reaching home, he would flagellate himself.
'Has it been sufficiently considered how far pain may become a ground for enjoyment?' confided Gladstone to his diary. 'How far satisfaction and even an action of delighting in pain may be a true experimental phenomenon of the human mind?' 34
Such admissions were for his eyes only (each act of flagellation he marked with a little whip in the margins of his diary) and it is unlikely that anyone else would have guessed the lengths to which Gladstone was prepared to go in search of this pleasurable humiliation. But enough was known of his strange habits to cause deep misgivings.
Causing his colleagues even more unease than his prostitute-hunting was his friendship with various well-known courtesans. Talking to anonymous street-walkers was one thing; visiting some of London's more notorious 'scarlet women' in their homes was quite another. One of these women was the famous Laura Thistlethwayte. This theatrical-looking beauty, having spent half her life as a courtesan, suddenly underwent a religious conversion. And although this conversion seems to have interfered very little with her former occupation, Mrs Thistlethwayte became an evangelical preacher. This gave her, for Gladstone, a double appeal: reformed prostitutes with a taste for religion were exactly up his street.
Another of his associates was that ubiquitous contemporary figure, Skittles. Much to the amusement of the Prince of Wales, whom she kept fully informed, Skittles – having heard of Gladstone's interest in 'ladies of light character' – invited him to visit her. 'Saturdays and Sundays were his evenings out,' she explained to Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Carrying a bunch of narcissi and having sent her a twelve-pound tin of Russian tea in advance, the Prime Minister duly arrived.'I have not come to talk politics,' he announced (not even in her most self-important moments, surely, had Skittles imagined that he would) and remarked, more properly, on the smallness of her waist. He then went on to measure it, she says, by putting his hands around it.
What else they discussed or, for that matter, measured, is not known, but when he left, Gladstone asked her to write to him. She 'should mark the envelope private, followed by a little cross, thus "Private X".' Skittles afterwards heard that the Prime Minister had been 'much struck with all my go and charming ways . . .' 35
It was no wonder that Lillie who, for 'go and charming ways' could match Skittles any day, decided to approach Gladstone. Or that it should have been through Abraham Hayward that she did so. Hayward (sometimes referred to as 'the Viper') knew all about Gladstone's sexual activities; in fact, he was not above doing what amounted to a little discreet pimping. Having insisted that he replace the usual reviewer for Lillie's theatrical début, Hayward had quickly appreciated that she would be just the type to interest Gladstone. Between them, then, Lillie and Hayward concocted the letter to the Prime Minister. And Gladstone, reading between the lines, would have known exactly what Hayward's letter implied.
Within days, the Prime Minister had become a frequent caller at her little flat and she was soon making use of the 'double envelope system' whereby her letters to him were kept out of the hands of his secretaries. Abraham Hayward had reassured him that although there was no formal separation between Lillie and her husband, 'they are but little together and he has as good as told her to shift for herself. ' 36 In other words, Gladstone was unlikely to run into an irate husband during his calls.
The Prime Minister's colleagues were no less worried about his relationship with Mrs Langtry than they were about his other friendships. 'She is evidently trying to make social capital out of the acquaintance she has scraped with him,' his private secretary, Sir Edward Hamilton once complained. 'Most disagreeable things with all kinds of exaggeration are being said. I
'Has it been sufficiently considered how far pain may become a ground for enjoyment?' confided Gladstone to his diary. 'How far satisfaction and even an action of delighting in pain may be a true experimental phenomenon of the human mind?' 34
Such admissions were for his eyes only (each act of flagellation he marked with a little whip in the margins of his diary) and it is unlikely that anyone else would have guessed the lengths to which Gladstone was prepared to go in search of this pleasurable humiliation. But enough was known of his strange habits to cause deep misgivings.
Causing his colleagues even more unease than his prostitute-hunting was his friendship with various well-known courtesans. Talking to anonymous street-walkers was one thing; visiting some of London's more notorious 'scarlet women' in their homes was quite another. One of these women was the famous Laura Thistlethwayte. This theatrical-looking beauty, having spent half her life as a courtesan, suddenly underwent a religious conversion. And although this conversion seems to have interfered very little with her former occupation, Mrs Thistlethwayte became an evangelical preacher. This gave her, for Gladstone, a double appeal: reformed prostitutes with a taste for religion were exactly up his street.
Another of his associates was that ubiquitous contemporary figure, Skittles. Much to the amusement of the Prince of Wales, whom she kept fully informed, Skittles – having heard of Gladstone's interest in 'ladies of light character' – invited him to visit her. 'Saturdays and Sundays were his evenings out,' she explained to Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Carrying a bunch of narcissi and having sent her a twelve-pound tin of Russian tea in advance, the Prime Minister duly arrived.'I have not come to talk politics,' he announced (not even in her most self-important moments, surely, had Skittles imagined that he would) and remarked, more properly, on the smallness of her waist. He then went on to measure it, she says, by putting his hands around it.
What else they discussed or, for that matter, measured, is not known, but when he left, Gladstone asked her to write to him. She 'should mark the envelope private, followed by a little cross, thus "Private X".' Skittles afterwards heard that the Prime Minister had been 'much struck with all my go and charming ways . . .' 35
It was no wonder that Lillie who, for 'go and charming ways' could match Skittles any day, decided to approach Gladstone. Or that it should have been through Abraham Hayward that she did so. Hayward (sometimes referred to as 'the Viper') knew all about Gladstone's sexual activities; in fact, he was not above doing what amounted to a little discreet pimping. Having insisted that he replace the usual reviewer for Lillie's theatrical début, Hayward had quickly appreciated that she would be just the type to interest Gladstone. Between them, then, Lillie and Hayward concocted the letter to the Prime Minister. And Gladstone, reading between the lines, would have known exactly what Hayward's letter implied.
Within days, the Prime Minister had become a frequent caller at her little flat and she was soon making use of the 'double envelope system' whereby her letters to him were kept out of the hands of his secretaries. Abraham Hayward had reassured him that although there was no formal separation between Lillie and her husband, 'they are but little together and he has as good as told her to shift for herself. ' 36 In other words, Gladstone was unlikely to run into an irate husband during his calls.
The Prime Minister's colleagues were no less worried about his relationship with Mrs Langtry than they were about his other friendships. 'She is evidently trying to make social capital out of the acquaintance she has scraped with him,' his private secretary, Sir Edward Hamilton once complained. 'Most disagreeable things with all kinds of exaggeration are being said. I
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