placed in the chair in
preference to the Ministerial candidate. As the session went on, Lord
John's resources in attack grew more and more marked, but he was foiled
by the lack of cohesion amongst his followers. It became evident that,
unless all sections of the Opposition were united as one man, the
Government of Sir Robert Peel could not be overthrown. Alliance with the
Radicals and the Irish party, although hateful to the old-fashioned
Whigs, was in fact imperative. Lord John summoned a meeting of the
Opposition at Lord Lichfield's house; the support of the Radicals and
Irish was secured, and then the leader marshalled his forces for what he
hoped would prove a decisive victory. His expectations were not
disappointed, for early in April he brought forward a motion for the
appropriation of the surplus revenues of the Irish Church to general
moral and religious purposes, and won with a majority of twenty-seven
votes (285 to 258). Sir Robert Peel forthwith resigned, and the Whigs
were avenged for their cavalier dismissal by the King.

On the day after the Prime Minister's resignation, Lord John Russell was
married--April 11, 1835, at St. George's, Hanover Square--to Adelaide,
Lady Ribblesdale, the widow of the second bearer of that title. The
respite from political strife was of short duration, for at the end of
forty-eight hours he was summoned from Woburn to take the seals of the
Home Office in the second Melbourne Administration. The members of the
new Cabinet presented themselves to their constituents for re-election,
and Lord John suffered defeat in Devonshire. A seat was, however, found
for him at Stroud, and in May he was back again in the House of Commons.
The first measure of importance introduced by him, on June 5, was the
Municipal Reform Act--a measure which embodied the results of the
Commission on the subject appointed by Lord Grey. The bill swept away a
host of antiquated and absurd privileges of corporate cities and towns,
abolished the authority of cliques of freemen, rectified a variety of
abuses, and entrusted municipal government to the hands of all
taxpayers. Lord John piloted the measure through the Commons, and fought
almost single-handed the representatives of vested rights. After a long
contest with the Opposition and the Lords, he had the satisfaction of
passing the bill, in a somewhat modified form, through its final stages
in September, though the Peers, as usual, opposed it as long as they