CHAPTER XVIII

The fall of the Government was hastened by the Premier's anxiety to fulfil his pledge to pacify Ireland. The Church question was settled, the land problem on its way to solution, and now Gladstone turned his attention to the grievances of Roman Catholics on the question of a university. The Prime Minister's pose as the only man capable of settling Irish affairs had not been strengthened by the passing of a coercion act in the spring of 1870, but if he imprisoned Fenians, he generally followed it up by pressing for their release. And firmly believing that if he conciliated the Roman Catholics he would bring peace to the country, he introduced a measure into the House of Commons seeking powers to establish a university acceptable to all classes and creeds. It was defeated by three votes in one of the most memorable and significant divisions Parliament has known. Friends and foes abstained, and friends and foes voted with surprising inconsistency, but the net result was the discomfiture of the Gladstonians and the immediate resignation of the premier, the latter act prompted, no doubt, by the knowledge that there was no other possible leader of a Government in the country. {272} Mr. Gladstone came back--as he knew he would--but the effects of the Irish University bill were felt right down to the day that the leader of the Liberal party heard the results of the General Election of 1874, and realized that his great rival, Benjamin Disraeli, was at last at the head of a working majority.

When writing of Gladstone's colleagues, it is difficult to resist the temptation to turn from them to speak of their chief. Lord Spencer, however, was something more than a mere official obeying the orders of his superior. His first term in Ireland laid the foundation of his public life, and exhibited those principles of devotion to duty, as he considered his duty to be, and a single-minded adherence to the political principles that distinguished him above his changing and vacillating colleagues. When Mr. Gladstone proposed his university reforms, the viceroy worked his hardest, and Dublin Castle witnessed numberless interviews between him and representatives of both Churches. He saw Cardinal Cullen and obtained his views. As usual, the Roman Catholic hierarchy, never doubtful as to its wants, asked too much, but Spencer listened politely, and in due course informed Gladstone. Doubtless, the English nobleman failed to understand the extraordinary mixture of politics and religion that is always part of Irish affairs, but he tried to understand and even to sympathize.

Gladstone's defeat in 1874 meant, of course, the viceroy's retirement from Dublin, and if the majority of the members of the Liberal administration {273} regretted their defeat, Lord Spencer was not one of them. He merited the rest opposition gave him, and for six years Tory noblemen acted as viceroys of Ireland.

The Duke of Abercorn's second viceroyalty was quiet and threadbare. Disraeli was not the man to attempt heroic measures. Perhaps he laboured to avoid Irish affairs, which since the Union had threatened to monopolize the time of Parliament. He sent Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, afterwards Viscount St. Aldwyn, to the Irish office, and trusted to the viceroy and the Chief Secretary to shield him from the worries created by the awkward fact that a Prime Minister's duties were not confined to England. When the Duke of Abercorn sent in his resignation, in December, 1876, owing to the state of his wife's health, Disraeli prevailed upon another duke to take his place. This was the sixth Duke of Marlborough, who had declined the viceroyalty in the first days of the Government's existence. The Duke and Duchess of Abercorn retired into private life, popular and respected, the duke living until 1885.

[Sidenote: The Duke of Marlborough]

The incoming Lord-Lieutenant was in his fifty-fifth year when in the early days of 1877 he was sworn in as Viceroy of Ireland. One of Disraeli's personal friends, the influence of the duke had helped the Prime Minister from the outer ring of plebeian obscurity into the inner circle of Conservative exclusiveness. Disraeli had a passion for dukes, although that rank suggested dulness to his bizarre and Oriental imagination. Marlborough {274} had been Lord President of the Council in 1868 during Disraeli's first administration, and he was induced to reconsider his decision not to join the ministry when the Duke of Abercorn retired.

The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough directed their attention to the amelioration of the lot of the poverty-stricken peasantry, and they endeavoured also to aid the trade of Ireland. When the failure of the crops brought a famine, the duchess inaugurated a relief fund, which, with the help of the Mansion House, London, brought over L170,000 to the rescue of the sufferers. Many other acts of kindness could be recorded of them, and although their reign necessarily concluded in May, 1880, on the destruction of the Tory Government, they accomplished much in a brief space of time, and, without being great reformers, achieved something in the way of reform. Her Excellency had been before her marriage Lady Frances Tempest, and was a daughter of the third Marquis of Londonderry. She was a dignified chatelaine of Dublin Castle, a fit partner for a great nobleman. The rumblings of the Home Rule agitation storm could be heard before they vacated the viceregal position, for by now Charles Stewart Parnell had arisen to sound a new battle-cry for Nationalist Ireland. The old methods of dead-and-gone agitators were to be improved upon, new ones invented and exploited, and a decisive battle fought for Irish independence.

