisbury, The Empire Builder Who Never Was] – article by Andrew Roberts; historytoday.com
* {{NPG name|name=Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury}}
* [http://www.edwardjdavies.info/PMs/gascoyne-cecil.htm Ancestors of Lord Salisbury]

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