The Earl of Beaconsfield

by James Anthony Froude

Sixty years ago the British nation adhered almost unanimously to the traditions of the Reformation. It had grown to its present greatness as a Protestant power. The Pope was still the Man of Sin. Roman doctrine, either pure or modified into Anglicanism, was regarded with suspicion, aversion, or contempt. Conversions were unheard of, and the few surviving hereditary Catholics were unobtrusive and politically ciphers. Catholic Emancipation in restoring them to power restored them at the same time to social consequence. The Liberals who had advocated that great measure, historians, statesmen, and philosophers, broke with the principles of which their predecessors had once been the staunchest advocates, changed front, and traduced the Reformation itself, to which Liberalism owed its existence. While Macaulay and Buckle were cursing Cranmer, the Oxford Movement made its way among the clergy, was welcomed largely by the upper classes, whose nerves were offended by Puritan vulgarities, and leavened gradually the whole organisation of the Church of England. Men of intellect who would once have interfered had ceased to care for such things, and allowed them to go their own way. The Rationalists and critics, whom Disraeli so sagaciously disliked, worked havoc in a party whose whole belief was in their Bible. The Evangelicals, who had been narrow and tyrannical in the days of their power, found themselves fading into impotence; while in the mass of the people a doctrinal faith was superseded by a vague religiosity which saw no particular difference between one creed and another.

THE CHURCH OF IRELAND

The High Churchmen, who grew strong as their rivals declined, called themselves Catholics again, and abjured the name of Protestant. To unprotestantise the Church of England had been the confessed purpose of the first Tractarians, and the work had been effectively done. Mr. Gladstone was the most distinguished of their lay adherents. The purity of his life, the loftiness of his principles, his well-known because slightly ostentatious piety commended him generally to the national confidence, English statesmen with strong religious convictions having been recently uncommon articles. Thus, in addition to the ordinary Radical forces, Mr. Gladstone had the support of a great body of influential clergy, who, although tried at times by his questionable associations, continued to believe in him and uphold him—to uphold him especially in his onslaught upon their unfortunate Irish sister. The Irish Church had refused to follow in the new counter-Reformation. The Irish Church was Evangelical to the heart—actively, vigorously, healthily Evangelical—a Church militant in Luther’s spirit. ‘We have no Tractarians here,’ said the Bishop of Cashel to me. ‘We have the real thing, and know too much about it.’ The life which was showing was of late growth too, and was therefore likely to continue. The Church of Ireland as a missionary institution had not been a success. Established by Elizabeth for political reasons, it had existed for two centuries and a half, making no impression on the mass of the population. Such Protestant spirituality as remained was confined to the Presbyterians of Ulster and the few Southern Nonconformists who were descended from the Cromwellian colonists. The bishops, secured after the Revolution by the Penal Laws, had received their large incomes and consumed them with dignity; but when they exerted themselves it was to persecute Protestant dissenters and drive them out of Ireland. The ancient churches fell to ruins. Incumbents ceased to reside where they had no congregations, left their parishes to underpaid curates, or more commonly to the tithe proctor. So things went on till the long negligence had borne its inevitable fruit. The Nonconformists were then let alone. The rebellion of 1798, the rapid growth of the Catholic population, the immediate contact with the Catholic system in an aggressive form, and the relaxation of the Penal Code gradually roused the clergy to exertion. The ruined churches were repaired or others provided, and before the middle of the present century the Protestant ministers in Ireland were showing a sincerity, a piety, a devotion to the work of their calling of exceptional and peculiar interest. I was myself at that time brought in contact with many of the Established clergy in the southern provinces. They had more of the saintly character of the early Christians than any clergy of any denomination that I had ever fallen in with.

After the tithe question had been settled they had no quarrels with the Catholic peasantry. They were poor, but they were charitable beyond their means. They were beloved, respected, trusted by all classes of the population. In every parish there was a resident educated gentleman, whose help in the most miserable times was never asked in vain if the occasion was not beyond the resources of those to whom the appeal was made. They made some few proselytes, and this was treated as a crime in them, while their rivals thought it no crime to convert a heretic. The Evangelical Calvinism which they generally professed was more attractive to the Celtic peasantry than the Episcopal Via Media. The Irish nature is impressible by a real belief, and the old creed which roused half Europe to fight for spiritual liberty in the sixteenth century in this one corner of the globe remained alive and active. The differences which had separated the Establishment from the Ulster Presbyterians had practically disappeared. For the first time since the Reformation the Protestants of Ireland were of one heart and one mind.

IRELAND AND ENGLAND

The time had been when such a disposition would have had the warm sympathies of the sister island. But the Protestant fire on this side of the Channel had sunk to ashes, and the ashes themselves were cooling. Even among the Scotch and the Dissenters the creed of Knox and Cromwell had subsided into opinion flavoured with a vague Liberalism. While the English Church parties were drifting Romeward with an eagerness which to some persons appeared like the descent over a steep place of certain foolish animals, their poor Irish brethren who adhered to the faith of their fathers had lost their sympathy, and when the statesman whom they regarded with so much admiration proposed to disable and disendow the Irish branch of the Establishment, they looked on with indifference and did not withdraw their confidence in him. They did not actively approve. Even Mr. Gladstone himself professed to feel some qualms of conscience. ‘We do it wrong,’ he said, ‘being so majestical, to offer it the show of violence.’ But by their silence they gave him their tacit sanction, and lent an air of respectability to a proceeding which without it he might have failed to go through with. They allowed the Irish Church to be dealt with politically, as a branch of his Protestant Ascendency which had been called a upas-tree.

