Editing Benjamin Disraeli (section)

===Back-bencher===
In the election in July 1837, Disraeli won a seat in the [[British House of Commons|House of Commons]] as one of two members, both Tory, for the constituency of [[Maidstone (UK Parliament constituency)|Maidstone]].<ref>Blake (1967), p. 85.</ref> The other was [[Wyndham Lewis (politician)|Wyndham Lewis]], who helped finance Disraeli's election campaign, and who died the following year.<ref>Bradford, p. 94</ref> In the same year Disraeli published a novel, ''Henrietta Temple'', which was a love story and social comedy, drawing on his affair with Henrietta Sykes. He had broken off the relationship in late 1836, distraught that she had taken yet another lover.<ref>Bradford, p. 89</ref> His other novel of this period is ''[[Venetia (Disraeli novel)|Venetia]]'', a romance based on the characters of [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]] and [[Byron]], written quickly to raise much-needed money.<ref>Bradford, p. 88</ref>

Disraeli made his [[maiden speech]] in Parliament on 7 December 1837. He followed O'Connell, whom he sharply criticised for the latter's "long, rambling, jumbling, speech".<ref name=mst>"House of Commons", ''The Times'', 8 December 1837, p. 3</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Irish Election Petitions - Thursday 7 December 1837 - Hansard - UK Parliament|url=https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1837-12-07/debates/cb8ddf13-810d-4351-bc86-5c436eb97907/IrishElectionPetitions|access-date=5 July 2021|website=Hansard}}</ref> He was shouted down by O'Connell's supporters.{{refn|The defiant closing words of his speech have been variously recorded. ''The Times''{{'}}s parliamentary reports were in the third person: its account is, "He would sit down now, but the time would come when they would hear him."<ref name=mst/> Bradford gives his words as, "I sit down now, but the time must come when you will hear me."<ref>Bradford, p. 97</ref> Blake has the words as, "I will sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me."<ref>Blake (1967), p. 149</ref>|group= n}} After this unpromising start Disraeli kept a low profile for the rest of the parliamentary session. He was a loyal supporter of the party leader [[Sir Robert Peel]] and his policies, with the exception of a personal sympathy for the [[Chartism|Chartist]] movement that most Tories did not share.<ref name=dnb/>

[[File:Mary-anne-disraeli.jpg|thumb|Mary Anne Lewis {{circa|1820–30}}|alt=A portrait of a young woman with elaborately styled brown hair, tied up with a blue bow]]
In 1839 Disraeli married [[Mary Anne Lewis]], the widow of Wyndham Lewis. Twelve years Disraeli's senior, Mary Lewis had a substantial income of £5,000 a year. His motives were generally assumed to be mercenary, but the couple came to cherish one another, remaining close until she died more than three decades later.<ref>Blake (1967), p. 158</ref> "Dizzy married me for my money", his wife said later, "But, if he had the chance again, he would marry me for love."<ref>Hibbert, p. 402</ref>

Finding the financial demands of his Maidstone seat too much, Disraeli secured a Tory nomination for [[Shrewsbury (UK Parliament constituency)|Shrewsbury]], winning one of the constituency's two seats at the [[1841 United Kingdom general election|1841 general election]], despite serious opposition, and heavy debts which opponents seized on.<ref>Bradford, p. 113</ref> The election was a massive defeat for the Whigs across the country, and Peel became prime minister.<ref>Blake (1967), p. 164</ref> Disraeli hoped, unrealistically, for ministerial office.{{refn|Blake records later speculation that Disraeli's exclusion was due to the scandal of his affair with Henrietta Sykes or to [[Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby|Lord Stanley]]'s suspicion of him. Blake's view is that at this point in his career Disraeli was simply too junior and lacking in political clout to qualify for office. Peel had so many party grandees to accommodate that there was never any question of finding room for Disraeli.<ref>Blake (1967), pp. 165–166</ref>|group= n}} Though disappointed at being left on the [[back benches]], he continued his support for Peel in 1842 and 1843, seeking to establish himself as an expert on foreign affairs and international trade.<ref name=dnb/>

Although a Tory (or Conservative, as some in the party now called themselves){{refn|The term "Conservative" had been increasingly used since the early 1830s, and was actively promoted by the party in the 1837 elections.<ref>Harris, p. 61</ref> The two terms were used concurrently thereafter,<ref>Harris, p. 152</ref> but in the 1840s they were not always seen as interchangeable. The historian [[Roy Douglas (academic)|Roy Douglas]] writes, "Perhaps the safest way to think about party origins is to consider that, around 1830, the Whig and Tory Parties both began to disintegrate, and it was not until the late 1860s that the Liberal and Conservative Parties had come into existence in a fully recognisable form."<ref>Douglas, p. 1</ref> In the 1840s Disraeli applied the term "Conservatives" to the [[Peelite]]s as opposed to the Tories from whom Peel had seceded.<ref>Blake (1967), p. 197 quoting ''Coningsby'', Book II chapter 5.</ref>|group= n}} Disraeli was sympathetic to some of the aims of Chartism, and argued for an alliance between the [[landed aristocracy]] and the working class against the increasing power of the merchants and new industrialists in the middle class.<ref>Bradford, pp. 116–117</ref> After Disraeli won widespread acclaim in March 1842 for worsting [[Lord Palmerston]] in debate, he was taken up by a small group of idealistic new Tory MPs, with whom he formed the [[Young England]] group. They held that the landed interests should use their power to protect the poor from exploitation by middle-class businessmen.<ref>Blake (1967), p. 168</ref><ref>W.A. Speck, "Robert Southey, Benjamin Disraeli and Young England." ''History'' 95.318 (2010): 194&ndash;206.</ref><ref>John Trevor Ward, "Young England." ''History Today'' (1966) 16.2: 120&ndash;128.</ref>

