Gladstone's opposition to Spencer's policy, following the recommendations of the sea lords, of naval expansion, led to Gladstone's final resignation in March 1894.

Britain won virtually all the major battles of this war, and in the final settlement, the Treaty of Gandamak, saw a government installed which was both by personality and law receptive to British demands ; however, the human and material costs and relative brutality of the brief guerilla war ( the war resulted in great loss of life on all sides, including civilians ) became major issues in the defeat of Disraeli's Conservative government by Gladstone's Liberals in 1880.

The contemporary diarist Charles Greville wrote of Gladstone's speech:

At a lull in Gladstone's speech, Palmerston would smile, rap the table with his knuckles, and interject pointedly, " Now, my Lords and gentlemen, let us go to business ".

On 10 January 1881, Lytton made his maiden speech in the House of Lords, in which he joined others in attacking Gladstone's Afghan policy.

His speech on Gladstone's Suspensory Bill was afterwards published as a pamphlet, but the attitude which he and the peers who followed him had taken up, in insisting on their amendments to the preamble of the bill, was one difficult to maintain, and Lord Cairns made terms with Lord Granville in circumstances which precluded his consulting his party first.

( Gladstone's speech on the First Home Rule Bill had beseeched parliament not to reject it ).

The first bill, with Gladstone's Irish Home Rule speech beseeching parliament to pass the Irish Government Bill 1886 and grant Home Rule to Ireland in honour rather than being compelled to one day in humiliation, was defeated in the Commons by 30 votes ; while the second Irish Government Bill 1893 was passed, but then defeated in the Lords.

* Gladstone's Irish Home Rule speech ( beseech in its favour )

With Gladstone's refusal Derby and Disraeli looked elsewhere and settled on Disraeli's old friend Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who became Secretary of State for the Colonies ; Derby's son Lord Stanley, succeeded Ellenborough at the Board of Control.

In 1873 Bruce relinquished the home secretaryship, at Gladstone's request, to become Lord President of the Council, and was raised to the peerage as Baron Aberdare, of Duffryn in the County of Glamorgan, on 23 August that year.

Gladstone's budget of 1860 was introduced on 10 February along with the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty between Britain and France that would reduce tariffs between the two countries.

Gladstone's popularity rested on his taxation policies which meant to his supporters balance, social equity and political justice.

in 1868 Gladstone proposed the Irish Church Resolutions to reunite the Liberal Party for government ( on the issue of disestablishment of the Church of Ireland – this would be done during Gladstone's First Government in 1869 and meant that Irish Roman Catholics did not need to pay their tithes to the Anglican Church of Ireland ).

Gladstone's first premiership instituted reforms in the British Army, Civil Service, and local government to cut restrictions on individual advancement.

Gladstone's proposals went some way to meet working-class demands, such as the realisation of the free breakfast table through repealing the duties on tea and sugar, and reform of local taxation which was increasing for the poorer ratepayers.

The working-class newspapers were taken by surprise at the news and had little time to express an opinion on Gladstone's manifesto before the election was over.

The House of Commons adjourned on the afternoon of Gladstone's death, with A. J. Balfour giving notice for an Address to the Queen praying for a public funeral and a public memorial in Westminster Abbey.

In December 1916 on unveiling a statue of Gladstone, Lord Rosebery speculated that Gladstone's view of British involvement in the Great War would not have been favourable.

Thomas Edison's European agent, Colonel Gouraud, recorded Gladstone's voice several times on phonograph.

But Gladstone's son, Home Secretary Herbert Gladstone, angered the King by planning to permit Roman Catholic priests in vestments to carry the Host through the streets of London, and by appointing two ladies, Lady Frances Balfour and Mrs H. J. Tennant, to serve on a Royal Commission on reforming divorce law – Edward thought divorce could not be discussed with " delicacy or even decency " before ladies.

Gladstone's first outdoor Chautauqua was held on July 24 – 26, 1894.

He details a previous derivation, which appears in English at least as early as William Gladstone's Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age.

Chamberlain's renewed scheme for National Councils was not discussed in Cabinet, and only on 13 March were Gladstone's proposals for Ireland revealed.

