Monday, April 4, 2011

Catholic Emancipation

The triumph of Daniel O'Connell. To quote:
If you read through just a few of the speeches given by the Duke of Wellington in the House of Lords (which included the Anglican Bishops) to encourage the reading and the passage of this bill, you can certainly see how contentious this issue was in Parliament--the crux of the issue being that since Catholic attorney Daniel O'Connell had won a seat in Parliament, the King's Government in England feared an uprising in Ireland if he was not allowed to take his seat, since he was Catholic--for fear that Emancipation, removing all the penal laws, would in fact encourage the growth and spread of Popery and weaken the Church of England. Robert Peel worked on passing the Emancipation Bill in the House of Commons. Since both Wellington and Peel were Tories and were previously opposed to Catholic Emancipation, they were regarded as traitors--Welllington threatened to resign to force King George IV to give his Royal Assent to the Act.
Share

3 comments:

tubbs said...

Was Georgey-Poergey averse to Catholic Emancipation? Not very nice of him, considering his fondness for his first (and real) wife.

elena maria vidal said...

I doubt that he was thrilled by it, Catholic wife or not. And yes, as far as the Church was concerned, Maria was his ONLY wife.

lara77 said...

The many crimes committed over the centuries by Great Britain during the height of her empire always seem to pale in comparison to the horrendous crimes against the Irish People. The continued persecution against Catholicism in Great Britain was shocking in that "these people" were fellow Englishmen and Christians. How ironic to see Great Britain today dealing with overtly hostile Moslem immigrants who demand that Britain conform to their traditions. I bet Englishmen could not do that in Saudia Arabia!