On arriving at Dublin Connal learns that the eminent person in whom he has placed his hope is in Ireland no more. The only thing for him to do, under the circumstances, is to return to the island, where his presence indeed would be urgently necessary. He has confided Armida to the protection of a young man of the name of Brennan, who secretly hates him and, what is worse, cherishes a violent passion for Armida. He begins to harass her with his attentions, and they being met in a way that may be surmised, extends his hatred towards her as well, devising an exquisite mode of vengeance. He comes one night to the hut where Armida lives attended by a peasant woman, and requires her to accompany him, on the pretext that O’Morven has returned and wishes to see her. He then conducts her into a cavern where there really is an O’Morven: the old grandfather of Connal, who is now totally insane and appears to bear a particular malevolence against Armida. It is Brennan’s intention to have her murdered by the maniac, which undoubtedly would happen, did not Connal arrive at the very last moment. His journey thither has been much retarded by his being wounded by three men whom Brennan has sent out to waylay and assault him. Now, after a hideous fight, Brennan’s own life is ended. Yet Connal is wanted for more than one reason. The state of his band has, in his absence, grown utterly desperate; it is again seen how soberly and realistically Maturin conceived the business of the rebellion:
The discipline that Connal had established was destroyed: instead of confining themselves to the islands, they had spread themselves along the shore, exercising every outrage and aggression on the inhabitants; and, from the indiscriminate admission of every vagabond and profligate into the ranks, their numbers had increased beyond all power of control, and the spirit of humanity and honour, that Connal had tried to inspire them with, was utterly extinguished.
In proportion as this barbarization increases, the chances of any reconciliation with the government naturally diminish, and the final traces of Connal’s own enthusiasm for the cause disappear as well. Troops are now everywhere collected to march against him, and besides being daily beset by enemies, Connal is besieged by a terrible anxiety for the fate of Armida. One day a detachment of soldiers come over to the island. The officer at their head is wounded, and it is only with difficulty that Connal saves him from being killed by the rebels. He is taken care of, and to his horror Connal recognizes Desmond, who, to this moment, has been ignorant of the story of Armida and Connal. His own paradisiacal existence with Endymion—or Ines, as she is now called—has come to a sorrowful end. They have been traced to their retreat, and one night the door is burst open whereupon Morosini rushes in with two attendants. The monk pursues Ines as she flees out of the hut, while the attendants attempt to detain Desmond. He overpowers them, however, and follows in pursuit of his wife, whom he sees plunge herself into the river with the monk in hot haste after her. Some days later the body of Morosini is found, but no traces of Ines. Desmond, being now possessed of the sole desire to court death, joins his regiment, and Wandesford immediately takes care to command him to march against Connal.
Though disapproving of the rebellion, Desmond resolves to fight and perish with Connal. Before the decisive battle he conducts Armida away and places her at the house of St. Austin, where Rosine still resides, and then returns to the island. The battle is fought, and, contrary to all expectation, both Connal and Desmond survive it. The former finds his way to a remote and solitary cave, where he hides himself with his dying grandfather. Desmond, weak and wounded, goes back to the castle. He is carefully nursed by Lady Montclare, whose husband has recently died and who now conceives a plan concerning Desmond. Her whole life has been a struggle to keep in her family the estates of Montclare, and her last resort turns out to be a marriage between Armida and Desmond. To that end she has her daughter brought to the castle and imposes on her the fraudulent statement that Connal is in the hands of Wandesford, and is to suffer death unless she consents to marry Desmond. Of Armida there is, by this time, left but a faded beauty and a ruined mind; but seeing that she is only required to persevere in her self-sacrifice for Connal, she easily consents. Nor does Desmond oppose himself; both are too weary and apathetic even to enquire for the reasons of Wandesford’s singular resolution. The report of their intended marriage reaches Connal. He meets Lady Montclare who, in fear of her life, solemnly declares that it is Armida’s will and that he is to hear it from her own lips. She arranges an interview between them, and Armida has strength enough to stand to her resolution, the reasons for which she promises to disclose to Connal immediately after her wedding. The night of this very interview, however, Connal is plunged into despair at seeing how innocent people are punished for having given him shelter, and thus he straightway betakes himself to Wandesford to deliver himself up. Still he is not to die yet; Wandesford, to whom the whole affair is one of personal hatred and vengeance, orders five hundred lashes to be administered to him, whereupon he is to be set free, in case he survives the scourging. He does survive it, and is able to keep his last appointment with Armida. The night of Armida’s wedding Connal is wandering near the castle, when Wandesford rides past him. Connal challenges him and shoots him through the heart, and he expires repenting his crimes.—In the meantime Armida, having fulfilled what she imagines her last duty towards Connal, takes her fate in her own hands. Her late father has been an expert in, and also initiated his daughter into, the interesting science of preparing poisons. Immediately before the ceremony is to commence she swallows a dose of poison that has the power of dismissing life, without pain, in eight and forty hours. The marriage, however, is destined never to be contracted; just as the priest is opening his book, a piercing shriek rings through the chapel, and Ines appears in their midst. She has been saved from the river by the agents of Lady Montclare, and, since then, been secretly imprisoned in the castle. Her reason is irrevocably lost: she does not even recognize Desmond. Sick of horrors Armida retires to her apartment, whither Rosine brings Connal at the appointed hour. Everything is now explained; the conversation is interrupted only by a party of soldiers breaking into the castle, in quest of Connal. He is conducted to take his trial for rebellion, by martial law, and the sentence is death. At the moment the soldiers fire, Desmond rushes to Connal and falls with him. Armida and Ines likewise find their death beside the corpses of their respective lovers. Rosine and her uncle are left to inter the dead; Lady Montclare, it is stated, buries her crimes and her remorse in a convent.
