Repeated debates took place during the year (1843) on the Corn Laws, the agitation against them steadily growing, Mr Cobden coming on one occasion into violent conflict with the Premier. The events of the previous year in Afghanistan were also the subject of constant discussion in Parliament. A movement of some importance took place in Wales in opposition to the increasing number of toll-bars, bands of rioters dressed in women's clothes and known as "Rebecca and her daughters," demolishing the gates and committing acts of greater or less violence. A verse in Genesis (xxiv. 60) fancifully applied gave rise to this name and disguise.
In Scotland the system of private patronage in the Established Kirk had become very unpopular, the Act of Anne in favour of the nomination by lay patrons, and the control given to the Law Courts over the revising action of the Presbytery being ultimately modified by a declaration of the General Assembly known as the Veto Act. But it was decided in what was called the Strathbogie case that the veto was illusory, the disruption of the old Kirk followed, and on 18th May Dr Chalmers and five hundred other ministers seceded from it in order to form the Free Church.
In Ireland the agitation for Repeal was at its height. O'Connell, supported by the Nation newspaper, founded a Repeal Association in Dublin, and monster meetings were held on Sundays on some conspicuous spot of free and historic associations to claim the re-establishment of a Parliament on College Green. It was believed that a quarter of a million people were present on one occasion, and the Government, alarmed at the absolute power wielded by O'Connell over these huge bodies of men, resolved to prohibit the meetings, and somewhat tardily issued a Proclamation against that announced for Clontarf on 8th October. O'Connell accordingly disbanded the meeting, but his action did not please his more zealous supporters, and his ascendency came to an end. The agitation collapsed and the principal actors were arrested.
A military duel fought in the summer of this year, in which a colonel in the Army was shot by his brother-in-law, made the code of honour existing on the subject a burning question, the criminal law of homicide being the same then as now. On Prince Albert's suggestion, the question was taken up by the heads of the Army and Navy, and the Articles of War were in the following year amended so as to admit of an apology and a tender of redress.
The better feeling existing between this country and France enabled the Queen and Prince to visit Louis Philippe at the Château d'Eu.
CHAPTER XII
1843
Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians.
Windsor Castle, 4th January 1843.