Chapter XXXI: Part 31

"For some years after the failure of the Fenian insurrection
there was no political agitation in Ireland; but in 1873 a new
national movement began to make itself felt; this was the Home
Rule Movement. It had been gradually formed since 1870 by one
or two leading Irishmen, who thought the time was ripe for a
new constitutional effort; chief among them was Mr. Isaac
Butt, a Protestant, an eminent lawyer, and an earnest
politician. The movement spread rapidly, and took a firm hold
of the popular mind. After the General Election of 1874, some
sixty Irish Members were returned who had stood before their
constituencies as Home Rulers. The Home Rule demand is clear
and simple enough; it asks for Ireland a separate Government,
still allied with the Imperial Government, on the principles
which regulate the alliance between the United States of
America. The proposed Irish Parliament in College Green would
bear just the same relation to the Parliament at Westminster
that the Legislature and Senate of every American State bear
to the head authority of the Congress in the Capitol at
Washington. All that relates to local business it was proposed
to delegate to the Irish Assembly; all questions of imperial
policy were still to be left to the Imperial Government. There
was nothing very startling, very daringly innovating, in the
scheme. In most of the dependencies of Great Britain, Home
Rule systems of some kind were already established. In Canada,
in the Australasian Colonies, the principle might be seen at
work upon a large scale; upon a small scale it was to be
studied nearer home in the neighbouring Island of Man. … At
first the Home Rule Party was not very active. Mr. Butt used
to have a regular Home Rule debate once every Session, when he
and his followers stated their views, and a division was taken
and the Home Rulers were of course defeated. Yet, while the
English House of Commons was thus steadily rejecting year
after year the demand made for Home Rule by the large majority
of the Irish Members, it was affording a strong argument in
favour of some system of local Government, by consistently
outvoting every proposition brought forward by the bulk of the
Irish Members relating to Irish Questions. … Mr. Butt and
his followers had proved the force of the desire for some sort
of National Government in Ireland, but the strength of the
movement they had created now called for stronger leaders. A
new man was coming into Irish political life who was destined
to be the most remarkable Irish leader since O'Connell. Mr.
Charles Stuart Parnell, who entered the House of Commons in
1875 as Member for Meath, was a descendant of the English poet
Parnell, and of the two Parnells, father and son, John and
Henry, who stood by Grattan to the last in the struggle
against the Union. He was a grand-nephew of Sir Henry Parnell,
the first Lord Congleton, the advanced Reformer and friend of,
Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne. He was Protestant, and a member
of the Protestant Synod. Mr. Parnell set himself to form a
party of Irishmen in the House of Commons who should be
absolutely independent of any English political party, and who
would go their own way with only the cause of Ireland to
influence them. Mr. Parnell had all the qualities that go to
make a good political leader, and he succeeded in his purpose.
The more advanced men in and out of Parliament began to look
up to him as the real representative of the popular voice. In
1878 Mr. Butt died. … The leadership of the Irish
Parliamentary Party was given to Mr. William Shaw, Member for
Cork County, an able, intelligent man, who proved himself in
many ways a good leader. In quieter times his authority might
have remained unquestioned, but these were unquiet, times. The
decorous and demure attitude of the early Home Rule Party was
to be changed into a more aggressive action, and Mr. Parnell
was the champion of the change. It was soon obvious that he
was the real leader recognised by the majority of the Irish
Home Rule Members, and by the country behind them. Mr. Parnell
and his following have been bitterly denounced for pursuing an
obstructive policy.
{1796}
They are often written about as if they had invented
obstruction; as if obstruction of the most audacious kind had
never been practised in the House of Commons before Mr.
Parnell entered it. It may perhaps be admitted that the Irish
Members made more use of obstruction than had been done before
their time. … The times undoubtedly were unquiet; the policy
which was called in England obstructive and in Ireland active
was obviously popular with the vast majority of the Irish
people. The Land Question, too, was coming up again, and in a
stronger form than ever. Mr. Butt, not very long before his
death, had warned the House of Commons that the old land war
was going to break out anew, and he was laughed at for his
vivid fancy by the English Press and by English public
opinion; but he proved a true prophet. Mr. Parnell had
carefully studied the condition of the Irish tenant, and he
saw that the Land Act of 1870 was not the last word of
legislation on his behalf. Mr. Parnell was at first an ardent
advocate of what came to be known as the Three F's, fair rent,
fixity of tenure, and free sale. But the Three F's were soon
to be put aside in favour of more advanced ideas. Outside
Parliament a strenuous and earnest man was preparing to
inaugurate the greatest land agitation ever seen in Ireland.
Mr. Michael Davitt was the son of an evicted tenant. … When
he grew to be a young man he joined the Fenians, and in 1870,
on the evidence of an informer, he was arrested and sentenced
to fifteen years' penal servitude; seven years later he was
let out on ticket-of-leave. In his long imprisonment he had
thought deeply upon the political and social condition of
Ireland and the best means of improving it; when he came out
he had abandoned his dreams of armed rebellion, and he went in
for constitutional agitation to reform the Irish land system.
The land system needed reforming; the condition of the tenant
was only humanly endurable in years of good harvest. The three
years from 1876 to 1879 were years of successive bad harvests.
… Mr. Davitt had been in America, planning out a land
organization, and had returned to Ireland to carry out his
plan. Land meetings were held in many parts of Ireland, and in
October Mr. Parnell, Mr. Davitt, Mr. Patrick Egan, and Mr.
Thomas Brennan founded the Irish National Land League, the
most powerful political organization that had been formed in
Ireland since the Union. The objects of the Land League were
the abolition of the existing landlord system and the
introduction of peasant proprietorship."

