The General Election of 1837 failed to rescue the Government from the difficult position they had long occupied. Threatened by the Radicals, who considered they did not move fast enough, they were obliged to lean for assistance on the Conservatives, without whose help they would often have been left in a minority. Ministers felt the ignominy of their lot, but were unable to amend it; and a painful set of incidents in the spring of 1838 gave occasion for a sharp attack on the Home Office. A few years previously, a person called John Nicholls Thom left his home in Cornwall, and settled in Kent, where he described himself as Sir William Courtenay, Knight of Malta. He was in truth a religious madman, claiming to be the King of Jerusalem, or, in other words, the Messiah; and multitudes of persons, belonging for the most part, though not entirely, to the poor and ignorant classes, believed in his assertions. Dressed in a fantastical costume, he went about the country, haranguing the people, and violently denouncing the Poor Law. He persuaded many of the farmers and yeomen that he was entitled to some of the finest estates in Kent, and that he would shortly be established as a great chieftain, when all the people on his lands should live rent-free. To the still more credulous he spoke of himself as Jesus Christ, and pointed in confirmation to certain marks in his hands and side, which he described as the wounds inflicted by the nails of the cross. Crowds followed him about, believing in his foolish miracles; some actually paid him divine honours; but a tragedy was approaching. On the 31st of May, 1838, Thom shot a constable who had interfered in his proceedings. The military were then summoned from Canterbury, when the rioters retreated into Bossenden Wood; a lieutenant who endeavoured to arrest the maniac was also shot dead; and a riot ensued, in which several persons, including Thom himself, were killed by the fire of the soldiers, and others wounded. It afterwards appeared that the man had previously been confined as a lunatic, but had been liberated the year before by Lord John Russell, acting as Home Secretary. For this, the latter was severely censured by the Opposition in Parliament, and a select committee was appointed to inquire into the circumstances; but it was generally agreed that the Minister was not to blame in the matter. In the first half of 1838, attention was drawn away from many distracting controversies by the preparations for crowning the new sovereign. The [Illustration: THE CORONATION CHAIR, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]