This chapter traces the collapse of the alliance between Irish Catholicism and the British Liberal party due to William Gladstone’s attempt to reform Irish higher education against the wishes of much of his own party and Paul Cullen. The result wa a parliamentary defeat, Gladstone’s (temporary) resignation, and the end of a previously fruitful political relationship.

Paul Cullen’s final years saw the apparently inexorable rise of the Home Rule movement, his own reluctant accomodation to that movement, as well as his attempts to co-opt it, not least through high profile and contested events such as the 1875 centenary of the birth of Daniel O’Connell. These years also saw the final resolution of the Callan Schools Affair, which had plagued Cullen for a number of years, including through a high profile trial, as well as one final political victory at the unlikely hands of a Conservative government that proved willing to make significant education concessions not long before Cullen’s own death in late 1878.

Paul Cullen’s most important political goal was the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland. This chapter examines how Cullen navigated William Gladstone’s proposal to do exactly that, his careful handling of the political risks, and his deliberate eschewal of controversial demands. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Cullen’s attitude towards Gladstone’s proposed reform of tenant rights in Ireland.

This chapter charts social conservatives' efforts to provide new historical and philosophical foundations for female sovereignty -- ones in keeping with, rather than at odds with, a patriarchal state. They did this by rewriting the histories of past English queens in order to downplay their agency and leadership. They also did this by valorizing particular Victorian statesmen who they insisted were doing Victoria's work on her behalf. Finally, they did this by stressing the decorative, moral, and fundamentally apolitical role of the female sovereign within the modern British nation-state.