The movement labeled by its derogators as “muscular Christianity” arose, paradoxically perhaps, among notably liberal men, the Christian Socialists, who had fought for the Chartists, for improvements in living conditions, and even for limited rights for women. These men alternately rejected (Kingsley, Letters ii 83) and embraced the term “muscular Christian” (Letters ii 54; Hughes, Oxford 98–100), as did Victorian society. In Charles Kingsley's Cambridge sermons on King David in 1866, every mention of “muscular Christianity” produced loud cheers of approval, although the iterations were intended to deride the term. While some may have seen in the movement a gentle, liberal but realistic, and hard-working social activism (see Vance passim), for many in Victorian England muscular Christianity meant macho: Tom Brown boxing bullies at Rugby and bloodying townies at Oxford, Amyas Leigh heroically hacking wily Spaniards, and Guy Heavystone dismembering menacing Irish peasants: