Wiseman (Nicholas Patrick Stephen, cardinal and archbishop of Westminster, 1802-65) Revised draft of Cardinal Wiseman's reply to the Address of the Clergy of the Diocese of Beverley, autograph manuscript, 3pp., reverse of the first f. docketed "Cardinal Wiseman's reply to the Address of the Clergy of the Diocese of Beverley | Feb: 10th. 1851", a few small tears at head, creased, folio, 10th February 1851.

⁂ "If I have delayed answering your most kind Address, I trust you will have attributed it to pressing our position, and to the peculiar incidents of the present moment. The transfer of discussion on our ecclesiastical affairs from public meetings to the legislature, and the proposals now made to follow up angry clamour by deliberate penal enactments, give a character of of anxious importance to this crisis... ." - Wiseman.

The address was published in the Tablet, 22 February 1851, in the wake of the "papal aggression crisis" initiated by Lord John Russell. Wiseman is referring to " the passage of a law prohibiting the assumption by the Catholic hierarchy of ecclesiastical titles. The law was never enforced and, twenty years later, was quietly repealed." - Oxford DNB.