But now a strange and unexpected turn was given to the course of events. Lord Randolph Churchill’s victory, remarkable as it was, had been narrowly won. A powerful and inflamed minority remained upon the Council of the National Union to hamper and assail the leader of Tory Democracy. The proverbial three courses lay before him. To renew his chairmanship and to continue an internecine quarrel up to the very verge of the General Election; to withdraw for a time from public life; or to make a peace with Lord Salisbury. He chose the third. Sir Henry Wolff was authorised to open negotiations. Mr. Balfour’s good offices were freely tendered. Lord Salisbury was prompt in seizing the opportunity. Indeed, the suicidal results to the principals and to their party of a continuance of the quarrel were obvious. Terms of reconciliation were speedily arranged. The Central Committee was abolished, and the democratic reforms in the organisation of the National Union were confirmed; the Primrose League was formally recognised and supported by the official leaders. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, who had been elected to the Council of the National Union as an independent member on the list of neither contending faction, and who was liked and trusted by both sides, was nominated as the new Chairman. There was, moreover, a general understanding that Lord Randolph Churchill and his friends were to act in harmony with Lord Salisbury and were to be treated with full confidence by him and the ruling members of the Conservative party. Such were the conditions, so far as they could be, or have ever been, put on paper. But it is evident that their moral consequences were of much graver importance. No record has been preserved of what passed at the interview between Lord Randolph Churchill and Lord Salisbury. But certain very significant facts are plain. Lord Salisbury did not select a lieutenant. He formed an alliance on terms of comradeship for the general advantage of the party. The two men met as chiefs of almost equal powers. Although Lord Salisbury’s primacy was never disputed by Lord Randolph Churchill, they exercised from the very first a divided authority; and it is in the light of this unusual relationship--based not, indeed, upon any definite agreement, but arising out of the hard facts of the situation--that the conduct of both, amid the political turbulence of the next two years, can alone be fairly judged.