Note 69 — Chapter XXVIII · THE LAST YEAR OF “THE GREAT PEACE.”
Reading edition
It is worth while to recall this fact. After the resignation of Mr. Gladstone in 1886, when the Tory Party attempted to form a Coalition Ministry under Lord Hartington as Premier, and Lord Salisbury as Foreign Secretary, the project was defended on the plea, that just as the Whigs in 1852 bought up a small but powerful faction of Peelites, by giving their leader the Premiership, so should the Tories in 1886 buy up the small but powerful section of Liberal “Unionists” by putting Lord Hartington at the head of affairs. The argument, it will be seen, was based on a complete ignorance of party history and of the ideas and policy of the Court in 1852, because it was for other reasons altogether that Lord Aberdeen was elevated to the Premiership.