The two brothers, after examination at the Castle, were committed to Kilmainham and here they lay in close confinement until they came up for trial on July the 4th. A postponement was secured until July the 12th. Then the trial was hurried on with the most indecent haste.
The truth was that Lord Clare was in terror of his enemies escaping from his hands—for the most powerful influences were at work for their rescue, and the evidence against Henry Sheares was not sufficient, as the common phrase goes, “to hang a dog on.” Miss Maria Steele used her influence with her devoted admirer, Captain Horatio Cornwallis, nephew of the Lord Lieutenant, to secure the brothers’ pardon; and to his nephew’s pleading, supported by that of Julia Sheares, Lord Cornwallis, “anxious that his first act in Ireland should not be a sanguinary one,” was about to yield, when Lord Clare, who was present, intervened. All day long on July 13th, while the trial dragged its weary length through the hot and crowded court, Sarah Sheares, poor Henry’s wife, sat in a sedan-chair at Lord Clare’s hall door; when at length she saw him, she fell at his feet on the steps of his door, clasping his knees and begging her husband’s life from his hands. It was all in vain.
And what of the mother all these dreadful weeks? They had not dared to tell her that Henry was in any danger. They told her that he had been advised to keep away, and would return when all was safe again. For John’s fate she was in some measure prepared, but she hoped, with all her mother’s heart, that it might be averted. A heart-breaking incident was related to Dr. Madden by a relation of the Sheareses:
“The Earl of Shannon was a relation and intimate friend of old Mrs. Sheares, and the day of her sons’ execution, of which she was then ignorant, his lordship went to see her. A most melancholy scene, as may be supposed, occurred between them. She threw herself on her knees to implore his mediation for her younger son, at the time not knowing that her son Harry was implicated, or had been imprisoned, having been told that he had been advised to keep out of the way for some time, and was actually expecting him home that evening. The Earl left the house, not being able to tell her that they had been both executed that morning.”
When poor heart-broken Julia, poor widowed “Sally” could bear no longer to hear her ask, “When will Harry come back,” they burst into a storm of weeping and then the desolate mother knew that no son had been spared to her out of the calamity that had swept them all away. For a time they feared her reason would give way before the shock of that knowledge.
Her two daughters—for Sarah’s devotion was not less ardent than that of Julia—took the poor old mother far away from the scene of her sufferings, and made a new home for her in Clifton, England. Here she passed the short and sad remainder of her days—grieving ever for those she had lost, having no joy but in the thought of death which would give them back to her once more. Some time in 1803, the same year which witnessed the death of her fellow mourner, Elizabeth Emmet, she passed through “the strait and narrow gate”—and stood with her beloved amid the multitude “clothed with white robes, and (having) palms in their hands, before the throne and in the sight of the Lamb.” For she and the sons, who welcomed her, had indeed “come out of great tribulation, and had washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.”
The Mother of the Teelings
Mary Teeling (née Taaffe—1753[?]-1830[?])[[30]]
“He will not be seen on a swift young horse