‘Let the Italians govern their own affairs’

The advent to power of the reunited Liberal party in England decisively affected the pope's prospects in Italy and Europe. Queen Victoria tried her best to avoid having Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, leaders of the old Whigs, at the head of the new government. Among other things, she abhorred their unmitigated Whig favouritism for Piedmont and the Italian nationalists. She would have felt safer with Lord Granville as prime minister and Lord Clarendon as foreign minister. When Gladstone joined Palmerston and Russell as the chancellor of the exchequer, the pope faced a formidable triumvirate. The Duke of Argyll, as Lord Privy Seal, and Milner Gibson, as president of the Board of Trade, gave them full support in the Cabinet.

Leaders on all sides of the Italian and papal crisis expected the new government to transform England's role in the course of events. Count Persigny, the French ambassador in London, felt sure that Napoleon could count on Russell being ‘perfectly disposed to follow us on this terrain’. The Austrian ambassador in London, Count Apponyi, foresaw that the new government would undermine Austrian interests in Italy and pressure Austria to accept the revolutionary fait accompli in Italy. He anticipated a rapprochement between England and France due to Italian affairs.

Cavour and the Romagnol nationalists were elated with the new government. Cavour once confessed, ‘Despite his outbursts of ill temper, Lord John is one hundred times more preferable than Malmesbury by whom I felt threatened.’