and spoke frequently on foreign policy matters as a cross-bencher. In 1869 he was made a Knight of the Garter. During the Eastern Crisis of the 1870s, Stratford wrote frequent letters in The Times on the subject. In September 1876 William Ewart Gladstone dedicated his pamphlet "Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East" to him. Family Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was twice married. His first wife, Harriet daughter to Thomas and Harriet Raikes, died in her 27th year at Lausanne in February 1817, probably in childbirth. His second wife, Eliza Charlotte Alexander (1805–1882), bore him (at least) five children of whom four survived to adulthood. These were: Hon. Louisa Charlotte Canning (1828–1908) Hon. George Stratford Canning (1832–1878) Hon. Catherine Jane Canning (1835–1884) Hon. Mary Elizabeth Canning (1837–1905) All his children died unmarried. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe himself died at the age of 93 in 1880, his peerage becoming extinct. He is buried underneath a large very grey monument on the western side of the grave yard at Frant in Sussex, England. Reputation As ambassador to the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Sultan, Stratford Canning played a major role in high level diplomacy, since Britain was the chief supporter, advocate and protector of the Ottoman Empire. Winston Churchill said he had "a wider knowledge of Turkey than any other Englishmen of his day," Alfred, Lord Tennyson, said he was "the voice of England in the East." The Turks called him "the Great Ambassador." Portraits In 1879, by then an invalid aged over ninety, Stratford de Redcliffe was painted by Hubert Herkomer for King's College, Cambridge. Herkomer painted him in a black coat, wearing his Orders, and later recalled that he had found Stratford de Redcliffe "still vigorous in mind, dwelling chiefly on subjects of a poetic and philosophical nature." On one occasion, the sun had caught a cloth shoe on a gouty foot, and Stratford de Redcliff had commented that it was "kind of old Phoebus to shine on an old boot." See also International relations of the Great Powers (1814–1919) History of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom Arms References Further reading Byrne, Leo Gerald. The great ambassador: a study of the diplomatic career of the Right Honourable Stratford Canning, KG, GCB, viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, and the epoch during which he served as the British ambassador to the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Sultan (Ohio State UP,