The Viceroys of Ireland

by Charles Kingston O'Mahony

CHAPTER XVI

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.

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 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. Habitués 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 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.'

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, 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 régime. 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 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.

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 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 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.

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 had been spent in the service of the country. At twenty he was an attaché 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 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 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.

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., 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 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.

A 'cause célèbre'

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 élite 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. 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 £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 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 célèbre, 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 Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. In 1870 he died suddenly, seventy years of age.

Earl of Eglinton and Winton

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 £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 Essex acted as the hostess of Dublin Castle and the Viceregal 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 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.

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 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 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.