The Melbourne Government had two years to run when Lord Normanby left
Ireland, and they were represented for that period at Dublin by Hugh
Fortescue, Viscount Ebrington, and afterwards Earl Fortescue. The
O'Connell party welcomed Lord Ebrington as they would have welcomed
anybody commissioned by Lord Melbourne, and although they had been
disappointed by the barren results of the treaty so far, they hoped for
the best. The Repealer, realizing slowly, perhaps, that he was going
to experience a bitter disappointment, was anxious to raise the
standard of revolt, but he was advised by friends of the ministry to
wait. They prevailed upon him to give them another chance.
[Sidenote: Encouraging Irish trade]
The accession to power of Sir Robert Peel dispelled O'Connell's
sanguine hopes. It was true that the premier had twelve years
previously conceded the claims of the Catholic party, but it was known
that he would have none of the cry for Repeal, and that he would
appoint a Lord-Lieutenant of his own stamp. It is singular, indeed,
how devotedly O'Connell admired the office of the viceroy. To him it
seemed to represent Ireland's scrap of royalty, and in the imitation
{243} courts of Dublin Castle and the Viceregal Lodge he saw something
of regal independence for the country. He was always opposed to the
abolition of the post, and during the Melbourne administration was
continually suggesting to the premier the names of noblemen likely to
make efficient viceroys. When Lord Normanby retired, he promptly
counselled Melbourne to send Lord Clarendon over, but the commission
was given to Lord Ebrington, and this nobleman's compulsory resignation
let in Earl de Grey, who governed Ireland from September, 1841, to
July, 1844. He was sixty years of age, wealthy, and popular, married
to an Irish lady of great charm, when he was selected by Sir Robert
Peel; and with a callous indifference to O'Connell's disapproval he
came to Ireland, and with the help of his wife won the respect of all
classes. Lady de Grey was a daughter of the first Earl of Enniskillen,
and was three years her husband's junior, whom she had married in 1805.
While the Lord-Lieutenant entertained Dublin society, and spent
thousands of pounds to the benefit of the country, Lady de Grey bore
her part well, though she showed at times that she did not regard
herself as a hostess only. She realized that the country could do with
more trade and less agitation, and without recourse to political means
she set herself the task of helping the manufacturers of Ireland.
Habitues of Dublin Castle and the Viceregal Lodge entertainments soon
heard that they could not please her Excellency better than by
patronizing Irish industries, and if the ladies were still compelled to
buy their {244} dresses in London and Paris, they were induced to
patronize the Irish dressmakers for their less expensive gowns.
It was not, of course, the most auspicious time for a genuine attempt
to do something practical towards the social salvation of Ireland.
Crime was rife; agitation was rampant; patriotism rioting deliriously.
Many districts became acquainted with famine, but if food was short
orators were plentiful. De Grey had plenty of work to do, and it was
he who initiated the proceedings that led to the arrest of Daniel
O'Connell and some of his friends in the autumn of 1843. The
Government took advantage of a public meeting of the agitators to
apprehend them for conspiracy, and eventually O'Connell and his
associates were placed on trial, found guilty by a packed jury, and
subsequently 'imprisoned' in an old-fashioned country house, where they
passed their time amidst a quiet that must have been to them a luxury.
They were allowed to have their own servants and whatever food they
wished, and never were prisoners more free than during the three months
that elapsed between the conviction and sentence by the Lord Chief
Justice of Ireland, and the reversal of the verdict by the House of
Lords. That memorable trial gave William Smith O'Brien his
opportunity, for O'Brien became automatically the leader of the Repeal
movement when O'Connell was in 'prison.'
[Sidenote: The decline of O'Connell]
Between the first and second trials Lord de Grey left Ireland, and was
succeeded by Lord Heytesbury, who remained until 1846. Born in 1779,
{245} William a'Court, first Baron Heytesbury, was educated at Eton,
and spent many years in the diplomatic service, holding the important
position of Ambassador to the courts of Portugal and Russia. In 1808
he married a grand-daughter of the Earl of Radnor, and twenty years
later his diplomatic services were rewarded by the bestowal of a
peerage. Peel always had a high opinion of Heytesbury, and only his
resignation in 1835 prevented him making the ex-ambassador
Governor-General of India. On the resignation of Earl de Grey, Peel
invited Heytesbury to go to Ireland, and the invitation was accepted.
