The Viceroys of Ireland

by Charles Kingston O'Mahony

CHAPTER XII

The resignation of the Duke of Portland enabled Lord Shelburne to appoint his friend, Earl Temple, to the viceroyalty. This was the premier's challenge to Fox and his followers, and was taken as evidence that he meant to do without their aid. Temple, although well aware that his reign must be almost as short as his predecessor's, came to Dublin, and did his best to gain the support of the official party for the tottering ministry.

Banquet given in Dublin Castle by Earl Temple to celebrate his installation as Knight of St. Patrick

Within a few months several Bills of importance were carried both in the English and the Irish Parliaments, and as a sop for the nobility the Order of St. Patrick was founded in the early months of 1783, the viceroy installing himself as grand master. Previous to this Lord Shelburne had been compelled to resign, and Temple's resignation followed as a matter of course, but he waited for the arrival of his successor, Lord Northington, who was selected only after several noblemen had rejected the overtures of the Coalition Ministry of the Duke of Portland. Temple, created Marquis of Buckingham in 1784, consistently opposed the Government, and he had his reward in 1787, when he returned to Ireland on the sudden death of the viceroy, Charles Manners, Duke of Rutland.

The Volunteer Convention

Meanwhile Lord Northington's brief tenure of office was not without incident. He discovered more about Irish affairs in less than twelve months in Dublin than he had learned in ten years in England. A great Volunteer convention in the vicinity of the Castle augured a disturbing time, but it passed off quietly enough, and the viceroy set about advising his friend and political patron, Fox, of the real condition of the country. Fox was for a display of force; Northington, with the superior knowledge of the man on the spot, and able to gauge the temper of the Irish race, strongly urged a policy of conciliation. More than once he complained to Fox that the evils of absentee officialism were endangering the position of the Government in Ireland; and, unable to cope with this scandal because he had the whole of the official and governing classes against him, he turned to the more congenial task of encouraging Irish industries. Out of his own resources he helped in the promotion and development of the flax and tobacco trades, then in a very feeble state. Parliament, anxious to show its friendliness towards Northington, increased his salary from £16,000 to £20,000 a year, but he never benefited by the change—even if he desired to—for the Coalition Ministry, defeated by the intrigues of the court party, went out of office in the early part of 1784, and the Duke of Rutland, a popular and wealthy nobleman, was selected to succeed him at Dublin.

It was at first proposed to send Temple, now Marquis of Buckingham, back again, but the king had need of his services, and the appointment was delayed for some three years.

The Duke of Rutland

Rutland was a close personal friend of the triumphant Pitt, and although only thirty years of age in 1784, was entrusted by his friend with the momentous secret that the Home Government had in contemplation the union of the two Parliaments. Rutland's first move in Dublin was to sound carefully the leading officials and noblemen. To his astonishment he found the most determined opposition everywhere. Nobody would listen to the proposal, and the viceroy was compelled to laugh the idea away, pretending that it was but an idle fancy of his own, and quite unimportant.

It is not to be wondered at that Dublin should be unanimous against the proposal. Its very existence depended upon the official classes. Seventy-five per cent. of the well-to-do drew their incomes from Dublin Castle; while the trades-people were for obvious reasons panic-stricken whenever it was rumoured that the Parliament should be transferred to London.

Rutland thereupon sought distraction in such pleasures as the capital afforded, and his wife seconded him. Both were young and in possession of more than viceregal wealth, and they cut the road to popularity short by a lavish expenditure. The leading noblemen built themselves mansions, and the wealthy bourgeois followed suit. Stephen's Green was the favourite residential quarter, but Merrion Square threatened to rival it. Architects, artists, and builders from England and the Continent crowded Dublin, some of them to found families not without renown in Irish annals, if bearing patronymics more suggestive of sunny Italy or France than their adopted country. The professional classes were rapidly rising in social status, and although the rule that prohibited the recognition of lawyers' and doctors' wives by the Lord-Lieutenant and his consort were still in force, barristers and medical men sometimes gained admission to unofficial festivities at the Castle. The large garrison contributed its quota of officers to Dublin society, which at that time and for many years after the union represented all Ireland. The Duke and Duchess of Rutland cultivated society in a manner that gained them immense personal popularity. They led the fashions in the drawing-rooms and in the clubs, and the duke, who dearly loved a good dinner, created a record for dining out never equalled by any subsequent viceroy.