Disraeli hoped to forge a paternalistic Tory-Radical alliance, but he was unsuccessful. Before the [[Reform Act 1867]], the working class did not possess the vote and therefore had little political power. Although Disraeli forged a personal friendship with [[John Bright]], a leading Radical, Disraeli was unable to persuade Bright to sacrifice his distinct position for parliamentary advancement. When Disraeli attempted to secure a Tory-Radical cabinet in 1852, Bright refused.<ref name=t207>Trevelyan, p. 207</ref>{{refn|The specific occasion was the 1852 Budget. Disraeli seems to have held out the possibility that Bright, [[Richard Cobden]] and [[Thomas Milner Gibson]] might eventually join the cabinet in exchange for the support of the Radicals.<ref name=t207/>|group= n}}

[[File:bright-peel-bentinck-stanley.jpg|thumb|left|Clockwise from top left: [[John Bright|Bright]], [[Robert Peel|Peel]], [[Lord George Bentinck|Bentinck]] and [[Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby|Stanley]]|alt=Four men]]

Disraeli gradually became a sharp critic of Peel's government, often deliberately taking contrary positions. The young MP attacked his leader as early as 1843. However, the best known of these stances were over the [[Maynooth Grant]] in 1845 and the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.<ref>Hurd & Young, p. 83</ref> The [[President of the Board of Trade]], [[William Gladstone]], resigned from the cabinet over the Maynooth Grant.<ref>Blake (1967), pp. 183–189</ref> The Corn Laws imposed a tariff on imported wheat, protecting British farmers from foreign competition, but making the cost of bread artificially high. Peel hoped that the repeal of the Corn Laws and the resultant influx of cheaper wheat into Britain would relieve the condition of the poor, and in particular the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine]] caused by successive failure of potato crops in Ireland.<ref>Prest, John. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/21764 "Peel, Sir Robert, second baronet (1788–1850)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, online edition, May 2009, accessed 26 August 2013 {{ODNBsub}}</ref>{{refn|According to some modern historians, Peel recognised the inevitability of free trade and used the alleviation of the Irish famine as a convenient pretext for moving away from protectionism despite strong opposition from within his party.<ref>[[Goldman, Lawrence]], [[Boyd Hilton|Hilton, Boyd]] and [[Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey|Schonhardt-Bailey, Cheryl]]. [http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/iot/iot_20131024-1130a.mp3 "The Corn Laws"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029210112/http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/iot/iot_20131024-1130a.mp3 |date=29 October 2013 }}, BBC Radio 4, 24 October 2013, 31:00 minutes</ref>|group= n}}

The first months of 1846 were dominated by a battle in Parliament between the free traders and the protectionists over the repeal of the Corn Laws, with the latter rallying around Disraeli and [[Lord George Bentinck]]. An alliance of free-trade Conservatives (the "[[Peelites]]"), Radicals, and Whigs carried repeal,<ref>Blake (1967), pp. 230–239</ref> and the Conservative Party split: the Peelites moved towards the Whigs, while a "new" Conservative Party formed around the protectionists, led by Disraeli, Bentinck, and [[Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby|Lord Stanley]] (later Lord Derby).<ref>Blake (1967), pp. 242–247</ref>

The split in the Tory party over the repeal of the Corn Laws had profound implications for Disraeli's political career: almost every Tory politician with experience of office followed Peel, leaving the rump bereft of leadership. In Blake's words, "[Disraeli] found himself almost the only figure on his side capable of putting up the oratorical display essential for a parliamentary leader."<ref name="Blake (1967), p. 247">Blake (1967), p. 247</ref> The [[George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll|Duke of Argyll]] wrote that Disraeli "was like a [[Subaltern (military)|subaltern]] in a great battle where every superior officer was killed or wounded".<ref>Quoted in Blake (1967), pp. 247–248</ref> If the Tory Party could muster the electoral support necessary to form a government, then Disraeli now seemed to be guaranteed high office, but with a group of men who possessed little or no official experience and who, as a group, remained personally hostile to Disraeli.<ref>Blake (1967), p. 260</ref> In the event the Tory split soon had the party out of office, not regaining power until 1852.<ref>Blake (1967), p. 243</ref> The Conservatives would not again have a majority in the House of Commons until 1874.<ref>Blake (1967), p. 242</ref>