Lord Carteret was only thirty-four when, on April 3, 1724, he was
declared Viceroy of Ireland. The appointment was Walpole's, whose
accession to power presented him with the opportunity of sending
Carteret to quell the disturbance in Ireland which he himself--the new
viceroy--had encouraged secretly while occupying a private position in
the State. Carteret, however, did not flinch, nor did he exhibit any
distaste for the task. It was not necessary to treat the Irish as
human beings, and he knew that if he propitiated the Anglo-Irish he
would gain his own way in everything.
The origin of the trouble and turmoil was the grant of a patent to the
Duchess of Kendal, the king's mistress, for the coining of halfpence in
Ireland. The duchess already drew L3,000 a year from the Irish
Exchequer, but her avarice was aroused by stories of how easily the
Irish were plundered, and she persuaded the king to give her the famous
patent. She passed it on to Wood, who paid her L10,000, and agreed to
remit to the State L1,000 a year for fourteen years. The coinage was
not base, but it meant that a profit of L40,000 was to pass into the
pockets of the {140} king's mistress and William Wood; they were to rob
rich and poor alike, and the State was to lose heavily. The grant was
made without consulting the Irish Parliament or the Irish Privy Council.
Swift, who had been waiting for this opportunity, seized it with
avidity, and the 'Drapier's Letters' was the result. Wood's halfpence
was characteristic of English misrule of Ireland, and, roused to frenzy
by the dean's pamphlets, the country unanimously obeyed his call to
ignore the latest coins, and always to refuse to recognize their
legality. The dean's extravagant fancy found full scope in the
'Drapier's Letters'; the pamphlets were sold in their tens of
thousands, and Walpole's determination was outmatched by the fury of
the Irish not to allow themselves to be swindled to provide for the
expenses of the German's mistress.
The new viceroy landed in Ireland in the month that witnessed the
publication of the fourth 'Letter,' and his first act was to offer a
reward of L300 for the discovery of the writer. Swift's anonymity was
too safe, however, and the Lord-Lieutenant had to be satisfied with the
arrest of the printer, Harding. When the dean heard of this, he
bearded Carteret in Dublin Castle, and reproached him in singularly
straightforward language with cowardice and weakness in persecuting a
tradesman. The viceroy took the verbal buffeting in good part, for
Swift and he were old friends; but Harding was put to all the worry and
expense of a prosecution at the hands of a {141} partisan Chief
Justice--Whitshed--though the grand jury eventually threw out the bill
against him, and he was discharged.
[Sidenote: Swift's victory]
The cancellation of the patent has been described as a victory for
Swift and Ireland, but all that can be said truthfully is that it
enabled the dean to claim a personal triumph, while the county actually
lost by the agreement. For the surrender of his rights Wood was paid
L3,000 a year for eight years, a sum--L24,000--at least equal to the
profits he would have made had he been allowed to carry out the terms
of his patent without opposition. The principal cause of the surrender
to popular opinion was, undoubtedly, the indifference of Carteret to
the policy he had been sent to carry out. He was no enthusiastic
admirer of Walpole's statesmanship, and he knew very well that Irish
affairs were considered of no importance whatever in England, and that
if he went to the trouble and worry of defeating the malcontents he
would get no credit in London, and make himself and his presence in
Dublin unpopular. He was, therefore, only too willing to flatter
public opinion by pretending to bow to it.
[Illustration: Lord Carteret]
Carteret was a scholar and a gentleman, who did much to popularize the
Latin quotation as a substitute for logic. The statesmen of the
period, whenever they were puzzled in English, immediately had recourse
to the safe obscurity of a Latin or Greek epigram. It was polished,
abstruse, and impressive. This mannerism gained for him the reputation
of an orator--even the best of his generation--and Lord Chatham has
placed on {142} record his appreciation of Carteret: 'Whatever I am I
owe to him.'
The viceroy did not create any precedent by remaining very long in
Dublin Castle. It was an unwritten law that only during the actual
sitting of Parliament was the Lord-Lieutenant's presence considered
necessary, and Carteret took full advantage of his opportunities to
spend at leisure in London the money he drew so readily from Ireland.