[Sidenote: Agitation and crime]

The records of the day state that the Duke of Marlborough was 'popular' and 'successful,' but {275} these are the records written by partisans. A popular viceroy generally means a Lord-Lieutenant who exhibits an amiable weakness to let things remain as they are, and as Marlborough did this, he was an especial favourite of the official party. He was, however, wise in his generation. Before his time history had taught the vital lesson that the viceroy who did his best to please all parties earned the hatred of all, and the men who ignored the pressing problems of the day, and turned his term of office into a social orgy, was acclaimed by the unthinking multitudes. Riots, and evictions, and murders, were common enough in the closing months of Marlborough's viceroyalty, but beyond giving his sanction to the various acts that dealt with agrarian crimes and the troublous land problem, the viceroy made no display of statesmanship or endangered his ducal equanimity. It was to the Duke of Marlborough that Disraeli addressed his letter asking the electors for a fresh mandate. He lived long enough to feel thankful that the English electors decided in 1880 to have nothing to do with Toryism, and so ordained that, instead of Beaconsfield nominating a viceroy, the task should be Gladstone's. During his stay in Dublin Marlborough had for private secretary Lord Randolph Churchill. In 1883 the duke died at the comparatively early age of sixty-one.

It was expected that Lord Spencer would return to Ireland, but he was selected to fill the decorative post of Lord President of the Council, and Earl Cowper was sent to cope with Parnell's {276} followers. Cowper was forty-six years of age, and ten years previous to his appointment had married a daughter of the fourth Lord Northampton. He was a man of great strength of character, a charming host, and famous for a temperament that he never allowed to be ruffled. A perfect host, and a man of the world endowed with many talents, Earl Cowper might have succeeded at almost anything except the one particular task to which he was assigned. When he arrived in Dublin the country was in a state of rebellion, the remarkable success of Parnell in uniting all shades of Nationalists under his leadership having the result of presenting the most formidable opposition to the Government yet experienced in the history of both countries. Parnell had entered Parliament in 1875, and four years later was popularly acclaimed the new leader of the Irish people. His lightest words were sufficient to render null and void the most important Act of Parliament, his orders were reverenced and obeyed by a vast majority of his countrymen. When Lord Cowper took up his duties Parnell was the ruler of Ireland, and the efforts of the English Government to maintain a semblance of authority would have been ludicrous if the results had not been so tragic. Landlords, agents, and tenants were murdered in cold blood, peaceful citizens were dragged into foul conspiracy by their bullying neighbours, and Parnell went about in open defiance of the Government, preaching rebellion and its ghastly accompaniments wherever he came. Mr. W. E. Forster, the Chief Secretary, induced his official chief to advise the {277} Cabinet to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and when Gladstone hesitated, a practical demonstration of its necessity was furnished by the arrest of Parnell charged with seditious conspiracy, his abortive trial owing to the disagreement of the Dublin jury, and the Irish leader's consequent triumph over his opponents. Then the power to imprison without trial was given to the Irish executive, and soon the gaols of the country were full to overflowing. With the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act the Land League was born, and a new terror to officialism created.

[Sidenote: The Land League]

Lord Cowper's viceroyalty has been tersely described as occupying 'two dismal years--the most dismal of the nineteenth century.' His own life was threatened, elaborate plots to terminate the Chief Secretary's existence were discovered as fast as an overworked detective department could unravel its agents' reports, and from all over the country murders were reported until it seemed that all sense of decency had long since departed from the country. Encouraged by the success of the Land League, a fresh series of revolting crimes shocked civilization. Terrified English ministers tried the effects of another Land Act, and in 1881 it was placed in the statute-book. This was a great triumph for the Land League, and was regarded by its members as the justification of its existence. Again a desire to conciliate had been interpreted as a sign of weakness.

The new Land Act did not decrease the agitation, and on October 12, 1881, a five-hour sitting of the Cabinet resulted in an order to the viceroy {278} to have Parnell arrested under the Coercion Act. The Irish leader was thereupon taken to Kilmainham Gaol, and remained there for six months. Optimists expected that this bold stroke would intimidate the intimidators; it had an opposite effect. Mr. Forster had to report that crime was actually on the increase, and that the Land Act had not been of the slightest use. It was easy to imprison Parnell, but the spirit of the movement remained abroad in the people.

In despair Gladstone turned to Parnell, clutching at the straw presented by one of the Irishman's friends that Parnell was willing to discuss terms of peace with the Government. The premier was willing, anxious, in fact, to remove the reproach from his Government the state of Ireland entailed, and he sent Forster to open negotiations with the prisoner, who was a dictator. When Lord Cowper heard of the preliminaries to what became known as the Kilmainham Treaty he resigned, rightly deeming it demeaning and humiliating for responsible ministers to treat with a man who had roused the passions of the uncontrollables, and who, to his lasting disgrace, never denounced the crimes the Land League produced until the greatest crime of all convinced him that sometimes murder is a mistake. Mr. Gladstone appealed to Lord Spencer, a member of his Cabinet, and an experienced administrator of Irish affairs, to take up the most dangerous and irksome post in the Government. The earl could not, of course, refuse, for refusal in the circumstances could have been construed into a confession of cowardice. {279} He had agreed in the Cabinet to the _pourparlers_ with Parnell, and he was determined to give the Irish leader an opportunity of retrieving the blunders of the Land League, and doing so with a show of victory over the Government, which did not care about its reputation on Irish matters provided an end was made of the reign of the murderers.