_J. H. McCarthy,
Outline of Irish History,
chapter 11._

ALSO IN:
_T. P. O'Connor,
The Parnell Movement,
chapters 8-10._

_A. V. Dicey,
England's Case against Home Rule._

_G. Baden-Powell, editor,
The Truth about Home Rule._

IRELAND: A. D. 1880.
The breach between the Irish Party and the English Liberals.

"The new Irish party which followed the lead of Mr. Parnell
has been often represented by the humourist as a sort of
Falstaffian 'ragged regiment.' … From dint of repetition
this has come to be almost an article of faith in some
quarters. Yet it is curiously without foundation. A large
proportion of Mr. Parnell's followers were journalists. …
Those who were not journalists in the Irish party were
generally what is called well-to-do. … At first there seemed
no reason to expect any serious disunion between the Irish
members and the Liberal' party. … The Irish vote in England
had been given to the Liberal cause. The Liberal speakers and
statesmen, without committing themselves to any definite line
of policy, had manifested friendly sentiments towards Ireland;
and though indeed nothing was said which could be construed
into a recognition of the Home Rule claim, still the new
Ministry was known to contain men favourable to that claim.
The Irish members hoped for much from the new Government; and,
on the other hand, the new Government expected to find cordial
allies in all sections of the Irish party. The appointment of
Mr. Forster to the Irish Secretaryship was regarded by many
Irishmen, especially those allied to Mr. Shaw and his
following, as a marked sign of the good intentions of the
Government towards Ireland. … The Queen's Speech announced
that the Peace Preservation Act would not be renewed. This was
a very important announcement. Since the Union Ireland had
hardly been governed by the ordinary law for a single year.
… Now the Government was going to make the bold experiment
of trying to rule Ireland without the assistance of coercive
and exceptional law. The Queen's Speech, however, contained
only one other reference to Ireland, in a promise that a
measure would be introduced for the extension of the Irish
borough franchise. This was in itself an important promise.
… But extension of the borough franchise did not seem, to
the Irish members in 1880 the most important form that
legislation for Ireland could take just then. The country was
greatly depressed by its recent suffering; the number of
evictions was beginning to rise enormously. The Irish members
thought that the Government should have made some promise to
consider the land question, and above all should have done
something to stay the alarming increase of evictions.
Evictions had increased from 463 families in 1877 to 980 in
1878, to 1,238 in 1879; and they were still on the increase,
as was shown at the end of 1880, when it was found that 2,110
families were evicted. An amendment to the Address was at once
brought forward by the Irish party, and debated at some
length. The Irish party called for some immediate legislation
on behalf of the land question. Mr. Forster replied, admitting
the necessity for some legislation, but declaring that there
would not be time for the introduction of any such measure
that session. Then the Irish members asked for some temporary
measure to prevent the evictions … ; but the Chief Secretary
answered that while the law existed it was necessary to carry
it out, and he could only appeal to both sides to be moderate.
Matters slowly drifted on in this way for a short time. …
Evictions steadily increased, and Mr. O'Connor Power brought
in a Bill for the purpose of staying evictions. Then the
Government, while refusing to accept the Irish measure,
brought in a Compensation for Disturbance Bill, which adopted
some of the Irish suggestions. … On Friday, June 25, the
second reading of the Bill was moved by Mr. Forster, who
denied that it was a concession to the anti-rent agitation,
and strongly denounced the outrages which were taking place in
Ireland. … This was the point at which difference between
the Irish party and the Government first became marked.
{1797}
The increase of evictions in Ireland, following as it did upon
the widespread misery caused by the failure of the harvests
and the partial famine, had generated—as famine and hunger
have always generated—a certain amount of lawlessness.
Evictions were occasionally resisted with violence; here and
there outrages were committed upon bailiffs, process-servers,
and agents. In different places, too, injuries had been
inflicted upon the cattle and horses of landowners and land
agents. … There is no need, there should be no attempt, to
justify these crimes. But, while condemning all acts of
violence, whether upon man or beast, it must be remembered
that these acts were committed by ignorant peasants of the
lowest class, maddened by hunger, want, and eviction, driven
to despair by the sufferings of their wives and children,
convinced of the utter hopelessness of redress, and longing
for revenge. … The Compensation for Disturbance Bill was
carried in the Commons after long debates in which the Irish
party strove to make its principles stronger. … It was sent
up to the Lords, where it was rejected on Tuesday, August 3,
by a majority of 231. The Government answered the appeals of
Irish members by refusing to take any steps to make the Lords
retract their decision, or to introduce any similar measure
that session. From that point the agitation and struggle of
the past four years [1880-1884] may be said to date."

