The Session of 1874 began quietly enough, and the first disturbance proceeded from a quite unexpected quarter. The two Primates of the English Church were at this time Archbishop Tait and Archbishop Thomson. Both were masterful men. Both hated Ritualism; and both worshipped the Man in the Street. The Man in the Street was supposed to be an anti-Ritualist; so the two Archbishops conceived the happy design of enlisting his aid in the destruction of a religious movement which, with their own unaided resources, they had failed to crush. Bishop Wilberforce, who would not have suffered the Ritualists to be bullied, had been killed in the previous summer. Gladstone, notoriously not unfriendly to Ritualism, was dethroned; so all looked smooth and easy for a policy of persecution. On the 20th of April, 1874, Archbishop Tait introduced his "Public Worship Regulation Bill" into the House of Lords; and, in explanation of this measure, Tait's biographers say that it merely "aimed at reviving in a practical shape the _forum domesticum_ of the Bishops, with just so much of coercive force added as seemed necessary to meet the changed circumstances of modern times." I have always loved this sentence. _Forum domesticum_ is distinctly good, and so is "coercive force." The _forum domesticum_ has quite a comfortable sound, and, as to the "coercive force" which lurks in the background, Ritualists must not enquire too curiously. The Bishops were to have it all their own way, and everyone was to be happy. Such was the Bill as introduced; but in Committee it was made infinitely more oppressive. Henceforward a single lay-judge, to be appointed by the two Archbishops, was to hear and determine all cases relating to irregularities in Public Worship. When the Bill reached the House of Commons, it was powerfully opposed by Gladstone; but the House was dead against him, and Sir William Harcourt, who, six months before, had been his Solicitor-General, distinguished himself by the truculence with which he assailed the Ritualists. On the 5th of August, Gladstone wrote to his wife: "An able but yet frantic tirade from Harcourt, extremely bad in tone and taste, and chiefly aimed at poor me.... I have really treated him with forbearance before, but I was obliged to let out a little to-day."