T. G. Otte - Statesman of Europe: A Life of Sir Edward Grey

July Crisis: How the World Descended into War, Summer 1914

The Foreign Office Mind: The Making of British Foreign Policy, 18651914

The China Question: Great Power Rivalry and British Isolation, 18941905

(Ed.) An Historian in Peace and War: The Diaries of Harold Temperley, 19001939

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First published by Allen Lane in 2020

Copyright T. G. Otte, 2020

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Edward Grey, 1911. Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images
Back cover image: Oil sketch of Viscount Grey of Fallodon by G F Watt (1873-1960) Crown Copyright: UK Government Art Collection
Cover design by Richard Green

ISBN: 978-0-241-41337-1

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

One afternoon I watched him as he stood

In the twilight of his wood.

Among the firs hed planted, forty years away,

Tall, and quite still, and almost blind,

World patience in his face, stood Edward Grey;

Not listening,

For it was at the end of summer, when no birds sing:

Only the boughs faint dirge accompanied his mind

Absorbed in some Wordsworthian slow self-communing.

In lichen-coloured homespun clothes he seemed

So merged with stem and branch and twinkling leaves

That almost I expected, looking away, to find

When glancing there again, that I had daylight dreamed

His figure, as when some trick of sun and shadow deceives.

But there he was, haunting heart-known ancestral ground;

Near to all Nature; and in that nearness somehow strange;

Whose native humour, human-simple yet profound,

And strength of spirit no calamity could change.

To whom, designed for countrified contentments, came

Honours unsought and unrewarding foreign fame:

And, at the last, that darkened world wherein he moved

In memoried deprivation of life once learnt and loved.

. Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey by William Say, published by Rudolph Ackermann Jr, after Frederick Richard Say. Mezzotint heightened with white bodycolour, 1833. NPG D11356 National Portrait Gallery, London.

. Sir George Grey, 2nd Baronet, c.1860s. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. Harriet Grey (ne Pearson), c.1865. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. Lieutenant-Colonel George Henry Grey, c.1865. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. Fallodon, before 1917. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. Fallodon, before 1917. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. The library at Fallodon, c.1920s. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. Fallodon Railway Station (Christon Bank to Chathill, Alnmouth Line), c. 910. Authors collection.

. The young Edward Grey, c.1872. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. The young Edward Grey at Temple Grove School, c.18736. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. C House, Winchester College, 1880. Reproduced by kind permission of the Warden and Scholars of Winchester College.

. Reverend Mandell Creighton by H. L. Mendelssohn and Walter L. Colls, c.1881. Wikimedia Creative Commons.

. Louise Creighton by Glyn Warren Philpot RA, before 1937. Wikimedia Creative Commons.

. Embleton Vicarage with its pele tower, Embleton Tower, by T. L. Pitt, c.1881. Wikimedia Creative Commons.

. Edward Grey, c.1882. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. Benjamin Jowett by Julia Janet Georgiana (ne Haldane-Duncan), Lady Abercromby, watercolour portrait, 1892. Reproduced by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Balliol College.

. Balliol College, c.1880. Reproduced by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Balliol College; PHOT 11-002a.

. Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey, Governor General of Canada, c. 1904. Historic Collection/Alamy Stock Photo.

. Sir Evelyn Baring, later Earl of Cromer, c.1895. Wikimedia Creative Commons.

. Thomas Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook, Viceroy of India entertaining the Prince of Wales, 1876. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, by Cyril Flower, 1st Baron Battersea, c.1890. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. Dorothy Grey, by Cyril Flower, 1st Baron Battersea, c.1890. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. The Cottage, c.1904. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. The Grey Family, c.1885. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. Charles Grey, c. late 1890s. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. George Grey, c. late 1890s. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. Edward Grey, c.1895. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. William Ewart Gladstone, 1892. The Patrick Montgomery Collection, Wikimedia 2016.827, Creative Commons.

. Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, 1909. Wikimedia Creative Commons.

. Sir William George Granville Venables Vernon Harcourt, by Herbert Rose Barraud 1890. Woodburytype, Wikimedia Creative Commons.

. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, c.1904. Appletons Magazine, Wikimedia Creative Commons.

. Edward and Dorothy Grey in Sparsholt, Hampshire, 1903. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. Edward Grey in River Cassley near Rosehall, Sutherland, 1904. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. Winston Churchill, Richard Burdon Haldane, Edward Grey and Dorothy Grey, 1905. Reproduced by kind permission of Adrian Graves.

. Foreign Office, c.1880. Copyright Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

. The Foreign Secretarys Room, c.1910. Authors collection.

. Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford, by Elliott & Fry. Bromide postcard print, c. 1904. NPG x197707, copyright National Portrait Gallery, London.

. David Lloyd George, by Olive Edis, 1917. Copyright Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, CRRMU 2008.14.1737.

. Robert Offley Ashburton Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe, by William Strang, 1907. Sothebys, Wikimedia Creative Commons.

. Sydney Charles Buxton, Earl Buxton (Men of the Day. No. 1047: The Postmaster General), by Sir Leslie Ward. Chromolithograph,