The Viceroys of Ireland Part 13

[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 friends.h.i.+p 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 embarra.s.sment of rebelling against the Government represented by a man against whom no charge of self-interest or lack of patriotism could be hurled.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Emba.s.sy at St. Petersburg; from 1827 to 1829 a commissioners.h.i.+p 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 emba.s.sy by no means the easiest in Europe.

In 1838 he declined the Governor-Generals.h.i.+p 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 ent.i.tled 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 statesmans.h.i.+p, drove Russell to distraction, and made Clarendon old before his time. Daily plots to a.s.sa.s.sinate 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 ma.s.s 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 hara.s.sed 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 cla.s.s 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 proprietors.h.i.+p 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 7,000 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 2,000 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 2,000 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 a.s.sume.

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 3,700 altogether to Birch, and had received practically nothing in return. Of this sum 2,000 had been paid to the journalist to abandon an action he had entered against the viceroy, claiming 4,800 and 3 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 cla.s.sic. 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 friends.h.i.+p, only to be called a coward, and earn the distrust of his own party. He then reversed his policy with the usual result--n.o.body was pleased, and when in 1852 Lord Clarendon's term came to an end, he was adjudged by all cla.s.ses 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 n.o.bleman 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 40,000, 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 Ess.e.x 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 partic.i.p.ants 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-Generals.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sistance of Thomas Drummond, his under-secretary, he framed the Irish t.i.the Bill, the Irish Munic.i.p.al 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 emanc.i.p.ationist when it was dangerous to confess to such ultra-Liberalism, and his speech when introducing the Irish t.i.the 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 n.o.bleman 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 ill.u.s.trates 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}

CHAPTER XVII

The viceroyalty of Lord Wodehouse brought him an earldom in the year he retired from office--1868--but it would be an exaggeration to say that he was conspicuously successful. Until his appointment to Ireland, Wodehouse had had experience of under-secretarys.h.i.+ps only, at the Foreign and Indian Offices, and Lord Palmerston's selection came as a surprise. It may have been due to the fact that Lord Wodehouse's wife was a daughter of an Irish peer, the last Earl of Clare, and there have been selections for the viceroyalty based on even more frivolous and cynical reasons. There was, of course, a great deal of anxious and dangerous work for Lord Wodehouse to do, and within a few months of his arrival in Dublin he was coping night and day with the Fenian rising.

At first all the viceroy's energy and the underground activities of his subordinates seemed helpless against the efforts of the latest society for bringing about separation from England, but Lord Wodehouse was not dismayed, and he met murder with execution and a.s.sa.s.sination with the rope. The Fenian movement culminated in 1867 in a series of shameless murders that once more drew the {262} attention of the English nation to the disturbed condition of Ireland.

In the May of 1867 Mr. Gladstone declared in the House of Commons that the time was near when the Government would have to deal with the Irish Church, one of the strongest arguments of the Fenian party. Following this declaration came the murder of a policeman in Manchester, when an attempt was made to rescue two Fenian prisoners. Three men were executed for the crime, and as the 'Manchester martyrs' they are to be found in the calendar of Nationalism. There was a melodramatic attempt to blow up a London prison, and thus free a Fenian incarcerated within its walls. Everywhere the mention of the name of Ireland produced a feeling of panic and an expression of profound contempt.

[Sidenote: The Earl of Kimberley]

Meanwhile Lord Wodehouse, whose administration, ending in 1866, was wholly political, acted with rigour and fearlessness. The Home Rulers mocked him, issuing imitation proclamations signed 'Woodlouse.' He turned aside from signing warrants to welcome, in May, 1865, the Prince of Wales--afterwards King Edward VII.--to Dublin to open the International Exhibition, but that was almost the only occasion when he made a public appearance una.s.sociated with politics. There was some effort to maintain the social side of Dublin Castle government, but the times were not favourable to hospitality, and when in 1866 the viceroy was succeeded by the Marquis of Abercorn, and took his place in Mr.

Gladstone's first ministry as Lord Privy Seal, under his new t.i.tle of Earl of {263} Kimberley, there was neither regret nor grat.i.tude expressed for his departure. The Nationalists and their Fenian allies could not be expected to show approval or disapproval of persons who merely administered the same system. To them Dublin Castle was the outward token of England's rule in Ireland, and their object was to destroy its existence.

Lord Kimberley died in 1902, aged seventy-six. He is not remembered for his Irish viceroyalty, but as Foreign Secretary under Lord Rosebery in 1892-94 he displayed an ability that was something above mere industry. He declined to join an alliance which had for its object the coercion of j.a.pan after the latter's victory over China, and this far-seeing act was the first step towards the Anglo-j.a.panese alliance which many consider Lord Lansdowne's greatest achievement during his tenure of the Foreign Office. Lord Kimberley was Colonial Secretary in the days when the affairs of the outer Empire were not considered very important, and a knowledge of the colonies something akin to bad form.

His administration of Indian affairs was decidedly tame, but he did no harm. It was his fate who once had been a member of the strongest Liberal Cabinet in the history of party government to witness the Liberal debacle that followed the resignation of the Rosebery Government. In the palmy days of Liberalism it was his good fortune to serve under Gladstone--towards the close of his life he sat in the Cabinet of a man who, having won the greatest prize of political life too easily, treated it with {264} contempt, and in doing so wrecked the party which enabled him to win some fame as a statesman. To Lord Kimberley fell the task of leading the Liberal minority in the House of Lords, and when he died in 1902, the Conservative and Unionist party was in an apparently impregnable position, and Liberalism was in the depths.