Tired at last of the rollicking pleasures of the capital, the viceroy decided to seek relaxation in a tour of Ireland. He was strongly advised by his council not to undertake the journey, but he was anxious to witness for himself the feudal state some of the nobility maintained in their country castles, and he carried out his resolve. Accompanied by the duchess, he journeyed from place to place, staying whenever possible at the residences of well-disposed noblemen. To mark their appreciation of his visit, the latter spent thousands of pounds entertaining the viceroy and his wife, and the chroniclers of the day dwell with awe on the vast amount of food consumed by the viceregal pair throughout their tour. He must have undermined his constitution during his Irish travels, for on his return to Dublin he was almost immediately in the thrall of a fever, and, not being strong enough to resist it, expired suddenly at his residence in the Phoenix Park on October 24, 1787.

Duke of Rutland

Grattan and Dublin Castle

To the intense annoyance of the Grattan party the Marquis of Buckingham, who as Earl Temple had been viceroy in 1782, came over in December as the result of the king's influence. The question of the regency during George III.'s illness was acute in Dublin as in London, and the Irish Houses of Parliament, true to its reputation, rushed in with a resolution requesting the Prince of Wales to assume the regency. This motion the viceroy angrily declined to communicate to the Government or the prince, and Parliament thereupon censured him in explicit language. The sudden recovery of the king was a triumph for Buckingham's policy, and he dismissed his principal opponents in Dublin from office, utilizing the public funds to gain fresh adherents for his Government. This action caused Grattan to enter an eloquent protest against the 'expensive genius' of the Marquis of Buckingham. In vain did the viceroy attempt to undermine the position Grattan held. The most popular Irishman of his time could set the viceroy and his satellites at defiance, and all the money that could be filched from the Irish treasury was insufficient to bring about the downfall of the great orator. Grattan was not received at Dublin Castle during Buckingham's viceroyalty, but from his place in Parliament he could thunder at the Lord-Lieutenant and even frighten the ministry in London.

In Walpole's 'Journals of George III.'s Reign' there is an unflattering description of Buckingham, which depicts him as a liar and a thief, and more successful as the latter than the former. Proud and stubborn as he was, Buckingham was compelled to give way, and in September, 1789, to the great joy of the country, he announced his resignation. He left immediately, and dropped out of political life. During a debate on the Irish situation in 1799 he followed the Earl of Carlisle—another ex-viceroy—with a speech advocating the union with Ireland. This was a year after he had served in the rebellion of '98, commanding a regiment of Buckinghamshire militia in the country of which he never spoke without exhausting his powers of invective.

The task of naming the new viceroy fell to William Pitt, and, after considering the matter in conjunction with his own policy, he remembered his old fellow-student at Cambridge, John Fane, now tenth Earl of Westmoreland. The post was offered to and accepted by the earl, and in January, 1790, he was nominated Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Eight years previously he had startled and scandalized society by making a runaway marriage with the daughter of Child, the banker, and reputed to be the wealthiest heiress in the country. Westmoreland was a soldier and not a statesman, but he gladly accepted Pitt's offer, and, disdainful of the growing power of the new Irish party, sought to govern the country from the point of view of the rough and courageous soldier.

Earl of Westmoreland

The Irish Volunteer movement—a Protestant organization—had gained independence for the Irish Parliament, and, incidentally, compelled England to grant certain measures of relief to the Catholics because, with the Protestant community opposed to English misrule, it was necessary for the predominant partner to curry favour with the Catholics. Grattan, John Keogh, and other leaders, demanded complete Catholic emancipation, and the more sober-minded amongst the Protestants had come to realize that Ireland could not progress until the Catholics were freed from the obnoxious penal laws even then in existence.

