Character guide

Phineas Finn

major

Also known as Mr. Finn, Mr. Phineas Finn, Finn, Phineas, poor Phineas

Phineas has risen from a Dublin lodging to a parliamentary career, charming his way into Whig drawing-rooms while juggling loyalty to patrons, debts, and two women who love him differently. His fatal gift is earnestness in a world of calculation: he believes in measures and men, and both betray him. When a political quarrel curdles into deadly accusation, his survival depends on friends he never fully counted.

Lady Laura Kennedy

major

Also known as Lady Laura, Laura, Laura Kennedy, Kennedy, poor Lady Laura

Once the brilliant political hostess who launched Phineas's career, Laura is now estranged from her husband and consumed by a devotion she calls friendship but feels as passion. She has sacrificed everything for Phineas's interests while refusing to admit she sinned, only that she erred. Her fierce, self-justifying constancy makes her both his most powerful ally and the woman most dangerously entangled in his fate.

Gerard Maule

supporting

Also known as Gerard, Maule, Mr. Gerard Maule

Maule belongs to the easy, well-connected class that rides well, spends freely, and thinks about tomorrow only when a creditor knocks. He genuinely wants Adelaide, yet his lackadaisical drift leaves her waiting while a duller, more determined rival circles. His courtship becomes a quiet test of whether charm without purpose can win a woman who has already been warned what marriage to a Maule means.

Lord Chiltern

supporting

Also known as Chiltern, Dear Lord Chiltern

Chiltern is a red-haired, hot-tempered aristocrat whose one fixed idea is that Phineas Finn is innocent because Phineas rides to hounds. His loyalty is absolute and unsubtle, and his running war over Trumpeton Wood's foxes shows how he turns private grievance into public crusade. He matters because in a novel of courtroom and club-room intrigue, he is the rare man who acts on instinct rather than calculation.

Mr. Bonteen

supporting

Also known as Bonteen, Planty Pall, Planty, dreadful Mr. Bonteen

Bonteen is the kind of man who works a room, counts his intimacies, and measures every acquaintance by usefulness, so his near-promotion to Chancellor of the Exchequer only sharpens his sense of rank. He accuses Phineas of scuttling the ship and refuses to retract, nursing the quarrel with the injured dignity of a man who believes himself owed deference. His enmity turns political rivalry into something darker, and his name becomes the pivot on which the novel's central catastrophe turns.

Mr. Daubeny

supporting

Also known as Daubeny, V Mr. Daubeny

Daubeny is the cool, calculating head of the Tory party, willing to outbid the Liberals on their own reform measure because he can and they cannot. His strategy forces Phineas and the Duke to confront whether politics is a contest of principles or of maneuver, and whether a man should support a bill he thinks destructive. He never appears as a villain, only as the system's most honest operator, and that is what makes him unsettling.

Lady Chiltern

supporting

Also known as Chiltern, dear Lady Chiltern

Lady Chiltern presides over Harrington Hall with the ease of a woman who has survived her own turbulent courtship and now prefers to engineer everyone else's. She loves her husband beyond all things, yet keeps a tender, half-nostalgic loyalty to Phineas Finn, going so far as to summon Madame Max Goesler into the country on his behalf. Her cheerful matchmaking, however, may be less innocent than it looks, since she does not quite know how close that old acquaintance has been.

Barrington Erle

supporting

Also known as Mr. Ratler, Barrington, Ratler, Erle, Mr. Erle

Barrington Erle moves through clubs and lobbies as the party's quiet machinery, arranging dinners, pairing votes, and measuring men by their usefulness. His friendship with Phineas Finn is genuine but bounded by political calculation, and he is quick to report that the man who once faced a murder trial may never enter The Universe again. He matters because he embodies the world Phineas must re-enter, where loyalty is a commodity and a ruined reputation is a card still to be played.

Mr. Gresham

supporting

Also known as Gresham, the Gresham, Now Mr. Gresham

Mr. Gresham stands at the summit of the government, dispensing offices and expecting gratitude, yet his earlier decision to pass Phineas over in favour of Mr. Bonteen has left a wound that no Colonial Under-Secretaryship can quite heal. He is not a villain but a statesman, and his offer of Phineas's old place becomes the test of whether a proud man can forgive a great one. His authority shapes the political weather of the novel's middle stretch, even when he is offstage.

Madame Max Goesler

major

Also known as Madame Goesler, Madame, Marie Goesler, Marie

Madame Max Goesler has conquered London by wit, discretion, and a fortune she spends on others, becoming the old Duke of Omnium's devoted companion and Lady Glencora's particular friend. Everyone credits her with good nature and high spirit, but no one suspects her capable of reckless weeping, least of all for Phineas Finn, whose danger reduces her to hysterics she would never show the world. Her hidden love and her power to act make her the emotional hinge of the novel's central crisis.

