Anti-Catholicism in the United Kingdom Roman Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy in England in 1850 by Pope Pius IX, was followed by a frenzy of anti-Catholic feeling, often stoked by newspapers. Examples include an effigy of Cardinal Wiseman, the new head of the restored hierarchy, being paraded through the streets and burned on Bethnal Green, and graffiti proclaiming 'No popery!' being chalked on walls. Charles Kingsley wrote a vigorously anti-Catholic book "Hypatia" (1853). The novel was mainly aimed at the embattled Catholic minority in England, who had recently emerged from a half-illegal status. New Catholic episcopates, which ran parallel to the established Anglican episcopates, and a Catholic
Anti-Catholicism in literature and media within the walls of the cloister". Reed's book became a best-seller, and Monk or her handlers hoped to cash in on the evident market for anti-Catholic horror fiction. The tale of Maria Monk was, in fact, clearly modeled on the Gothic novels popular in the early 19th century. This literary genre had already been used for anti-Catholic sentiments in works such as Matthew Lewis' "The Monk". Maria Monk's story exhibits the genre-defining elements of a young and innocent woman trapped in a remote, old, and gloomily picturesque estate; she learns the dark secrets of the place; after harrowing adventures she