 Lord Ailesbury was on the independent benches in the House of Lords, but he had liberal leanings, supporting the Whig governments.On 1 Feb 1849 he responded to the Queen's loyal address "...if not that, pursuing so unusual a course, he might appear to be acting disrespectfully towards their lordships, and perhaps to some degree towards Her Majesty..." He supported the reformist agenda of the Whig government particularly in foreign relations.He was strongly in favour of Palmerston's gunboat diplomacy, and supported a joint taskforce with France to bombard Naples and Sicily to end the atrocities there in 1849.