Y the middle of the century William E. Gladstone had become, politically speaking, no man's man. For this there were sev­eral reasons. Some of these were found in himself; others, in his conditions. His progress was reaching from conservatism to liberalism—and had almost arrived. The intermediate stages might be defined, first, as liberal conservatism, and then as conserva­tive liberalism. He had been lately a sincere and thoroughgoing Peelite. After the death of Sir Robert, parliamentarians of this following with not for a season what to do with themselves. Meanwhile, the whole landscape of British politics was suffering transformation. We will follow here at least one of the lines of change.

Pius IX, from being the most liberal, had become one of the most con­servative, as well as one of the most ambitious, of the popes. He aimed at nothing less than the extension and restoration of the ecclesiastical suprem­acy of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world, and the reestablishment of the temporal dominion of the see of Rome in all Christian nations. More and more he avowed this policy, set it forth in his public papers, and enforced it practically as far as he could. In doing so he must needs encounter the greatest obstacles. Such obstacles would be found in the most powerful Protestant nation—and that was England.

One specification in the pope's policy was the making of favor for Rome by enlarging the hierarchy in every country where he might. This he did in Great Britain. In the fifth decade the Roman priesthood in Eng­land was greatly honored, elevated, and confirmed. Whig statesmanship, strongly devoted to the Church of England, awoke to find itself actually endangered by the aggressions of Rome. More and more the ancient hierarchy arose, and more and more the ritual and usages of the Catholic Church prevailed. These influences extended into the Episcopal Establish­ment; for the ceremonial of Rome is more glorious than that of the Church of England.

At length there was a reaction against the Romanizing process. In 1850, just about the time that Gladstone went abroad for temporary resi­dence in Naples, Lord John Russell, Premier of England, wrote a letter to the Bishop of Durham, deprecating, and indeed strongly denouncing, the recent honors conferred by Rome on her hierarchy in England and Wales. The communication was a Church of England letter through and through, radical, aggressive, pointed. Its publication produced a deep impression, and led immediately to heated controversy. The document passed into

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history under the name of " The Durham Letter." It was followed with political consequences of the greatest significance.

By the time of Gladstone's return from Italy, and before the completion of his contention about the Neapolitan prisons, the ministry of Lord John Russell staggered and fell across the battered ramparts. His ascendancy as premier and first lord of the treasury extended from 1846 to 1852. The trouble in Parliament which nearly preceded his overthrow related almost wholly to his effort in opposing the aggressive policy of Rome in England. Parliament and the English nation had become alarmed over the great gains and threatened ascendancy of the Mother Church.

Lord Russell, at the session of 1851, introduced into the House of Com­mons a bill to counteract the influence and manifest purposes of the papacy. The bill was the essence, so to speak, and logical deduction of the Durham letter. The measure proposed struck a popular chord; only a few members of Parliament dared to vote against it. For the moment it seemed that the Russell ministry was riding the highest wave. But while government seemed in its ecclesiastical policy to have all England at its back, in the secular concern it suddenly lost favor and began to disintegrate.

Unfortunately for the Whigs, they were held responsible for the agri­cultural distress which continued in a large part of the kingdom. The old Tory aristocracy was reinforced by the hardships which had fallen on the farmers. They claimed that the distress of the country outside of the man­ufacturing and commercial centers was increasing to the extent that the hardy yeomanry of England was threatened with pauperism. The govern­ment was able to defend itself in part against these assertions. Statistics were adduced to show that since the adoption of free trade pauperism had diminished. Even in Ireland the poor—the starving poor—were not so numerous as they had been before the abolition of the Corn Laws.

It was also shown that the revenues had increased. The shipping and commercial interest had been built up. Manufactures flourished. Never­theless, the sore spot was only filmed over with these plausibilities. At bottom the fact remained that the farmers were suffering and impoverished. As has been recently the case in America, the agricultural interest was dis­tanced in the race for sufficiency and content. Perhaps the farmers were not much worse off than they had been before, but relatively they were greatly disparaged.

The situation afforded opportunity in Parliament for an attack by the opposition. Who should lead the assault but the brilliant and spectacular Disraeli? No man was readier than he to discover an opportunity. He rose to greatness in the political history of England and of Europe by dis­covering opportunities that were about to be undiscovered by others. Here was a case in which the landed interests of Great Britain had suffered for

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the promotion of manufactures. The prevailing system of taxation was cor­respondingly unequal. The resolution which Mr. Disraeli offered was to the effect that the government should at once bring forward a bill to relieve the distresses of the English nation.

In his speech he alleged that such distresses were increasing from day to day, and that pauperism was impending over the English peasantry. The government could hardly make an issue with him on the first proposition, namely, the prevalent distress; but on all other points the ministers were able to reply with at least a show of plausibility. They denied that the hardships of the agricultural classes were greater than hitherto. They pointed to the fact that the revenues of Great Britain had risen to seventy millions annually. They were able to show that British commerce was never before at so high a stage of development. They were also able to assume the aggressive, and to show that Disraeli's motion, stripped of all disguises, meant a renunciation of the free-trade policy of 1846, and a return to the abandoned system of the age of the Georges.