He was able to regard with indifference the censure of the Law Lords on
the conduct of the Dublin Government in the matter of Daniel
O'Connell's trial. He could easily dissociate himself from the faults
of the preceding regime. The abandonment of the cry for Repeal by
O'Connell lessened the anxieties of Heytesbury, but there were the
usual economic problems to be dealt with, and from all over the country
reports came of the terrible distress and poverty prevailing. The
Lord-Lieutenant did his best, and much money was spent in a vain
attempt to ameliorate the conditions of peasant life. By the close of
Lord Heytesbury's brief reign, however, ominous clouds were rising on
the political horizon. Daniel O'Connell, tamed by age and experience,
was by no means the raging propagandist of the twenties and thirties;
he was ever counselling his fiery followers to concentrate their
attention on the reform of the English Parliament, but his adherents
demanded {246} Repeal, and when he disagreed, they passed on, despising
the leader who refused to lead. William Smith O'Brien was now the
temporary hero, and he was fascinating the rank and file of agitators
by his aristocratic manner and superficial unselfishness. Here was a
man--not one of themselves--who stood to lose everything and gain
nothing by his association with a cause that was supposed to be the
religion of the lower-class Irish and the scarcely superior patriotic
attorneys and doctors. William Smith O'Brien was a gentleman and a
patriot! The country gasped, and followed him, leaving Daniel
O'Connell to realize that every generation produces its heroes and
geniuses, and will not tolerate the rivalry of the aged, however
eminent.
[Sidenote: An Irish Lord-Lieutenant]
Lord John Russell began his first ministry on July 6th, 1846. His
Cabinet was a strong one, and his prospects were bright save on the
omni-present Irish question. O'Connell was certainly a spent force,
but a new race of agitators had arisen, and the principles of '98 were
as strong as ever nearly fifty years later. The premier, however, had
some knowledge of Ireland. As a boy he had played in the heavy rooms
of Dublin Castle, and as Home Secretary he had studied Irish affairs
besides administering them. He was well aware that the chief defect of
many viceroys was their inability to understand the national character,
and he therefore came to the conclusion that if a resident Irish
landlord should be appointed Lord-Lieutenant, something would be done
at any rate to popularize the executive government {247} in Dublin.
Happily for Russell, there was the man for his purpose in the ranks of
his followers. John William Ponsonby, fourth Earl of Bessborough, was
a popular Irishman, a large landowner, and possessing considerable
influence in his own country. This had been proved by the Kilkenny
election of 1826, when he was returned to Parliament despite the most
energetic opposition of O'Connell.
Five years later, when the agitator's position and power were almost
impregnable, he retained his seat with a majority of sixty-five, thanks
to the support of the most famous of Irish Roman Catholic Bishops, Dr.
Doyle. Retiring from Kilkenny, he represented Nottingham in the
Commons until in 1834, after twenty-nine years of Parliamentary life,
he was created a peer in his own right, and took his seat in the House
of Lords as Lord Duncannon. In 1834 he was Home Secretary, and from
1835 to 1839 was Lord Privy Seal. Two years after, succeeding to the
earldom, he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland immediately upon
Lord John Russell's formation of a Government. Between the date of the
Kilkenny election and his accession to the House of Lords, one of the
most important events in his life was his friendship with O'Connell.
Once his bitterest enemy, the agitator became almost an intimate
friend, and Russell's selection of Bessborough for the viceroyalty was
a direct attempt to please the popular party. Unfortunately for the
designs of the premier, the appointment came too late. There were new
'shepherds in Israel,' and O'Connell {248} no longer led the Repealers
or guided them in their councils. Of course, in official circles Lord
and Lady Bessborough were successful enough. Lady Bessborough was a
daughter of that Earl of Westmoreland who had been Viceroy of Ireland
from 1790 to 1795, and her Excellency was like an old friend returning.