The end, it is clear, somewhat lowers the level of the book and disturbs the final effect. From the rather unnatural idea of marriage between Armida and Desmond and onwards in the ensuing events there is much that is strained and stilted in the story; the circumstance of Armida’s extraordinary poison is too trivial and absurd to make any serious impression. The closing scene is entirely melodramatic: the eight and forty hours come to an end exactly at the time of Connal’s execution, and Ines expires at the same moment for the simple reason that everybody else does. But, strange to say, the chief incident itself, causing this conventional winding up of a highly romantic story, strikes one with its painful realism. One of the most remarkable features in The Milesian Chief is the mode of Connal’s death. In romances with tragical issue, of the time, the hero may die in a battle, he may die by accident, he may commit suicide or even be assassinated; but to let him first be flogged and then executed in consequence of the sentence of a court martial, is to excite terror and pity at the expence of the atmosphere of greatness and invincible superiority with which he is surrounded in the beginning of the tale. To reject everything conciliatory in the tragic, to bereave the death of a hero of every trait of sublimity and poetical splendour, to let his own person, as it were, be degraded by the ignominy he is exposed to, is certainly alien to the spirit and methods of the early 19:th century romanticism. The manner in which Scott allows the Master of Ravenswood to end his days is perfectly characteristic of the period, while the death of Connal O’Morven anticipates ideas much more modern. There is, in the end of Connal, something that brings to mind a very impressive Irish story of later date, the Maelcho (1894) of Emily Lawless, treating of the Desmond wars (1579-81), where the romantic halo in which the hero is enveloped is torn into shreds by degrees, until he is, both mentally and physically broken, hanged obscurely, en passant, like any of the countless victims of those troubled times.—
Of the principal personages in The Milesian Chief Armida and Ines are the most remarkable as types of some novelty in the fiction of the time. The latter is not without parallels in Maturin’s own work, but her originality lies in the absence of all reflection or principle: she acts solely by instinct, never expending a thought upon the moral standard of her feelings, and guided only by the nature contrary to whose intentions she has been reared up. A young lady answering to the description of Armida is uncommon in all romantic literature. The Radcliffe heroine, as has been pointed out by a critic,[55] is but a slight variation of the one favoured by Richardson: weak and sentimental, only calculated to move pity, never doing anything for her lover, who gladly sacrifices his life for her. As for the heroines of Scott, many of them, no doubt, display activity and courage and accomplish wonders for others, yet none would, in all likelihood, take the step Armida does, were they in her position; none have the independence of mind and superiority of intellect which render her perfectly regardless of the opinion of the world. The pride and the accomplishments, the grandezza and the accustomedness to obedience and admiration with which she is invested, usually distinguish females of a maturer age, like Lady Ashton in The Bride of Lammermoor and Lady Montrevor in The Wild Irish Boy. But though Armida entirely lacks that girlish docility and inexperience which seems to require manly protection, Maturin has succeeded in making her young and natural, and it is described with great beauty and power how her stateliness melts away before an overwhelming passion, and how the burning heart of youth demands its due when opportunity arises.
The characterization of Connal and Desmond, as has already been pointed out, is not equal to that of Armida and Ines. The best-drawn male character in the book is Wandesford, who is surprisingly real. He is a man of the world of the selfish and unfeeling kind, retaining some outward dignity by displaying a sort of conventional courage, that, ‘stimulated by witnesses, or by military tumult, could rush on death: the courage of the senses rather than the mind.’ When the latter is required, as on the occasion of his being well-nigh drowned with Armida and Connal, he proves to be a coward at heart. He is incapable of generosity towards his enemy, and his bad qualities always grow worse when met by adversities; thus in his strife with Connal, whom he hates as a rival and dislikes as an Irishman, he continually sinks deeper into the quagmire of crime and dishonour, which process is quite plausible and recounted without exaggeration. The narrow, unimaginative side of his character is well illustrated by his discussion, especially with Armida, whose superiority he cannot avoid instinctively to feel:
“The hearts of your whole sex,” said Wandesford, furiously, “are not worth the earth I tread: you have no heart: you have nothing but pride, caprice, and desire. While the first men in Europe were at your feet, you spurned them. My honourable addresses, the addresses of a man of the first family, fortune, and character were despised; but the moment you saw this Irishman, this heir of the poverty, and pride, and infamy of his country, you rushed into his arms, though he dashed you from them. Perhaps his figure awoke your classical taste, and you wished to transfer your study, like the statuary of old, from marble to flesh.”—