New Crowns for Old depicts Disraeli as Abanazer from the pantomime version of Aladdin offering Queen Victoria | Victoria an imperial crown in exchange for a royal one. Disraeli cultivated a public image of himself as an Imperialist with grand gestures such as conferring on Queen Victoria the title “ Empress of India ”.

Disraeli, who expanded the Empire to protect British interests abroad, cultivated the image of himself ( and the Conservative Party ) as " Imperialist ", making grand gestures such as conferring the title " Empress of India " on Queen Victoria in 1876.

Staunchly protectionist, Herries was in repeated conflict with Disraeli who, despite championing protectionism barely six years previously, was hurriedly disassociating both himself and the party from that doctrine.

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS, ( 21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881 ) was a British Prime Minister, parliamentarian, Conservative statesman and literary figure.

In this feud, Disraeli was aided by his warm friendship with Queen Victoria, who came to detest Gladstone during the latter's first premiership in the 1870s.

In 1876 Disraeli was raised to the peerage as the Earl of Beaconsfield, capping nearly four decades in the House of Commons.

Before and during his political career, Disraeli was well known as a literary and social figure, although his novels are not generally regarded as a part of the Victorian literary canon.

His father groomed him for a career in law, and Disraeli was articled to a solicitor in 1821.

In 1824, Disraeli toured Belgium and the Rhine Valley with his father and later wrote that it was while travelling on the Rhine that he decided to abandon the law: " I determined when descending those magical waters that I would not be a lawyer.

The paper was a failure, in part because the mining " bubble " burst in late 1825, which ruined Powles and Disraeli.

Before he entered parliament, Disraeli was involved with several women, most notably Henrietta, Lady Sykes ( the wife of Sir Francis Sykes, 3rd Bt ), who served as the model for Henrietta Temple.

It was Henrietta who introduced Disraeli to Lord Lyndhurst, with whom she later became romantically involved.

" Further, at the time Gallomania was published, Disraeli was in fact electioneering in High Wycombe in the Radical interest.

The other great party, the Whigs, was anathema to Disraeli: " Toryism is worn out & I cannot condescend to be a Whig.

Though he initially stood for election, unsuccessfully, as a Radical, Disraeli was a Tory by the time he won a seat in the House of Commons in 1837 representing the constituency of Maidstone.

Although a Conservative, Disraeli was sympathetic to some of the demands of the Chartists and argued for an alliance between the landed aristocracy and the working class against the increasing power of the merchants and new industrialists in the middle class, helping to found the Young England group in 1842 to promote the view that the landed interests should use their power to protect the poor from exploitation by middle-class businessmen.

Although Disraeli forged a personal friendship with John Bright, a Lancashire manufacturer and leading Radical, Disraeli was unable to convince Bright to sacrifice principle for political gain.

" Looking on from the House of Lords, the Duke of Argyll wrote that Disraeli " was like a subaltern in a great battle where every superior officer was killed or wounded.

" If the remainder of the Conservative Party could muster the electoral support necessary to form a government, then Disraeli was now guaranteed high office.

Disraeli spoke in favour of the measure, arguing that Christianity was " completed Judaism ," and asking of the House of Commons " Where is your Christianity if you do not believe in their Judaism?

" While Disraeli did not argue that the Jews did the Christians a favour by killing Christ, as he had in Tancred and would in Lord George Bentinck, his speech was badly received by his own party, which along with the Anglican establishment was hostile to the bill.

Bentinck, then still Conservative leader in the Commons, joined Disraeli in speaking and voting for the bill, although his own speech was a standard one of toleration.

Even as these intrigues played out, Disraeli was working with the Bentinck family to secure the necessary financing to purchase Hughenden Manor, in Buckinghamshire.

The first opportunity for the protectionist Tories under Disraeli and Stanley to take office came in 1851, when Lord John Russell's government was defeated in the House of Commons over the Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851.

With Gladstone's refusal Derby and Disraeli looked elsewhere and settled on Disraeli's old friend Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who became Secretary of State for the Colonies ; Derby's son Lord Stanley, succeeded Ellenborough at the Board of Control.

However Benjamin Disraeli who led the subsequent Conservative government proposed his own Reform Bill, which by splitting the parties succeeded to become the Reform Act 1867.

The next year, Benjamin Disraeli succeeded Derby as Prime Minister, but the Conservative government resigned later in 1868, and the Liberals came to power under Gladstone.

