When a new Parliament next assembled, on February 19, 1835, the Tories were in office, the Whigs having been summarily dismissed by William IV; but, as the result of the General Election which followed, a majority of Whigs confronted Sir Robert Peel, Prime Minister, in the House of Commons, determined to fight him on every issue. Charles Manners-Sutton was again nominated for the Chair, this time his proposer and seconder being Tories. That he was a staunch Tory everybody was well aware. But he was charged with overt acts of partisanship, in breach of the principle that as Speaker he was bound to be absolutely impartial. It was said that he had been concerned in the Tory opposition to the reform of Parliament, and had, in fact, tried to constitute an anti-Reform Administration himself. It was further said that he had helped in the overthrow of the late Whig Government, and that, had the Tories been successful at the polls, he would have been appointed to high office in Peel’s Cabinet. Though he denied these charges, the Whigs as a Party opposed his re-election to the Chair; and their nominee, James Abercromby, was carried in a most exciting contest by the narrow majority of 10, or by 316 votes to 306. “Such a division was never known before in the House of Commons,” writes Charles Greville in his _Memoirs_. “Much money was won and lost. Everybody betted. I won £55.” 2 Lord John Russell, speaking in the 1835 debate, said the House of Commons was under no obligation in a new Parliament to re-elect the Speaker, unless he had won for himself the confidence and esteem not of his own Party alone, but of the general body of Members. Even so, no attempt has since been made to depose a Speaker on Party grounds, even when a General Election has upset the balance of Parties in the House of Commons. On the retirement of Abercromby in May 1839, the Whigs, being still in office, nominated Charles Shaw-Lefevre; the Tories ran Henry Goulburn, and the former was elected by a majority of 18, or by 317 votes against 299. The General Election of 1841 resulted in a change of Government. The Melbourne Administration, which elected Shaw-Lefevre to the Chair, was overthrown at the polls, and the Tories came back with a large majority. Many of the victors in the electoral contest were disposed to follow the example set by their opponents in 1835, and make a Party question of the Speakership of the new Parliament. But their leader and Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, refused to countenance this line of action. “I do not think it necessary,” said he, in a speech supporting the re-election of Shaw-Lefevre in August 1841, “that the person elected to the Chair, who has ably and conscientiously performed his duty, should be displaced because his political opinions are not consonant with those of the majority of the House.” The re-election of Shaw-Lefevre was, accordingly, unanimous. Peel’s wise view of the Speakership has since prevailed. The continuity of