_J. H. McCarthy,
England under Gladstone, 1880-1884,
chapter 6._

ALSO IN:
_T. W. Reid,
Life of William Edward Forster,
volume 2, chapter 6-7._

IRELAND: A. D, 1881-1882.
The Coercion Bill and the Land Act.
Arrest of the Irish leaders.
Suppression of the Land League.
The alleged Kilmainham Treaty, and release of Mr. Parnell and
others.

Early in 1881, the Government armed itself with new powers for
suppressing the increased lawlessness which showed itself in
Ireland, and for resisting the systematic policy of
intimidation which the Nationalists appeared to have planned,
by the passage of a measure known as the Coercion Bill. This
was followed, in April, by the introduction of a Land Bill,
intended to redress the most conspicuous Irish grievance by
establishing an authoritative tribunal for the determination
of rents, and by aiding and facilitating the purchase of small
holdings by the peasants. The Land Bill became law in August;
but it failed to satisfy the demands of the Land League or to
produce a more orderly state of feeling in Ireland. Severe
proceedings were then decided upon by the Government. "The
Prime Minister, during his visit to Leeds in the first week of
October, had used language which could bear only one meaning.
The question, he said, had come to be simply this, 'whether
law or lawlessness must rule in Ireland;' the Irish people
must not be deprived of the means of taking advantage of the
Land Act by force or fear of force. He warned the party of
disorder that 'the resources of civilisation were not yet
exhausted.' A few days later Mr. Gladstone, speaking at the
Guildhall, amid enthusiastic cheers, was able to announce that
the long-delayed blow had fallen. Mr. Parnell was arrested in
Dublin under the Coercion Act, and his arrest was followed by
those of Mr. Sexton, Mr. Dillon, Mr. O'Kelly, and other
prominent leaders of the agitation. The warnings of the
Government had been met at first with derision and defiance,
and the earlier arrests were furiously denounced; but the
energy and persistence of the Government soon began to make an
impression. … A Parthian shot was fired in the issue of a
manifesto, purporting to be signed, not only by the 'suspects'
in Kilmainham, but also by [Michael] Davitt, … in Portland
Prison, which adjured the tenantry to pay no rent whatever
until the Government had done penance for its tyranny and
released the victims of British despotism. This open
incitement to defiance of legal authority and repudiation of
legal right was instantly met by the Irish Executive in a
resolute spirit. On the 20th of October a proclamation was
issued declaring the League to be 'an illegal and criminal
association, intent on destroying the obligation of contracts
and subverting law,' and announcing that its operations would
thenceforward be forcibly suppressed, and those taking part in
them held responsible."

