Catholic, O'Connell ran
against Fitzgerald. From the first Fitzgerald's cause was hopeless. The
great landowners, to be sure, supported his cause with all their wealth and
influence, but the small freeholders, to a man, voted against him. After a
five days' poll, Fitzgerald withdrew from the contest. The result was that
the hitherto irresistible influence of England's territorial aristocracy
lay shattered. The Protestant conservatives of England were filled with
consternation. Every debate in Parliament showed that the Catholic party
was daily gaining strength, while the resistance of the government became
weaker. It was clear that something must be done. At this crisis Robert
Peel, hitherto the champion of the Protestant party in the House of
Commons and Cabinet, became convinced of the necessity of yielding. He lost
no time in imparting this conviction to the Duke of Wellington, his chief,
and therewith offered his resignation. Wellington had learned a lesson from
the events that followed Huskisson's withdrawal. He refused to let Peel go.
Reluctantly he became a party to Peel's change of views. As late as
December 11, Wellington wrote a letter to the Catholic primate of Ireland,
deferring all hope of Catholic emancipation to the distant future. Before
the year closed, however, Wellington, armed with the arguments of Peel,
wrung from the King the Crown's consent to concede Catholic emancipation
without delay. Peel, as the author of this radical measure, consented to
take charge of the bill in Parliament.

1829

[Sidenote: Wellington's change of front]

At the opening of Parliament in England, the concessions of the government
in regard to Catholic emancipation were revealed in the royal speech,
delivered by commission. The great Tory party, thus taken unawares, was
furious. The Protestant clergy opposed the bill with all their influence
and clamored for a dissolution of Parliament. In the excited state of
public feeling, an immediate appeal to the country would undoubtedly have
wrecked the bill. Unable to carry out such a plan, the Tory opposition
showed itself ready to unite with any party in order to defeat the measure
and wreak vengeance on its framers. Within the Cabinet itself, Wellington's
change brought him bitter opposition. When the bill was brought into
Parliament in March, the Attorney-General, Sir C. Wetherell, not content
with refusing to draw the bill, sprang up to explain his position.

[Siden