The Aftermath of Emancipation, 1829–30

and so the ‘Brobdingnagian debate, which stretching over a quarter of a century fills hundreds of columns of Hansard’, ¹ had finally ended, leaving the tory party not strengthened, as Wellington had hoped, but seriously weakened. The ultra-tories, furious at the surrender of their leaders, continued to attack the government. ² Wellington and Peel, who had been thought bulwarks against catholic emancipation, became the targets of scorn and abuse; Peel even lost the privilege of representing his beloved Oxford at Westminster. But Peel and Wellington were no happier in their capitulation than their critics were; they had not been ‘converted’ and they remained certain that their previous opposition to emancipation had been wise and just. ³