ABSTRACT
The great majority of the one hundred Irish seats would be captured by men who would be under Charles Stewart Parnell’s command, and he would use his power relentlessly in order to impose his will upon Parliament. The great demonstration in the House of Commons was followed by innumerable demonstrations throughout the country, which manifested and confirmed the political alliance between Parnell and the followers of the Grand Old Man. William Ewart Gladstone was aware that the Parliamentary ambush to which he owed the fall of his Government was the result of a conspiracy between the Conservatives and Parnell. The Speaker of the House of Commons announced, while the Members listened in tense and breathless silence, the result of the division on Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill. In the meantime Parnell had put an affront upon them of whose seriousness he seemed to be wholly unaware.
