His youngest uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, was a designing and ambitious prince who saw his own advantage in embittering the strife between Richard and his parliament.
A controversy on the boundary of Canada and the United States was provoking increasing bitterness on both sides of the Atlantic. The intervention of Lord Palmerston in Syria, which resulted in a great military success at Acre, was embittering the relations between France and England, while the unfortunate expedition to Afghanistan, which the Whigs had approved, was already producing embarrassment, and was about to result in disaster.
The embittering influence of Ultramontanism may be further traced in its attitude towards the baptism of nonCatholics, for it seeks to establish the rule that baptism conferred by Protestants is invalid through defect of form or matter, or even of intention, and that, consequently, the rite must be readministered, at least conditionally, to proselytes joining the Roman Church.