Gladstone's transition from Tory to Liberal was certainly not an erratic decision made overnight. His drift from the high Toryism of his youth began in the 1840s and found final confirmation in 1859 when he quit the Conservative Party to join Palmerston's government. The shift in outlook reflected the combined effects of a new conception of religious freedom, the influence of Peel and the principle of nationality.
The first of these liberalizing influences stemmed from a conviction that Church-state relations were a hindrance to faith and that freedom and equality of all creeds and sects were essential requirements of true belief. …
