he regarded as 'unworthy sons of the
Church of England.' The Catholics, incensed at the denial of the Pope's
supremacy, were, however, in no mood to make distinctions, and they have
interpreted Lord John's strictures on Dr. Pusey and his followers as an
attack on their own religious faith. The consequence was that the
manifesto was regarded, especially in Ireland, not merely as a protest
against the politics of the Vatican, but as a sweeping censure on the
creed of Rome. Lord John's character and past services might have
shielded him from such a construction being placed upon his words, for
he had proved, on more than one historic occasion, his devotion to the
cause of religious liberty. Disraeli, writing to his sister in November,
said: 'I think John Russell is in a scrape. I understand that his party
are furious with him. The Irish are frantic. If he goes on with the
Protestant movement he will be thrown over by the Papists; if he
shuffles with the Protestants, their blood is too high to be silent now,
and they will come to us. I think Johnny is checkmated.'[23]

[Sidenote: UNDER WHICH FLAG?]

For the moment, however, passion and prejudice everywhere ran riot, and
on both sides of the controversy common sense and common fairness were
forgotten. A representative Irish politician of a later generation has
not failed to observe the irony of the position. 'It was a curious
incident in political history,' declares Mr. Justin McCarthy, 'that Lord
John Russell, who had more than any Englishman then living been
identified with the principles of religious liberty, who had sat at the
feet of Fox, and had for his closest friend the Catholic poet Thomas
Moore, came to be regarded by Roman Catholics as the bitterest enemy of
their creed and their rights of worship.'[24] It is easy to cavil at
Lord John Russell's interpretation of the Oxford Movement, and to assert
that the accusations of the Durham Letter were due to bigotry and panic.
He believed, in common with thousands of other distressed Churchmen,
that the Tractarians were foes within the gates of the Establishment. He
regarded them, moreover, as ministers of religion who were hostile to
the work of the Reformation, and therefore he deemed that they were in a
false position in the Anglican Church. Their priestly claims and
sacerdotal rites, their obvious sympathies and avowed convictions,
separated them sharply from ordinary clergymen, and were difficult to
reconcile wit