He rode hard to hounds, in spite of countless threats, and might have had a less uncomfortable time had the head of the Constabulary been as thoroughly capable as his subordinates.
Lord Carnarvon very nearly ruined the Government by his communications with Mr. Parnell. He meant well, and struck out a patriotic line of his own, which failed because it was made in absolute ignorance of the Irish character. But he never intended to involve his colleagues, although numbers of people chose to regard him as a Tory Home Ruler. His previous action in resigning the Secretaryship of the Colonies in Lord Derby's third administration, owing to a difference of opinion on parliamentary reform, and his subsequent resignation because he disapproved of Lord Beaconsfield's Eastern action in 1878, showed him to be a man of marked and fearless opinions. Lord Salisbury ought to have known that he was thrusting a brand into the fire when he sent him to be the official bellows-blower of the Hibernian pot.
Lord Aberdeen will always be remembered as the husband of his wife. Lady Aberdeen was a more ardent Home Ruler than even her brother, Lord Tweedmouth. On one occasion Lord Morris was next her at dinner, and she said she supposed the majority of people in Ireland were in favour of Home Rule.
'Indeed, then, with the exception of yourself and the waiters, there's not one in the room,' was his answer.
'Of course, not in the Castle,' she replied with dignity; 'but in your profession, and when you are on circuit, surely you must meet a good many?'
'Occasionally—in the dock,' he drily retorted, after which she discreetly dropped the subject.
Lord Aberdeen was most exemplary during his brief tenure of office, and certainly it was not in his time that the folk christened the royal box at the theatre the 'loose box,' in allusion to the rather dubious English guests of the vivacious viceroy.
Lord Londonderry and Lord Zetland may be both briefly bracketed together as having done their duty admirably in times less out of joint than those of their predecessors. Lord Londonderry always drank Irish whisky himself, and recommended it to his guests as a capital beverage—a thing which the licensed victuallers did not mind mentioning to Paddy and Mick when they were having a drop, despite their vaunted contempt of all at 'the Castle.'
No other Lord-Lieutenant ever had such a mournful experience as Lord Houghton. Son of Monckton Milnes, the 'cool of the evening,' he needed his father's temperament to enable him to endure the boycott which Irish society inflicted on him as the representative of the Home Rule disruption policy. With no class did he go down, and on a crowded market-day in Tralee not a hat was raised to him.
One of his A.D.C.'s was subsequently on the veldt, and when asked if it was not lonely, he replied:—