whigs, the other by dexterity
and resolution overthrew his leaders as "the old gang."

Chapter XII. Accession Of Lord Salisbury. (1885)

Politics are not a drama where scenes follow one another according
to a methodical plan, where the actors exchange forms of speech,
settled beforehand: politics are a conflict of which chance is
incessantly modifying the whole course.--SOREL.

I

In tendering his resignation to the Queen on the day following his
parliamentary defeat (June 9), and regretting that he had been unable to
prepare her for the result, Mr. Gladstone explained that though the
government had always been able to cope with the combined tory and
nationalist oppositions, what had happened on this occasion was the silent
withdrawal, under the pressure of powerful trades, from the government
ranks of liberals who abstained from voting, while six or seven actually
voted with the majority. "There was no previous notice," he said, "and it
was immediately before the division that Mr. Gladstone was apprised for
the first time of the likelihood of a defeat." The suspicions hinted that
ministers, or at least some of them, unobtrusively contrived their own
fall. Their supporters, it was afterwards remarked, received none of those
imperative adjurations to return after dinner that are usual on solemn
occasions; else there could never have been seventy-six absentees. The
majority was composed of members of the tory party, six liberals, and
thirty-nine nationalists. Loud was the exultation of the latter contingent
at the prostration of the coercion system. What was natural exultation in
them, may have taken the form of modest satisfaction among many liberals,
that they could go to the country without the obnoxious label of coercion
tied round their necks. As for ministers, it was observed that if in the
streets you saw a man coming along with a particularly elastic step and a
joyful frame of (M80) countenance, ten to one on coming closer you would
find that it was a member of the late cabinet.(124)

The ministerial crisis of 1885 was unusually prolonged, and it was
curious. The victory had been won by a coalition with the Irish; its
fruits could only be reaped with Irish support; and Irish support was to
the tory victors both dangerous and compromising. The normal process of a
dissolution was thought to be legally impossible, because by the
redistribution bill the existing constituencies were f