Catholic to a man. But not all Tories were Protestant. Perceval, Liverpool, Sidmouth, Eldon, and, generally speaking, the high Tories were Protestant. But Wellesley and Castlereagh in the Ministry of Perceval, Castlereagh, Canning, and others in the Ministry of Lord Liverpool were Catholic. George IV, both as regent and as king, adopted the opinions and attitude of his father, though in earlier days he had affected Catholic sympathies when he found it convenient to identify himself with the Opposition. The House of Lords was Protestant of course. On two occasions prior to 1829 a Bill for the emancipation of the Catholics was passed by the House of Commons and rejected by the House of Lords. In the House of Commons the Catholic cause steadily grew from about the year 1820 onwards. It was strengthened by the now acknowledged leadership of O'Connell in Ireland and by the influence in that country of the body known as the Catholic Association. Whether public opinion in England and Scotland was identical with that of the House of Commons is perhaps doubtful. Thoughtful politicians among the Whigs, and even many among the Tories, were, and always had been, favourable to the Catholic claims; but the bulk of the English electors were not very thoughtful in those days, and they were strongly imbued with Protestant sympathies and prejudices. Though the country was fast outgrowing the Toryism of Perceval and Liverpool, and would, if events had taken their normal course, have gradually become liberal in political sentiment and tendency with Canning and his followers, yet it is not impossible that if a general election had taken place in 1829 the Protestant prejudices

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