Excerpt from A History of Modern England, Vol. 5 of 5 Leader of the Conservative party as a whole. Sir Stafford Northcote led it in the House of Commons, and Lord Salisbury in the House of Peers. Sir Stafford was twelve years older than his colleague, and had been nominated by Lord Beaconsfield to his own vacant place in 1876. The Queen, however, sent at once for Lord Salisbury, and her choice un doubtedly fulfilled the expectation of the public. Lord Salisbury had not merely been Lord Derby's successor at the Foreign Office and Lord Beacons field's colleague at Berlin. He had become a great power on the platform, and was by far the most efl'ective critic of Mr. Gladstone's Administration. But when he arrived at Balmoral, he began to make excuse. He had, he explained to the Queen, no majority, and at the same time he would not be able, as the Redistribution Bill was Virtually passed, to dissolve Parliament before November. While, therefore, he and his friends were in the abstract ready to form a Government, it would be impossible for them to do so in the circumstances of the case unless Mr. Gladstone would give them specific and definite pledges. They must be allowed to wind up the session as soon as they could, to take votes in Supply when ever they pleased, and to borrow that part of the deficit for which an eightpenny income tax did not provide. Lord Salisbury seems to have thought that it was exceedingly good of him to become Prime Minister, and that he was entitled to impose upon the House of Commons such terms as he pleased. Mr. Gladstone did not see the matter in the same light, and refused to fetter the liberty of the House. Lord Salisbury then threw up his Commission, and the Court returned to Windsor, not before it was time. The Queen sent for Mr. Gladstone, and suggested a possible compromise. Knowing his extreme reluctance to resume office. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.