_Annual Summaries reprinted from The Times,
volume 2, page 155._

"In the month of April [1882] Mr. Parnell was released from
Kilmainham on parole—urgent business demanding his presence
in Paris. This parole the Irish National leader faithfully
kept. Whether the sweets of liberty had special charms for Mr.
Parnell does not appear; but certain it is that after his
return to Kilmainham, the Member for Cork wrote to Captain
O'Shea, one of the Irish Members, and indirectly to the
Government, intimating that if the question of arrears could
be introduced in Parliament by way of relieving the tenants of
holdings and lessening greatly the number of evictions in the
country for non-payment of rent, and providing the purchase
clauses of the Land Bill were discussed, steps might be taken
to lessen the number of outrages. The Government had the
intimation conveyed to them, in short, which gave to their
minds the conviction that Messrs. Parnell, Dillon, and
O'Kelly, once released, and having in view the reforms
indicated to them, would range themselves on the side of law
and order in Ireland. Without any contract with the three
members the release of Messrs. Parnell, Dillon, and O'Kelly
was ordered, after they had been confined for a period
bordering on three months. Michael Davitt had been released,
likewise, and had been elected for Meath; but the seat was
declared vacant again, owing to the conditions of his
ticket-of-leave not permitting his return. Much has been said,
and much has been written with regard to the release of the
three Irish M. P.'s. The 'Kilmainham Treaty' has been … a
term of scorn addressed to Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues.
… As a fact … there was no Kilmainham Treaty. … Mr.
Forster [the Secretary for Ireland] resigned because he did
not think it right to share the responsibility of the release
of Messrs. Parnell, Dillon, and O'Kelly. The Government had
detained the Queen's subjects in prison without trial for the
purpose of preventing crime, not for punishment, Mr. Forster
said in vindication. Mr. Forster contended that the unwritten
law, as promulgated by them, had worked the ruin and the
injury of the Queen's subjects by instructions of one kind and
another—biddings carried out to such a degree that no power
on earth could have allowed it to continue without becoming a
Government not merely in name but in shame.
{1798}
Mr. Forster would have given the question of the release of
the three consideration, if they had pledged themselves not to
set their law up against the law of the land, or if Ireland
had been quiet, or if there had been an accession of fresh
powers on behalf of the Government: but these conditions were
wanting. What Mr. Forster desired was an avowal of a change of
purpose. He entreated his colleagues 'not to try to buy
obedience,' as he termed it, and not to rely on appearances.
The Government did rely on the intimation of Mr. Parnell … ;
there was no treaty."

_W. W. Pimblett,
English Political History, 1880-1885,
chapter 10._

IRELAND: A. D. 1882.
The Phœnix Park murders.

Mr. Forster, Chief Secretary for Ireland, resigned in April,
1882, and was succeeded by Lord Frederick Cavendish, brother
of the Marquis of Hartington and son of the Duke of
Devonshire. Earl Spencer at the same time became Viceroy, in
place of Lord Cowper, resigned. "On the night of Friday, May
5th, Earl Spencer and Lord Frederick Cavendish crossed over to
Ireland, and arrived in Dublin on the following day. The
official entry was made in the morning, when the reception
accorded by the populace to the new officials was described as
having been very fairly favourable. Events seemed to have
taken an entirely prosperous turn, and it was hoped that at
last the long winter of Irish discontent had come to an end.
On Sunday morning there spread through the United Kingdom the
intelligence that the insane hatred of English rule had been
the cause of a crime, even more brutal and unprovoked than any
of the numerous outrages that had, during the last three
years, sullied the annals of Ireland. It appeared that Lord
Frederick Cavendish, having taken the oaths at the Castle,
took a car about half-past seven in order to drive to the
Viceregal Lodge. On the way he met Mr. Burke, the Permanent
Under-Secretary, who, though his life had been repeatedly
threatened, was walking along, according to his usual custom,
without any police escort. Lord Frederick dismissed his car,
and walked with him through the Phœnix Park. There, in broad
daylight—for it was a fine summer evening—and in the middle
of a public recreation ground, crowded with people, they were
surrounded and murdered. More than one spectator witnessed
what they imagined to be a drunken brawl, saw six men
struggling together, and four of them drive off outside a car,
painted red, which had been waiting for them the while, the
carman sitting still and never turning his head. The bodies of
the two officials were first discovered by two shop-boys on
bicycles who had previously passed them alive. Lord Frederick
Cavendish had six wounds, and Mr. Burke eleven, dealt
evidently with daggers used by men of considerable strength.
Lord Spencer himself had witnessed the struggle from the
windows of the Viceregal Lodge, and thinking that some
pickpockets had been at work sent a servant to make inquiries.
A reward of £10,000, together with full pardon to anyone who
was not one of the actual murderers, was promptly offered, but
for many long months the telegrams from Dublin closed with the
significant information—'No definite clue in the hands of the
police.' All parties in Ireland at once united to express
their horror and detestation at this dastardly crime."

_Cassell's Illustrated History of England,
volume 10, chapter 50._

ALSO IN:
_Sir C. Russell,
The Parnell Commission: Opening Speech,
pages 282-291._

IRELAND: A. D. 1884.
Enlargement of the Suffrage.
Representation of the People Act.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1884-1885.

IRELAND: A. D. 1885-1886.
Change of opinion in England.
Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill and Irish Land Bill and
their defeat.

