On the day after the Prime Minister's resignation, Lord John Russell was married--April 11, 1835, at St. George's, Hanover Square--to Adelaide, Lady Ribblesdale, the widow of the second bearer of that title. The respite from political strife was of short duration, for at the end of forty-eight hours he was summoned from Woburn to take the seals of the Home Office in the second Melbourne Administration. The members of the new Cabinet presented themselves to their constituents for re-election, and Lord John suffered defeat in Devonshire. A seat was, however, found for him at Stroud, and in May he was back again in the House of Commons. The first measure of importance introduced by him, on June 5, was the Municipal Reform Act--a measure which embodied the results of the Commission on the subject appointed by Lord Grey. The bill swept away a host of antiquated and absurd privileges of corporate cities and towns, abolished the authority of cliques of freemen, rectified a variety of abuses, and entrusted municipal government to the hands of all taxpayers. Lord John piloted the measure through the Commons, and fought almost single-handed the representatives of vested rights. After a long contest with the Opposition and the Lords, he had the satisfaction of passing the bill, in a somewhat modified form, through its final stages in September, though the Peers, as usual, opposed it as long as they dared, and only yielded at last when Peel in the one House and Wellington in the other recommended concession. [Sidenote: A POPULAR OVATION] The Irish Tithes Bill was subsequently introduced, and, though it now included the clauses for the appropriation of certain revenues, it passed the Commons by a majority of thirty-seven. The Lords, however, struck out the appropriation clauses, and the Government in consequence abandoned the measure. The Irish Municipal Bill shared a similar fate, and Lord John's desire to see justice done in Ireland was brought for the moment to naught. The labours of the session had been peculiarly arduous, and in the autumn his health suffered from the prolonged strain. His ability as a leader of the House of Commons, in spite of the dismal predictions of William IV. and the admonitions of paternal solicitude, was now recognised by men of all shades of opinion, though, of course, he had to confront the criticism alike of candid friends and equally outspoken foes. He recruited his energies in the West of England, and, though he had been so recently defeated in Devonshire, wherever he went the people, by way of amends, gave him an ovation. Votes of thanks were accorded to him for his championship of civil and religious liberty, and in November he was entertained at a banquet at Bristol, and presented with a handsome testimonial, raised by the sixpences of ardent Reformers.