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The Earl of Aberdeen, K.T.
The Earl of Aberdeen, K.T.
THE VICEROYS OF IRELAND THE STORY OF THE LONG LINE OF NOBLEMEN AND THEIR WIVES WHO HAVE RULED IRELAND AND IRISH SOCIETY FOR OVER SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS BY CHARLES O'MAHONY WITH PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE AND THIRTY-TWO OTHER PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON JOHN LONG, LIMITED NORRIS STREET, HAYMARKET MCMXII TO MY WIFE PREFACE This is the first complete history of the viceroys of Ireland, the only other book on the subject being the late Sir John T. Gilbert's, which was published in 1864. But as he
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
The conquest of Ireland by Henry II. is one of the myths of history which Time has endeavoured to crystallize into fact. Rome gave Ireland to the superstitious, cowardly King of England, but the Pope could not make Henry a conqueror, and so the invader, coming to claim that which did not belong to the Pope or to himself, discovered that the native Irish could defend themselves. Ireland was a land of saints according to the chroniclers of the time; Henry discovered that it was also a land of figh
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
The year 1326 is memorable in English annals because of the deposition of Edward II. The Viceroy of Ireland, Thomas, second Earl of Kildare, was appointed that year, the warrant stating that he represented Edward III., then a boy of fourteen. The deposed monarch immediately looked to Ireland for support, and to Dublin he came, having heard that the English colony refused to acknowledge the authority of the Earl of Kildare. He was misinformed, however, and he lost his throne without being able to
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
The state of the English colony was now so precarious that Henry IV. decided to send one of his most trusted and capable military commanders to act as viceroy. This was Sir John Talbot, and his appointment was hailed with joy. Talbot was given a term of six years of office, and a salary of £2,666 13s. 4d. It was a large income, but as it was seldom paid, that was a detail which must have impressed Henry as being quite unimportant. During his occasional journeys to England, the Archbishop of Dubl
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
The death of Henry VII. and the accession of Henry VIII. tended to strengthen Kildare's position. He was continued in his office, and held it until his death in 1513. Accounted one of the handsomest and bravest men of his time, he was succeeded by his son in the deputyship, as well as in the family honours, and Gerald, ninth earl, was worthy of such a parent. For seven years Kildare was the deputy, with the exception of a brief period in England when Viscount Gormanstown was vice-deputy. His ene
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
The gradual disappearance of the distinctively English population did not pass unnoticed in England. During some hundreds of years there had been many attempts to induce English families to emigrate to Ireland, but without any great success. To the average English person Ireland was an uncivilized country inhabited by savages and murderers. Elizabeth's councillors, however, resolved to put into practice the theories of previous viceroys and their advisers. A new English colony was to be created,
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
James Butler, first Duke of Ormonde, was born at Clerkenwell on October 19, 1610. For political reasons he was brought up in London under the immediate influence of the court. The boy, who was known as Viscount Thurles, was as popular as he was handsome, and in his early manhood he was one of the most famous 'bucks' about town. The story of his marriage is a romantic one, and much has been written about it. The facts are that the young Lord Thurles saw Elizabeth Preston, only daughter and heires
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
The Duke of Ormonde's career in London during his period of unemployment was not without excitement. As a great nobleman he frequented the court without ever becoming one of its favoured habitués. In his salad days Ormonde had been one of the gayest of the gay, but he was a veteran when Robarts succeeded him in Ireland, and his temperament was that of a statesman rather than a courtier. His enemies, however, feared and detested him, and finding that they could not compel the complacent Charles t
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
The Orange Government in Ireland was in the hands of two Lords Justices named Coningsby and Porter, but as soon as the Treaty of Limerick ended the hopes of the Jacobeans William decided to send one of his followers as viceroy. There were many claimants on the king's gratitude, but Henry Sidney, fourth son of Robert, second Earl of Leicester, one of Charles I.'s viceroys, had been well rewarded by the Dutchman for his treachery towards James. Sidney had been present at the Battle of the Boyne, b
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
Lord Carteret was only thirty-four when, on April 3, 1724, he was declared Viceroy of Ireland. The appointment was Walpole's, whose accession to power presented him with the opportunity of sending Carteret to quell the disturbance in Ireland which he himself—the new viceroy—had encouraged secretly while occupying a private position in the State. Carteret, however, did not flinch, nor did he exhibit any distaste for the task. It was not necessary to treat the Irish as human beings, and he knew th
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
Lord Hartington was the son of that Duke of Devonshire who had been viceroy for seven years, and was only thirty-five when his commission was signed by the king. Hartington appears to have been a typical Cavendish; everybody trusted and admired him without forming too great an opinion of his abilities; but he was a safe man, and this attribute brought him the premiership in November, 1756, when he was summoned from Dublin to take the control of the ministry. Pitt, it is interesting to note, serv
