career Aided by his wife's fortune, in 1880 Flower entered Parliament for Brecon, a seat he held until 1885 when the constituency was abolished, and then represented Luton until 1892. He served briefly as a Junior Lord of the Treasury from February to July 1886 in the third Liberal administration of William Ewart Gladstone. He was widely referred to as "the most handsome man in the House of Commons", and was a great favourite of Gladstone who, in 1892, raised him to the peerage as Baron Battersea of Battersea in the County of London and of Overstrand in the County of Norfolk. He took the motto Flores curat Deus ("God cares for the flowers"). In 1893 Battersea was offered the governorship of New South Wales. However he sacrificially turned it down due to the separation it would have imposed on Lady Battersea from her mother, who also enjoyed his company. He was president of the National Education Association as late as 1902, when the association was heavily involved in debating the Education Bill. Patron of the arts Apart from his property development and political career he was also a great collector and patron of art. He was a patron of James McNeill Whistler and was involved with the Pre-Raphaelite set. His bedroom in his London residence was one of the few interiors completed by Carlo Bugatti. Personal life In 1877 Battersea married Constance, daughter of Sir Anthony de Rothschild, whom he met in 1864 through his friendship with her cousin, Leopold de Rothschild. The marriage was childless. Battersea favoured men: a close friend and possible lover was the psychical researcher Frederic W. H. Myers. Other friends included Henry James and Sir Edward Burne-Jones. There are indications that Lady Battersea disapproved of some of his friends, and in her memoirs she cautiously comments that she had intuitively felt that "some of the very ardent and sudden likings he occasionally took to certain persons might lead to misplaced friendship". Battersea maintained a broad range of other interests, as a politician, art collector, sportsman, and photographer, and had a love for decoration and had a love for bright colour, both in his houses and on his person. At Overstrand he was described as appearing "a gorgeous vision of pale blue, sea-green, or rose-coloured silk". Wrote another: "He is a handsome man, but at times affects costumes which would make him more at home