quality:correction, structural:reformatting, structural:expansion
Opposition leader; 1874 election

Given Gladstone's majority in the Commons, Disraeli could do little but protest as the government advanced legislation; he chose to await Liberal mistakes. He used this leisure time to write a new novel, Lothair (1870). A work of fiction by a former prime minister was a novelty for Britain, and the book became a bestseller.

By 1872 there was dissent in the Conservative ranks over the failure to challenge Gladstone. This was quieted as Disraeli took steps to assert his leadership, and as divisions among the Liberals became clear. Public support for Disraeli was shown by cheering at a thanksgiving service in 1872 on the recovery of the Prince of Wales from illness, while Gladstone was met with silence. Disraeli had supported the efforts of party manager John Eldon Gorst to put the administration of the Conservative Party on a modern basis. On Gorst's advice, Disraeli gave a speech to a mass meeting in Manchester that year. To roaring approval, he compared the Liberal front bench to "a range of exhausted volcanoes... But the situation is still dangerous. There are occasional earthquakes and ever and again the dark rumbling of the sea." Gladstone, Disraeli stated, dominated the scene and "alternated between a menace and a sigh".

At his first departure from 10 Downing Street in 1868, Disraeli had Victoria make his wife Mary Anne Viscountess Beaconsfield in her own right in lieu of a peerage for himself. Through 1872 the eighty-year-old peeress had stomach cancer. She died on 15 December. Urged by a clergyman to turn her thoughts to Jesus Christ in her final days, she said she could not: "You know Dizzy is my J.C."

In 1873, Gladstone brought forward legislation to establish a Catholic university in Dublin. This divided the Liberals, and on 12 March an alliance of Conservatives and Irish Catholics defeated the government by three votes. Gladstone resigned, and the Queen sent for Disraeli, who refused to take office. Without a general election, a Conservative government would be another minority; Disraeli wanted the power a majority would bring and felt he could gain it later by leaving the Liberals in office now. Gladstone's government struggled on, beset by scandal and unimproved by a reshuffle. As part of that change, Gladstone took on the office of Chancellor, leading to questions as to whether he had to stand for re-election on taking on a second ministry—until the 1920s, MPs becoming ministers had to seek re-election.

In January 1874, Gladstone called a general election, convinced that if he waited longer, he would do worse at the polls. Balloting was spread over two weeks, beginning on 1 February. As the constituencies voted, it became clear that the result would be a Conservative majority, the first since 1841. In Scotland, where the Conservatives were perennially weak, they increased from seven seats to nineteen. Overall, they won 350 seats to 245 for the Liberals and 57 for the Irish Home Rule League. Disraeli became prime minister for the second time.