"...the events of the spring of 1882 both spoke to Hartington's skill as a short-term tactician and his shortcomings as a long-term strategist. With the Urabi Revolt exploding in Egypt - news arrived of columns of Egyptian soldiers marching on Alexandria, home to the European expatriate community of the country, demanding the resignations of the European ministers who ran the government on Tewfik Pasha's behalf - and the tenancy crisis showing no sign of abating, Hartington took the temperature of his Cabinet. It was Chamberlain who suggested a way out, which gave Hartington tremendous pause, though he knew much like the ambitious President of the Board of Trade that keeping so many thousands of Irishmen in the gaols was not a long term solution. Despite protestations from more Whiggish MPs such as Harcourt and Granville, and encouragement from true radicals such as Lord Ripon [1] at the India Office to go even further on reform, the Prime Minister eventually relented and conceded to allowing Chamberlain and Bright to take the lead on finding a solution to the "Irish Question" with the attention of Europe falling upon Egypt. Undercutting Forster in Dublin, Chamberlain used MP William O'Shea as a go-between with Parnell, with the Irish dissident already having been in correspondence with O'Shea's wife. In April, then, an agreement was formulated - the government would need to settle the rent-arrears issue on terms favorable to Ireland and release Parnell, and he would quell the rebellion. Chamberlain knew that this was a nonstarter for the Cabinet, effectively having Whitehall have policy dictated to it by Irish nationalists. Instead, he proposed a broader reform to Hartington - the Land Act of 1882, a genuine land reform applying to all of Britain, which would have the benefit of appeasing the party's influential Scottish base by ending the highland clearances entirely. Suggestions to package further borough redistribution and electoral reform into the package was dismissed as too radical, but Hartington saw the appeal in creating a Land Board with a Cabinet-level minister to chair it and rewarded the Radicals growing in influence in the party [2].
On May 3, Hartington announced to the Commons the bill, neglecting to mention Parnell's role in shaping it, or Chamberlain's for that matter. As debate in the Commons began in earnest - the Liberals were nearly unanimously for, as was the Irish Parliamentary Party, giving them a substantial majority over the Tories, who but for a handful of urban MPs strongly opposed land reform in any capacity. The Tory leader Northcore gave a long, thunderous address decrying the (rather mild) tenancy rent reform and allowances of land purchase as "confiscation, and proof that the socialist rabble that rebelled in our streets for years has now seized the reins of the Government!" Chamberlain was condemned as a puppetmaster, with only Randolph Churchill quietly suggesting that perhaps a sop to the urban working class was wise. The bill was tabled and passed by a substantial margin; the next day, as per his promise, Hartington ordered Parnell and 20 other Irish leaders released from Kilmainham Gaol. Parnell described his victory as "the Kilmainham Treaty," a name that stuck in the press, suggesting that in dealing with him the Government had legitimized the IPP and even some of the pressure groups. Forster tendered his resignation the next day in protest, and despite the chaos from the popular-in-London "Buckshot" leaving the Government, Hartington rewarded Chamberlain for his skills by naming him Irish Secretary, hoping that his newfound relationship with Parnell would bear fruit [3].
Hartington had scheduled a Commons debate on mobilizing more forces to Egypt when the Tory-dominated House of Lords defeated the Land Act, with six Liberal Lords defecting, including - in a shock - Lord Spencer, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Stunned by the betrayal, Hartington took his Cabinet's temperature again, this time on whether the Government could survive a vote of confidence. The high-profile defeat, and the reaction to it in Ireland - with riots in Dublin and Cork responded to with a brutal crackdown reluctantly ordered by Chamberlain, who had hoped to turn a new leaf, and Parnell defiantly expressing contempt for Hartington and his Cabinet - suggested to many, including the influential Granville whose persuasion finally carried the day, that the Government needed to campaign on the Land Act and earn a mandate for it. Hartington traveled to see Queen Victoria and Prince Arthur the next morning, announcing the resignation of his ministry and requesting a general election be called. Worried about the escalating situation in Egypt, Victoria nearly invited Northcote to form a minority government, but Arthur persuaded her otherwise, pointing out that a minority that substantial in the Commons would have to be led from the Lords in its entirety and could not be reliable upon to carry any acts. One of the shortest elections in British history was thus called, aiming for early July, with Hartington hoping that events in Africa would not have overtaken his government by then..."
[1] Famously pro-Home Rule Liberal Lord
[2] This is of course a radical departure from how OTL's Kilmainham Treaty was cobbled together and sold to the public, to say the least. Gladstone was *not* savvy when it came to Ireland
[3] Chamberlain was actually fairly involved in the OTL negotiations and was surprised not to get this job; Fred Cavendish (Hartington's younger brother) got the nod instead, and he was murdered in Phoenix Park after only a few days on the job.
