Richard Lyons, 1st Earl Lyons

680:, as an unofficial representative of Britain to the Papal States. In this office, Lyons was expected to pursue the reform of the unpopular Papal government. Lyons's analyses of the issues, his clarity in his dispatches, and the integrity of his counsel made him admired at the Foreign Office. Russell was impressed with Lyons's achievement of regaining the favour and of the Papal authorities for Protestant Britain, which had enabled Lyons to dissuade the Vatican from the pursuit of the establishment of a Catholic hierarchy in Scotland, which might have caused Anti-Catholic sedition in Britain. Lyons achieved this restoration of favourable relations with the Vatican by refusing to condemn actions, however disagreeable to him, that Britain had no ability to prevent. Lord Russell was so impressed with Lyons that, when Russell succeeded to the Foreign Office in 1859, he urged his nephew, Odo, who had succeeded Lyons in Rome, to imitate the policies and conduct of Lyons. 652:. In this position, Lyons advocated and sought to implemented, under the authority of his father and his father's direct successor Thomas Wyse, policies conducive to the establishment of constitutional monarchy that would not impede an Ottoman Empire which served as a bulwark against Russian expansion in the British-dominated Mediterranean. Lyons implemented the practices of diplomatic conduct for which he would become famous: he entertained his subordinates with informal hospitality, and consulted them on matters of business, and dined with them several times per week, and provided for their welfare. Lyons believed that British embassies, and opulent dinners with foreign diplomats, should be used to impress the power of the British Empire. 859:, which he believed would be a military target for the American Union. Lyons was willing to recognise Confederate independence after Lincoln's blockade of the South's coast, and Lyons's friendship with Seward provided for the creation of what Lyons called a 'golden bridge' that would enable the Union to retract its policies against the British cotton-trade. Jenkins contends that ' avoided a collision and reached an understanding with Seward'. The Union commended Lyons's honesty, and the British Foreign Office commended Lyons as 'one of Britain's most intelligent and skilful diplomats'. Lyons believed, in the words of Jenkins, that the Union 'had to be disabused of the notion that there was no limit to his nation's forbearance'. 569: 64: 1042:; and those in which the Egyptian Question became important. Lyons therein advocated policies that he thought would prevent a conflict between France and Germany and that would consequently perpetuate British dominance of Europe. Subsequent to the British Action in Egypt in the summer of 1882, and to the abolition of the dual rule in Egypt, Lyons was involved in a confrontation between Britain and France that lasted until 1904, in which Lyons contended that Britain ought to not withdraw from reform of Egyptian finances and from acknowledgement of French financial rights in Egypt. 1058: 888:

Lyons achieved this by two actions: first, he withheld the official statement of the British response until after the date on which he was ordered to submit that statement, to make the Americans uncertain; second, he subsequently used the same technique that he had successfully used to resolve the San Juan Crisis, by disclosure to the Americans, without British authorization, a version of the British response that overestimated the British keenness to use force, before he stated the official British response.

1090:. Lyons had not converted to Catholicism by the time of his stroke in November 1887 that incapacitated him to the extent that ‘it is extremely doubtful to what extent he retained consciousness’: however, the Bishop of Southwark, Dr. Butt, ‘felt so convinced of his disposition and intention that he received into the Church and administered to him extreme unction’ whilst Lyons was unable to communicate. Lyons did not subsequently regain consciousness, and died on 5 December at 942:, was confident that Lord Lyons was an ‘honest man’ who would restore amicable Anglo-Ottoman relations, despite that Lyons advocated British defence of the Ottoman Empire's territory only until that defence would require British military involvement. Lyons's persuasion of the Ottoman Court of the Sublime Porte to decline concessions to France that would have provided for French control of the 1976: 701: 732:, who was ignorant of Lyons's precocious ability, was unhappy with the appointment of Lyons, who had only a few years as a diplomat: Buchanan stated that he wanted a 'man whose character was known in this country'. Lyons considered President Buchanan to be inept and described him as ‘too weak to wring his hands’. 1159:

describes him as ‘the idea of a pattern and ideal diplomatist’ who ‘knew the contents of every modern dispatch’ ‘by heart’. Lyons's most recent biographer Jenkins (2014) considers Lyons to be the exemplar of the ‘Foreign Office mind’ who created a canon of practical norms of diplomacy, including the

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to in 1886 offer Lyons the office of British Foreign Secretary: this was the third occasion on which Lyons was offered the office of Foreign Secretary, and for the third time, Lyons declined. Lyons, who had inherited the titles of 2nd Baronet and 2nd Baron Lyons subsequent to the death of his father

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Lord Lyons contended that the British ‘were the chosen people of history’ but was otherwise unprejudiced to French and to Americans. He was in America ‘witty and erudite’, and ‘tactful and discreet to the point of parody, and with ‘a subtle intelligence and a steely resolve’. Lyons detested displays

