The High Tories, led by the Duke of Wellington and Robert Peel, refused to serve in his government.

Canning invited a section of the Whigs, including Lansdowne to join a coalition ministry with the Canningite faction of the Tories.

For a short while a band of MPs and peers who had been supporters of Canning (hence the Canningites) were in included in Wellington's government but left on the issue of the re-distribution of seats from the corrupt parliamentary borough of East Retford in May 1828.

O'Connell was legally barred from taking his seat in the House of Commons because he was a Catholic, so Wellington's government was forced to bring about a change but that led to another split in their party – this time with the creation of the 'Ultra-Tory' group led by Edward Knatchbull MP and supported by a number of influential peers in the House of Lords.

The animosity which King George IV had to Earl Grey had barred him from government, but in the new reign his chances of office had improved.

There had been no official Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons since 1821, but in 1830 the Whigs selected Viscount Althorp to fill the vacancy.

For the first time since the penal laws were enacted in the seventeenth century Catholics in Ireland could serve in Parliament.

With emancipation achieved, O'Connell was free to pursue his other aim with a campaign for repeal of the Act of Union.