Gladstone's conversion to home rule convinced them to switch away from the Conservatives and support the Liberals using the 86 seats in Parliament they controlled.
Therefore, Gladstone had sought cross-party agreement on the issue of home rule, thinking that the Conservatives should pass to make it easier to get it through the House of Lords.
Formerly a Conservative MP, he was now head of the Liberal Party, and considered that support from the Irish Home Rule MPs would further strengthen his position in the House of Commons.
Meanwhile, in London on 1 August 1885 the Conservative minister Lord Carnarvon, Viceroy of Ireland, had met Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish Home Rule leader, for a confidential discussion to see how far each could meet the other's policy.
It included: "Nothing could induce me to countenance separation, but if five-sixths of the Irish people wish to have a Parliament in Dublin, for the management of their own local affairs, I say, in the name of justice, and wisdom, let them have it."
Once news of Gladstone's conversion came to light following the Hawarden Kite, Liberals and Irish Nationalist MPs voted together to end Lord Salisbury's caretaker administration.