For the state of disorganization and discontent in the Liberal Party during the next ten years of opposition see LIBERAL PARTY. The breach between William Harcourt and Rosebery had never been healed, and Rosebery found himself also, to his great grief, at variance with Gladstone. He declined to support Gladstone's demand for intervention on behalf of the Armenians at the risk of a European war, and on Oct. 8, 1896, he announced to the Liberal whip, Thomas Ellis, his resignation of the Liberal leader ship. For some time he held aloof from party politics, "ploughing his furrow alone," as he afterwards phrased it.
In 1898, on the death of Gladstone, he paid a noble and eloquent tribute in the House of Lords to the life and public services of his old leader. He gave a general support to the policy of the Salis bury government on the South African War. But the war had brought to the front a section antagonistic to the war and known in the jargon of the day as pro-Boers. These had won the qualified support of Campbell-Bannerman, the leader in the House of Corn mons. Lord Rosebery maintained for the most part a sphinx-like seclusion, but in July 1901 he at last came forward strongly as the champion of the Liberal Imperialist section of the party, which included Asquith, Grey and Haldane. At a meeting at Chester field (Dec. 1901), he spoke of "cleaning the slate" of the old party cries, and eventually spoke of his separation from the "tabernacle" of Campbell-Bannerman. But the main body of the party stood by Campbell-Bannerman, and a partial reconciliation was effected. Chamberlain's tariff reform campaign helped to bring the Liberal Imperialists nearer to the rest of the party. Rosebery's own pronouncements on the tariff issue were hesitat ing, and to some extent contradictory. But though he eventually came into line with his colleagues on tariff reform, he finally broke with Campbell-Bannerman on the question of Home Rule for Ireland. On the fall of the Conservative government in Dec. 1905, Campbell-Bannerman was invited to form a cabinet, and Rosebery retired from party politics, though he encouraged his immediate associates to join the new government.
Rosebery continued eloquent and witty addresses on miscel laneous subjects. No public man of his time was more fitted to act as unofficial national orator; none more happy in the touches with which he could adorn a social or literary topic and charm a non political audience ; and on occasion he wrote as well as he spoke. His Pitt (1891) was already a classic ; his Appreciations and Addresses and his Peel (containing a remarkable comment on the position of an English prime minister) were published in 1899; his Napoleon: the Last Phase—an ingenious, if paradoxical attempt to justify Napoleon's conduct in exile at St. Helena—in 1900 ; his Cromwell in the same year.
Lord Rosebery took an active part in the constitutional crisis in 1910 and 1911. He treated the Parliament Bill as a revolu tionary measure, which in effect constituted single-chamber gov ernment, and did his utmost to arouse the nation to its danger. In 1914, as lord-lieutenant of Midlothian and Linlithgowshire he promoted recruiting and other war-like activities among his own people. He was chancellor of Glasgow university in 1908, as he had long been chancellor of London university, and he was chosen lord rector of St. Andrew's university for the year of its quincen tenary celebration in 1911.
Lord Rosebery had two sons and two daughters. His eldest son, Lord Dalmeny (b. Jan. 1882), entered parliament in 1906 as Liberal member for Midlothian, but retired in 191o. The younger son, Neil Primrose (1882-1917) was undersecretary for the Foreign Office in 1915 and parliamentary secretary for munitions in 1916. He died of wounds received in action in Palestine on Nov. 18, 1917. The elder daughter, Lady Sybil, in 1903 married Captain Charles Grant ; the younger, Lady Margaret, in 1899 married the ist earl of Crewe. Lord Rosebery died at Epsom, Surrey, May 21, 1929.