Duchess of Omnium

supporting

Also known as Duchess, Lady Glencora, Glencora, Lady Glencora Palliser

The Duchess of Omnium is clever, indiscreet, and good-natured, a woman whose sharp eye for facts lets her see into hearts even when her own conduct is careless. She adores Madame Max Goesler and manages the old Duke between them, yet she can wound with a casual word, as when she pities Lady Laura more than the woman Phineas actually loves. Her instinct for staging scenes and her genuine affection make her both a benefactor and a hazard to the novel's central romance.

Adelaide Palliser

supporting

Also known as Adelaide, Palliser, Miss Palliser, Miss Adelaide Palliser

Adelaide Palliser arrives at Harrington Hall as a guest whose eligibility turns the house into a quiet battlefield, with the red-faced Mr. Spooner hovering and scheming for a private word. She is not vain but she is difficult to manage, watching the household's odd tensions with a half-formed suspicion that they concern her, and slipping off to the village to escape a proposal she has not been given. Her presence forces the question of what a woman with money and sense may choose for herself.

Mr. Low

minor

Also known as Low, Even Mr. Low

Phineas's former mentor and a barrister who advises him.

Mr. Spooner

minor

Also known as Spooner, Spooner of Spoon Hall, poor Mr. Spooner

A clumsy suitor to Adelaide Palliser, owner of Spoon Hall.

Quintus Slide

supporting

Also known as Mr. Slide, Slide, Mr. Quintus Slide

Slide is the kind of enemy a rising politician never sees coming: a man who buys ink by the barrel and knows exactly which reputations can be shredded for profit. His power lies in the gap between what is true and what can be printed, and he wields it without shame or scruple. In the novel's middle stretch, his vendetta against Phineas becomes one of the forces that turns a career into a crisis.

Robert Kennedy

supporting

Also known as Mr. Kennedy, Kennedy, poor Mr. Kennedy, Robert

Once a powerful MP and master of the magnificent Loughlinter estate, Kennedy now lives in near-total seclusion, his rivers unfished and his moors unshot, while his wife remains abroad to escape him. His marriage to Lady Laura was a transaction she came to loathe, and his hatred of Phineas Finn festers in the dark. His brooding isolation makes him a quiet, dangerous presence in the background of Phineas's return to political life.

Mr. Chaffanbrass

supporting

Also known as Chaffanbrass, old Chaffanbrass

Chaffanbrass is a legend of the criminal courts — a man who has spent decades dismantling witnesses and whose very name makes the guilty and the innocent alike uneasy. He is not a gentleman in the drawing-room sense, but he is a master of the only arena that matters when a life is on the line. When Phineas stands accused, the old barrister's merciless technique is the difference between the gallows and freedom.

Sir Gregory Grogram

minor

Also known as Grogram, Sir Gregory, Gregory Grogram

The Attorney General who prosecutes Phineas for murder.

Lord Fawn

minor

Also known as Fawn, poor Lord Fawn

A nervous government official who gives key evidence at the trial.

Mr. Monk

minor

Also known as Monk, the Right Honourable Mr. Monk

A senior Liberal statesman and Phineas's political ally.

Mr. Browborough

minor

Also known as Browborough, the unfortunate Mr. Browborough, poor Mr. Browborough

A corrupt MP whose bribery trial opens a seat for Phineas.

Lady Eustace

minor

Also known as Eustace, Lizzie Eustace, Lizzie, poor Lizzie Eustace

A beautiful and scheming widow involved with Mr. Emilius.

Lord Cantrip

minor

Also known as Cantrip

A cabinet minister and friend who supports Phineas.

Mr. Emilius

supporting

Also known as Emilius, the Reverend Mr. Emilius, Joseph Emilius

Emilius presents himself as a clergyman of earnest piety and continental polish, and London society — or a profitable slice of it — takes him at his own valuation. His marriage to a wealthy widow gives him the respectability he craves, but his history is a patchwork of convenient fictions. As suspicion gathers around the Bonteen affair, his carefully constructed respectability becomes one of the novel's most unsettling puzzles.

Plantagenet Palliser

supporting

Also known as Mr. Palliser, Palliser, Plantagenet

Palliser is the rare politician who cares more for decimal coinage and honest government than for the theatre of office, and his new dukedom only deepens his detachment from the snarls of lesser colleagues. He absorbs rudeness without noticing it and gives even his enemies credit for good intentions, which makes him seem weak to men like Bonteen. But when the little dog finally takes the big dog by the ear, Palliser's paw comes down — and the political landscape of the novel shifts.

Mr. Wickerby

minor

Also known as Wickerby

A solicitor who handles Phineas's legal affairs.

Mrs. Bunce

minor

Also known as Bunce, And Bunce

Phineas's loyal landlady who supports him during his trial.

Yosef Mealyus

minor

Also known as Mealyus, Yosef

A foreigner who provides a crucial alibi for Phineas.

Ned Spooner

minor

Also known as Mr. Edward Spooner, Ned, Mr. Spooner

A younger relative of Mr. Spooner, also interested in Adelaide.

Violet Effingham

minor

Also known as Violet

Now Lady Chiltern, Phineas's former love and loyal friend.

