Gladstone had won the General Election by asking the constituencies
to approve the Disestablishment of the Irish Church; and this was
the first task to which he addressed himself in the Parliament
of 1869. It was often remarked about his speaking that in every
Session he made at least one speech of which everyone said, "That
was the finest thing Gladstone ever did." This was freely said
of it he speech in which he introduced the Disestablishment Bill
on the 1st of March, 1869, and again of that in which he wound up
the debate on the Second Reading. In pure eloquence he had rivals,
and in Parliamentary management superiors; but in the power of
embodying principles in legislative form and preserving unity of
purpose through a multitude of confusing minutiæ he had neither
equal nor second.

The Disestablishment Bill passed easily through the Commons, but
was threatened with disaster in the Lords, and it was with profound
satisfaction that Mrs. Gladstone, most devoted and most helpful of
wives, announced the result of the division on the Second Reading.
Gladstone had been unwell, and had gone to bed early. Mrs. Gladstone
who had been listening to the debate in the House of Lords, said
to a friend, "I could not help it; I gave William a discreet poke.
'A majority of thirty-three, my dear.' 'Thank you, my dear,' he
said, and turned round, and went to sleep on the other side." After
a stormy passage through Committee, the Bill became law on the
26th of July.

So Gladstone's first great act of legislation ended, and he was
athirst for more. Such momentous reforms as the Irish Land Act, the
Education Act, the abolition of religious tests in the University,
the abolition of purchase in the Army, and the establishment of the