Parnell issued a manifesto ' To the people of Ireland ' on 29 November saying a section of the party had lost its independence, and Gladstone's terms for Home Rule were inadequate.

Cavendish married, on 7 June 1864, Lucy Caroline Lyttelton, second daughter of George Lyttelton, 4th Baron Lyttelton, granddaughter of Sir Stephen Glynne and niece of William Ewart Gladstone's wife Catherine.

Spencer and his new chief secretary, Gladstone's nephew and Hartington's brother Lord Frederick Cavendish, crossed to Ireland on 5 May, but Cavendish and the permanent under-secretary Thomas Henry Burke, were murdered by extremist Irish nationalists the next day in Phoenix Park, Dublin, while walking to the Viceregal Lodge where Spencer was staying.

In 1874, when Gladstone published his pamphlet on The Vatican Decrees, Lord Acton wrote during November and December a series of remarkable letters to The Times, illustrating Gladstone's main theme by numerous historical examples of papal inconsistency, in a way which must have been bitter enough to the ultramontane party, but ultimately disagreeing with Gladstone's conclusion and insisting that the Church itself was better than its premises implied.

That Chamberlain was speaking against Gladstone's Second Home Rule Bill does not seem to have dampened the enthusiasm of the Prime Minister, who responded by publicly congratulating both Austen and his father Joseph on such an excellent performance.

* Excerpt from Gladstone's The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance: a Political Expostulation at Victorian Web

Jessel entered Parliament as Liberal Party member for Dover in 1868, and although neither his intellect nor his oratory was of a class likely to commend itself to his fellow-members, he attracted William Ewart Gladstone's attention by two learned speeches on the Bankruptcy Bill which was before the house in 1869, with the result that in 1871 he was appointed Solicitor General.

In 1881 Goldie sought a charter from Gladstone's government but his attempts failed.

During the interval between the fall of Gladstone's second government and the beginning of his third, in February 1886, Spencer became a convert to Irish Home Rule, unlike most of the other leading Whigs, who deserted to Liberal Unionism.

Here, he claims to be an artist attached to Gladstone's staff in an attempt to provide an artistic view of the beginning of the war for Hyperion, which is under attack by the Ousters.

A dispute over the amount to be paid to Collings, Chamberlain's Parliamentary Secretary, worsened relations between Gladstone and Chamberlain, although the latter still hoped that he could alter or block Gladstone's Home Rule proposal in Cabinet, so that his programme of Radicalism could be given more attention.

It brought better relations with the United States, and it was innovative in supporting Gladstone's wish to settlement British-American fisheries and Civil War disputes over the Confederate cruisers built in Britain, like the Alabama, through international arbitration in 1872.

In the contest which arose over William Ewart Gladstone's Home Rule bill, Lord Randolph again bore a conspicuous part, and in the electioneering campaign his activity was only second to that of some of the Liberal Unionists, Lord Hartington, George Goschen and Joseph Chamberlain.

When Gladstone died in 1898, Grosvenor presided over a Gladstone National Memorial committee that commissioned statues of him, and rebuilt Gladstone's St Deiniol's Library at Hawarden in north Wales.

In February 1886 he became Secretary for Scotland and Vice-President of the Scottish Education Department in Gladstone's third administration, but resigned in March over Irish Home Rule.

He then revised his views on politics and revived his political career as a Conservative in Britain, but in the circumstances of the struggle over Gladstone's Home Rule Bill, his previous position meant that he was distrusted by strong Unionists.

His name became principally connected with his influence over Robert Lowe, 1st Viscount Sherbrooke in 1866 at the time of Gladstone's Reform Bill, to which he and Lowe were hostile ; and it was in describing the Lowe-Horsman combination that John Bright spoke of the " Cave of Adullam ".

In April 1886 he succeeded George Trevelyan ( who had resigned over Irish Home Rule ) as Secretary for Scotland in Gladstone's short-lived 1886 administration, although in contrast to Trevelyan he was not a member of the cabinet.

These fears apparently became real when Gladstone's government resigned over the budget.