The Catholic Association was made, at one period of its career, the subject of an Act of Parliament which declared it to be, for a certain time, an illegal organization, and the period was now approaching when the prohibitory Act would have to be renewed or allowed to drop out of existence. In consequence of some ministerial rearrangements a vacancy had arisen in the Parliamentary representation of the county of Clare in Ireland, and O'Connell resolved on taking a bold and what then seemed to many a positively desperate step. He announced himself as a candidate for the vacancy in opposition to its former occupant, who, having been appointed to ministerial office, was compelled to resign his place in the House of {71} Commons and offer himself to his former constituents for re-election. O'Connell was not disqualified by positive enactment from becoming a candidate for a seat in Parliament; that is to say, there was no law actually declaring that a Roman Catholic, as such, could not enter the House of Commons. But, as we have explained already, it was the law of the land that no man could take his seat in that House until he had subscribed an oath which it was perfectly impossible for any Roman Catholic to accept, an oath disavowing and denouncing the very opinions which are an essential part of the Roman Catholic's faith. O'Connell, therefore, could not be prevented from becoming a candidate for the representation of Clare, and when the contest came on it ended in his being triumphantly returned by an overwhelming majority. O'Connell presented himself at the table of the House of Commons, and was called upon to subscribe the usual oath, which, of course, he absolutely refused to do. He was then ordered to withdraw, and he did withdraw, and the seat was declared vacant. O'Connell returned to Clare, again offered himself as candidate, and was again elected by a triumphant majority. Then, indeed, men like Lord Eldon must have begun to think that the old world was really coming to an end. King George and the Government found themselves face to face with a crisis to which there had been no parallel in the memory of living statesmen.