Had it not been for Swift, he might not have stayed in Dublin half as
long as he actually did. The dean was the paramount power in Dublin
society, although he complained that he was not popular among his
equals. The crowd, however, worshipped him; he was the national hero.
All this was pleasing and yet displeasing to the dean, whose soul
languished for the smiles of the great. He disliked a popularity that
entailed the sneers of the educated, but he was not the man to abjure
the applause of the mob. Carteret kept friendly with Swift, and never
denied him anything. When this became known, Swift's house was the
meeting-place of all the office-seekers in Ireland, and some even came
from England. Swift had only to recommend a cleric to the viceroy's
attention and the man's preferment was certain.
One of Swift's recommendations was in favour of Sheridan, the
grandfather of the celebrated dramatist and orator. Carteret
good-naturedly presented Sheridan with a living, and made him one of
his chaplains; but the ex-schoolmaster, on the anniversary of the
accession of the Hanoverian {143} family, preached a sermon from the
text, 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' It was a pure
accident, but Sheridan was accused of Jacobinism, and he was removed
from his chaplaincy. For the remainder of his life he was one of
Swift's satellites, at the mercy of his generosity and his satire.
Sheridan records a story which illustrates very vividly the popularity
of the famous Dean of St. Patrick's. A large crowd assembled to
witness an eclipse. Swift sent out the bellman to cry out to all and
sundry that the eclipse had been postponed by the dean's orders, and
the crowd quietly dispersed!
Carteret summed up his administration in words that have become
historic. 'When people asked me how I governed Ireland,' he remarked,
'I say that I pleased Dr. Swift.' Carteret's egotism and selfishness
were diluted by a sense of humour that enabled him to tolerate Swift,
his unofficial jester.
[Sidenote: Lord Carteret retires]
The Lord-Lieutenant was reappointed in 1727, when George II. ascended
the throne and the Hanoverian succession assured; but his last
appearance in Dublin was in 1729, and his successor did not arrive
until two years later. In 1728 the new Parliament building was erected
on the site of Chichester House. From all accounts, Carteret was a
success. It was no disadvantage to him that he was a heavy
drinker--had more viceroys taken to drink, Ireland might have escaped
some of the consequences of their greater follies--and without
imitating the example of Wharton, he was broad-minded enough to see no
{144} harm in the lax condition of Dublin society, which was then
following the lead set by London. It is no exaggeration to ascribe
Carteret's lack of failure to his cynical indifference to Irish
affairs; he quite believed that Ireland was a nuisance, but a nuisance
that had to be endured. The so-called Parliament must have ministered
to his sense of humour. Its English prototype was bad enough, but to
call the collection of retained nincompoops and Castle hacks a
Parliament was to degrade the word to the lowest depths. Ireland never
had a Parliament, unless the generous historian grants that title to
Grattan's. In Carteret's time the 'Parliament' no more represented
Ireland than it did the land of the Chaldeans.
The successor to the late viceroy was Lionel Sackville, Duke of
Dorset--a courtier whose ambition it had been for years to represent
the king in Ireland. It is significant of the progress Ireland, and
especially Dublin, was making that a great English nobleman such as
Dorset was should exert all his influence to secure the reversion of
Carteret's post. Not many years previously an Englishman of position
would have accepted the viceroyalty under compulsion only.
[Sidenote: Four great noblemen]
Sackville resigned the post of Lord Steward to go to Ireland, and he
arrived to open the Parliament of 1731, staying until the early part of
the following year. He visited the country again in 1733 and 1735, in
accordance with the custom that rendered it imperative for the viceroy
to preside at the opening of Parliament. Beyond {145} that his duties
did not extend, and Dorset found the viceroyalty greatly to his liking.
He drew a large salary, executed several profitable deals in the shape
of sales of offices, and took the money with him to England.
'Uneventful' best describes his term of power, but to a man of his
disposition it was all he desired. When, therefore, in the latter part
of 1736, he was informed that he was to be replaced by William
Cavendish, third Duke of Devonshire, he hotly resented his
supersession, but could not prevail against the ministry, which
placated him with the post of Lord President of the Council. But his
experience of Ireland had been too congenial to make him satisfied with
his position in London. The loss of the great revenues, the sudden
change from an almost regal position to one of mediocrity in a society
where he had few equals and many superiors, and the ridiculous ease
whereby the 'work' of his administration was accomplished, kept Dorset
dissatisfied until his reappointment to Ireland in December, 1750.
Meanwhile, however, three other viceroys played their parts in making
the history of Ireland. These were William Cavendish, Duke of
Devonshire (1737-44), Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield (1745), and
William Stanhope, Earl of Harrington (1746-51).
Of these, it is obvious that the Earl of Chesterfield was the most
remarkable. The name of Devonshire suggests a yawn, and the third duke
was characteristic of it. His viceroyalty was more apparent than real,
and seems to have been {146} conducted on the principle that Ireland
and Irish affairs were a bore, the journeys to Dublin intolerable, and
the Irish Parliament 'impossible.' The duke, however, clung to the
office until 1744, content to leave administration to the Lords
Justices, and pocketing the salary readily--the only point of unanimity
amongst the holders of the office in the eighteenth century.
[Sidenote: Lord Chesterfield]
The great Earl of Chesterfield was Viceroy of Ireland for eight months
only, and his life, therefore, belongs to the history of his native
country; but he left his mark on Dublin, and in a few months
accomplished more to raise the name of Englishman there than the seven
years of Devonshire and the eight of Dorset. It is unnecessary to
recapitulate all the main facts of Chesterfield's life, while, as his
'Letters' do not concern Irish affairs, they are no part of this
history. At the time of his appointment to the viceroyalty in 1745 he
had just passed his fiftieth year, and had left behind him many full
years. Before he was twenty-one he was a member of Parliament, and by
the time he succeeded to the peerage in 1726 he had gained much of that
renowned knowledge of the world which provided the inspiration of the
famous 'Letters.' Chesterfield appears to have had a passion for the
unconventional, but he carried it to such an extent, and so
successfully, that it almost became conventional. Brought up in the
society of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II., he discovered in
maturity that it is not wise to put faith in princes. Chesterfield was
the prince's henchman in all his escapades, {147} and when Henrietta
Howard, Countess of Suffolk, became the prince's mistress, Chesterfield
was the chosen friend of both. This meant, of course, that the
princess, better known as Queen Caroline, exerted all her influence to
bring about an estrangement between her husband and the earl, and she
succeeded, as she always was certain to do.
Chesterfield, however, was too powerful a man for even the King of
England to ruin, and although George II., after the inevitable quarrel,
sought to keep the earl out of public life, he had to agree to his
nomination to the embassy at the Hague. He was very popular there, but
his sojourn in Holland, while it is remembered by the Dutch by reason
of the fortune Stanhope lost at cards, is only famous because it was at
the Hague that the English Ambassador made the acquaintance of
Madamoiselle du Bouchet. To the son that was born to them Chesterfield
addressed his 'Letters.' Returning to England impecunious but as
debonair as ever, Stanhope, nevertheless, realized that it was
imperative that he should marry money. The heiress of the day was
Petronilla Melusina von der Schulenburg, the natural daughter of George
I. by the notorious Duchess of Kendal, the heroine of Wood's halfpence.
Petronilla, who was Countess of Walsingham in her own right, was not
exactly a beauty, but she possessed a fortune of L50,000, and in
addition an annuity of L3,000 payable out of the Irish treasury. At
the time of her father's death in 1727, the countess was thirty-four
and unmarried. The king had kept her guarded jealously, and {148}
George II., mindful of the fact that if Lady Walsingham married, her
husband might make awkward inquiries about her estate, continued the
policy of his father. Chesterfield, however, was not averse to
offending George II. There had been a great coolness between them, and
the earl must have realized that Queen Caroline would make it utterly
impossible for them to renew the friendship of early days. He
therefore courted the countess, who was his senior by a year, and the
reputed wittiest and handsomest man of his time had little difficulty
in capturing the hand and fortune of the illegitimate daughter of his
king's father. They were married in 1733, unknown to King George, and
when the inevitable discovery came, the king, though passionately
angry, could do nothing beyond uttering threats. The marriage was
entirely one of convenience--Chesterfield wanted money; the countess
required a deliverer from the thraldom of the court. Cynically
indifferent to the opinions of the world, they lived in separate
houses, but tried to humour Mrs. Grundy--who was born the day the
serpent entered Eden--by taking houses next door to one another!
His monetary affairs freed from embarrassment, Chesterfield entered
once more into the life of the town, careless of the king's anger,
oblivious of the queen's spite. When he had looked into his wife's
affairs he sent George a bill for L40,000, due to her from the royal
estate, and on the monarch ignoring the hint, the earl promptly began
an action in the Courts for the recovery of the money. {149} The king
eventually compromised by paying L20,000.
[Sidenote: A political legacy]
Even in the eighteenth century it was sometimes distinguished to act
with the minority, and Chesterfield adopted the now favourite modern
pose of championing the weak. He railed at the Government, wrote
pamphlets against it, hired men of letters to aid him, and quickly
became the leader of that ever-present body of men and women who are
dissatisfied, and yet know not what they want. He patronized Johnson
and Pope and many others, the majority completely forgotten, and
chiefly with their help and his own ready tongue attained the
distinction of being the most sought-after man in London society.
Whatever Chesterfield did for pleasure, generally brought him gain, and
it is only one of the many lucky incidents of his life that the Dowager
Duchess of Marlborough should have left him L20,000 as a token of her
approval of his opposition to the Government. The legacy came in 1744,
and at a time when Chesterfield's affairs were once more badly situated.
The Earl of Chesterfield's character and life have been the subject of
innumerable essays, but one incident forcibly illustrates the real
weakness of the man who could afford to view with equanimity the bitter
antagonism of his king and queen, and the animosity of the most
powerful ministers of the day, and yet confess himself mortally wounded
by a jest against him. Like most great wits, Chesterfield had no sense
of humour, and his witticisms were merely props {150} on which his
general pose rested. One day he happened to be standing in the hall of
a coffee-house club in St. James's Street, when he overheard George
Selwyn remark to an acquaintance, 'Here comes Joe Miller.' This was
too much for Chesterfield, and he struck his name off the club at once.
[Illustration: The Earl of Chesterfield]
His appointment to the viceroyalty in 1745 was in the nature of a gift
from the Government to the most dangerous dilettante of the day. The
king, however, point-blank refused to sign the commission, and there
were several stormy interviews between the king and his ministers
before the former succumbed and declared 'his loving cousin and
counsellor' Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. In Dublin the announcement of
Chesterfield's coming roused the greatest enthusiasm. His wit, his
manners, his wealth, his influence and his handsome appearance were all
eagerly discussed. Dublin society, anxious to learn from the leader of
society, welcomed him with open arms, and so the man who had been
instructed that the Papists were dangerous and likely to become
rebellious was able to write to London and glibly inform the Government
that there was only one dangerous Papist in Ireland, and her name was
Eleanor Ambrose, the daughter of a Dublin brewer, and the reigning
beauty.
The beginnings of Chesterfield's viceroyalty gave every promise of a
brilliant and long reign at Dublin Castle. He entertained freely and
lavishly, and exhibited no scruples of refinement at meeting
unofficially wealthy tradespeople or {151} successful lawyers. The
women, of course, loved him. His reputation as the philosopher of
everything that was delightfully wicked and depraved fascinated them,
and Chesterfield maintained the pose with ease. There was no one in
Dublin to call him Joe Miller, or to sneer at the somewhat second-hand,
if not second-rate, wit that flowed from his tongue and pen.
In his serious moments he declared that the foe of Ireland was not
Popery, but poverty, and he expressed his amazement that the Irish
should be content to live in a condition worse than the negro slaves.
