| Description | Signed letter from Joseph Chamberlain to Lucy Clifford [novelist and dramatist, wife of William Kingdon Clifford], written from 40 Prince's Gardens, 18 April 1886: 'pressure of work has prevented me from earlier acknowledgement of your kind letter... I have read your interesting and ingenious suggestions, but I am sorry to say that they do not commend themselves to my mind. I could not reconcile myself to making a House of Lords - however reformed and glorified - the Key Stone of our Constitution and the arbiter of the destinies of the 3 Kingdoms...' |