"All through the Parliament which sat from 1880 till 1885, the
Nationalists' party, led by Mr. Parnell, and including at
first less than half, ultimately about half, of the Irish
members, was in constant and generally bitter opposition to
the Government of Mr. Gladstone. But during these five years a
steady, although silent and often unconscious, process of
change was passing in the minds of English and Scotch members,
especially Liberal members, due to their growing sense of the
mistakes which Parliament committed in handling Irish
questions, and of the hopelessness of the efforts which the
Executive was making to pacify the country on the old methods.
First, they came to feel that the present system was
indefensible. Then, while still disliking the notion of an
Irish Legislature, they began to think it deserved
consideration. Next they admitted, though usually in
confidence to one another, that although Home Rule might be a
bad solution, it was a probable one, toward which events
pointed. Last of all, and not till 1884, they asked themselves
whether, after all, it would be a bad solution, provided a
workable scheme could be found. But as no workable scheme had
been proposed, they still kept their views, perhaps unwisely,
to themselves, and although the language held at the general
election of 1885 showed a great advance in the direction of
favoring Irish self-government, beyond the attitude of 1880,
it was still vague and hesitating, and could the more easily
remain so because the constituencies had not (strange as it
may now seem) realized the supreme importance of the Irish
question. Few questions were put to candidates on the subject,
for both candidates and electors wished to avoid it. It was
disagreeable; it was perplexing; so they agreed to leave it on
one side. But when the result of the Irish elections showed,
in December, 1885, an overwhelming majority in favor of the
Home Rule party, and when they showed, also, that this party
held the balance of power in Parliament, no one could longer
ignore the urgency of the issue. There took place what
chemists call a precipitation of substance held in solution.
Public opinion on the Irish question had been in a fluid
state. It now began to crystallize, and the advocates and
opponents of Irish self-government fell asunder into two
masses, which soon solidified. This process was hastened by
the fact that Mr. Gladstone's view, the indications of which,
given by himself some months before, had been largely
overlooked, now became generally understood. … In the spring
of 1886 the question could be no longer evaded or postponed.
It was necessary to choose between … two courses: the
refusal of the demand for self-government, coupled with the
introduction of a severe Coercion Bill, or the concession of
it by the introduction of a Home Rule Bill. …
{1799}
How the Government of Ireland Bill was brought into the House
of Commons on April 8th, amid circumstances of curiosity and
excitement unparalleled since 1832: how, after debates of
almost unprecedented length, it was defeated in June, by a
majority of thirty; how the policy it embodied was brought
before the country at the general election, and failed to win
approval; how the Liberal party has been rent in twain upon
the question; how Mr. Gladstone resigned, and has been
succeeded by a Tory Ministry, which the dissentient Liberals,
who condemn Home Rule, are now supporting—all this is …
well known.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1885-1886.

… But the causes of the disaster may not be equally
understood. … First, and most obvious, although not most
important, was the weight of authority arrayed against the
scheme. … The two most eminent leaders of the moderate
Liberal, or, as it is often called, Whig, party, Lord
Hartington and Mr. Goschen, both declared against the bill,
and put forth all their oratory and influence against it. At
the opposite extremity of the party, Mr. John Bright, the
veteran and honored leader of the Radicals, Mr. Chamberlain,
the younger and latterly more active and prominent chief of
that large section, took up the same position of hostility.
Scarcely less important was the attitude of the social
magnates of the Liberal party all over the country. … As, at
the preceding general election, in December, 1885, the
Liberals had obtained a majority of less than a hundred over
the Tories, a defection such as this was quite enough to
involve their defeat. Probably the name of Mr. Bright alone
turned the issue in some twenty constituencies, which might
otherwise have cast a Home Rule vote. The mention of this
cause, however, throws us back on the further question, Why
was there such a weight of authority against the scheme
proposed by Mr. Gladstone? How came so many of his former
colleagues, friends, supporters, to differ and depart from him
on this occasion? Besides some circumstances attending the
production of the bill, … which told heavily against it,
there were three feelings which worked upon men's minds,
disposing them to reject it. The first of these was dislike
and fear of the Irish Nationalist members. In the previous
House of Commons this party had been uniformly and bitterly
hostile to the Liberal Government. Measures intended for the
good of Ireland, like the Land Act of 1881, had been
ungraciously received, treated as concessions extorted, for
which no thanks were due—inadequate concessions, which must
be made the starting-point for fresh demands. Obstruction had
been freely practised to defeat not only bills restraining the
liberty of the subject in Ireland, but many other measures.
Some members of the Irish party, apparently with the approval
of the rest, had systematically sought to delay all English
and Scotch legislation, and, in fact, to bring the work of
Parliament to a dead stop. … There could be no doubt as to
the hostility which they, still less as to that which their
fellow-countrymen in the United States, had expressed toward
England, for they had openly wished success to Russia while
war seemed impending with her, and the so-called Mahdi of the
Sudan was vociferously cheered at many a Nationalist meeting.
… To many Englishmen, the proposal to create an Irish
Parliament seemed nothing more or less than a proposal to hand
over to these men the government of Ireland, with all the
opportunities thence arising to oppress the opposite party in
Ireland and to worry England herself. It was all very well to
urge that the tactics which the Nationalists had pursued when
their object was to extort Home Rule would be dropped, because
superfluous, when Home Rule had been granted; or to point out
that an Irish Parliament would probably contain different men
from those who had been sent to Westminster as Mr. Parnell's
nominees. Neither of these arguments could overcome the
suspicious antipathy which many Englishmen felt. … The
internal condition of Ireland supplied more substantial
grounds for alarm. … Three-fourths of the people are Roman
Catholics, one-fourth Protestants, and this Protestant fourth
sub-divided into bodies not fond of one another, who have
little community of sentiment. Besides the Scottish colony in
Ulster, many English families have settled here and there
through the country. They have been regarded as intruders by
the aboriginal Celtic population, and many of them, although
hundreds of years may have passed since they came, still look
on themselves as rather English than Irish. … Many people in
England assumed that an Irish Parliament would be under the
control of the tenants and the humbler class generally, and
would therefore be hostile to the landlords. They went
farther, and made the much bolder assumption that as such a
Parliament would be chosen by electors, most of whom were
Roman Catholics, it would be under the control of the Catholic
priesthood, and hostile to Protestants. Thus they supposed
that the grant of self-government to Ireland would mean the
abandonment of the upper and wealthier class, the landlords
and the Protestants, to the tender mercies of their enemies.
… The fact stood out that in Ireland two hostile factions
had been contending for the last sixty years, and that the
gift of self-government might enable one of them to tyrannize
over the other. True, that party was the majority, and,
according to the principles of democratic government,
therefore entitled to prevail. But it is one thing to admit a
principle and another to consent to its application. The
minority had the sympathy of the upper classes in England,
because the minority contained the landlords. It had the
sympathy of a large part of the middle class, because it
contained the Protestants. … There was another anticipation,
another forecast of evils to follow, which told most of all
upon English opinion. This was the notion that Home Rule was
only a stage in the road to the complete separation of the two
islands."

