Confiding in his diary in May 1835, the 4th Duke of Newcastle, an ardent Protestant and ultra-Tory, summarised his opinion of the prevailing mood in Parliament as it reconvened by stating: ‘If a man now wishes to be popular he calls himself a staunch Protestant + talks of defending his Religion + his Church – rails against Popery and advocates [the] conservative principles of the Institutions of the Country.’ Just a few days earlier he had praised God for ‘burying all things à tout’ and bringing back ‘a Protestant feeling … recommencing with considerable ardour’. These statements by Newcastle seem somewhat incongruous with the political realities of British politics in 1835. While the Tories had won seats in the recent elections, these victories were not enough to sustain Peel’s minority government, which fell in April. Worse still, the Whigs found parliamentary support from the most nefarious possible source – Daniel O’Connell and his ‘tail’ – a connection secured in the Lichfield House Compact, discussed in Chapter 3. How could Newcastle conclude that ‘Right feeling [was] making wonderful progress’ in the midst of such dire political realities?