ABSTRACT
In the Parliamentary arena, Gladstone's stroke was masterful. Lord Derby and Disraeli had driven the Russell Gladstone government from office in 1866 by playing on the disagreements among its supporters over Russell's Parliamentary Reform Bill. The fortunes of the Church of England had been closely linked to its Irish sister. Since there had been one outstanding instance of legislation tried out on the Irish Church and then applied to England: the Irish Church Temporalities Act of 1833 provided precedent for the formation of the Ecclesiastical Commission in England shortly afterwards. Of all the ecclesiastical parties within the Church only the evangelicals were united in opposition to Gladstone's policy. In addition to being the most stoutly anti-papist of English churchmen, most evangelicals were Whig politically, their day in the sun had come under Palmerston, and they felt little sympathy for the new Liberalism emerging under Gladstone's leadership. Broad churchmen leant towards Liberalism in politics as in theology.