But their stay in Dublin was destined to be very brief, and just when
it appeared that the viceroy was to be overwhelmed by the enormous
amount of work created by the followers of O'Brien, his Excellency died
suddenly in Dublin Castle on May 16, 1847--a tragedy which, amongst
other things, meant that the stormiest viceroyalty in the history of
the country should be that of Lord Clarendon. Lord Bessborough was
sixty-six, and his death was regretted by everybody. Those who had the
welfare of the country at heart had been hoping that, with an Irishman
and a resident landlord at the head of the Irish executive, peace might
come to the nation, were left to seek consolations in speculations on
the 'might-have-been,' while the party of revolution were relieved of
the embarrassment of rebelling against the Government represented by a
man against whom no charge of self-interest or lack of patriotism could
be hurled.
[Illustration: Earl of Clarendon]
One friend of O'Connell was succeeded by another, and George William
Frederick Villiers, fourth Earl of Clarendon, was sworn in as
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland shortly after Lord Bessborough's death. It
was understood that he was to be the last Viceroy of Ireland. He was
then forty-seven years of age, twenty-seven of which {249} had been
spent in the service of the country. At twenty he was an attache to
the British Embassy at St. Petersburg; from 1827 to 1829 a
commissionership of Customs took him to Ireland, where he studied the
Irish question so effectively that the Lord-Lieutenant, the Marquis of
Anglesey, was glad to have his advice. When he left Madrid, the
Spanish Government struck a medal in his honour as a tribute to his
successful occupancy of an embassy by no means the easiest in Europe.
In 1838 he declined the Governor-Generalship of Canada: indeed, he made
a habit of declining honours, amongst these being a twice-offered
marquisate and two pressing invitations to govern India. In 1847,
however, he accepted the post of Viceroy of Ireland, and with Lady
Clarendon, who was a daughter of the Earl of Verulam, he entered upon
his remarkable term of office. A year before he had presided over the
Board of Trade, and this was his most onerous ministerial appointment
until he went to Ireland.
The strongest and wisest of men would have failed in Ireland during the
period bounded by the years 1847 and 1852--the time covered by Lord
Clarendon's viceroyalty--and the Lord-Lieutenant was by no means
entitled to be considered above the average in strength and wisdom. He
was a Liberal, and a Free Trader, and a friend of O'Connell, and he had
numerous ideas that he hoped would fructify to Ireland's gain, but he
never had a real chance. In succession he had to face the Young
Ireland insurrection, the famine, Orange disturbances in several
counties, the {250} ghastly economic problems created by the increasing
emigration of the peasantry, and the consequent bankruptcy of the
landlords. Clarendon laboured at the Castle and in London in a
hopeless endeavour to restore order out of chaos. To defeat William
Smith O'Brien and his followers was ridiculously easy, but it was
another matter coping with a famine that threatened to wipe the peasant
population out of existence. Ireland, ever the thorn in the crown of
British statesmanship, drove Russell to distraction, and made Clarendon
old before his time. Daily plots to assassinate him were duly reported
to the police, and by them to the viceroy; Lady Clarendon was induced
to spend most of her time in England, and eventually so virulent did
the enemies of the Government become that for days the viceroy was
placed in the humiliating position of being unable to go beyond the
precincts of Dublin Castle. At viceregal parties a large percentage of
those present consisted of spies and detectives. In the country blood
was being shed--at the Castle lives were being worn out. Clarendon was
courageous enough, but courage is only a secondary attribute in a
statesman. Wisdom was wanted, and wisdom was not to be found. The
executive at Dublin scarcely understood the temper of the country. The
Lord-Lieutenant's policy was vigorous, but its administration haphazard
and spasmodic.
Whenever an experiment or change was tried, it was abandoned in panic
before anyone could judge the results. The viceroy overshadowed {251}
the Chief Secretary, and thus all the acts of the queen's
representative were coloured by the opinions of one political party.
To the mass of the people of Ireland the throne of England symbolized
oppression and persecution.
In this vague and bewildering state of affairs there was no room for
social pleasantries, though Castle seasons came and went with grim
regularity. There was, however, some compensation in store for the
harassed viceroy, for to everybody's surprise it was announced that
Queen Victoria intended to visit Ireland.
