‘The pilgrims of Russia have been heard to speak openly of the period being at hand when this country will be under the Russian government,’ he wrote to Palmerston in 1840. ‘The Russians could in one night during Easter arm 10,000 pilgrims within the walls of Jerusalem. The convents in the city are spacious and, at a trifling expense, might be converted into fortresses.’ British fears of this ‘Russian plan’ accelerated Anglican initiatives, eventually leading to the foundation of the first Anglican church in Jerusalem in 1845.6