He was viceroy for a very short time, but he gave one gift to
Dublin--Phoenix Park, for it was Lord Chesterfield who planted that
renowned demesne.
The viceroy was essentially a man of the world, but he did not relax
the strict etiquette of the viceregal court. The wives of doctors and
lawyers were not allowed within the precincts of the Castle, and great
care was taken to limit the _entree_ to the nobility and gentry. The
good-natured Lady Chesterfield, during her occasional appearances in
Dublin, gained a sort of popularity, more pronounced among the trading
classes, whom she benefited by giving splendid balls at Dublin Castle,
at which only costumes of Irish manufacture were worn. It was
something towards the debt she owed the Irish treasury.
She viewed her husband's amours with patience, and the fat and ugly old
woman even encouraged them.
[Sidenote: Chesterfield and Miss Ambrose]
To Eleanor Ambrose he paid great attention, {152} carrying on an
elaborate flirtation, with all Dublin as the audience. Miss Ambrose,
whose reign preceded that of the Gunnings, played her part well, and
the brewer's daughter became the centre, if not the leader, of Dublin
society. Chesterfield wrote her verses and letters, and at Dublin
Castle balls he always flattered her by his personal attentions. Miss
Ambrose, who subsequently became Lady Palmer, never forgot her brief
acquaintance with Lord Chesterfield, and ever afterwards his portrait
adorned her house. When in the second decade of the nineteenth century
Lady Palmer died at her lodgings in Henry Street, Dublin,
Chesterfield's portrait hung in the most conspicuous place in her room.
She was then within two years of a hundred in age.
On April 23, 1746, Chesterfield departed from Ireland, having secured
leave of absence, and although he promised to return, illness stepped
in, and it was deemed advisable that the earl should not be exposed to
the damp climate of Ireland. The king was only too pleased to nominate
Chesterfield's half-brother, William Stanhope, Earl of Harrington, to
the viceroyalty, and even permit the ex-viceroy to become Secretary of
State for the northern provinces.
[Illustration: Earl of Harrington]
[Sidenote: The spirit of nationalism]
The selection of Lord Harrington was received with great disfavour in
Dublin, where the formation of a national or patriotic party was almost
an accomplished fact. Harrington had the misfortune to be viceroy when
Charles Lucas was beginning his great campaign against the corruption
{153} that existed in official circles in Dublin. Lucas, doctor and
enthusiast, was a remarkable man. He was the creator of the idea that
Ireland was a nation, and not the happy hunting-ground of Englishmen in
search of pensions for themselves and their mistresses. He attacked
the Dublin Corporation and all official Ireland, and, of course, the
bureaucracy roused itself and crushed him for a time. Harrington, the
viceroy, took a leading part in the persecution of Lucas, and succeeded
in driving him from the country. Lucas did not return until 1761, but
his fearless exposure of corrupt officialdom had its full effects
during Harrington's tenure of office. It did more than this, for it
aroused the latent intelligence of the masses, who began to think for
themselves. They saw the best paid positions in the country
monopolized by Englishmen--in many cases the office-holders were
illiterate--and they realized the monstrous injustice of the custom
that permitted the farming out of remunerative situations under the
Government. Parliament had to move in the matter, and for the first
time in the history of Ireland and England the viceroy and his Council
had to be careful, when making or selling fresh appointments, not to do
it too openly. Once Harrington was mobbed in the streets of Dublin
because he was supposed to be in favour of the abolition of the Irish
Parliament--the latter consisting of a body of men bought body and soul
by the English Government, though in some cases the price had not been
paid. These raised a protest against the exportation of salaries to
{154} England for the use of men whose deputies did the work for
starvation wages in Dublin.
The viceroy fought with all the tenacity of the fanatic for the
retention of the privileges of his class. The new tone of the Irish
Parliament amazed, but did not frighten him; he ascribed their
rebellion to a desire to play to the gallery, but when he discovered to
his cost that even the beggars and the blackguards of the city howled
their execrations after him in the street, he became aware of the
painful fact that the viceroy was no longer a law unto himself.
