[Footnote 196:  “Wellington’s Civil Despatches,” iv., 453.]

[Footnote 197:  See his letter to Peel, March 23 ("Peel’s Memoirs,” i., 92-100).]

[Footnote 198:  The entry of this bill in Cobbett’s “Parliamentary History” is:  “The House of Commons testified a very extraordinary zeal in unravelling the Popish Plot, and, to prevent mischief in the interval, passed a bill to disable Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament,” to which the Lords, when the bill came up to their House, added a proviso exempting the Duke of York from its operation.  An. 1678; October 26 to November 21.—–­Parliamentary History, iv., 1024-1039.]

[Footnote 199:  In the House of Commons the majority for Sir F. Burdett’s resolution was six—­372 to 266.  But, in the House of Lords, Lord Lansdowne, moving the same resolution, was defeated by forty-five—­182 to 137.]

[Footnote 200:  See Fitzgerald’s letter to Peel ("Peel’s Memoirs,” i., 114).]

[Footnote 201:  “Peel’s Memoirs,” i., 121.]

[Footnote 202:  See “Lord Anglesey’s Letters,” ibid., pp. 126, 147.]

[Footnote 203:  As early as the year 1812, on the negotiations (mentioned in a former chapter) for the entrance of Lord Grenville and Lord Grey into the ministry, the Duke of York mentioned to both those noblemen that the Regent had an insuperable objection to the concession of Emancipation.  And it seems probable that it was the knowledge of his sentiments on that point that greatly influenced the course which Lord Liverpool subsequently pursued in regard to that question.—­See Life of Lord Liverpool, i, 381.]

[Footnote 204:  Speech on moving the second reading of the bill in the House of Lords, February 19, 1829 ("Hansard,” xx., 389).]

[Footnote 205:  Speech on the first reading of the bill, February 10 ("Hansard,” xx., 208).]

[Footnote 206:  Speech on the first reading ("Hansard,” xx., 198).]

[Footnote 207:  An amendment was proposed by Lord Chandos to add the office of Prime-minister to these three, on the ground that if a Roman Catholic were Prime-minister “he might have the disposal of all the patronage of the state and the Church vested in his hands.”  But Mr. Peel pointed out that the law of England “never recognized any such office as that of Prime-minister.  In the eyes of the law the ministers were all on an equality.”  And the position, such as it was, being a conventional one, was not necessarily connected with the office of First Lord of the Treasury.  “In a recent instance his late right honorable friend, Mr. Canning, had determined to hold the office of Prime-minister with that of Secretary of State.  And when Lord Chatham was Prime-minister, he did not hold the office of First Lord of the Treasury.”  At the same time he explained that the impropriety of intrusting a Roman Catholic with Church patronage was already guarded against in the bill, a clause of which provided that “it should not be lawful for any person professing the Roman Catholic religion directly or indirectly to advise the crown in any appointment to or disposal of any office or preferment, lay or ecclesiastical, in the united Church of England and Ireland, or of the Church of Scotland.”—­Hansard, xx., 1425.]