_J. Bryce,
Past and Future of the Irish Question
(New Princeton Review, Jan., 1887)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1886.
The "Plan of Campaign."

On the 11th of September Mr. Parnell had introduced in the
House of Commons a bill to make temporary provision for the
relief of suffering tenants in Ireland, and it had been
defeated after a sharp debate by a majority of 95. The chief
argument for the bill had been that "something must be done to
stay evictions during the approaching winter. The rents would
be due in November, and the fall in agricultural prices had
been so great, that the sale of their whole produce by the
tenants would not, it was contended, bring in money enough to
enable them to pay in full. … The greatest public interest
in the subject was roused by Lord Clanricarde's evictions at
Woodford in Galway. … His quarrel with his Woodford tenants
was of old standing.
{1800}
When the Home Rule Bill was before Parliament the National
League urged them not to bring matters to a crisis, but their
sufferings were too great to be borne, and they set the
National League at defiance, and established a Plan of
Campaign of their own. Lord Clanricarde would grant them no
reduction, and they leagued themselves together, 316 in
number, and when the November rent day came round in 1885 they
resolved not to pay any rent at all if twenty-five per cent.
reduction was refused. This was refused, and they withheld
their rent. … The eviction of four of these tenants, in
August, 1886, attracted general attention by the long fight
the people made for their homes. Each house was besieged and
defended like some mediæval city. One stone house, built by a
tenant at a cost of £200, got the name of Saunders's fort. It
was held by a garrison of 24, who threw boiling water on their
assailants, and in one part of the fight threw out among them
a hive of bees. … To evict these four men the whole
available forces of the Crown in Galway were employed from
Thursday the 19th of August to Friday the 27th. Seven hundred
policemen and soldiers were present to protect the emergency
men who carried out the evictions, and 60 peasants were taken
to Galway gaol. It was to meet cases of this kind that, after
the rejection of Mr. Parnell's Tenants' Relief Bill, the Plan
of Campaign was started. In a speech at Woodford on the 17th
of October Mr. John Dillon gave an outline of the scheme on
which he thought a tenants' campaign against unjust rents
might be started and carried on all over the country. … On
the 23rd of October the 'Plan of Campaign' was published in
full detail in 'United Ireland.' The first question to be
answered, said the 'Plan,' was, How to meet the November
demand for rent? On every estate the tenantry were to come
together and decide whether to combine or not in resistance to
exorbitant rent. When they were assembled, if the priest were
not with them, they were to 'appoint an intelligent and sturdy
member of their body as chairman, and after consulting, decide
by resolution on the amount of abatement they will demand.' A
committee of six or more and the chairman were then to be
elected, to be called a Managing Committee, to take charge of
the half year's rent of each tenant should the landlord refuse
it. Everyone present was to pledge himself

(1) To abide by the decision of the majority;
(2) To hold no communication with the landlord or his agents,
except in presence of the body of the tenantry;
(3) To accept no settlement for himself that was not given to
every tenant on the estate.