Lord Chesterfield had described the Irish Parliament in very severe
terms. 'The House of Lords is a hospital for incurables,' he wrote,
'but the Commons can hardly be described. Session after session
presents one unvaried waste of provincial imbecility.'
That this opinion was not the outcome of his English birth and training
he proved by his impartial judgments on other classes of Irishmen.
'We have more clever men here in a nutshell,' he wrote from Dublin to a
friend in London, 'than can be produced in the whole circle of London.'
Lord Harrington's opinion of the Irish Parliament was even more
contemptuous than his brother's, and he affected at all times a
sneering attitude towards the members of both houses.
[Sidenote: The Gunning sisters]
The reigning beauties of his viceroyalty were the Gunning sisters.
During Lord Chesterfield's term they had lingered in squalid poverty in
an unfashionable part of Dublin, but being old enough to attend the
viceregal functions of 1748, {155} they overcame the disadvantage of
poverty by accepting from Sheridan, the theatrical manager, the loan of
the dresses they subsequently appeared in at the great ball given by
the viceroy in honour of the birthday of George II., October 30, 1748.
Lady Caroline Petersham, the viceroy's daughter-in-law, who acted as
hostess for him, was greatly struck by the appearance of the Gunnings,
and to her interest and that of Lord Harrington was due the first
success of the family. The viceroy settled a pension of L150 per annum
on the girls' mother, and when they became Duchess of Hamilton and
Countess of Coventry, they never forgot the generosity of their first
patron. The subsequent fame of the sisters was such that when, in
1755, they paid a visit to Dublin, the viceroy, Lord Harrington, held a
levee in their honour.
Throughout his residence in Ireland, Harrington continued to fight, and
used every weapon, fair or foul, at his disposal. Lucas, driven from
Ireland, was somewhere on the Continent, and several Irish members had
been removed from the House by bribery and other methods. Still, there
was no suffocating the voice of the people, and in the last month of
1750 Lionel Sackville, Duke of Dorset, was given his second chance as
Viceroy of Ireland. Harrington did not know whether to be pleased or
not at his removal. He was anxious to rest from the struggle of Irish
politics, for he was not the man to create new measures or understand
the sentiments of a new order of things, but he was eager to beat the
Irish, and to teach them the strength of his authority. Dublin,
however, was {156} in no two minds about its attitude towards the
departing viceroy. From the moment that the citizens knew of his
recall, they lighted bonfires to celebrate it, and held public meetings
under the walls of Dublin Castle, in the course of which the speakers
publicly thanked God for having relieved Dublin of the plaguy presence
of Harrington. An attempt was made to secure a peaceful and
unostentatious exit from the country, but the people would not be
denied, and at a hundred points along the route of his departure the
ex-viceroy witnessed the humiliating sight of bonfires and speakers
alike proclaiming their joy at his departure.
It was, indeed, in remarkable contrast to Lord Chesterfield's brief and
brilliant reign.
[Sidenote: Peg Woffington]
The Dublin of Dorset's time was squalid, dirty, and disease-ridden.
The gentry were drinking themselves into penury; the city was crowded
with young bloods, who gambled, and drank, and called out each other to
give satisfaction on the famous duelling-ground of Phoenix Park. Clubs
of all sorts abounded, and were in reality drinking dens. The most
famous of all, Daly's, was the headquarters of most of the notorious
gamblers and debauchees of the metropolis. Five theatres ministered to
the pleasures of the Court and people, and the leading actress was Peg
Woffington, the mistress of the Provost of Trinity College. Peg, as we
all know, was a high-spirited woman, and full of a sparkling audacity
that often amounted to impertinence. On one occasion, when the Duke of
Dorset was seated in the royal {157} box at the theatre, she saucily
concluded a recitation with the lines:
'Let others with as small pretentions
'Tease you for places or for pensions,
I scorn a pension or a place.
My sole design upon your grace--
The sum of my petition this--
I claim, my lord, an annual kiss.'
