Annotation;1. Derby redivivus : reflections on the political achievement of the fourteenth Earl of Derby / Angus Hawkins -- 2. The ultimate test : the fourteenth Earl, the admiralty and the ministry of 1852 / Andrew Lambert -- 3. The fourteenth Earl and the 'political chameleon' : changing views of Palmerston from Knowsley / David Brown -- 4. The struggle for stability : the fourteenth Earl and Europe, 1852-1868 / Geoffrey Hicks -- 5. 'Only wants quiet riding'? Disraeli, the fifteenth Earl of Derby and the 'war-in-sight' crisis / T.G. Otte -- 6. Britain's 'most isolationist foreign secretary' : the fifteenth Earl and the eastern crisis 1876-1878 / Bendor Grosvenor -- 7. Crossing the floor : Mary Derby, the fifteenth Earl and the liberals, 1878-1882 / Jennifer Davey -- 8. Oiling the entente : the seventeenth Earl of Derby and the Paris embassy, 1918-1920 / David Dutton -- 9. Traditions of conservative foreign policy / John Charmley.