Mr. Bunce

minor

Mrs. Bunce's husband, a rough but honest man.

Laurence Fitzgibbon

minor

Also known as Fitzgibbon, Laurence, the Honourable Laurence Fitzgibbon

An Irish MP and friend of Phineas, often in financial trouble.

Lady Baldock

minor

Also known as Baldock, This Lady Baldock

A conservative society matron and relative of Lady Laura.

Mr. Turnbull

minor

Also known as Turnbull

A radical MP and political opponent of Phineas.

George Kennedy

minor

Also known as Mr. George Kennedy, Kennedy, George

Robert Kennedy's brother, who manages the estate.

Mr. Molescroft

minor

Also known as Molescroft

A great attorney from Tankerville who advises Phineas.

Lady Hartletop

minor

Also known as Dear Lady Hartletop, Old Lady Hartletop

An elderly society figure and friend of the Duchess.

Sir Harry Coldfoot

minor

Also known as Sir Henry Coldfoot, Sir Harry

A government minister involved in the political maneuvering.

The Old Duke of Omnium

minor

Also known as the Duke of Omnium, Duke, The late Duke

The elderly former Duke, now in his second childhood.

Mrs. Meager

minor

Also known as the Meager

Mr. Meager's wife, mother of a key witness.

Earl of Brentford

minor

Also known as Earl, the old Earl, the Earl, Brentford

Lady Laura's father, a former cabinet minister.

Tom Spooner

minor

Also known as Thomas Platter Spooner, Thomas Spooner, Tom

Another Spooner relative, a young man about town.

Duke of St. Bungay

minor

Also known as the Duke of St. Bungay, St. Bungay, Duke

An elder statesman and advisor to the Liberal party.

Mr. Scruby

minor

A solicitor involved in the Browborough bribery case.

Mr. Roby

minor

Also known as Roby

A Conservative whip and political operative.

Sir Omicron Pie

minor

Also known as Sir Omicron

A doctor who testifies about Robert Kennedy's sanity.

Miss Meager

minor

Also known as Meager

Daughter of the Meager family, a witness in the case.

Colonel Mowbray Dick

minor

Also known as Mowbray Dick

A military man and friend of Lord Chiltern.

Viscount Fawn

minor

Lord Fawn's formal title.

Mr. Ruddles

minor

Also known as Ruddles

Phineas's election agent in Tankerville.

Mrs. Maule

minor

Also known as Mr. and Mrs. Maule

Gerard Maule's mother, concerned about his marriage prospects.

Lord Brentford

minor

Lady Laura's father, the Earl of Brentford.

Mr. Meager

minor

Also known as Meager

A poor man whose daughter is involved in the murder case.

Mrs. Low

minor

Also known as Poor Mrs. Low

Mr. Low's wife, who disapproves of Phineas's political life.

Mr. Fothergill

minor

Also known as Fothergill, poor Mr. Fothergill

The Duke of Omnium's agent at Matching.

Mrs. Macpherson

minor

Also known as Macpherson

Owner of the hotel where Phineas stays in London.

Sir Orlando Drought

minor

Also known as Sir Orlando

A Conservative MP and political figure.

Lady Cantrip

minor

Wife of Lord Cantrip, a society hostess.

Mr. Boffin

minor

A minor political figure and MP.

Major Mackintosh

minor

A police officer involved in the murder investigation.

Mr. Forster

minor

Also known as Forster

A barrister involved in the trial proceedings.

Sir Simon Slope

minor

Also known as Slope, Sir Simon

A judge who presides over Phineas's trial.

Mrs. Atterbury

minor

A friend of Madame Goesler's in Vienna.

Lady Glen

minor

A nickname for Lady Glencora Palliser.

Mr. Troddles

minor

Also known as Troddles

A minor political figure and MP.

Mr. Mildmay

minor

Also known as poor old Mildmay, Dear old Mildmay, dear old Mr. Mildmay

A former Liberal Prime Minister, now retired.

Lady Gertrude Fitzaskerley

minor

Also known as Lady Gertrude

A society lady and friend of the Duchess.

Amelia Robsart

minor

Also known as Amelia, Amy Robsart

A young woman briefly mentioned in connection with Lord Fawn.

Adelaide Muggins

minor

Also known as Adelaide

A woman jokingly suggested as a match for Mr. Spooner.

Mr. Gadmire

minor

Also known as Gadmire

A minor character involved in the hunting set.

Laura Standish

minor

Also known as Lady Laura Standish

Lady Laura's maiden name, used in early references.

Miss Fitzgibbon

minor

Laurence Fitzgibbon's sister.

Lord Mount Thistle

minor

A minor peer and political figure.

Baron Boultby

minor

Also known as Mr. Baron Boultby

A judge who presides over the Browborough trial.

Mr. Pickering

minor

Also known as Pickering

A lawyer involved in the legal proceedings.

Legge Wilson

minor

Also known as Legge

A friend of Lord Cantrip's.

Lord Drummond

minor

A minor political figure.

Mr. Parkinson Seymour

minor

A minor character mentioned in political contexts.