The first law of nature had compelled the rival religionists to join forces, so that when Lord Westmoreland arrived in Ireland he was faced with the problem of dealing with a strong and united Irish party. Some years previously the Catholic Committee had been formed, and now, with Lord Kenmare and John Keogh controlling it, the organization was the most powerful in the country, with the notable exception of the Irish Volunteers. Keogh was a remarkable man in every way. A wealthy Dublin tradesman, he retired from business in order to fight the battle of Catholic Emancipation, and, although handicapped by internecine strife, succeeded in gaining the control of the Catholic Committee and directing its policy. The viceroy contributed to Keogh's triumph by contemptuously returning an address of welcome from the Catholic Committee because it contained a hope that further relief would be granted to Catholics.

The Irish Volunteers revived

This act, which exasperated the moderate men, convinced the majority of the Committee that Keogh's aggressive policy was the only one worth adopting. Parliament had been declared independent of its English prototype, but everybody knew that it was wholly subject to the bureaucrats who reigned in Dublin Castle. Simultaneously with the rise to prominence of John Keogh came the revivification of the Volunteers. Since their great victory of 1782 they had been allowed to degenerate and dwindle, but the success of the French Revolution was not without its influence on Irish affairs, and the years between 1789 and 1792 witnessed a revival on national lines. Froude wrote eloquently of a Belfast Volunteer Review in 1791. 'The ceremonial commenced with a procession. The Volunteer companies, refilled to their old numbers, marched past with banners and music. A battery of cannon followed, and behind the cannon a portrait of Mirabeau. Then a gigantic triumphal car, bearing a broad sheet of canvas, on which was painted the opening of the Bastille dungeons. In the foreground was the wasted figure of the prisoner who had been confined there thirty years. In the near distance the doors of the cells flung back, disclosing the skeletons of dead victims or living wretches writhing in chains and torture. On the reverse of the canvas Hibernia was seen reclining, one hand and one foot in shackles, and a Volunteer artilleryman holding before her eyes the radiant image of Liberty.... In the evening three hundred and fifty patriots sat down to dinner in the Linen Hall. They drank to the King of Ireland. They drank to Washington, the ornament of mankind. They drank to Grattan, Molyneux, Franklin, and Mirabeau—these last two amidst applause that threatened to shake the building to the ground.'

Struggle for Catholic relief

The proposed co-operation of the Catholic Committee with the Volunteers, the latter being a Presbyterian organization, alarmed the viceroy and the ministers in London. Westmoreland was advised to prevent the amalgamation of the forces by concessions to Catholics, and eventually a measure, granting everything save the franchise to Catholics, was passed by the Irish Parliament. The Castle influence, however, was too strong for John Keogh to win the vote for his followers, but it was something to gain for his fellow-religionists admission to the magistracy, to the rank of King's Counsel, and to become solicitors and to open schools without the permission of the Protestant bishop. Beyond that the Government would not go. But the great Catholic Convention in 1792 won the vote for the majority, although Westmoreland and his secretary, Hobart, wrote imploring Pitt and Dundas not to give way to the importunities of the five Commissioners sent by the Catholic Convention to demand the franchise from the king. The Commissioners convinced the ministry that if their mission failed English rule in Ireland would be at an end, and the Lord-Lieutenant's advice was ignored. In February, 1793, the Chief Secretary moved in Parliament the first reading of a Bill admitting Catholics to the parliamentary franchise, to the magistracy, to the grand jury, to the municipal corporations, to Dublin University, and to several civil and military offices. But an amendment proposing the admission of Catholics to Parliament was defeated by 136 to 69 votes.

Lord Westmoreland was personally a fanatical opponent of Roman Catholicism, and the weakness of Pitt, as he termed it, made his position in Dublin unbearable. He would have resigned in 1792 but for a certain vanity that made him unwilling to admit defeat. Besides, he was ever hoping that the natural passion for schism which permeates every Irish politician would dissever the alliance of the Presbyterians with the Catholic Committee. In the North, while the Belfast Volunteers were welcoming with open arms the leaders of the Catholic movement, and making fervid speeches about liberty of conscience, two organizations in adjacent villages were 'cutting one another's throats for the love of God.' The 'Defenders' was the name given to the Roman Catholic band, while the Presbyterians, or Orangemen, called themselves 'Peep-o'-Day Boys.' In September, 1795, when Camden was viceroy, the two factions came into conflict at a village called the 'Diamond,' and the battle that followed takes its name from the scene of the contest. Forty-eight Defenders were killed, and to commemorate the victory the first Orange lodge was founded.

