A simple request, and one easily granted, for in the royal pavilion were the choicest teas, the finest sugar and cream, and, of course, plenty of hot water. Then someone called for a cup and saucer. Great consternation ensued when it was discovered that those simple requisites had been forgotten. There was absolutely nothing in which to serve the tea to the royal visitor!
With prayers that the king might not get impatient, a score of scouts were despatched to search the countryside for a cup and saucer, and one of them proved successful, finding in a poor peasant's ramshackle cabin a twopenny blue cup and saucer. They were hastily polished up, and with remarkable celerity the tea was served to the thirsty king.
One of the caterers afterwards visited the owner of the cup and saucer, and gave her a guinea for them. Needless to say, these precious articles were treasured by the caterer's family.
"A clod—a piece of orange-peel—
An end of a cigar—
Once trod on by a princely heel,
How beautiful they are!"
Lord Talbot, K.P.
He was received in Ireland with a courtesy that often swelled into enthusiasm, and Dublin, the centre of the local administration, went into ecstasies over the royal visitor. Lord Talbot was installed a Knight of St. Patrick amidst a splendour that contrasted with horrible distinctness with the terrible misery and poverty that prevailed in the very environs of Dublin Castle itself. The king must have seen the shadows of famine and desolation that lurked behind the gaudy trappings that did their best to make the city fit for a king, but he conveniently ignored them. Monarchs have only a distant acquaintance with human nature, and so King George, flattered by attentions denied him in London except by his satellites, left the country convinced that the demand for Catholic Emancipation was an artificial one created by O'Connell, and that in reality Ireland was a most contented and prosperous nation.
But the ills of humanity cannot be cured by a display of royal dignity, and Talbot discovered that pressing social evils could not be eradicated by the bestowal of ribbons and orders. It may have seemed unaccountable to him that when the country demanded bread it should be dissatisfied with the sight of the king. Lady Talbot was feeding with 'cake' the 'upper ten' of Dublin society, but Ireland was dissatisfied. The country was not progressing, the cities presented a squalid and lifeless appearance, and even Dublin, favoured by the being the residence of the well-paid official set and the home of the Government, scarcely looked the prosperous place it had been during the last quarter of the previous century.
Talbot advised stringent measures against O'Connell, but by now the ministry was beginning to feel doubtful of its ready-made Irish policy, and soon rumours reached Talbot that he was to be succeeded by the Marquis Wellesley, a great Irishman, and an avowed Emancipationist. The viceroy resigned at once and left Ireland. He died in 1849, five years after Peel had rewarded his Free Trade allegiance by giving him the garter.
Lord Wellesley
The Marquis Wellesley, an Emancipationist by conviction, was sent to Ireland with promises the ministry did not intend to fulfil. Peel, Goulburn, the Irish secretary, and the rest of his colleagues, were opposed to the granting of complete relief to the followers of the popular religion, and their selection of Lord Wellesley was merely an attempt to blind the eyes of the patriotic party. When in the last months of 1821 it was declared officially that Wellesley was to succeed Lord Talbot, the joy of the Catholics knew no bounds. To them the new viceroyalty promised a speedy attainment of all their hopes, for they knew that Wellesley was a strong man, and one likely to have his own way. Quite apart from political and sectarian reasons, Ireland welcomed Wellesley. He was an Irishman by birth, and although Harrow, Eton, and Oxford in turn educated him, he had learnt the rudiments of the three R's in the town of Trim. It was recalled that the Lord-Lieutenant in his younger days had been the friend of Henry Grattan, and as the result of thirty years' brilliant service on behalf of the Crown, no man—with the exception of his brother, the Duke of Wellington—commanded greater respect or admiration in the two kingdoms, while so far as Ireland was concerned, the marquis was vastly more popular than the duke, who had a constitutional objection to Catholicism in any form. For eight years Lord Wellesley had acted as Governor-General of India, and during the Peninsular War he was Ambassador to Spain—one brother conquering the French and the other reaping the not less important diplomatic victories, made possible by the great battles. From the foreign secretaryship under Percival Wellesley might have had the premiership, but his views on Ireland were unpopular, and his failure to form a ministry prepared the way for Lord Liverpool to assume the leadership for a period of nearly fifteen years. Despite his opinions, Wellesley could have had the viceroyalty of Ireland in 1812, but he declined it.