The Papal Aggression of 1850: A Study in Victorian Anti-Catholicism

Abstract

For those wishing to generalize about the Victorians the Great Exhibition of 1851 usually proves irresistable. But it does seem an obvious omission that so little is said about the disorders which kept the country upended during the preceding six months, that is, during the episode of the restoration of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, the “Papal Aggression”. Christopher Dawson has urged that the one needs the other to symbolize properly the Victorian frame of mind. Here I wish to outline the underlying causes of this last great outburst of No-Popery feeling in an effort to trace the paradox of the aroused, angry, bigoted Guy Fawkes Day-men of November appearing the next summer as the staid, curious and progressive-minded citizens sunning themselves in the glory of all that glittering machinery so carefully displayed beneath the vaulted glass dome of their Crystal Palace.