In the Lower House Sir Robert Peel, now Home Secretary, was affirming his unalterable determination never to surrender to the O'Connellites, and his leader was also giving a display of the Iron Will. But even Iron Dukes can unbend when they have been tempered by experience. It was the Wellington Ministry that granted Catholic Emancipation, and it was Sir Robert Peel who sounded the note of surrender. The collapse was caused by the historic Clare election of 1828, within a few months of the appointment of Lord Anglesey. There was, of course, considerable humour, intentional and otherwise, introduced during the agitation for and against Catholic Emancipation. Once King George IV. was heard to murmur plaintively: 'Wellington is King of England, O'Connell is King of Ireland, and I am supposed to be the Dean of Windsor.' Lord Eldon presented to the House of Lords a petition of the tailors of Glasgow against the surrender to the Catholics. 'What?' exclaimed Lord Lyndhurst, 'do tailors bother themselves about such measures?' 'No wonder,' answered Eldon; 'you cannot suppose that tailors would like turncoats.' {229} CHAPTER XV Wellington's premiership was four days old when Lord Anglesey accepted the viceroyalty. The duke evidently selected his Waterloo comrade without taking the trouble to sound him upon the views he held, but George IV.--that fine champion of Protestantism!--immediately sent for the marquis, and in a touching interview implored him to keep the Catholics at bay, emphasizing his belief that the surrender of the Government to O'Connell would mean the dismemberment and destruction of the British Empire. Anglesey, who knew nothing whatever about anything except women and war, sought refuge in meaningless platitudes. He declared to the king that he intended to take no part in sectarian or political strife in Ireland; he would administer the law equally to all, and so forth, impressing George IV. with a sense of his extreme propriety and impartiality.