[Sidenote: Queen Victoria's first visit]
The first visit to Ireland of Queen Victoria took place in 1849. Her
Majesty was accompanied by the Prince Consort, and the royal parents
brought their children with them. Their stay in Ireland had to be
limited to five days, and a great deal had to be compressed into the
short time at their disposal. Ireland has always been courteous to its
visitors of whatever rank, but Queen Victoria received an enthusiastic
welcome that voiced her popularity with every class and creed in the
country. She had undertaken the journey from a strong sense of duty;
she actually experienced a sense of pleasure, and from that time
forward there was at least one eminent person in England who understood
the good qualities of the people of Ireland. On the surface, and to
suit the phrase-mongers, they might be disloyal, but at heart they
entertained a strong affection for the occupant of the throne of
England. Queen Victoria knew this, and her opinion was endorsed by her
successors, King Edward VII. and King George V., {252} when they made
the acquaintance of the people of the 'kingdom of Ireland.'
The royal visit accomplished, Dublin returned to its old condition of
squalor. Agitation was rife, fostered by the pens and voices of a
group of brilliant Irishmen. They had started the _Nation_ newspaper,
and had made it one of the most powerful organs in the country; other
offshoots of the Young Ireland Press helped to pepper the Government,
and as there was no champion on the English side, the patriots appeared
to have matters all their own way. Arguments were unanswered, and
were, therefore, accepted as infallible, and this condition of things
continued for a time until the viceroy and his secretary, Mr. Corry
Conellan, decided to have a newspaper champion of their very own. Sir
William Somerville, the Chief Secretary, was called into the
conference, and ways and means discussed. There can be no doubt of the
fact that the Lord-Lieutenant could have had the aid of any one of a
dozen clever journalists, but ashamed, perhaps, of their methods, they
enlisted in their service a person of the name of Birch, whose only
claim to notoriety was the proprietorship of the _World_, and a
conviction ending in six months' imprisonment for having threatened to
publish a defamatory article about a public official unless the latter
paid for its suppression. Lord Clarendon was, of course, unaware of
his hireling's police-court experiences, and he agreed with his private
secretary's recommendation of Mr. Birch. The latter was, therefore,
regularly supplied with {253} opinions from the Castle upon all
subjects relating to Ireland, and week by week the _World_ did its best
to counteract the effect produced by every issue of the _Nation_. It
was a feeble attempt on Birch's part, who possessed neither the wit nor
the talent of the _Nation_ writers, and his employers tired of his
futilities. The hack was given notice, and his _World_ was abandoned
by the viceregal party. But Mr. Birch was a gentleman with a knowledge
of a greater world; he decided that Lord Clarendon and his Chief
Secretary could be made to pay, and so he concocted a list of services
rendered and demanded a honorarium of L7,000 for his trouble.
[Sidenote: A 'cause celebre']
When the claim was first made, the Lord-Lieutenant declined to pay a
penny more. He reminded Birch that he had received nearly L2,000 in
return for very little work, but the journalist did not wish to argue
the rights or wrongs of his claim--he wanted money, or else he would
bring them into court and open his mouth. This frightened Lord
Clarendon, who compromised with Birch by paying him the sum of L2,000
to withdraw his action. The journalist accepted, and turned his
attention to the Chief Secretary, who wisely refused to be blackmailed,
and accordingly, in the month of December, 1851, the elite of Dublin
crowded the approaches to the Four Courts, to witness the spectacle of
a viceroy in the witness-box being cross-examined by counsel for the
plaintiff. There were rumours that the most sensational disclosures
would be made, and in official circles there was much trepidation.
{254} By now the viceroy had learned the lesson that to attempt to
conciliate a blackmailer was the most stupid form folly could assume.
He agreed to submit himself to cross-examination--the only course if he
desired to free himself from his late confederate.
Birch boldly stated his case, and described how he had been sent for by
the viceroy's private secretary, and bought over by the Government. He
had been instructed to reply to the attacks of the _Nation_, and, so he
said, given a free hand in the spending of money. One story is good
until another is told, and Birch's was largely discounted when the
defence made its explanation. Lord Clarendon confessed that he had
paid L3,700 altogether to Birch, and had received practically nothing
in return. Of this sum L2,000 had been paid to the journalist to
abandon an action he had entered against the viceroy, claiming L4,800
and L3 10s. costs. The action tried was ostensibly against Sir William
Somerville, the Chief Secretary, but everybody knew that it was merely
another attempt on the insatiable Birch's part to extract more money
from the Lord-Lieutenant.