Westmoreland knew that there could be no genuine alliance between the Catholics and the Protestants, and so he clung to office; but Pitt, alarmed by the state of Europe and the isolation of England, was for favouring the Catholics, and the viceroy, as one utterly at variance with the Home Government, resigned.

Lord Westmoreland's term was purely a political one. He came to Ireland at a most critical period in its history, and, although little more than thirty years of age, he showed a courage worthy of a man with better ideals. He was not without his good qualities, and the Castle bureaucrats found in him a stanch friend. He entertained lavishly, but the death of Lady Westmoreland towards the close of 1793 abruptly ended the gaieties of the Castle. He lived until 1841, and held the post of Lord Privy Seal from 1798 to 1827—a period covering nearly thirty years and without precedent or example in the history of politics.

It is interesting to recall that one of Lord Westmoreland's staff in Dublin during the early years of his viceroyalty was a young officer named Arthur Wellesley. While attending a ball at the Castle he made the acquaintance of a girl of great beauty, Miss Catherine Pakenham, a daughter of Lord Longford. They became engaged almost immediately, but Wellesley's family opposed the match, his mother, a haughty and severe woman, being very prominent in the matter. The future Iron Duke, however, maintained the engagement, and when he was in India he kept up a regular correspondence with his fiancée. During his absence she was attacked by smallpox, and wrote to Wellesley releasing him, but he refused to do so, and on April 10, 1806, they were married in the church of St. George, Dublin.

A sensational viceroyalty

The removal of Westmoreland, the friend of the Protestant minority, was followed by the brief but sensational viceroyalty of the second Earl Fitzwilliam. Pitt's avowed policy was to win the sympathies of the majority, and Lord Fitzwilliam was considered the best man to give effect to the policy of the Government. He was gazetted, therefore, to Ireland in December, 1794, and a month later appeared in Dublin. His wife was a daughter of the Earl of Bessborough, and both were very popular in Court circles. Possessed of great wealth, it was thought that Fitzwilliam would be the less independent of the support of the Castle bureaucracy, which was fighting with venom the battle for its existence. No sooner was Fitzwilliam in Dublin than he received instructions to continue Westmoreland's policy. But he had started the work of reform before these reached him. One morning Beresford, who had married Barbara Montgomery, a sister of Lady Townshend, was dismissed from his post of Commissioner of the Customs; Toler, Attorney-General—afterwards the notorious Lord Norbury—Wolfe, the Solicitor-General, and Cooke, the Military Secretary, also received notice that their services were no longer required. The Castle people were panic-stricken; their occupations seemed to be gone, but even Fitzwilliam, with all the prestige of great birth and wealth, could not overwhelm the bureaucracy. Beresford appealed to Pitt and the king, and within a few days the dismissed officers were all reinstated. This was too much for the viceroy, and on March 25, 1795, he left Ireland, to the accompaniment of a demonstration of mourning absolutely unique in the history of the country. Dublin proclaimed it a day of humiliation; all the shops were closed, and the citizens lined the streets. Grattan gave voice to the general regret, and fiercely denounced the treachery of Pitt, who had assured him that Lord Fitzwilliam was to adopt an essentially Catholic policy.

Earl Fitzwilliam

In the circumstances the strongest of men might have hesitated before undertaking the ominous task of carrying on the Government. Unfortunately, there was a total ignorance of Ireland and its affairs amongst the English nobility, and when Lord Camden was offered the post he accepted it without demur, and confidently travelled to the Irish metropolis. Ireland knew nothing of the viceroy, and certainly the latter knew even less of the country he was called upon to rule. He was thirty-six years of age, but possessed all the pompous prejudices of a man twice his age. On his coming of age he had been appointed Teller of the Exchequer, and held it for sixty years—1780 to 1840—though after drawing about three-quarters of a million sterling from the Treasury, he 'patriotically' consented in 1812 to forego the income of the office.