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61 " None of this internecine combat affected the future of Catholicism quite so much as the dramatic, often horrifying events in France. In August 1792 a decree by the new French Legislative Assembly ordered all priests who refused the revolutionary oath to be expelled from the country. The King, Louis XVI, was put to death in January 1793 and in February France declared war on England. "
― Antonia Fraser , The King and the Catholics: The Fight for Religious Liberty in Georgian England
62 " It was the unhappy (Protestant) Huguenots, notably after the Massacre of St Bartholomew, who had sought to escape France and settle in England. Now the picture had changed. France was no longer a Catholic enemy, but an enemy representing Unbelief who was thus an enemy of Catholicism. It was a country in which nuns and priests were likely to be murdered, or imprisoned and executed during the Terror of 1792. "
63 " The Reformation, which had necessitated the flight of the convents and their treasured nun–teachers from England, was a positive disadvantage to the cause of girls’ education – unless the girls could go abroad. "
64 " There was a significant reminder of the history they all shared: ‘It is hoped that a difference in religious persuasion [Catholic as opposed to Protestant] will not shut the hearts of the English Public against their suffering brethren, the Christians of France.’11 "
65 " ON 12 JANUARY 1829, a week before Anglesey’s tragic, tearful and triumphant departure from Ireland, the Home Secretary, Robert Peel, wrote a long letter to Wellington. He told him that if his resignation would be an ‘insuperable obstacle’ to Emancipation, he would stay. "
66 " This came after the Archbishop of Canterbury and two of his fellow bishops had indicated to the Prime Minister that the attitude of the Church of England towards Catholic Emancipation, symbolized by their persistently hostile voting in the House of Lords, had not changed. "
67 " Above all it was essential that Peel should still be speaking for the government in the House of Commons where the Duke, as a peer, had no voice. Wellington duly passed Peel’s memo on to the King on 14 January, and the next day the King interviewed all those members of the Cabinet hitherto pledged against Emancipation. In the end King George, with reluctance, agreed to consider the whole question of Ireland. "
68 " Peel now wrote to the Dean of Christ Church (his old college) to tell him that he intended to bring in a bill in favour of Emancipation and offering his resignation if it was required. "
69 " The 1798’ – the Irish revolt of the United Irishmen against English domination, potentially backed by French forces – was led by the Protestant Wolfe Tone. "
70 " Wolfe Tone proposed that Anti-Catholicism belonged to ‘the dark ages of superstition’, not ‘the days of illumination, at the close of the eighteenth century’.20 "