The Viceroys of Ireland

by Charles Kingston O'Mahony

CHAPTER IX

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 £3,000 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 £10,000, and agreed to remit to the State £1,000 a year for fourteen years. The coinage was not base, but it meant that a profit of £40,000 was to pass into the pockets of the 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 £300 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 partisan Chief Justice—Whitshed—though the grand jury eventually threw out the bill against him, and he was discharged.

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 £3,000 a year for eight years, a sum—£24,000—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.

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 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 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.

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 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.

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 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 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.

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, 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 £50,000, and in addition an annuity of £3,000 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 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 £40,000, 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. The king eventually compromised by paying £20,000.

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 £20,000 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 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.

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 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 entrée 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.

Chesterfield and Miss Ambrose

To Eleanor Ambrose he paid great attention, 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.

Earl of Harrington

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 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 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.

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, 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 £150 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 levée 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 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.

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 debauchées 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 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, 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.

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 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, 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.