Page "Robert Peel" Paragraph 25

The historian Boyd Hilton argues Peel knew from 1844 he was going to be deposed as Conservative leader — many of his MPs had taken to voting against him and the rupture within the party between liberals and paternalist which had been so damaging in the 1820s, but masked by the issue of reform in the 1830s was brought to the surface over the Corn Laws.

Hilton's hypothesis is that Peel wished to actually be deposed on a liberal issue so that he might later lead a Peelite / Whig / Liberal alliance.