In 1865 the Oxford University election resulted in the loss by Mr. Gladstone of his seat. The opposition to him was headed by Archdeacon Denison, on account of his conduct on the Education Question. Mr. Gladstone was defeated by Mr. Hardy, but he was defeated by those members of the constituency who had the least interest in education. Nearly all the professors, tutors, and lecturers voted in the minority, but were outnumbered by the country clergy. ‘Of course,’ writes Bishop Wilberforce to Mr. Gladstone, ‘if half of these men had known what I know of your real devotion to our Church, that would have outweighed their hatred to a Government which gave Waldegrave to Carlisle, and Baring to Durham, and the youngest Bishop on the Bench to York, and supported Westbury in denying the faith of our Lord. But they could not be made to understand the truth, and have inflicted on the University and the Church the gross indignity of rejecting the best, noblest, and truest son of each, in order to punish Shaftesbury’—supposed to be Palmerston’s Bishop-maker—‘and Westbury. You were too great for them.’ Mr. Gladstone’s reply was as follows: ‘Do not conceal from yourself that my hands are very much weakened. It is only as representing Oxford that a man whose opinions are disliked and suspected could expect or could have a title to be heard. I look upon myself now as a person wholly extraneous on one great class of questions; with respect to legislative and Cabinet measures, I am a unit. I have had too much of personal collision with Westbury to be a fair judge in his case, but in your condemnation of him as respects attacks on Christian doctrines do not forget either what coadjutors he has had or with what pitiful and lamentable indifference not only the Christian public, but so many of the clergy—so many of the warmest religionists—looked on. Do not join with others in praising me because I am not angry, only sorry, and that deeply. . . . There have been two great deaths or transmigrations of spirit in my political career—one very slow, the breaking of ties with my original party; the other very short and sharp, the breaking of my tie with Oxford. There will probably be a third, and no more.’ In a subsequent letter Mr. Gladstone states to the Bishop his fixed determination never to take any step to raise himself ‘to a higher level in official life; and this not on grounds of Christian self-denial, which would hardly apply, but on the double ground, first, of my total ignorance of my capacity, bodily or mental; and secondly, perhaps I might say specially, because I am certain that the fact of my taking it would seal my doom in taking it.’ The Bishop and Mr. Gladstone seem ever to have been on the most confidential terms.