Universalis Ecclesiae was a papal bull of 29 September 1850 by which Pope Pius IX recreated the Roman Catholic diocesan hierarchy in England, which had been extinguished with the death of the last Mar
The restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England in 1850 provoked strong reaction. This Punch cartoon, published in November of that year, depicts the Pope as "The Guy Fawkes of 1850 – preparing to blow up all England!"
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was a British Whig and Liberal statesman who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1852 and again from 1865 to 1
Universalis Ecclesiae
…against the Pope, an Appeal to Protestants and in his satirical verses The Vision of the Pope; or A Snooze in the Vatican, both published in 1851. Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister, published a letter protesting against the insolence of the "Papal Aggression". Parliament passed the Ecclesiastical Titles Act…
Lord Russell c. 1867, Elliott & Fry
John Russell as a young MP
A pro-reform cartoon of 1831 depicting Russell as the man with the cure for the country's ills. Tory MPs for rotten and pocket boroughs are shown as patients requiring "The Russell Purge".
Russell served on the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition, which took place in 1851 while he was Prime Minister. In this group portrait of the Commissioners, by Henry Wyndham Phillips, Russell is depicted standing behind Prince Albert (fifth from right).