Having thus pledged themselves each to the others they were to
go to the rent office in a body on the rent day, or the gale
day, as it is called in Ireland, and if the agent refused to
see them in a body they were to depute the chairman to act as
their spokesman and tender the reduced rent. If the agent
refused to accept it, then the money was to be handed to the
Managing Committee 'to fight the landlord with.' The fund thus
got together was to be employed in supporting tenants who were
dispossessed by sale or ejectment. The National League was to
guarantee the continuance of the grants if needful after the
fund was expended, or as long as the majority of the tenants
held out."

_P. W. Clayden,
England under the Coalition,
chapter. 8._

IRELAND: A. D. 1888-1889.
The Parnell Commission.

Early in 1887, certain letters appeared in "The Times"
newspaper, of London, one of which, printed in facsimile,
"implied Mr. Parnell's sanction to the Park murders of 1882."
It created a great sensation, and, "after many bitter debates
in Parliament, a commission was appointed (1888) consisting of
three judges to inquire not only into the authenticity of this
and other letters attributed to several persons as their
authors, but into the whole course of conduct pursued by many
of the Irish Members of Parliament, in reference to the
previous agitation in Ireland and their connexion with an
extreme faction in America, who tried to intimidate this
country by dastardly attempts to blow up our public buildings
on several occasions between the years 1884 and 1887. The
court sat from the winter months of 1888 until the summer of
the following year, and examined dozens of witnesses,
including Mr. Parnell and most of the other accused members,
as well as dozens of the Irish peasantry who could give
evidence as to outrages in their several districts. One of the
witnesses, a mean and discarded Dublin journalist named
Pigott, turned out to be the forger of the letters; and,
having fled from the avenging hand of justice to Madrid, there
put an end to his life by means of a revolver. Meantime, the
interest in the investigation had flagged, and the report of
the Commission, which deeply implicated many of the Irish
members as to their connexion with the Fenian Society previous
to their entrance to Parliament, on their own acknowledgment,
fell rather flat on the public ear, wearied out in reiteration
of Irish crime from the introduction of the Land League until
the attempt to blow up London Bridge by American filibusters
(1886). The unfortunate man Pigott had sold his forged letters
to the over credulous Times newspaper at a fabulous price; and
even experts in handwriting, so dexterously had they been
manipulated, were ready to testify in open court to the
genuineness of the letters before the tragic end of their
luckless author left not a particle of doubt as to their
origin."

_R. Johnston,
Short History of the Queen's Reign,
page 65._

ALSO IN:
_Sir C. Russell,
The Parnell Commission: Opening Speech for the Defence._

_M. Davitt, Speech in Defence._

IRELAND: A. D. 1889-1891.
Political fall and death of Mr. Parnell.

On the 28th of December, 1889, Captain O'Shea, one of the
Irish Nationalist Members of Parliament, filed a petition for
divorce from his wife on the ground of adultery with Mr.
Parnell. The Irish leader tacitly confessed his guilt by
making no answer, and in November, 1890, the divorce was
granted to Captain O'Shea. In the following June Mr. Parnell
and Mrs. O'Shea were married. The stigma which this affair put
upon Mr. Parnell caused Mr. Gladstone, on behalf of the
English Liberals, to demand his retirement from the leadership
of the Home Rule Party. He refused to give way, and was
supported in the refusal by a minority of his party. The
majority, however, took action to depose him, and the party
was torn asunder. A sudden illness ended Mr. Parnell's life on
the 6th of October, 1891; but his death failed to restore
peace, and the Irish Nationalists are still divided.

IRELAND: A. D. 1893.
Passage of the Home Rule Bill by the British House of Commons.
Its defeat by the House of Lords.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1892-1893.

----------IRELAND: End--------

{1801}

IRENE, Empress in the East (Byzantine, or Greek), A. D. 797-802.

IRISH NIGHT, The.

See LONDON: A. D. 1688.

IRMINSUL, The.

See SAXONS: A. D. 772-804.

IRON AGE.

See STONE AGE.

IRON CROSS, Order of the.

A Prussian order of knighthood instituted in 1815 by Frederick
William III.

IRON CROWN, The Order of the,

See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.

IRON CROWN OF LOMBARDY, The.

See LOMBARDY, THE IRON CROWN OF.

IRON MASK, The Man in the.