The trial lasted several days, but when the jury were allowed to
retire, they made short work of Birch, whose cross-examination had
killed his chances of success. Four minutes' deliberation was
sufficient for the jurymen to bring in a verdict for the defendants, to
whom they awarded costs to the amount of sixpence. It was a blow to
the prestige of Lord Clarendon, though the right-minded admitted his
honesty in declining to be {255} blackmailed by an adventurer.
Naturally, the opposition party made great capital out of it, and the
_Nation_ attained the dignity of a classic. For many weeks its pages
were never without a reference to the _cause celebre_, one of these
being a neat epigram, which read:
'"Lord C. has grown most awfully religious,"
Said Corry Conellan with a rueful air;
"At least, his trepidation is prodigious
As to how in the next World he'll fare!":
With all the stubbornness of an English gentleman, the viceroy remained
on at his post. He was anxious to discover the solution to the
problems of the day. English money poured into the country to relieve
the famine-stricken areas, and the landlords were helped also, but this
did not augur tranquillity in the future. In despair the viceroy began
a policy of favouring the patriotic party; he tried conciliation, made
advances, and offered the hand of friendship, only to be called a
coward, and earn the distrust of his own party. He then reversed his
policy with the usual result--nobody was pleased, and when in 1852 Lord
Clarendon's term came to an end, he was adjudged by all classes to have
failed, although in such times Clarendon's failure was not without its
personal compensations. He had the satisfaction of knowing that no man
could have succeeded, and history has proved that to be a fact. His
subsequent career is part of the history of England, for he was Foreign
Secretary from 1853 to 1858, an epoch rendered memorable by the {256}
Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. In 1870 he died suddenly, seventy
years of age.
[Illustration: Earl of Eglinton and Winton]
[Sidenote: A remarkable sportsman]
Lord Derby's first Government began on February 27, 1852, and ended in
the following December. During that short period the Viceroy of
Ireland was Lord Eglinton and Winton, a nobleman who is best remembered
as the promoter of the Eglinton tournament, an attempt to revive the
old-time glory of the age of chivalry. This freak cost him L40,000, a
small sum to one possessed of great wealth, a fact he made evident
throughout his stay in Dublin. His lavish entertainments created a new
era in viceregal hospitality. Lord Eglinton was essentially what may
be described as a sportsman, using the term in the old sense, and not
as it is now understood. His racing stable was about the largest and
most successful in England, and during the forty-nine years (1812-61)
he lived, he helped to enliven the crowd. He was devoted to sport, and
some surprise was expressed when he agreed to govern Ireland, but he
liked the country, and in 1858, on Lord Derby's return, he went back to
Dublin, but within sixteen months he resigned, and in June, 1859, it
became necessary to find a successor. He was scarcely interested in
politics, though in 1854 he moved a resolution in the Lords asking for
a commission to inquire into the working of the Board of Education in
Ireland. During his second viceroyalty he married again--the first
Lady Eglinton having died in 1853--and for a few months a daughter of
the Earl of Essex acted as the hostess of Dublin Castle and the
Viceregal {257} Lodge. Personally untouched by the political
difficulties of the country, Lord Eglinton had the merit of realizing
the hopelessness of trying to solve Irish problems, and he did more
good with his lavish dinners than the well-meaning Clarendon had with
his painstaking investigations into, and midnight studies of, what are
termed, for want of a better name, 'Irish affairs.' He was given the
United Kingdom peerage of Winton--an earldom--on his retirement from
Ireland, the grateful ministry thus acknowledging his popularity as a
sportsman, and helping us to remember that he won the St. Leger three
times and the Derby once.
Political affairs having terminated Lord Eglinton's first viceroyalty
towards the close of 1852, Lord Aberdeen, the Prime Minister, appointed
the Earl of St. Germans to Ireland. It was yet another attempt to meet
the criticism that English statesmen and Irish viceroys were absolutely
ignorant of and indifferent to Irish problems. Lord St. Germans was
fifty-four, and for some years--1841 to 1845--had been Chief Secretary
for Ireland. He was a man of ability and courage, and as the author of
the Eliot Convention taught the participants in the Carlist rising in
Spain something of the decencies of warfare. As Chief Secretary for
Ireland, his time had been spent in dealing with the numerous petty
rebellions and their leaders; he introduced a Bill to restrict the sale
of firearms and the importation of ammunition; the Government found it
unacceptable, and Eliot went out of office to be given the {258}
Postmaster-Generalship by Peel, and later the Lord-Lieutenancy of
Ireland.