" Disraeli took the opportunity to remove Beresford, who was briefly succeeded as whip by William Forbes Mackenzie.

Lord Derby retired, and his successor, Benjamin Disraeli, wanted Lord Cairns as lord chancellor.

Among these works were equestrian portraits of Queen Victoria and the prince consort, painted for Christ's Hospital ; the Prince of Wales ; an equestrian group of the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort ; Sidney Herbert, afterwards Lord Herbert of Lea ; Lord John Russell, afterwards Earl Russell ; Benjamin Disraeli, afterwards Earl of Beaconsfield ; General Sir James Hope Grant ; Sir George Grey ; Edward, earl of Derby, first lord of the treasury ; Lord Clyde ; Viscount Palmerston, painted for Harrow School ; Viscount Gough ; Lord Truro, lord high chancellor ; Sir Frederick Pollock, lord chief baron ; Sir William Erle, lord chief justice of the common pleas ; John Sumner, archbishop of Canterbury ; George Moberly, bishop of Salisbury ; and John Gibson Lockhart.

Disraeli turned towards literature after his financial disaster, motivated in part by a desperate need for money, and brought out his first novel, Vivian Grey, in 1826.

Furthermore, John Murray believed that Disraeli had caricatured him and abused his confidence – an accusation denied at the time, and by the official biography, although subsequent biographers ( notably Blake ) have sided with Murray.

A Young Disraeli by Francis Grant ( artist ) | Sir Francis Grant, 1852

The end of 1845 and the first months of 1846 were dominated by a battle in parliament between the free traders and the protectionists over the repeal of the Corn Laws, with the latter rallying around Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck.

An alliance of pro free-trade Conservatives ( the " Peelites "), Radicals, and Whigs carried repeal, and the Conservative Party split: the Peelites moved towards the Whigs, while a " new " Conservative Party formed around the protectionists, led by Disraeli, Bentinck, and Lord Stanley ( later Lord Derby ).

These negotiations were complicated by the sudden death of Lord George on 21 September 1848, but Disraeli obtained a loan of £ 25, 000 ( equivalent to about £ as of ) from Lord George's brothers Lord Henry Bentinck and Lord Titchfield.

At the start of the next session, affairs were handled by a triumvirate of Granby, Disraeli, and John Charles Herries – indicative of the tension between Disraeli and the rest of the party, who needed his talents but mistrusted the man.

More controversially, Disraeli also proposed to alter the workings of the income tax ( direct taxation ) by " differentiating "– i. e., different rates would be levied on different types of income.

Disraeli sought to alleviate this disadvantage by differentially raising income tax rates against non-farmers and lowering income taxes for the farmers.

After engineering the defeat of a Liberal Reform Bill introduced by Gladstone in 1866, Disraeli and Derby introduced their own measure in 1867.

An initial attempt by Disraeli to negotiate with Cardinal Manning the establishment of a Roman Catholic university in Dublin foundered in March when Gladstone moved resolutions to disestablish the Irish Church altogether.

There is also a memorial to Disraeli in the chancel in the church, erected in his honour by Queen Victoria.

In the 1874 general election Gladstone was defeated by the Conservatives under Disraeli during a sharp economic recession.

Although nominally a Conservative, Disraeli was sympathetic to some of the demands of the Chartists and argued for an alliance between the landed aristocracy and the working class against the increasing power of the middle class, helping to found the Young England group in 1842 to promote the view that the rich should use their power to protect the poor from exploitation by the middle class.

The government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, conferred the additional title upon her by an Act of Parliament, reputedly to assuage the monarch's irritation at being, as a mere Queen, notionally inferior to her own daughter ( Princess Victoria was the wife of the reigning German Emperor ); the Indian Imperial designation was also formally justified as the expression of Britain succeeding as paramount ruler of the subcontinent the former Mughal ' Padishah of Hind ', using indirect rule through hundreds of princely states formally under protection, not colonies, but accepting the British Sovereign as their suzerain.

However, the Gladstone Liberal government fell in 1874 before its entry into force, and the succeeding Disraeli Tory government suspended the entry into force of the Act by means of further Acts passed in 1874 and 1875.

Benjamin Disraeli and William Ewart Gladstone developed this new role further by projecting " images " of themselves to the public.