[Sidenote: State of the country]

Immediate events justified Lord Cowper up to the hilt, who must have watched with a grim satisfaction the terrible results of Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy in the early eighties. When the time came that disclosed Mr. Gladstone as the champion of Home Rule, Lord Cowper took a leading part in the forces arrayed against his old chief. At a meeting in a London theatre addressed by Lord Salisbury and the Marquis of Hartington, Lord Cowper was in the chair, and his presence was a tower of strength to the cause. After the final defeat of Liberal Home Rule he dropped out of public life, and at his death--on July 19, 1905--he was almost forgotten by his contemporaries.

There is an admirable and eloquent description in Viscount Morley's 'Life of Gladstone' of the condition of Ireland when Lord Spencer began his second viceroyalty: 'In 1882 Ireland seemed to be literally a society on the verge of dissolution. The Invincibles still roved with knives about the streets of Dublin. Discontent had been stirred in the ranks of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and a dangerous mutiny broke out in the metropolitan force. Over half of the country the demoralization of every class, the terror, the fierce hatred, {280} the universal distrust, had grown to an incredible pitch. The moral cowardice of what ought to have been the governing class was astounding. The landlords would hold meetings and agree not to go beyond a certain abatement, and then they would go individually and privately offer to the tenant a greater abatement. Even the agents of the law and the Courts were shaken in their duty. The power of random arrest and detention under the Coercion Act of 1881 had not improved the morale of magistrates and police. The Sheriff would let the word get out that he was coming to make a seizure, and profess surprise that the cattle had vanished. The whole countryside turned out thousands in half the counties in Ireland to attend flaming meetings, and if a man did not attend angry neighbours trooped up to know the reason why. The clergy hardly stirred a finger to restrain the wildness of the storm; some did their best to raise it. All that was what Lord Spencer had to deal with, the very foundations of the social fabric rocking.'

The appointment of Earl Spencer was not pleasing to Mr. Forster, and he sent in his resignation, his ostensible reason being the proposed suspension of the Coercion Act, which had enabled the Irish executive to imprison Parnell. Forster, however, was more concerned with his own status. Lord Spencer would retain his seat in the Cabinet, which meant that the Chief Secretary's position would be of less importance than hitherto. The Prime Minister accepted the resignation without more than the expected and usual formal expressions {281} of regret. Lord Frederick Cavendish was selected to succeed him, and on the same day the viceroy and the Chief Secretary crossed the Channel. This was the fatal May 6, 1882. Lord Spencer was sworn in at Dublin Castle, and during the afternoon he was engaged in 'that grim apartment in Dublin Castle, where successive Secretaries spend unshining hours in saying "No" to impossible demands and hunting for plausible answers to insoluble riddles.' At five o'clock the Viceroy started to ride to Phoenix Park, and at six Lord Frederick Cavendish followed. In the Park he was overtaken by Mr. Burke, the Under-Secretary, and a few minutes later both men were foully murdered within sight of the Viceregal Lodge.

[Sidenote: The Phoenix Park murders]

Lord Spencer wrote the following account of his knowledge of the murders--a statement inspired by a report that he had actually witnessed the affray and innocently regarded it as an unimportant scuffle:

'It is said that I saw the murder. That is not so. I had asked Cavendish to drive to the Park with me. He said he would not; he would rather walk with Burke. Of course, if he had come with me it would not have happened. I then rode to the Park with a small escort--I think, my aide-de-camp and a trooper. Curiously enough, I stopped to look at the polo-match which Carey described, so that he and I seem to have been together on that occasion. I then turned towards the Viceregal Lodge. The ordinary and more direct way for me to go was over the very scene {282} of the murder. Had I so gone the murders would not probably have been committed. Three men coming up would have prevented anything of that kind. But I made a slight detour, and got to the lodge another way. When I reached the Lodge I sat down near the window and began to read some papers. Suddenly I heard a shriek which I shall never forget. I seem to hear it now; it is always in my ears. This shriek was repeated again and again. I got up to look out. I saw a man rushing along. He jumped over the palings, and dashed up to the Lodge shouting: "Mr. Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish are killed!" There was great confusion, and immediately I rushed out; but someone of the household stopped me, saying that it might be a ruse to get me out, and advising me to wait and make inquiries. Of course, the inquiries were made, and the truth soon discovered. I always deplore my unfortunate decision to make that detour, always feeling that if I had gone to the Lodge by the ordinary way the murders would have been prevented. I have said that I did not see the murder, but my servant