This defense by the government was sufficiently plausible; but the country had already grown restless of the Russell ministry. Disraeli's motion was voted down by a very small majority in a full House. A few days afterward a ministerial motion to conform the franchise of the counties to that of the boroughs was actually lost, though this was not decisive.

In the next place, on the introduction of the budget for 1852, the House and the country were alarmed and angered to note the retention of the income tax. That expedient, when it was adopted, had been accepted as temporary. Now government asked that it be continued for another period of three years. As if to alleviate this unwholesome feature it was proposed to remit in part the tax on windows. There were also incorporated some features calculated to please and benefit the farmers.

So hardly was the ministry now pressed that the budget could not be carried. It was modified in many particulars, and another finally proposed instead. In the latter the aid promised to the farmers was omitted and the tax on windows retained. The income tax was also included for three years longer. Even in this modified form the Chancellor of the Exchequer had the greatest difficulty in securing the adoption of his scheme. Time and again in the course of the debates he was met with adverse votes on exceptionable features of the budget. The pressure became so extreme that Lord John Russell was obliged to resign. Lord Stanley was summoned by the queen, and that statesman made an attempt to organize a new government, but failed.

Then the Earl of Aberdeen was called; but he had offended the faction of Sir Robert Peel. The followers of Sir Robert were known for their friendliness to the Roman Catholics. They could hardly be charged with

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prejudice in favor of Catholicism itself; but they were more tolerant of the Catholics than any other party. The Earl of Aberdeen was a strenuous Protestant, and quite uncompromising in his hostility to the Romanists. For this reason the Peelites would not support him, and he was obliged to give up his unsuccessful effort to form a ministry. Indeed, he saw the impos­sibility of doing so, and declined the queen's call. These movements were favorable to Lord John Russell, and he reoccupied his place as premier. He at once resumed the suspended measures of his late ministry. One of these was the bill forbidding the granting by foreign authority of ecclesiastical titles in England. It was found impracticable to carry out the measure in such form as had been foreshadowed in the Durham letter. Many amend­ments were offered and adopted, until the bill became so particolored and inane that it was almost as repugnant to one party as the other.

Many of the ablest men in the British Parliament set themselves against the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill in sternest opposition. In general, the Peelites, or Independent party, opposed the measure in toto. Mr. Gladstone was of this number. Speaking in the debate on the second reading, he made a long and able and liberal speech. In beginning he struck down to the root of all such questions with the allegation that the Constitution of England and the whole frame of her civilization were so firmly established and thorough in development as to throw off and reject whatever was hostile thereto. No foreign power or interruption of the kind complained of in the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill could successfully enter in and confuse the institutions of England. The whole question, he further said, looked to the regulation of spirit­ualities by law. It was the true province of law to deal with temporalities. An act of Parliament made in defense of the Church of England—an act such as that proposed—must necessarily end in failure and confusion. No doubt the See of Rome had interfered with the affairs of England; but they were not her temporal affairs. It was the religious affairs of England that had been disturbed by the aggressive policy of the papacy. If the Catholic power had attempted to touch the secular concerns of Great Britain, there could be and would be but one voice among Englishmen as to the remedy-In such a case Parliament ought to act speedily and decisively against the interference. Considering the nature of the thing done by Rome in Eng­land, there was really no right of an action against her.

The speaker readily agreed that the tone and sentiments of the late utterances of the Vatican directed to the Catholic leaders in England were arrogant, mediaeval, and impudent; but these utterances and pronunciamentos had not sprung from the Roman Catholic citizens of Great Britain. Such citizens could not be held responsible for the misjudgment and insult­ing spirit of the papacy. The pope must be acknowledged as the spiritual head of Catholic Christendom; but his ecclesiastical subjects in various coun-

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tries could not be logically punished for the sins of the Vatican. It must be shown that there was temporal interference as well as spiritual before the Parliament would be called to act in the manner indicated in the pending measure.

Moreover, there was a line of policy, as well as a line of principle, that ought to be followed in this question. There were parties in the Roman communion. There was a moderate party of Catholics, including the greater number of the secular clergy. The laity must be considered. This mod­erate party had been contending for a long time that diocesan bishops should be appointed. Against this the high party of the Vatican, including the cardinals, had argued and thundered. If Parliament should pass the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill then the moderate Catholics, the secular clergy, and the laity at large would be forced out of accord with a principle which was not repugnant to the Church of England in her methods of appointment. All such moderates would be driven to covert under the eaves of Rome. He was aware that the principle which he advocated and the practice which he proposed were unpopular for the time; but the cause for which he con­tended was a true cause, and would ultimately prevail.

