An _Annus Mirabilis_--Breaking up of the Old Parties--The Tory-Parnellite Alliance--Mr. Chamberlain’s Socialism--The Doctrine of “Ransom”--Effect of the Reform Bill and Seats Bill--Enthroning the “Sovereign People”--Three Reform Struggles: 1832, 1867, 1885--“One Man One Vote”--Another Vote of Censure--A Barren Victory--Retreat from the Soudan--The Dispute with Russia--Komaroff at Penjdeh--The Vote of Credit--On the Verge of War--Mr. Gladstone’s Compromise with Russia--Threatened Renewal of the Crimes Act--The Tory Intrigue with the Parnellites--The Tory Chiefs Decide to Oppose Coercion--Wrangling in the Cabinet--Mr. Childers’ Budget--A Yawning Deficit--Increasing the Spirit Duties--Readjusting the Succession Duties--Combined Attack by Tories and Parnellites on the Budget--Defeat of the Government and Fall of Mr. Gladstone’s Ministry--The Scene in the Commons--The Tories in Power--Lord Salisbury’s Government--Places for the Fourth Party--Mr. Parnell Demands his Price--Abandoning Lord Spencer--Re-opening the Question of the Maamtrasna Murders--Concessions to the Parnellites--The New Budget--Sir H. D. Wolff sent to Cairo--The Criminal Law Amendment Act--Court Life in 1885--Affairs at Home and Abroad--The Fall of Khartoum--Death of General Gordon--Beginning of the Burmese Question--Rebellion in Canada--Marriage of the Princess Beatrice--The Battenbergs. After the compromise had been arranged between the rival political leaders on the Franchise Bill and the Bill for the Redistribution of Seats, it has been said that Parliament adjourned to the 19th of February, 1885--an _annus mirabilis_ in the Queen’s reign. It witnessed the final settlement of the Reform Question which the Whigs left unsettled in 1832. It witnessed the amazing development of the Home Rule movement in Ireland under two influences. The first was extended Franchise. The second was the alliance between the Parnellites and the Tory Party, which had grown out of the intrigues of Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir H. Drummond Wolff, and Mr. Rowland Winn, the Tory whip, with Mr. Justin McCarthy, and other Irish Nationalist leaders. Every day brought forth a new outward and visible sign of this alliance, and in Ireland, when it was bruited about that the Tories were ready not only to attack and overthrow Lord Spencer, who was still upholding English authority at Dublin Castle almost in the same sense that General Gordon was upholding it at Khartoum, the result was inevitable. The large class of Irishmen who from motives of self-interest, business connection, or personal feeling were willing to stand by the English Government in Dublin so long as they felt sure that England would stand by them, began to waver in their allegiance. Like the same sort of people in the Soudan, and even in Khartoum when they saw Gordon abandoned by those who were supposed to be truest to him, they began to