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which was intercepted by a vessel from the Northern States. This stimulated the animosity of the British public, and war between Britain and the United States seemed imminent, but, by ‘tact and firmness’, Lyons compelled the United States government to release the two envoys to averted the conflict

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to United States Senators. Lyons contended that British embassies, and consulates, and legations ought to impress Britain's grandeur by their furnishings and of their banquets, to which he often invited junior members of the diplomatic community to create the structure of ‘a boys school of which he

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crisis, which threatened to destroy the republican settlement. Lyons served in this position for a continuous twenty years, which made him one of its longest serving occupants, in which his political neutrality enabled him to develop amicable relationships with Liberal ministers to whose political

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Lyons's most recent biographer Jenkins (2014) considers Lyons to be the exemplar of the ‘Foreign Office mind’ who created a canon of practical norms of diplomacy, including the necessity for nominal neutrality in domestic party politics and for private correspondence with Cabinet ministers. Lyons

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that failed to resolve their dispute. During the investment of Paris, Lyons, departed for Tours, and subsequently to Bourdeaux, with ministers of the French provisional government, for which Lyons was criticised in the British House of Commons, despite that Britain had recognised the Provisional

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improved Britain's credibility, from which Bismarck had detracted during the crisis of Schleswig-Holstein. Lyons persuaded the French Minister to resolve the dispute over the Danubian Principalities in a manner that was conducive to British interests. Lyons subsequently was appointed to the most

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and with Seward, both of whom wished for his return to the position of British Ambassador at Washington. However, Lyons's health subsequently deteriorated further and, in the spring of 1865, compelled Lyons to resign his Ambassadorship to the United States. Lyons refused the preference of Queen

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Lyons was reputed for his luxurious dinner parties, both when Ambassador to the United States and when Ambassador to Paris. Lyons's dinner parties ‘nothing could exceed’ in ‘dignity and faultless taste’. He agreed with Palmerston's remark that ‘dining is the soul of diplomacy’, and offered five

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British Governments an essential guarantee that their instructions would always be carried out according to the terms determined in London’. Queen Victoria stayed with Lyons in Paris. Lyons's political neutrality demonstrates that his promotion to the highest ambassadorial rank, by the British

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Lyons did not marry and he died without issue. As a consequence of the fact that his only brother had predeceased him, also without issue, during 1855, all of Richard Lyons's titles became extinct when he died. Lyons left to the Dukes of Norfolk, and to Arundel Castle, the possessions and the

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in 1858, received the higher noble titles of Viscount, in 1881, and Earl, in 1887, but he died before he had been formally invested with the latter. Lyons agreed with Salisbury that he was to remain Ambassador to France until October 1887, when he was succeeded as Ambassador to France by

1164:, who offered him the position of Foreign Secretary in 1886. In the 21st century, including by his biographer Brian Jenkins (2014), and by T. G. Otte (2011), and by Scott T. Cairns (2004), Lyons has been identified as a founder of a 'Lyons School' of British diplomacy that consisted of 1144:

sent floral tributes. Lyons is buried under the Chapel, which is the burial ground of the Catholic Dukes of Norfolk. Lyons's sister, who was the Duchess of Norfolk, and her husband, the 14th Duke of Norfolk, and his father, Edmund, 1st Baron Lyons, are also buried there.

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stated that she was pleased for Lyons to ‘represent Her at any court in the world’, and that she considered Lyons to have a ‘sterling reputation for integrity’, and Raymond Jones described Lyons as ‘Britain's greatest mid-century ambassador'.

793:, of whom he was a friend, to include the centres of Republican Party advocacy (including in New York, and in Massachusetts, and in Ohio) and to meetings with the USA's Sumner and Chase. Lord Lyons was consequently commended both by the 1000:

to be idiotic, and predicted, again correctly, that it was to culminate with the destruction of the French Empire. Lyons's correspondence provides contemporaneous commentary on the siege of Paris, and on the insurgency of the

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necessity for nominal neutrality in domestic party politics and for private correspondence with Cabinet ministers. Lyons attained the height of his influence during the premierships of his political ally the

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Government as the veritable government. Lyons advocated the restoration of French military power to restore the balance of power on the Continent. but his actions were met with French aversion to Britain.

2197: 2040: 2202: 782:") by advanced informal disclosure of the ultimatum that he had been instructed to deliver to the US that enabled an agreement to occur before the animosity between Britain and the US created violence. 2212: 845:'. Lyons then revised his judgement to predict an increasingly bloody conflict that would be won by the Union, but after which the Union would disintegrate as a consequence of internal animosities. 855:

to be abnormally prejudiced against Britain. Lyons advocated the continuous rejection of French invitations for Britain to join intervention with France. Lyons successfully resolved the defence of

1112:, he is usually, nevertheless, termed 1st Earl Lyons, as in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the Dictionary of National Biography, and the American Civil War, Round Table UK Profile. 1034:, whom he believed were able to organise French society and to perpetuate the France's adherence to a free-trade policy. The later years of Lyons's tenure in France included those in which the 2207: 810: 374: 45: 736:

of emotion: Lord Newton contended that ‘he had never been in debt, never gambled, never quarrelled, never as far as was known, ever been in love’ and that Lyons detested exercise and sport.