The event showed that Mr. Gladstone rightly estimated the popular prejudice. It was in vain at that time to try to stem the overwhelming sen­timent against the impudence and pretensions of the Roman see. The Peelnes, following Gladstone and Sir James Graham in the debate, were able to muster only ninety-five votes in a full House. They might console them­selves with numbering on their side some of the ablest and most liberal men in England; but the popular prejudice, like a vast sheet of plastering over­head, loosed itself and fell upon them with noise and dust and smothering confusion sufficient to break down and bury any but the strongest. In such cataclysms, however, the strongest allow the falling mass to break itself over their heads and shoulders; but they stand sublimely up.

Lord John Russell might succeed with his Ecclesiastical Titles Bill; for he had three centuries of overwhelming prejudice at his back. But on all other questions he waned and receded. Already, near the close of the year before, Lord Palmerston, whose will and personality were so strong as to forbid his accord with those who were not his equals, was driven from his office of secretary of foreign affairs. As a matter of fact the ministry was justified in proceeding against him. He would not obey the wishes of the government of which he constituted so great a part.

The reader will bear in mind that just at this juncture the great coup detat of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was preparing itself silently but powerfully in Paris. Great Britain was on record with a pledge never to acknowledge any Bonaparte on the throne of Europe. The whole family was under her official and recorded ban. But circumstances had changed

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greatly since 1815. True, the Duke of Wellington yet lived; but he was in the last year of his life. The British cabinet met on the occasion of the coup detat and passed a reso­lution to refrain for the present from all comments respecting the thing done in France. The government of Great Britain would not express either ap­proval or disapproval of the event. It was wise to wait and see. Therefore the ministers resolved to remain silent—at least until the thing done in Paris by revolution should further declare itself.

But not so Lord Palmer-­ ston. Not only in private con­-

versations, but in his foreign correspondence as well, he spoke with approval of Prince Louis Napoleon and of the methods which he was employ­ing to confirm his government in France. This business was quite intoler­able to the ministry, and Lord Palmerston was dismissed. In a few months, however, he made all things even by defeating the government on an amendment of his own offered to the Militia Bill of 1852. Ministers chose to regard this defeat as decisive, and Lord John Russell resigned. The queen hereupon summoned Lord Derby to form a new ministry. That statesman proceeded to do so, and offered an important place to Mr. Gladstone; but the latter would not accept. The failure of the Peelites to go heartily with Lord Derby soon left him in a minority, and the govern­ment was again dissolved. Only unimportant measures could be passed during the spring and summer session of 1852.

The historians of this year are justified in not passing over to the re­newal of parliamentary disputes at the ensuing session without noting the death of the greatest remaining hero of Great Britain. The Duke of Wellington, revered and beloved by the British nation, passed away on the 14th of September, 1852. That nation carried him with loud outcry and show of grief to his last resting place by the side of Lord Nelson, under the dome of St. Paul's. It was the greatest pageant thus far witnessed in the whole history of British sepulture. The hero was about three months older than Napoleon, the date of his birth not being precisely known. But the

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the independence of Europe, to rally the nations around it, and while England saved herself by her constancy, to save Europe by her example ; it may never be given to another man, after having attained such eminence, after such an unexampled series of victories, to show equal moderation in peace as he has shown greatness in war, and to devote the remainder of his life to the cause of internal and external peace for that country which he has so served ; it may never be given to another man to have equal authority both with the sovereign he served and the senate of which he was to the end a venerated member; it may never be given to another man after such a career to preserve even to the last the full possession of those great faculties with which he was endowed, and to carry on the services of One of the most important departments of the State with unexampled regu­larity and success even to the latest day of his life."

The Duke of Wellington had held a unique position in the public life °f Great Britain. He could not be said to belong to any party; neverthe­less his influence to the day of his death was far greater than that of any other Briton. He had been a father to Victoria when she was a maiden queen. He had always held toward her a sentiment of chivalric devotion which amounted almost to worship; and the queen for her part repaid the hero with undisguised admiration and affection. Her majesty was at the date of the duke's death (September 14, 1852) at Balmoral. There the sad news was borne to her by express and telegram. Her grief broke out in these words : " We got off our ponies at the Dhu Loch, and I had just sat down to sketch when Mackenzie returned, saying my watch was safe at home, and bringing letters; amongst them there was one from Lord Derby, which I tore open, and alas ! it contained the confirmation of the fatal news —that England's, or rather Britain's pride, her glory, her hero, the greatest man she ever produced, was no more! Sad day! Great and irreparable loss! Lord Derby inclosed a few lines from Lord Charles Wellesley say­ing that his dear, great father had died on Tuesday at three o'clock, after a few hours' illness and no suffering, God's will be done J The day must have come. The duke was eighty-three. It is well for him that he has been taken when still in the possession of his great mind, and without a long illness; but what a loss! One cannot think of this country without 'the duke'—an immortal hero! In him centered almost every earthly honor a subject could possess. His position was the highest a subject ever had. Above party, looked up to by all, revered by the whole nation, the friend of the sovereign; and how simply he carried these honors! With what singleness of purpose, what straightforwardness, what courage was all his actions guided! The crown never found, and I fear never will, so devoted, loyal, and faithful a subject or stanch a supporter."

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