A History of England, Period III. Constitutional Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

The resignation of Huskisson and his friends. May 1828.

No doubt the necessity for such concessions was very irksome to the Duke, and, as before mentioned, an opportunity soon occurred for ridding himself of the more liberal members of his Cabinet, whose pressure he had been unable to resist. On a trivial question as to the disposition of the seats of two disfranchised boroughs Huskisson had thought it his duty to vote against his colleagues. It had been before settled that the question should not be a Cabinet one; but Huskisson, while still under excitement, thought it right to send the Duke a letter offering to retire should the Premier wish it. The Duke seized his opportunity, treated the letter as an absolute resignation, would listen to no explanation, and obliged Huskisson to resign. With him went Palmerston, Dudley, Lamb, and Grant; their places were filled with Tories, and the Government seemed at length thoroughly homogeneous.

The Catholic Emancipation question.

Yet the establishment of this Tory Cabinet was followed almost immediately by a far greater concession than any of the preceding ones, in the passage of the Catholic Emancipation Bill. The Government had been constituted as far as possible on a Protestant basis. It was known that the King was strong in his anti-Catholic propensities. Although a small majority in the Commons had, on the 8th of May, declared in favour of bringing the question to a settlement, and although both the Chancellor and the Prime Minister had confessed, while opposing the motion successfully in the Lords, that they saw no way at present out of the great difficulty, thereby apparently implying a wish for a settlement, the declarations both of Wellington and of Peel gave little hope of any relaxation of the disabilities. But meanwhile events were occurring which rendered some settlement obviously necessary. There was indeed a general and growing feeling that a question which in the last thirty-five years had ruined more than one Cabinet, which was in fact uppermost in all men's minds at the time of every new ministerial arrangement, and which had kept Ireland permanently uneasy, could no longer be left uncertain. Events were now occurring in Ireland which would have rendered the further postponement of the settlement little short of madness.

Renewed agitation in Ireland.

The agitation in that country, which had almost subsided during the administration of Canning, a well-known supporter of the Catholic claims, and which had only slightly revived during Goderich's administration, broke out again in full force when the hostile ministry of Wellington came into office. The law for the suppression of the Association would expire in the coming July, and meanwhile, keeping within the limits of the law, for all practical purposes the organization remained alive. The last general election had opened the eyes of the leaders of the Association to a new and irresistible source of power; it had proved that the power of the priests was in some cases stronger than that of the landlords. In their eagerness to secure their parliamentary influence, the landlords had followed the disastrous plan of breaking up their estates into small forty shilling freeholds, taking advantage of the low franchise which existed in Ireland. Several instances had occurred in which the tenantry had broken loose from their landlords, and at Waterford, among other places, they had proved themselves too strong even for the great Beresford interest. What had then been done in a few instances it was the intention of the Association to carry out in a large scale, and great efforts were made to secure the votes of those who were known as the Irish "forties" in the coming general election. The anger of the proprietors thus assaulted in their strongholds was very great, and class animosity reached a terrible pitch. The power of the Association was soon brought to the test. With the rest of the Canningites, Grant, President of the Board of Trade, had resigned; his place had been given to Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, member for Clare, whose re-election thus became necessary. Aware that, even if they succeeded in excluding the Government candidate, the election of a Protestant representative would be of no great value to them, the Association determined to strike a great blow, Election of O'Connell for Clare. June 1828. and to bring forward O'Connell himself to dispute Mr. Fitzgerald's seat. His triumph was complete; after a few days' polling Mr. Fitzgerald withdrew. But more wonderful and more terrible than his mere success was the admirable discipline and order with which it was obtained. Lord Palmerston thus narrates the event:—"The event was dramatic and somewhat sublime. The Prime Minister of England tells the Catholics in his speech in the House of Lords that if they will only be perfectly quiet for a few years, cease to urge their claims, and let people forget the question entirely, then after a few years perhaps something may be done for them. They reply to this advice, within a few weeks after it is given, by raising the population of a whole province like one man, keeping them within the strictest obedience to the law, and by strictly legal and constitutional means hurling from his seat in the representation one of the Cabinet ministers of the King. There were 30,000 Irish peasants in and about Ennis in sultry July, and not a drunken man among them, or only one, and he an Englishman and a Protestant, O'Connell's own coachman, whom O'Connell had committed upon his own deposition for a breach of the peace. No Irishman ever stirs a mile from his house without a stick, but not a stick was to be seen at the election. One hundred and forty priests were brought from other places to harangue the people from morning to night, and to go round to the several parishes to exhort and bring up voters.... All passed off quietly. The population of the adjoining counties was on the move, and large bodies had actually advanced in echelon, as it were, closing in upon Ennis, the people of one village going on to the next, and those of that next advancing to a nearer station, and so on." The sheriff and his assessor declared that the election was legal, the only obstacle to O'Connell's appearance in the House being the oaths he would have to take on his admittance. It was determined to follow up the success. O'Connell declared that Catholic representatives must be elected for all the counties of Ireland. The funds of the Association, which assumed its old form in July on the expiration of the suppression law, were partially devoted to the support of those on whom the vengeance of the landlords fell; and not content with declaring the necessity of the election of Catholic members, the Association drew up certain pledges to be required of all future Catholic candidates. These consisted in a promise to be the determined opponents of the ministry of Wellington and Peel till it granted Catholic emancipation, to support religious and civil liberty, to procure a repeal of the Subletting Act (which was an attempt to restrain the minute subdivision of property), and to support a reform of Parliament.

