There is a statue of Lord Castlereagh (1769–1822) in Westminster Abbey, but the inscription on his grave nearby has, with perfect melancholy symbolism, worn away. With the exception of the Irish, who forget nothing, Castlereagh is usually remembered, if at all, only for fighting a duel with a cabinet colleague and for committing suicide with a penknife, the sole British foreign secretary to have done so, by that or any other method.

Mainstream historians who prefer to run no risks might add that Castlereagh was a wicked reactionary, author of the policies that generated the insults that have kept his name alive in literature, if nowhere else. Byron labeled him an “intellectual eunuch”—a sneer made all the more cutting by his target’s childlessness—and rejoiced at his suicide: “Here lie the bones of Castlereagh/ Stop, traveler, and piss.”

Shelley, not to be out-Michael Moored, had this to say in the aftermath of the bloody suppression of calls for parliamentary reform:

I met Murder on the way – He had a mask like Castlereagh –
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:
All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed them human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.

Henry Kissinger, however, is something of a fan.

Castlereagh, with Metternich, was the subject of Kissinger’s first book, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Problems of Peace