The Life and Times of Queen Victoria; vol. 1 of 4

by Robert Wilson; Edmund Ollier

Next came the dismal Irish Question. The Cabinet had, after some controversy, arrived at the conclusion that they must bring in a Coercion Bill for Ireland, although they were fully aware that they exposed themselves to the taunt that they had turned out Sir Robert Peel’s Government for proposing to introduce one. But the case was urgent. That crime had increased to an appalling extent in Ireland is indicated by the fact that Sir Robert

QUEEN’S COLLEGE, BELFAST.

(From a Photograph by W. Lawrence, Dublin.)

Peel, resisting a very natural temptation to retaliate on his adversaries, supported the Government and asked the House of Commons to pass the Bill. His generosity is enshrined in one phrase of his speech—“The best reparation that can be made to the last Government will be to assist the present Government in passing this law.” The Bill was carried by a majority of 213.

Some of the murders in Ireland at the end of the year were truly of a revolting character. Here is an example. A farmer named St. John, who was done to death near Lisnamrock, in county Tipperary, had a dispute with his younger brother about the possession of a farm. The younger brother seems to have been in the right, and this roused local feeling. On the 16th of December a party of men went at night, and, dragging the elder St. John out of bed, ripped his body open and cut off his head before his wife’s eyes. There was, in fact, an epidemic of crime in the land. Murder was the remedy that was applied to redress all kinds of grievances or wrongs, and everybody went about the ordinary affairs of life armed to the teeth.

What was worse, too, was the hostility of the priesthood to the Government, and one manifestation of it was regarded as particularly offensive by her Majesty. That was the Papal Memorandum condemning the Queen’s Colleges. Although Lord John Russell had actually drafted a Bill legalising the renewal of diplomatic relations with Rome, the Pope and the Roman Catholic clergy made but a sorry recompense for his goodwill. The Sacred Congregation denounced the Queen’s Colleges—“an ungrateful return,” writes Lord Palmerston in a letter to Lord Minto,[76] which “can only be explained on the supposition that it was extorted by intrigue and false representations made at Rome by McHale, and that the Pope acted ignorantly, and without knowing the mischief he was doing.” Lord Clarendon, the Irish Viceroy, thought that good results might follow the visit of a confidential agent from the Vatican to Ireland. But Lord Palmerston, fearing that the Papal emissary would be suborned by Archbishop McHale and the enemies of the Government, objected to such an experiment. In another letter, on the 3rd of December, Lord Palmerston urges Lord Minto to assure the Pope that “in Ireland misconduct is the rule and good conduct the exception in the Catholic priests,” and he points to the murder of Major Mahon, which followed a priestly denunciation at the altar, as an illustration of the manner in which the Irish priesthood were instigating crime. He says he cannot consider it prudent to bring in a Bill for Legalising Diplomatic Intercourse with the Court of Rome at a time when there is in Ireland “a deliberate and extensive conspiracy among the priests and peasantry to kill off and drive away all the proprietors of land.” Public feeling in England, always easily roused, would have swept away the Ministry in a tempest of wrath if such a measure had been introduced at such a moment. On the other hand, it is only fair to the Pope and Cardinal Ferretti to say that they seemed to be hopelessly ignorant of Irish affairs, and that they assured Lord Minto they utterly disapproved of the political activity of the Irish priesthood.

Two other religious disputes, maintained by the zealots, excited the country. One was waged over the admission of the Jews to Parliament. The other gave rise to the famous Hampden controversy, which is so constantly alluded to in the literature and memoirs of the day.

At the General Election one of the members returned for the City of London was Baron Rothschild, a Jew by race and religion. As such he could not take his seat, for he could not take the Oath of Allegiance on the true faith of a Christian. Lord John Russell, his colleague, submitted to the House of Commons a Resolution declaring that it was expedient to remove all civil disabilities affecting the Jews—in other words, the removal of the phrase “on the faith of a Christian” from the Parliamentary Oath. Lord George Bentinck, Mr. Disraeli, and Mr. Gladstone, supported the Resolution. A Bill founded on it was carried in the Lower House, but rejected in the House of Lords.