been pre-empted by Peel three days earlier, on 8 December 1834. Peel had then issued an election address to his constituent, later dubbed the Tamworth Manifesto, which covered much of the same political and religious ground as Stanley's speech. Now usually known as a founding political ideology for what was to become the Conservative Party, it too said that Peel's party would support reform to correct 'abuses' if necessary and marked a contrast to the earlier old Toryism that had appeared to be opposed to all change. It also meant that in practice, the 'Derby Dilly' with its 'Knowsley Creed' and the Conservatives' 'Tamworth Manifesto' were two sides of the same coin. Merger with Conservative Party Though they made electoral gains in the 1835 General Election, Peel's government remained a minority in the House of Commons. For the Derby Dilly, the election saw its members briefly attempt to forward their own candidates for election but apparently, there were no recruits to their diminishing band. However, surprisingly, Stanley thought he still had at least 86 supporters in January 1835 and described his band to a supporter as a 'corps de reserve', which King William IV could call upon 'in case of accidents' (to form a government if the monarch had enough of the Tory-Conservatives and Whig-Radical blocs). Though Stanley may have had in mind King George III's example of appointing William Pitt the Younger as Prime Minister in 1783, in the end, it was his 'reserve' that crumbled away, and those who were left by March 1835 (between 30 and 40) were still unable to agree even to vote the same way on a given debate. By now, Lord Stanley was clearly leaning towards the Conservative Party. Any remote possibility of returning to the Whigs was scuttled by the Lichfield House Compact by which the Irish Repealers, Whigs and Radicals agreed to vote out Peel's government. That soon happened and left the 'Derby Dilly' nowhere else to go but to support Peel. When Peel resigned as Prime Minister in April 1835, the King invited not Stanley but Melbourne and the Whigs to form a new government, and Stanley received no invitation to rejoin the Whig fold. For a brief period, as a measure of the looseness of political labels at the time, there was talk of a 'Liberal and Conservative Party' combining Stanley, Graham, Peel and even Lord Grey, but it