FROM A WATER-COLOUR PAINTING BY ALFRED W. HUNT R.W.S. IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF BRITISH ART.] [Illustration: THE CRYSTAL PALACE IN HYDE PARK, LONDON, 1851] CASSELL'S ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER I. THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_). The Papal Aggressions--The Durham Letter--Meeting of Parliament--The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill--Debate on the Second Reading--Amendments in Committee--The Bill in the Lords--Mr. Locke King's Motion on County Franchise--Resignation of the Government--The Great Exhibition--Banquet at York--Opening of the Exhibition--Success of the Project--The President of the French Republic and the Assembly--Preparations for the _Coup d'État_--The Army gained--Dissolution of the Assembly--Expulsion of the Assembly--Their Imprisonment--The High Court of Justice--The Barricades--St. Arnaud and Maupas--The _Plébiscite_--Weakness of the Russell Administration--Independence of Lord Palmerston--The Queen's Memorandum--Dismissal of Palmerston--The Militia Bill--Russell is turned out--The Derby Ministry--Its Measures--The General Election--An Autumn Session--Defeat of the Conservatives--Death and Funeral of the Duke of Wellington--The Aberdeen Administration--Mr. Gladstone's Budget--The Eastern Question again--The Diplomatic Wrangle--The Sultan's Firman--Afif Bey's Mission--Difficulties in Montenegro--England and France--Attempts to effect direct Negotiations--The Menschikoff Mission--Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's Instructions--The Czar and Sir Hamilton Seymour--Menschikoff at Constantinople--The English and French Fleets--Arrival of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe--The Difficulty settled--Menschikoff's ulterior Demands--Action of the Powers. From the Revolution of 1688, when the Roman Catholic hierarchy was abolished with the arbitrary power of James II., the government of the Roman Catholic clergy was maintained in England by "vicars apostolic." England was divided into four vicariates, and this state of things continued until 1840, when Gregory XVI. ordained a new ecclesiastical division of England, doubling the number of vicariates, which were thenceforward named the London, the Western, the Eastern, the Central, the Welsh, the Lancastrian, the York, and the Northern districts. In consequence of the increase of Roman Catholics in Great Britain, and the removal of their civil disabilities by the Emancipation Act, a desire grew up for the re-organisation of the regular episcopal system of the Church of Rome, and Pius IX. resolved to establish it in 1850. England and Wales were divided by a Papal brief into twelve sees; one of them, Westminster, was erected into an Archbishopric, and Dr. Wiseman, soon afterwards created a Cardinal, was appointed to it.