The fall of the Liberal ministry brought Lord Derby to the head of the Government, with Disraeli as his Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Prime Minister thereupon asked the Marquis of Abercorn to accept the difficult and laborious post of Viceroy of Ireland, and the hazardous position was accepted from a sense of duty. Lord Abercorn was in 1866 fifty-five years of age, and thirty-four years earlier he had married Lady Louisa Russell, a daughter of the sixth Duke of Bedford, another viceregal family. The viceroy was a popular landlord, though he, too, had a const.i.tutional objection to tenants who would not pay their rents. But the respectable cla.s.ses admired him, and those who knew him personally considered that he was the right man for Ireland. He was the proudest man in Ireland, with a flamboyant love of display.

Fenianism was most active during his first term, and Abercorn was compelled to adopt similar methods in dealing with the trouble as had been part of the Liberal administration of his predecessor. Ireland has always refused to accept the spirit of the English party system, and whether Liberal or Conservative ministry was in power, Dublin Castle remained the same. There were the usual evictions, riots, {265} murders, and other crimes scarcely less reprehensible, and the viceroy, although protected to some extent by the Chief Secretary, who was, of course, the mouthpiece of the Irish Government in the House of Commons, found himself compelled by force of circ.u.mstances to undertake political work against which his soul revolted. Lord Abercorn was not a man to revel in a display of the power of the police, or even of the tenacity and strength of the Castle bureaucracy. He aimed at the improvement of the ma.s.ses, the progress of education, and the cultivation of the fine arts. In society the viceroy and the marchioness were most popular. He was an intimate friend of the queen.

No charge of alienism could be laid against the head of the Irish Hamiltons, and while every other great landlord had his land troubles, the tenants of the Marquis of Abercorn had realized in a practical manner their indebtedness to their landlord. If anybody should have been the ideal viceroy Lord Abercorn was the man; but here, again, any success achieved was purely social, and confined to a small area. The unruly state of the country, its increasing poverty, and its record of crime, found no palliative in the reign of the proudest of the Hamiltons.

[Sidenote: Prince and Princess of Wales]

In April, 1868, the Prince and Princess of Wales visited Dublin, to prove again that if Ireland had the reputation of being a nation of rebels, it could be courteous to distinguished visitors. Lord and Lady Abercorn received them in Dublin, and there were great rejoicings. The executive had taken the most elaborate precautions for the safety {266} of the royal pair, but events proved that they were quite unnecessary, and Ireland might have been one of the most prosperous countries in the world for all the prince and princess saw to the contrary. Within the sacred walls of St. Patrick's Cathedral the Lord-Lieutenant presided over a gorgeous ceremony, which formally created the Prince of Wales a Knight of St. Patrick, and the banquet that followed in St. Patrick's Hall was one of great splendour. The dinner brought together not only all the notables of Ireland, but also the largest gathering of English and Irish detectives that the Castle has ever contained. The number of the detectives was quite embarra.s.sing, but it was considered necessary, with recollections of Manchester and Clerkenwell. The royal guests were ignorant of this part of the programme, however, although the prince once addressed a question to a gentleman whom he thought was the viceroy's secretary. He was not enlightened as to the ident.i.ty of the detective-inspector from London, who was part of his bodyguard.

Benjamin Disraeli was Prime Minister at the time of the royal visit to Ireland, and he had no difficulty in getting Abercorn a dukedom. On August 10, 1868, his elevation was announced, and Ireland's only duke--his Grace of Leinster--was joined by a second wearer of the strawberry leaves. The new dignity had been earned years before Lord Abercorn lived in Dublin Castle, and by no stretch of official imagination could it be said to hallmark the Abercorn administration of 1866 to 1868. The General Election in the latter {267} year displaced Disraeli, and gave Mr. Gladstone the reins of power, and the Duke of Abercorn went out with the Tory Government to enjoy himself in opposition until 1874, when Disraeli tasted the sweets of office again.

[Sidenote: The Irish Church disestablished]

We have Mr. Gladstone's own admission that the Fenian agitation of the sixties was the primary cause of English interest in the Irish Church, and in the great land question. It is one of the truisms of history that agitation on unconst.i.tutional methods is more effective than the employment of peaceful persuasion. Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation proved that.

When Gladstone took office it was known that he would attempt to create a contented Ireland by disestablis.h.i.+ng the Irish Church, and by pa.s.sing a great Land Act. He chose as his Irish viceroy Earl Spencer, then an unknown and untried young man in his thirty-third year. To be the representative of the premier in Ireland was the most onerous and dangerous position in the Government. The viceroy found society, lay and clerical, against him, and with the pa.s.sing of the Land Act of 1870 the upper-cla.s.s Irish believed what they had only doubted before--that Gladstone was the worst enemy of Ireland, and that Lord Spencer was his dangerous satellite. There is no need to enter into the controversy that ensued when Gladstone introduced the Bill disestablis.h.i.+ng the Church of Ireland, as the Protestant minority was termed absurdly.

Archbishop Trench declared pa.s.sionately that the disestablishment would 'put to the Irish Protestants the choice between apostasy and expatriation, and every {268} man among them who has money or position, when he sees his Church go, will leave the country. If you do that,'

he continued, 'you will find the country so difficult to manage that you will have to depend upon the gibbet and the sword.' It would be unfair to dwell upon the ludicrous moanings of the Church party; they prophesied not only the extinction of the Irish Protestants, but the end of Christendom. We can be content with the knowledge that time has given us of the prosperity and progress of Protestantism in Ireland.