Reactions to On the Origin of Species who became Prime Minister in June 1859, mooted Darwin's name to Queen Victoria as a candidate for the Honours List with the prospect of a knighthood. While Prince Albert supported the idea, after the publication of the "Origin" Queen Victoria's ecclesiastical advisers, including the Bishop of Oxford Samuel Wilberforce, dissented and the request was denied. Some Anglicans were more in favour, and Huxley reported of Kingsley that "He is an excellent Darwinian to begin with, and told me a capital story of his reply to Lady Aylesbury who expressed astonishment at his favouring such a heresy – 'What can be
On the Origin of Species its audience. From his early transmutation notebooks in the late 1830s onwards, Darwin considered human evolution as part of the natural processes he was investigating, and rejected divine intervention. In 1856, his "big book on species" titled "Natural Selection" was to include a "note on Man", but when Wallace enquired in December 1857, Darwin replied; "You ask whether I shall discuss 'man';—I think I shall avoid whole subject, as so surrounded with prejudices, though I fully admit that it is the highest & most interesting problem for the naturalist." On 28 March 1859, with his manuscript for the book well