The English Roman Catholics and Emancipation: The Politics of Persuasion

Abstract

Discussions of the ‘Catholic Question’ of the early nineteenth century have concentrated almost exclusively upon developments in Ireland, where demagogues, priests, and peasants cleverly contrived to extort Emancipation from a protestant parliament. The historian's choice of focus scarcely requires explanation, what with the purport of Irish events and the relentless logic with which the O'Connellites had organised their following. And yet, despite the emphases of scholarship, the concessions of 1829 actually represented a triumph on both sides of St. George's Channel. The Catholic Saxon as well as the Catholic Celt, each in his own way, had contributed to the joyous outcome, and quite possibly neither would have succeeded without the other.