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
The five years of Lord Townshend's viceroyalty were fruitful for Ireland. He might have adopted craftier methods and injured the country more than he did, but he openly pursued a stupid policy of bribery and spite: by the former gaining the adherence of the incompetent, and by the latter exasperating the men who in the end defeated him. Amongst the Irish peers whom he was anxious to win over to his side was a kinsman, Lord Loftus. Loftus had some power in the Lords and in the Commons, and by rea
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
The resignation of the Duke of Portland enabled Lord Shelburne to appoint his friend, Earl Temple, to the viceroyalty. This was the premier's challenge to Fox and his followers, and was taken as evidence that he meant to do without their aid. Temple, although well aware that his reign must be almost as short as his predecessor's, came to Dublin, and did his best to gain the support of the official party for the tottering ministry. Within a few months several Bills of importance were carried both
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
The new viceroy was received in sullen silence on the day of his arrival in Dublin, but when Lord Clare, the Chancellor, was returning after swearing in the Lord-Lieutenant, he was attacked by a frenzied mob which sought to lynch him on the lamp-post outside his own house. Beresford had taken the precaution to fill the approaches to the Custom-house with soldiers, and so escaped, but the residences of all the principal loyalists in Dublin were stoned, and for several days mob law was supreme. Ca
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
The advocates of Catholic Emancipation could not be expected to be content with mere social pleasures, and the ministry decided to try a diplomat in the difficult post. The duke having resigned in 1813, Lord Whitworth, an experienced diplomatist and a strong anti-Catholic, took his place. The duke and duchess, after their experience of Brussels and Waterloo, consented to govern British North America, as Canada was then termed, and in 1819 the duke died of hydrophobia in the town of Richmond. Stu
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
Wellington's premiership was four days old when Lord Anglesey accepted the viceroyalty. The duke evidently selected his Waterloo comrade without taking the trouble to sound him upon the views he held, but George IV.—that fine champion of Protestantism!—immediately sent for the marquis, and in a touching interview implored him to keep the Catholics at bay, emphasizing his belief that the surrender of the Government to O'Connell would mean the dismemberment and destruction of the British Empire. A
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
The Melbourne Government had two years to run when Lord Normanby left Ireland, and they were represented for that period at Dublin by Hugh Fortescue, Viscount Ebrington, and afterwards Earl Fortescue. The O'Connell party welcomed Lord Ebrington as they would have welcomed anybody commissioned by Lord Melbourne, and although they had been disappointed by the barren results of the treaty so far, they hoped for the best. The Repealer, realizing slowly, perhaps, that he was going to experience a bit
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
The viceroyalty of Lord Wodehouse brought him an earldom in the year he retired from office—1868—but it would be an exaggeration to say that he was conspicuously successful. Until his appointment to Ireland, Wodehouse had had experience of under-secretaryships only, at the Foreign and Indian Offices, and Lord Palmerston's selection came as a surprise. It may have been due to the fact that Lord Wodehouse's wife was a daughter of an Irish peer, the last Earl of Clare, and there have been selection
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CHAPTER XVIII
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
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
Lord Carnarvon was sworn in as Lord-Lieutenant on July 7, 1885, and on January 12, 1886, he tendered his resignation, departing from the country thirteen days later. It was an unusually brief, yet an exceptionally interesting, viceroyalty. He was rightfully regarded as a man of fastidious honour and sincerity. On two occasions he had resigned Cabinet rank because of conscientious objections to the policy of his leaders, and there was scarcely anybody among the statesmen of his time who commanded
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
From out of the solid phalanx of Tory peers eligible for the post Lord Salisbury chose the Earl of Zetland, and sent him to Dublin. The viceroy was then in his forty-fifth year, was chiefly distinguished by his fondness for horse-racing, while a painstaking press recorded the fact that his mother was an Irishwoman. In 1871 he married Lady Lilian Lumley, a daughter of the ninth Earl of Scarborough, and the following year he was elected for the family borough of Richmond, Yorkshire. The death of h
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
The outbreak of the South African War initiated a display of disloyalty in Ireland which might have embarrassed a less adroit Administration. The policy of killing Home Rule by kindness had not succeeded, and it was very evident that the throwing open of practically every office to the people had not satisfied them. Every Boer victory was received with jubilation, but it was mostly superficial. An English tourist, tactfully extracting the opinions of a cabdriver, was informed that the English de
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
Lord Aberdeen's return Lord Aberdeen's return to Ireland, twenty years after his first entry into Dublin as Lord-Lieutenant, was announced immediately after the resignation of Mr. Balfour's ministry. It was to a new Ireland that the viceroy came. Much history had been made since the days when the 'Union of Hearts' presaged a smooth passage to popularity for the Earl of Aberdeen. Successive Tory Governments had laboured upon Irish affairs, and if they had stopped short at Home Rule they had come
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