Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/239

 sian press. Guizot's estimate of his character was summed up in a phrase, ‘Il est bon enfant, mais il ne comprend pas notre langue.’ The English foreign minister, Palmerston, supported Normanby so vigorously as to nearly provoke a diplomatic rupture (see Greville Memoirs, 2nd ser. iii. 62, 446), but the quarrel was composed by Count Apponyi. Nor were Normanby's relations with the foreign office always smooth. But his services were recognised by the grand cross of the Bath in December 1847, and he was created a knight of the Garter in April 1851. His remonstrance against Lord Palmerston's hasty recognition of Louis Napoleon was the immediate occasion of Lord Palmerston's dismissal in 1851 (Memoirs of an ex-Minister, i. 259, 298, 302). His own resignation in the February following, though nominally due to ill-health, was really occasioned by political differences at home.

In December 1854 Lord Aberdeen appointed him minister to the court of Tuscany at Florence, where he had resided in early life and was well known. His strong Austrian sympathies more than once proved an embarrassment to the foreign minister, Lord Clarendon; and Lord Malmesbury, on taking office in February 1858, promptly recalled him by telegraph. On his settling in England his antipathy to Lord Palmerston led him to support the tories, his former opponents, against the whigs, his old friends; but he was soon disabled by paralysis, and died at Hamilton Lodge, South Kensington, on 28 July 1863. In spite of a somewhat frivolous and theatrical manner, he was a man of considerable prescience and political ability (, Life of Lord John Russell, ii. 96). He was generally popular. A half-length life-size portrait of Normanby, by M. Heuss, belongs to the Rev. the Marquis of Normanby.

He married, on 12 Aug. 1818, Maria, eldest daughter of Thomas Henry Liddell, first lord Ravensworth, by whom he had one son, George Augustus Constantine [q. v.], who succeeded him in the title.

Normanby was the author in early life of a number of romantic tales, novels, and sketches, avowedly founded on fact. He published anonymously ‘The English in Italy,’ 1825, 3 vols., a collection of romances of various lengths, and ‘The English in France,’ 1828, a similar work; four novels, ‘Matilda,’ 1825; ‘Yes and No,’ 1828; ‘Clorinda’ in the ‘Keepsake’ for 1829; and ‘The Contrast,’ 1832; and subsequently ‘A Year of Revolution,’ 1857, being his Paris journal for 1848, and containing many indiscreet references to Louis-Philippe (in consequence of statements in it he became involved in controversy with Louis Blanc). ‘The Congress and the Cabinet,’ 1859; and a ‘Historical Sketch of Louise de Bourbon, Duchess of Parma,’ and a ‘Vindication of the Duke of Modena’ from Mr. Gladstone's charges in 1861, were political pamphlets. Some of his speeches in the House of Lords were also published.

[In addition to authorities above cited, see Times, 29 July 1863; Gent. Mag. 1863, pt. ii. p. 374.] 

PHIPPS, CONSTANTINE JOHN, second (1744–1792), captain in the navy and politician, born in May 1744, was eldest son of Constantine Phipps, created Baron Mulgrave in the peerage of Ireland, and of his wife Lepell, daughter of John, lord Hervey [q. v.] He entered the navy in 1760 on board the Dragon of 74 guns, with his uncle Augustus John Hervey (afterwards third earl of Bristol) [q. v.] After serving at the reduction of Martinique and St. Lucia, he was promoted by Sir George Rodney to be lieutenant of the Dragon on 17 March 1762, and took part in the reduction of Havana [see ]. On 24 Nov. 1763 he was promoted to the command of the Diligence sloop, and on 20 June 1765 was posted to the Terpsichore. In 1767 he commanded the Boreas. In the general election of 1768 he was returned to the House of Commons as member for Lincoln, and from the first identified himself with the ‘king's friends,’ gaining a certain prominence by his opposition to the popular party. In 1773 he commanded the Racehorse, which, in company with the Carcass, was fitted out to attempt the discovery of a northern route to India. The expedition sailed to the north of Spitzbergen, and, finding the sea absolutely blocked with ice, returned without any result. The voyage is now principally remembered from the fact that Nelson was a midshipman on board the Carcass. On the death of his father on 13 Sept. 1775, Phipps succeeded as second Baron Mulgrave. In 1777 he was elected member of parliament for Huntingdon, and was also appointed one of the lords of the admiralty.

In the spring of 1778 he commissioned the Courageux, a 74-gun ship which had been captured from the French in 1761 [see ]. In the action of 27 July, off Ushant, the Courageux had a distinguished part. The French three-decker Ville de Paris had fallen to leeward of their line, and lay right in the line of the English ship's