The power the Association had already exhibited, and its determination to have those representatives whom it should elect thus closely bound to pursue the line of conduct it dictated, much increased the Influence of the Association. dread with which it was regarded. Symptoms were already visible of the influence it might exert; only ten days after the establishment of the pledges (Aug. 2), Mr. Dawson, Peel's brother-in-law, and himself in the Administration, after a lively picture of the enormous power of the Association, concluded with the unexpected assertion, that as this power could not be crushed it ought to be conciliated. Coming from such a source the assertion was received as a certain proof that the cause of the Catholics was winning its way. Consequently the efforts of the Association were pressed forward with redoubled zeal. Parochial clubs were established, and great aggregate meetings held in various parts of Ireland. Mr. Shiel, one of its most ardent supporters, thus describes the condition of Ireland under its influence:—"Does not a tremendous organization extend over the whole island? Have not all the natural bonds by which men are tied together been broken and burst asunder? Are not all the relations of society which exist elsewhere gone? Has not property lost its influence? Has not rank been stripped of the respect which should belong to it? Has not an internal government grown up, which, gradually superseding the legitimate authorities, has armed itself with a complete domination? Is it nothing that the whole body of the clergy are alienated from the State, and that the Catholic gentry and peasantry and priesthood are all combined in one vast confederacy?" His description was true; the Association was omnipotent, and in nothing did it show its power so much as in the complete restraint it held over the excitable people. Faction and faction fights disappeared; crime of a graver sort almost vanished; and though the people were drilled and brought into something resembling military organization, although they were eager to know against whom they were to fight, the influence of the Association restrained them from all demonstrations likely to provoke hostilities, and on one occasion a few words from O'Connell at once broke up and dispersed a body of 50,000 men. This was the more admirable as the temper of the Protestants had naturally been roused, and Brunswick clubs had sprung up, to take the place of the Orange organization, which do not seem to have been as self-restrained as the Catholics. During the whole of this time the Duke was painfully making up his mind to his retreat. The peculiarity of his action was that he became absolutely silent; so complete was his silence, that Mr. Shiel thus describes the situation:—"The minister folds his arms as if he were a mere indifferent observer, and the terrific contest between Protestant and Catholic only afforded him a spectacle for the amusement of his official leisure; he sits as if two gladiators were crossing their swords for his gratification: the Cabinet seems to be little better than a box in a theatre from which his Majesty's ministers may survey the Resignation of Lord Anglesey. Jan. 1829. business of blood." Indeed, so strangely reticent was the Duke, that he ceased to correspond at all with his Lord Lieutenant, the Marquis of Anglesey. Uninstructed from home, Lord Anglesey, who was a Liberal, and inclined to the emancipation, naturally followed the dictates of his own opinions, and rendered the conduct of the Government almost treacherous from the indirect support he gave to the Liberals, while his chief in London was supporting the opposite party. The inevitable consequence was that he shortly committed an indiscretion which necessitated his recall. His place was taken by the Duke of Northumberland, a strong Tory.

Peel and Wellington see the urgency of the Catholic question.

Peel, the most influential member of the ministry next to the Premier, had already, since the Clare election, arrived at the conclusion that the solution of the question could no longer be postponed, and that only one form of solution was possible. The election of Catholics, while still unable to sit in Parliament, would deprive Ireland of its representation. So important an event as O'Connell's election could not possibly pass unnoticed and the question be left unmoved. With the present House a high-handed repression of the Association was impossible; were it attempted by a new House a civil war was inevitable: there remained but a third course—to give way. Early in August 1828, Peel had stated this opinion forcibly to the Duke, and told him that he considered that an attempt to settle the Catholic question was a lesser evil than to continue to leave it open; at the same time he wished himself to resign, and to leave the bringing in of the measure to other hands. Although aware of the penalty he should be called upon to pay for this change of opinion, the attacks to which he should be subject, and the loss of friends, he was at length persuaded by Wellington, who felt it impossible to carry on the Government without him, to retain his place. Peel's representations had had their effect upon the Duke's mind, and he was by degrees becoming convinced that further obstruction was impossible. During the autumn he learned to see that his choice lay between the reconquest of Ireland, the repeal of the Union, or the emancipation of the Catholics. He could not hesitate which of the three to choose. But though his own mind and that of his colleague were made up, great difficulties lay in the way of the execution of their plans, the chief of which was the temper of the King, who had now begun to declare that he, like his father, was troubled with conscientious scruples. At length, in January, the King consented that the question should be brought before the Cabinet. The two ministers found little or no opposition, and it was determined to take in hand the final settlement of the question. Accordingly, in the royal speech at the opening of Parliament (Feb. 5), it was stated that measures must first of all be taken to establish authority by the destruction of the Association, and that then the whole condition of Ireland should be taken into consideration, with a view to altering the laws so as to remove civil disabilities from his Majesty's Catholic subjects. The speech came as an unexpected blow to the high Tories, but immediate discussion was postponed at the request of the ministry till the actual Bill could be introduced in its completed form. Meanwhile the preliminary measure for the destruction of the Association was brought in. Its necessity was however forestalled by the clever tactics of the Irish, who dissolved their Association before the Bill obtained the force of law. Having declared his change of opinion, Peel, who throughout acted as honourably as circumstances would allow, thought it incumbent on him to resign his seat for Oxford, which he no doubt owed chiefly to his supposed anti-Catholic views. The events of the election proved that he was right, the seat was contested by Sir Robert Inglis, who was elected by a considerable majority. Peel found a seat at Westbury.

Opposition of the King.