In April of this year Garibaldi visited Farringford; in Feb. 1865 Tennyson's mother died at Hampstead in her 85th year; in the ensuing summer he travelled in Germany. The time slipped by with incidents but few and slight, Tennyson's popularity in Great Britain growing all the time to an extent unparalleled in the whole annals of English poetry. This universality of fame led to considerable practical discomfort ; he was besieged by sightseers, and his nervous trepidation led him perhaps to exag gerate the intensity of the infliction. In 1867 he determined to make for himself a haven of refuge against the invading Philistine, and bought some land on Blackdown, above Haslemere, then a secluded corner of England; here Mr. (afterwards Sir) James Knowles began to build him a house, ultimately named Aldworth. This is the time of two of his rare, privately printed pamphlets, The Window; or, the Loves of the Wrens (1867), and The Victim (1868).
The noble poem Lucretius, one of the greatest of Tennyson's versified monographs, appeared in May 1868, and in this year The Holy Grail was at last finished; it was published in 1869. together with three other idylls belonging to the Arthurian epic, and various miscellaneous lyrics, besides Lucretius. The recep tion of this volume was cordial, but not so universally respectful as that which Tennyson had grown to expect from his adoring public. The fact was that the heightened reputation of Browning, and still more the sudden vogue of Swinburne, Morris and Rossetti (1866 70), considerably disturbed the minds of Tennyson's most ardent readers, and exposed himself to a severer criticism than he had lately been accustomed to endure. His next volume (1872), Gareth and Lynette and The Last Tournament, continued, and, as he then supposed, concluded The Idylls of the King, and for the time being he dismissed it from his mind. In 1873 he was offered a baronetcy by Gladstone, and again by Disraeli in 1874; in each case the honour was gracefully declined.
Believing that his work with the romantic Arthurian epics was concluded, Tennyson now turned his attention to the drama. He put before him a scheme of illustrating "the making of England" by a series of great historical tragedies. His Queen Mary, the first of these chronicle-plays was published in 1875, and played by Sir Henry Irving at the Lyceum in 1876. Although it was full of admirably dramatic writing, it failed on the stage. Extremely pertinacious in this respect, the poet went on attempting to storm the theatre, with assault upon assault, all practically failures until the seventh and last, which was unfortunately posthumous. Mean while Harold, a tragedy of doom, was published in 1876; but, though perhaps the finest of its author's dramas, it was not staged. During these years Tennyson's thoughts were largely occupied with the building of Aldworth. His few lyrics were spirited bal lads of adventure, inspired by an exalted patriotism—"The Re venge" (1878), "The Defence of Lucknow" (1879)—but he reprinted and finally published his old suppressed poem, The Lover's Tale, and a little play of his, The Falcon, versified out of Boccaccio, was produced by the Kendals in 1879.
In 188o, when he was over 70, he published the earliest of six important collections of lyrics, this being entitled Ballads and other Poems, and containing the sombre and magnificent "Rizpah." In 1881 The Cup and in 1882 The Promise of May, two little plays, were produced without substantial success in London theatres: the second of these is perhaps the least successful of all the poet's longer writings, but its failure annoyed him unreason ably. In September 1883 Tennyson and Gladstone set out on a voyage round the north of Scotland, to Orkney, and across the ocean to Norway and Denmark. At Copenhagen they were enter tained by the king and queen, and after much feting, returned to Gravesend : this adventure served to cheer the poet, who had been in low spirits since the death of his favourite brother Charles, and who now renewed his vigour. During the voyage Gladstone had determined to offer Tennyson a peerage. After some demur, the poet consented to accept it, but added, "For my own part, I shall regret my simple name all my life." On March 11, 1884, he took his seat in the House of Lords as Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Farringford. He voted twice, but never spoke in the House. In the autumn of this year his tragedy of Becket was published, but the poet at last despaired of the stage, and dis claimed any hope of "meeting the exigencies of our modern theatre." Curiously enough, after his death Becket was the one of all his plays which enjoyed a great success on the boards.