calmness, with all loyal attachment to your Sovereign--with all union among yourselves--with all charity towards all men--with all prayer and supplication towards God--this fresh inroad about to be made upon your consciences,--this new and deep wound to your highest and holiest feelings. This is strong evidence of the moral implications of the issue in Parliament. The Anti-Maynooth Conference was held in London with over 1000 delegates from England and Ireland and more than a million signatures were collected to oppose the grant. Also contributing to the political unrest was a group known as the "Voluntaryists," who were also opposed to the grant. Their issue with it was not, however, over any sort of religious difference. They opposed the idea of the government granting money to any private institution of higher education, and so were upset about the Maynooth Grant. The 1845 Maynooth bill (Maynooth College Act 1845,(8 and 9 Vic., c.25)), was carried by 323 to 176 votes. Together with the repeal of the Corn Laws, it split Peel's Tories, eventually leading to the creation of the modern Liberal and Conservative parties: William Gladstone had previously opposed the Maynooth grant in his book The State in its Relations with the Church in 1838 that a Protestant country should not pay money to other churches, and confusingly resigned from the government when the proposed increase conflicted with his earlier principles while still voting for it in Commons; Benjamin Disraeli maintained his opposition on constitutional and political grounds, breaking with his Young England colleagues to gain reactionary Tory support against Peel. While the grant was controversial, and weakened Peel's government, it set a precedent, and within three years, government support was being given to Catholic schools in England. References Further reading Arnstein, Walter L. "Queen Victoria and the Challenge of Roman Catholicism." Historian 58.2 (1996): 295-314. Gash, Norman. Sir Robert Peel: The Life of Sir Robert Peel after 1830 (1972) pp 456–80. Kerr, Donal. "Peel and the Political Involvement of the Priests." Archivium Hibernicum 36 (1981): 16-25. online Kerr, Donal A. Peel, priests, and politics: Sir Robert Peel's administration and the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, 1841-1846 (Clarendon Press, 1982). Machin, George IT. "The Maynooth grant, the Dissenters and disestablishment, 1845-1847." English Historical Review (1967): 61-85. online Primary sources Hardy, Philip Dixon. The Maynooth grant, considered religiously, morally, and politically : with documentary proof that it was originally obtained by fraud and