'A Scot of the Scots,' General Wauchope was a man of many parts. Great in arms, he was equally great in the arts of peace; and in the political world, strangely enough, he carved out for himself a reputation quite unique. Though his countrymen were naturally proud of his distinguished services as a soldier, they knew him also, it has been well said, as the man who by pertinacious pluck and sweet conciliation brought down Mr. Gladstone's majority in the county of Midlothian. Liberal politicians both in England and Scotland will not have forgotten the horrified astonishment with which they read the figures of the poll in that county at the General Election of 1892. Mr. Gladstone had been returned for the metropolitan county of Scotland in 1880, after his great campaign, by a small majority against the present Duke of Buccleuch, at that time Earl of Dalkeith. That was under the old and restricted franchise. In 1885, when the miners and farm hands had largely through his influence obtained votes, he defeated Sir Charles Dalrymple--a man respected by all who knew him, and by many who did not--by two to one, and something over. Nobody thought any more about Midlothian. It was regarded as Mr. Gladstone's {110} stronghold, and the Liberals went to sleep in the comfortable assurance that the seat was theirs so long as he lived. Nor were their slumbers disturbed by the unopposed election of July 1886, when throughout the country the Liberal party suffered a serious defeat consequent upon Mr. Gladstone's attempt, as Prime Minister, to pass what was popularly known as the Home Rule Bill for Ireland. Mr. Gladstone retained his seat, but was obliged to resign his position as First Lord of the Treasury; and the Home Rule Bill in course of the next six years, under the administration of Lord Salisbury, became practically a thing of the past. During that time remarkable changes were effected in the constituency. In Edinburgh the Conservative party had rallied. Its leaders did not lack courage, even under the most hopeless circumstances, and they resolved to bring forward one whose determination and courage had been well tried, though in an entirely different field. At a meeting of the Midlothian Liberal Unionist Association in Edinburgh on the 18th November 1889, the proposal of the committee to adopt Colonel Wauchope of Niddrie as their representative was unanimously carried. [Sidenote: Opposes Mr. Gladstone] It was admitted on all hands that his acceptance of such a proposal involved the undertaking of a very hard task: one speaker at the meeting even going so far as to say that 'while he did not anticipate they were to win the county, he was sure that if Colonel Wauchope led this forlorn hope, it would not be an inglorious defeat.'