e ranks of the reactionary, wealthy Anglican Right; by the end of his life he would have forsaken this completely in favour of the image of the "People's William", with a semi-mystical belief that he and the good working classes were fighting against "the deterioration of the Governing Classes in comparison with the poor." At the time of his first ministry, however, he was on his way from the Right to the Left, and still very much confused: his regular sessions of self-flagellation are an indication of this. Much of his legislation during this period was an attempt to reconcile the inner dichotomy between his heart - his pining to be accepted as a member of the aristocracy - and his mind.His mind told him that Liberalism was the morally right form of government, where the freedom of the individual, the equality of opportunity for all and the toleration of and sympathy for others (Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite), were conducive to the greatest happiness in society. He would therefore seek to deregulate the economy and retrench government, to institute religious tolerance and equality in the country, to replace the class system with a fair meritocracy, and to seek peace, warm relations and increased trade abroad. Gladstone was dismissed by his rival Disraeli as a scheming politician and opportunist desperate to hold onto power and for whom it happened to be convenient to uphold liberal ideals. For a start, he had originally defected to the Liberals in a large part because he could not see himself co-operating with Disraeli. Secondly, the Liberal Party was a nebulous coalition in which the whole political spectrum was represented: nominally "Liberal" MPs, ranging from old land-owning "Adullamite" Whigs through to idealistic Radicals and vociferous Dissenters - in short, everyone who disliked the Tories for some reason or another - were in Gladstone's ranks, and so Gladstone had to find compromise solutions acceptable to most in his party if he was to stay in power. Conveniently, these solutions for the most part coincided with broadly liberal ideals. It was the same situation in the country as a whole, with Dissenters and Catholics in the Celtic Fringe, dewy-eyed Radicals and traditional Whigs in the Home Counties and the labouring aristocracy in the Midlands and the North, in general terms everyone living in the boroughs, all supporting the Liberals for reasons that were diverse and sometimes conflicting, and few of whom were firmly committed to the party if it failed to meet their demands. Thus, Gladstone's detractors said, his "lib

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1724
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)