ABSTRACT
Nearly everyone expected that the Conservative government would do more than its Liberal predecessor for the Church. Defence of the Church had been linked with a spirited imperial and foreign policy and social reform in the forefront of Benjamin Disraeli's campaign before the recent election. Disraeli was prepared to resist Nonconformists' demand for their ministers to conduct burials in parish churchyards. He wished to keep the established Church as one of the cluster of great national institutions headed by the Crown to be upheld and cherished. The Conservatives relied on the support they gained as defenders of the established Church against Nonconformist attack. When in 1876 High Church leaders, especially H. P. Liddon, threw themselves into the agitation over the Bulgarian atrocities and against Disraeli's Middle Eastern policy, he seemed to be paying the price of the Public Worship Regulation Act.
