Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/149

LADY PALMERSTON known. It is like the horror of a bad dream to imagine the possibility of such a casualty."

Some persons will sympathise with her feelings in an express train.

In the following letter she refers to the Bull issued by the Pope in September 1850, creating Roman Catholic Bishops in England. It roused great excitement and hostility in the country.

"31st January 1851. "I hope you read the Times leading article yesterday on the dangers of Popery, so very true, and all so well described. It is impossible for the well-being of any Protestant country to allow the system which the Pope is trying to introduce here. To have such a band of conspirators leagued together to overthrow Protestantism in England, and leaving no means untried to compass their ends and to work on the weak-minded by the most unscrupulous agents.… The Pope starting a new Pope in Ireland after all the rout made about bishops here shows that he is not inclined to go back an inch, but rather to force on and increase his aggressions."

The Ecclesiastical Titles Act declaring the Papal Bull null and void was passed in July 117