ABSTRACT
Towards the end of his career in Constantinople, Lowther knew very well that (in his wife’s words) he was facing ‘extinction’. In the Foreign Office he was certainly regarded as a failure; and that view was shared by Hardinge. A change in the Constantinople Embassy, he wrote to Parker (among others), was ‘badly’ needed. ‘Had I remained at the Foreign Office, I am sure that I should have cut [Lowther’s Embassy] short earlier. From what I hear the whole staff ought to be changed, as they are known to have an anti-Turkish bias, which they do not attempt to conceal.’ Speculation was now rife as to the new Ambassador. Hardinge felt it might be Townley, the Minister in Tehran; Fitzmaurice would not have minded de Bunsen or Townley, but would have neither Bax-Ironside nor Sir Arthur Hardinge, the Minister in Lisbon; even Nicolson and Kitchener had been mentioned in Embassy circles. Mallet’s appointment came, so Nicolson said, as a ‘great surprise’, but was nevertheless considered to be a ‘very good one’. 1
