TH E Roman Catholic Emancipation controversy, in the form
which dominated English domestic politics from 1800 to 1829,
was precipitated by the French Revolution. In 1793 England
went to war with France, and the perennial problem of keeping
Ireland loyal once more became acute. The Irish Catholic Relief
Act of 1793 removed most of the remaining serious restrictions
on Catholic profession and worship, together with disabilities
in property owning, and enfranchised the Irish Catholic forty-
shilling freeholders. The violent reaction of the Irish Protestant
Ascendancy families to this Act, and the brief Lord Lieutenancy
and sudden recall of the over-zealous Lord Fitzwilliam, produced
a crisis. George III took his first stand upon the coronation
oath against further concessions, and the disaffected Catholics
were temporarily driven (as Burke had feared they would be)
into the arms of the rebellious Ulstermen. The rising which
followed precipitated the Union of the English and Irish parlia-
ments; and this brought the Catholic question firmly into the
centre of the English political stage, and kept it there.

After the outbreak of the French Revolution, Roman Catho-
licism was felt by many Conservatives to be, as Burke repre-
sented it, a counterpoise to the irreligious and anarchistic
influence of France. But this was a new and feeble sentiment
compared with the fierce and time-hallowed prejudices to which
both English and Irish Roman Catholics were subject. Of course
the situation was quite different in the two islands. English

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