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Lyons's most famous diplomatic success, whilst Ambassador to the United States, was the resolution of the Trent Affair, during the autumn of 1861, in which two politicians from the South, (

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sympathies he was averse: Jenkins contends that ‘the presence of such a reliable and conciliatory man in the most sensitive and important post in Europe gave both

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Lord Lyons died before he had formally received the title of Earl: however, because the notice of his investiture with the title of Earl had appeared in the

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to be his successor: which the Queen and the Prime Minister accepted. Three Volumes of Lyons's American Civil War despatches were published in 2005.

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Lyons advocated British non-intervention and neutrality with both the North and the South. He considered Lincoln to be unrefined, and he considered

568: 113: 881:) who had been sent to Europe to attempt to secure formal recognition for the Confederacy, were abducted from the neutral British mail steamer, 63: 939: 712:

Lyons's first major appointment commenced in December 1858, after he had succeeded to his father's title of 2nd Baron Lyons, when he succeeded

1331: 537: 1005:, and on the power of Germany, and on France's unsuccessful attempts to establish a stable polity. Lyons arranged an interview between 529: 299: 1308: 456:), and was encouraged to accept that office by Queen Victoria, but he declined the offer on all three occasions. Lyons endorsed the 2060: 2033: 1738: 1496: 1430: 1399: 1314: 849: 713: 183: 101: 1185: 493: 2152: 1189: 834: 705: 497: 381: 153: 49: 2115: 2085: 1254: 1234: 838: 600: 560:', and had 'a perceptive assessment of the French collective psyche', and was 'ever ready to exculpate French behaviour'. 517: 287: 1732: 1393: 1193: 1137: 826: 521: 501: 437: 305: 78: 766:

were the headmaster’. Lyons regularly attended Willard's Hotel to discern the political opinions of American notables.

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from 1867 to 1887, which was then the most prestigious office in the British Service. Lyons was offered the office of

425:, the occurrence of an imperial war between France and Germany that was to destroy Britain's international dominance. 317: 1086:, to which he had expressed his desire to convert, and he had received permission from the Prime Minister to attend 1057: 955:

The twenty years, from October 1867, in which Lyons was British Ambassador to France included the last years of the

708:(April 6, 1878). Lyons's diplomatic influence is demonstrated by the subtitle used instead of his name: 'Diplomacy'. 1772: 1358: 1181: 1141: 901:

Lord Lyons in December 1864 left Washington as a consequence of insufficient health, after his final meetings with

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decorations of his father, Edmund, 1st Baron Lyons. Richard Lyons's funeral occurred on 10 December 1887 at the

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Subsequent to his resignation from the Ambassadorship to the United States, Lyons served as Ambassador to the

1257:, after the Union was decisively defeated in battle. Lyons is also a minor character in the historical novel 2023: 1230: 981: 700: 465: 457: 445: 235: 2050: 1259: 911: 665: 627:, from which he graduated BA (in 1838) and MA (in 1843). He later, in 1865, received an honorary DCL from 195: 20: 1996: 1173: 1133: 968: 786: 624: 481: 338: 293: 988:

When Lyons arrived in Paris during the last months of 1867, at the height of the Paris Exhibition, the

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senior position in the British diplomatic service, which was then British Minister to France.

852: 677: 661: 628: 612: 573: 477: 449: 1501: 1435: 1384: 1319: 1238: 1226: 1155: 1035: 1031: 775: 759: 721: 557: 418: 398: 385:(26 April 1817 – 5 December 1887) was a British diplomat, who was the favourite diplomat of 342: 1242: 1117: 902: 842: 822: 645: 604: 2098: 1630: 1264: 1125: 1121: 1108: 1087: 927: 923: 889: 806: 779: 739: 729: 541: 433: 386: 311: 2136: 1209: 1091: 1002: 964: 802: 794: 717: 592: 584: 1208:, and the great-great-granduncle of the translator Rosemary Sheed and of the writer 1276: 1177: 1062: 1027: 993: 878: 868: 692:. He was the British Minister at Florence between February 1858 and December 1858. 608: 549: 485: 432:

from 1858 to 1865, during the American Civil War; and as British Ambassador to the

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Lyons explored the Mediterranean, during his adolescence, on his father's ship,

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Tories, was a consequence of ' professional not political considerations'.

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Sir Algernon Lyons, Admiral of the Fleet and Aide-de-Camp to Queen Victoria

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