IRISH CHARACTER

As a Churchman Mr. Gladstone was a Tractarian; as a statesman, he had become an advanced Radical. From neither point of view was the Irish Church to his liking. Yet as English statesman he was taking a bold, perhaps a rash step in endeavouring to weaken English authority in a country so ill-affected to us, when it had been built up with so many centuries of effort. Geographical position compels us to keep Ireland subject to the British Crown. That is the first fact of the situation—a situation which cannot be changed till we have lost our place as a great European power. The Irish, perhaps as much for this reason as for any other, have resisted and still resist. They might have been reconciled to their fate in return for other advantages if their own wills had been consulted; but they have resented the claim of necessity. Difference of religion has not been the cause of the hostility. Before the Reformation as much as after it they never missed an opportunity of injuring or attempting to break from us. The Reformation appeared to sanctify their quarrel, and caused a century of civil war and desolation; and the English Parliament, after all other means had been tried in vain to bring them to obedience, had determined to colonise the island with Scotch and English Protestants whose loyalty could be depended on. The land was taken forcibly away from the native owners, and was given to adventurers or to Cromwell’s soldiers who would undertake to defend it. It was a violent measure; but to hold a country in subjection against its will is itself an act of violence which entails others. The Irish people had shown in five centuries of resistance that they could only be held to us by force. The colonists were the English garrison, and however grave their faults and miserable their deficiencies, the result was that Ireland had a century of peace. Twice during that period there was a civil war in Great Britain, and Ireland remained quiet. When the American colonies revolted, the Irish Catholics offered their swords and their services to ‘the best of kings,’ and only when the Penal Laws were relaxed and they were allowed an instalment of liberty did they again attempt insurrection. The Penal Laws are considered an atrocity. They were borrowed from the terms of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and Voltaire, an impartial witness on such a subject, was able to use language about Ireland during the time when they were in force which deserves more attention than it has met with. ‘Ce pays est toujours resté sous la domination de l’Angleterre, mais inculte, pauvre et inutile jusqu’à ce qu’enfin dans le dix-huitième siècle l’agriculture, les manufactures, les arts, les sciences, tout s’y est perfectionné, et l’Irlande, quoique subjuguée, est devenue une des plus florissantes provinces de l’Europe.’ (‘Essai sur les Mœurs,’ chap. 50.) So Ireland appeared to the keenest eye in Europe at the time when it is the fashion to say that she was groaning under the hatefullest tyranny. The description was too favourable, yet it was relatively correct. The Irish are a military people. They are admirable as soldiers and police. They obey authority and prosper under it. They run wild when left to their own wills. An industrious people thrive best when free. A fighting people require to be officered, and when authority is firm and just are uniformly loyal. In Ireland, unfortunately, authority was not firm and was not just. The trade laws were iniquitous. The Protestant gentry were forced into idleness. They became a garrison without wholesome occupation; yet at worst such advance as Ireland did make was wholly due to them, and every step which was taken to reduce their power brought back the old symptoms. It cannot be said that the system was satisfactory; yet to abolish it altogether, to declare it to be a poisonous plant which required to be uprooted, was an adventure which ought not to have been entered upon without maturer consideration than it received. The injustice (such as there was) lay in the original sin of forcing an unwilling people into a connection which they detest. Protestant ascendency was the instrument by which the connection was maintained, and the only one which had even partially succeeded. If it was swept away, what was to take its place? Conciliation, we are told. But what had conciliation effected hitherto? The abolition of the Penal Laws was to have brought peace. It brought only a sword. The admission of the Catholics to the franchise was to have brought peace. It was followed instantly by rebellion. Parliament was opened to them, and tithe riots broke out, and midnight murdering. On the heel of each concession came a Coercion Act, because Ireland could not be governed otherwise. The eager Celt has regarded each step gained as the conquest of an outwork of English dominion which has served but to whet the appetite for attack and to weaken the defence. What reason was there to suppose that when they heard Church and landlords denounced, when they were told by a great English statesman that their grievances would only be attended to when they made themselves dangerous, the result would be different? The great grievance of all, the English sovereignty, would be left. If that too was to be sacrificed—if after the internal administration of their country was made over to themselves they showed that nothing would satisfy them except national independence—were the advocates of a trusting policy prepared to concede this point also? They might answer ‘Yes’ perhaps. Better Ireland should be free altogether than chained to England against her will. This might be their own opinion, but they could not answer for the English nation; and if the English nation refused, there would be nothing for it but civil war and a fresh conquest.

Before letting loose an agitation so far-reaching and of such uncertain consequence, Mr. Gladstone ought to have laid out the whole problem for consideration in all its possible issues; not partially and crudely for an immediate election cry, but in a form in which it could be maturely discussed and paused over for years. To reverse and undo the policy of centuries was a step which ought not to have been ventured without the national consent. The electors knew less of Ireland even than Mr. Gladstone himself, who ought to have made them first understand what it was which they were called on to sanction.

But these are not times for long reflection. A Parliamentary leader sees an opportunity. His followers echo him. Sentiment displaces reason, and a majority is the most conclusive of arguments.