in common, that they indicated a revival of religious energy,
and aimed at vindicating the authority of the church, and resisting
the interference of the state in church matters. The Scottish
movement led to the disruption of the Church of Scotland and the
formation of the Free Church in 1843. The Tractarian movement
was ultimately terminated by the secession of Newman and many
of his associates from the Church of England, and their admission
to the Church of Rome. These secessions raised a feeling of
alarm throughout England. The people, thoroughly Protestant,
were excited by the proofs—which they thought were afforded—that
the real object of the Tractarians was to reconcile
England with Rome; and practices which are now regarded as
venial or even praiseworthy—such as the wearing of the surplice
in the pulpit, and the institution of the weekly offertory—were
denounced because they were instituted by the Tractarians, and
were regarded as insidious devices to lead the country Romewards.
The sympathies of the Whigs, and especially of the Whig prime
minister, Lord John Russell, were with the people; and Lord
John displayed his dislike to the Romanizing tendencies of the
Tractarians by appointing Renn Dickson Hampden—whose
views had been formally condemned by the Hebdomadal Board
at Oxford—to the bishopric of Hereford. The High Church party
endeavoured to oppose the appointment at every stage; but
their attempts exposed them to a serious defeat. The courts
held that, though the appointment of a bishop by the crown
required confirmation in the archbishop’s court, the confirmation
was a purely ministerial act which could not be refused. The
effort which the High Church party had made to resist Dr
Hampden’s appointment had thus resulted in showing conclusively
that authority resided in the crown, and not in the archbishop.
It so happened that about the same time this view was
confirmed by another judicial decision. The lord chancellor
presented the Rev. G. C. Gorham to a living in Devonshire; and
Dr Phillpotts, the bishop of Exeter, declined to institute him,
on the ground that he held heretical views on the subject of
baptism. The court of arches upheld the bishop’s decision.
The finding of the court, however, was reversed by the privy
council, and its judgment dealt a new blow at the Tractarian
party. For it again showed that authority—even in doctrine—resided
in the crown and not in the church. Within a few
months of this famous decision the pope—perhaps encouraged
by the activity and despondency of the High Church party—issued
a brief “for re-establishing and extending the Catholic
faith in England,” and proceeded to divide England and Wales
into twelve sees. One of them—Westminster—was made an
archbishopric, and the new dignity was conferred on Nicholas
Patrick Stephen Wiseman, who was almost immediately afterwards
created cardinal. The publication of this brief caused
much excitement throughout the country, which was fanned by
a letter from the prime minister to the bishop of Durham, condemning
the brief as “insolent and insidious” and “inconsistent
with the queen’s supremacy, with the rights of our bishops and
clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation.”
Somewhat unnecessarily the prime minister went on to condemn
the clergymen of the Church of England who had subscribed the
Thirty-nine Articles, “who have been the most forward in
leading their own flocks, step by step, to the very edge of the
precipice.”
In accordance with the promise of Lord John Russell’s letter, the ministry, at the opening of the session of 1851, introduced a measure forbidding the assumption of territorial titles by the priests and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, declaring all gifts made to them and all acts Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. done by them under these titles null and void, and forfeiting to the crown all property bequeathed to them. The bill naturally encountered opposition from many Liberals, while it failed to excite any enthusiasm among Conservatives, who thought its remedies inadequate. In the middle of the debates upon it the government was defeated on another question—a proposal to reduce the county franchise—and, feeling that it could no longer rely on the support of the House of Commons, tendered its resignation. But Lord Stanley, whom the queen entrusted with the duty of forming a new administration, was compelled to decline the task, and Lord John resumed office. Mild as the original Ecclesiastical Titles Bill had been thought, the new edition of it, which was introduced after the restoration of the Whigs to power, was still milder. Though, after protracted debates, it at last became law, it satisfied nobody. Its provisions, as was soon found, could be easily evaded, and the bill, which had caused so much excitement, and had nearly precipitated the fall of a ministry, remained a dead letter. The government, in fact, was experiencing the truth that, if a defeated ministry may be occasionally restored to place, it cannot be restored to power. The dismissal of Lord Palmerston from the foreign office in 1851 further increased the embarrassments of the government. In February 1852 it was defeated on a proposal to revive the militia, and resigned.
The circumstances which directly led to the defeat of the Whigs were, in one sense, a consequence of the revolutionary wave which had swept over Europe in 1848. The fall of Louis Philippe in that year created a panic in Great Britain. Men thought that the unsettled state French scare. of France made war probable, and they were alarmed at the defenceless condition of England. Lord Palmerston, speaking in 1845, had declared that “steam had bridged the Channel”; and the duke of Wellington had addressed a letter to Sir John Burgoyne, in which he had demonstrated that the country was not in a position to resist an invading force. The panic was so great that the ministry felt it necessary to make exceptional provisions for allaying it. Lord John Russell decided on asking parliament to sanction increased armaments, and to raise the income tax to 1s. in the pound in order to pay for them. The occasion deserves to be recollected as one on which a prime minister, who was not also chancellor of the exchequer, has himself proposed the budget of the year. But it was still more memorable because the remedy which Lord John proposed at once destroyed the panic which had suggested it. A certain increase of the income tax to a shilling seemed a much more serious calamity than the uncertain prospect of a possible invasion. The estimates were recast, the budget was withdrawn, and the nation was content to dispense with any addition to its military and naval strength. Events in France, in the meanwhile, moved with railway speed. Louis Napoleon became president of the French Republic: in 1852 he became emperor of the French. The new emperor, indeed, took pains to reassure a troubled continent that “the empire was peace.” The people insisted on believing—and, as the event proved, rightly—that the empire was war. Notwithstanding the success of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was supposed to inaugurate a new reign of peace, the panic, which had been temporarily allayed in 1848, revived at the close of 1851, and the government endeavoured to allay it by reconstituting the militia. There were two possible expedients. An act of 1757 had placed under the direct authority of the crown a militia composed of men selected in each parish by ballot, liable to be called out for active service, and to be placed under military law. But the act had been supplemented by a series of statutes passed between 1808 and 1812, which had provided a local militia, raised, like the regular militia, by ballot, but, unlike the latter, only liable for service for the suppression of riots, or in the event of imminent invasion. Lord John Russell’s government, forced to do something by the state of public opinion, but anxious—from the experience of 1848—to make that something moderate, decided on reviving the local militia. Lord Palmerston at once suggested that the regular and not the local militia should be revived; and, in a small house of only 265 members, he succeeded in carrying a resolution to that effect. He had, in this way, what he called his “tit for tat” with Lord John; and the queen, accepting her minister’s resignation, sent for Lord Derby—for Lord Stanley had now succeeded to this title—and charged him with the task of forming a ministry.
The government which Lord Derby succeeded in forming was composed almost exclusively of the men who had rebelled against Sir Robert Peel in 1845. It was led in the House of