The verses were written by Dr. Andrews, the Provost, and caused great
offence in the ranks of the fashionable ladies, who cut the actress for
a time. Peg Woffington, however, did not suffer to any considerable
extent as a result of her pert address to the viceroy.
Virtue was not the duke's strong point. Many have been the scrapes
Viceroys of Ireland have got themselves into, but the Duke of Dorset
was the only one whose conduct enabled an outraged husband to divorce
his wife. The lady in the case was Mrs. La Touche, who declared that
love was the hereditary passion in her family. A woman who could
resist nothing was easy prey to the tenant of Dublin Castle.
Dorset had secured his reappointment by lavish promises. He undertook
to restore sanity to Ireland--meaning, of course, Dublin, for
officialism did not recognize the provinces--and he guaranteed to bring
the Irish Parliament to its senses. In the circumstances Dorset had
his way, and in 1751 he re-entered Dublin. He might have succeeded in
scoring a personal triumph if he had not brought his youngest son, Lord
George Sackville, with him. Hitherto it had been Dorset's policy to
let well alone--he did nothing particularly well, {158} and was popular
on that account. Lord George Sackville, however, had neither the
complacence nor the dignity of his father; he came as the viceroy's
Secretary of State, his adviser, the man who saw that things were done.
One of his first acts was to quarrel with the Speaker of the Irish
House of Commons. This was Henry Boyle, afterwards Earl of Shannon.
Boyle was an Irish Parliamentary Hampden, who jealously guarded the
rights of his assembly and of the country. Harrington had left
Parliament triumphant, and the House was not going to be brow-beaten by
George Sackville.
[Sidenote: The struggle with Parliament]
The cause of the most important and vital dispute was a measure
disposing of the surplus revenues of the country. Parliament declared
that it could dispose of them without the sanction of the king; the
viceroy, through his Secretary of State, declared otherwise, and when
the House of Commons sent the bill for the viceroy's approval, he
inserted a clause giving the king's permission to its establishment by
law. The assembly ignored the clause, and proceeded to other business.
Sackville and George Stone, the Primate, were furious. They saw in
this act of insubordination the terrible spectacle of a free Parliament
sitting day after day and publicly criticizing the privileged
class--the officials. Acting under their advice, Dorset signed a
warrant for the Speaker's arrest, and an attempt was made to execute
it. But in order to get at the person of Boyle--who was the hero of
the hour--the officers would have had to arrest half the population of
Dublin. Thousands {159} of persons of all classes followed the Speaker
wherever he went, forming an unofficial bodyguard that soon so
impressed Sackville that the warrant was withdrawn.
Meanwhile the dispute between Parliament and the viceroy formed the
subject of all sorts and conditions of rumours. Once it was reported
that the king had signed a decree abolishing the Irish Parliament, and
substituting for it the attendance of so many Irish members in the
English Parliament. There was no foundation for the rumour, but it was
not an hour old before a vast mob surrounded Dublin Castle, shouting
lurid threats against the person of the viceroy. One of the most
popular theatres, owned by one of the most popular men--Sheridan, the
father of the famous dramatist--was wrecked because the leading
comedian would not repeat some lines which seemed to be slightly
veiled, satirical references to the national dispute.
Boyle was now master of the situation, the real ruler of the country.
The persecution of the Government had, as it often has done before,
raised a man of mediocre ability to the pedestal of genius.
Sensational rumours began to reach England and astound the frequenters
of the clubs and the coffee-houses. It was reported that Dorset had
been murdered and Boyle elected King of Ireland, and there were visions
that seemed like stern realities of the end of the English robbing of
the Irish till. The ministry became alarmed, and when the Government
realized that Dorset was a menace to their authority in Dublin, {160}
they decided to recall him, and appoint Lord Hartington in his place.
It is said that when Dorset heard of this he burst into tears, and it
is, indeed, extraordinary the passion this man had for the position of
Viceroy of Ireland. He wrote letters to the king, humbly praying that
he might be allowed to return to the Government of Ireland as soon as
order was restored, but in the long run he had to feign contentment
with the minor post of Master of the Horse.
{161}