than that of the hero of Waterloo could have won the consent of
the Hanoverian monarch, whose dynasty had been brought to England
for the defense of the Protestant faith. The bill for the
emancipation of the Catholics slid easily through the Commons,
though the stiff old Tories who had counted Wellington as of
their number voted solidly against it. Even the Lords failed to
make the expected resistance, and accepted the measure by a vote
of two to one despite the known preference of the court and
clergy, and a bombardment of Protestant petitions. One peer had
thus predicted the result to Macaulay, who was in doubt as to how
the Duke would explain the bill and justify his change of front:
"0, that will be simple enough. He'll say, 'My Lords! Attention!
Right about face! Quick march!' and the thing will be done." King
George tried to slip out of his pledges, but the Iron Duke held
him fast, and the 13th of April, 1829, the act became a law. It
is the chief monument of the Wellington administration.

Against the next great question, the reform of Parliament, he set
himself resolutely, expressing his opposition in such
unmistakable terms as to forfeit at once his office and his
popularity. The London mob stoned his windows, but could not
change his attitude toward legislation which he thought
pernicious to the welfare of his country. He carried on his
opposition when the reform bills began to come up from the
Commons into the Peers' chamber. On the 18th of June, 1832, the
seventeenth anniversary of Waterloo, he was pelted with stones
and dirt by a yelling mob in the streets of London, and only
saved from rougher handling by two old soldiers who walked at his
stirrups and held back the ruffians until the police came to the
rescue. The Reform Bill had already become a law, Wellington and