Lord St. Germans married in 1824 a grand-daughter of the first Marquis
Cornwallis, and both became intimate friends of the royal family. In
1853 Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort visited Dublin to open the
great International Exhibition, and, of course, they were
enthusiastically welcomed by the whole of the country. Lord and Lady
St. Germans took the lead in a splendid series of festivities that
celebrated the visit of the queen. Political motives may have
suggested the visit, but in all probability the anxiety of Her Majesty
to see Ireland again was not lessened by the fact that her friend was
the viceroy.
[Sidenote: The Earl of Carlisle]
St. Germans' retirement in 1855 to become Lord Steward and confidant of
the queen until his death, at the age of seventy-nine, in 1877, was
followed by Lord Carlisle's first term of office. As Lord Morpeth he
had been Chief Secretary for more than six years--1835-41--the post
having been given him because it was his amendment to the address that
turned out the Peel administration in the spring of 1835. Lord
Morpeth, as he was known during the twenty odd years he sat in
Parliament, was the most workmanlike minister of his generation. With
the assistance of Thomas Drummond, his under-secretary, he framed the
Irish Tithe Bill, the Irish Municipal Reform Bill, and the Irish Poor
Law Bill; and, although hampered by the House of Lords and by the fact
that he was regarded as Lord Melbourne's {259} hostage for good
behaviour to Daniel O'Connell, he was a most successful Chief Secretary
in a time when success was very dearly bought. He was, therefore,
essentially a safe man when he became viceroy on the nomination of Lord
Palmerston in February, 1855. He held the post until October, 1864,
with the exception of the sixteen months occupied by Lord Eglinton's
second viceroyalty, between February, 1858, and June, 1859.
It is not possible to say that any Viceroy of Ireland has been
successful, because there is no such thing as pleasing the numerous
parties into which the democracy and aristocracy of the country is
divided, but Lord Carlisle went as near success as any human being
could. A fine statue by J. H. Foley, erected in Phoenix Park in 1870,
is evidence of the popularity of George William Frederick Howard,
seventh Earl of Carlisle. He was an emancipationist when it was
dangerous to confess to such ultra-Liberalism, and his speech when
introducing the Irish Tithe Bill in the House of Commons in 1835--he
was but thirty-three--remains one of the best speeches by an Englishman
on Irish affairs. He took a genuine interest in the welfare of the
country, and did his best. The 'patriots' denounced him as a tool of a
tyrannical Government; the few that made his personal acquaintance
discovered a scholarly nobleman with the most amiable manner in the
world. He never married, and consequently did not entertain on the
same lavish and indiscriminate scale as his predecessors, but Dublin
Castle was all the better for its acquaintance with the eminent {260}
persons the viceroy dined and wined there. Another visit of the Queen
and Prince Albert, inspired by the fact that the Prince of Wales was
quartered with his regiment at the Curragh, was a feature of Lord
Carlisle's term.
There were, of course, the usual political agitations, and although the
Smith O'Brien rising had collapsed ignominiously, a new force in Irish
affairs came into existence about the time that Lord Carlisle was
concluding his first viceroyalty. The Irish in America had begun to
take a practical interest in Irish affairs. They subscribed large sums
of money to aid the cause of Irish independence, and for six years,
beginning with 1858, great preparations were made for the striking of
the decisive blow. James Stephens and others founded the Fenian
organization described by Mr. Gladstone as having its root in Ireland
and its branches in the United States. During the latter months of
Lord Carlisle's viceroyalty there were one or two small attempts on the
part of the Fenians to make themselves prominent, but it was not until
Lord Wodehouse was in power at Dublin Castle that English ministers
realized the gravity of the new situation created by Stephens and his
friends. Lord Carlisle's resignation was brought about by ill-health,
and in October, 1864, he left Ireland, to die before the close of the
year. It illustrates the viceroy's position in social and literary
circles to recall the fact that when the country celebrated in 1864 the
tercentenary of the birth of William Shakespeare, Lord Carlisle should
be selected to preside over the festivities at Stratford-on-Avon.
{261}