"It is known that a masked and unknown prisoner, the object of
extraordinary surveillance, died, in 1703, in the Bastille, to
which he had been taken from the St. Marguerite Isles in 1698;
he had remained about ten years incarcerated in these isles,
and traces of him are with certainty found in the fort of
Exilles, and at Pignerol, as far back as about 1681. This
singular fact, which began to be vaguely bruited a little
before the middle of the 18th century, excited immense
curiosity after Voltaire had availed himself of it in his
'Siècle de Louis XIV.', wherein he exhibited it in the most
touching and tragic light. A thousand conjectures circulated:
no great personage had disappeared in Europe about 1680. What
interest so powerful had the government of Louis XIV. for
concealing this mysterious visage from every human eye? Many
explanations more or less plausible, more or less chimerical,
have been attempted in regard to the 'man with the iron mask'
(an erroneous designation that has prevailed; the mask was not
of iron, but of black velvet; it was probably one of those
'loups' so long in use), when, in 1837, the bibliophile Jacob
(M. Paul Lacroix) published a very ingenious book on this
subject, in which he discussed all the hypotheses, and
skilfully commented on all the facts and dates, in order to
establish that, in 1680, Fouquet was represented as dead; that
he was masked, sequestered anew, and dragged from fortress to
fortress till his real death in 1703. It is impossible for us
to admit this solution of the problem; the authenticity of the
minister Louvois' correspondence with the governor of the
prison of Pignerol, on the subject of Fouquet's death, in
March, 1680, appears to us incontestable; and did this
material proof not exist, we still could not believe in a
return of rigor so strange, so barbarous, and so unaccountable
on the part of Louis XIV., when all the official documents
attest that his resentment had gradually been appeased, and
that an old man who asked nothing more than a little free air
before dying had ceased to be feared. There are many more
presumptions in favor of Baron Heiss' opinion, reproduced by
several writers, and, in the last instance, by M. Delort
('Histoire de l'homme au masque de fer'; 1825),—the opinion
that the 'man with a mask' was a secretary of the Duke of
Mantua, named Mattioli, carried off by order of Louis XIV. in
1679, for having deceived the French government, and having
sought to form a coalition of the Italian princes against it.
But however striking, in certain respects, may be the
resemblances between Mattioli and the 'iron mask,' equally
guarded by the governor St. Mars at Pignerol and at Exilles,
however grave may be the testimony according to which Mattioli
was transferred to the St. Marguerite Isles, the subaltern
position of Mattioli, whom Catinat and Louvois, in their
letters, characterize as a 'knave' and St. Mars threatens with
a cudgel, ill accords, we do not say with the traditions
relating to the profound respect shown the prisoner by the
keepers, the governor, and even the minister,—these
traditions may be contested,—but with the authentic details
and documents given by the learned and judicious Father
Griffet in regard to the extreme mystery in which the prisoner
at the Bastille was enveloped, more than twenty years after
the abduction of the obscure Mattioli, in regard to the mask
that he never put off, in regard to the precautions taken
after his death to annihilate the traces of his sojourn at the
Bastille, which explains why nothing was found concerning him
after the taking of that fortress. Many minds will always
persist in seeking, under this impenetrable mask, a more
dangerous secret, a mysterious accusing resemblance; and the
most popular opinion, although the most void of an proof, will
always doubtless be that suffered to transpire by Voltaire,
under cover of his publisher, in the eighth edition of his
'Dictionnaire philosophique' (1771). According to this
opinion, the honor of the royal household was involved in the
secret, and the unknown victim was an illegitimate son of Anne
of Austria. The only private crime of which Louis XIV. was
perhaps capable, was a crime inspired by fanaticism for
monarchical honor. However this may be, history has no right
to pronounce upon what will never emerge from the domain of
conjecture."

_H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.,
volume 1, page 40, foot-note._

"The Paris correspondent of the 'Daily Telegraph' records a
fact which, if it is correctly reported, goes a long way
towards clearing up one of the problems of modern history. A
letter to Louvois by Louis XIV., written in cipher, has been
long in the archives of the Ministry of War, and has at length
been deciphered. In it the King orders Louvois to arrest
General de Burlonde for having raised the siege of Conti
without permission, to send him to Pignerol, and to conceal
his features under a 'loup' or black-velvet mask. The order
was executed, and the presumption is therefore violent that
the 'Man in the Iron Mask'—it was a black-velvet one with
iron springs—was General de Burlonde. The story tallies with
the known fact that the prisoner made repeated attempts to
communicate his name to soldiers, that he was treated with
respect by his military jailors, and that Louis XV., who knew
the truth of the whole affair, declared it to be a matter of
no importance. The difficulty is to discover the King's motive
for such a precaution; but he may have feared discontent among
his great officers, or the soldiery."

_The Spectator,
October 14, 1893._

The cipher despatch above referred to, and the whole subject
of the imprisonment of General de Burlonde, are discussed at
length, in the light of official records and correspondence,
by M. Émile Burgaud and Commandant Bazeries (the latter of
whom discovered the key to the cipher), in a book entitled "Le
Masque de Fer: Révélation de la correspondance chiffrée de
Louis XIV.," published at Paris in 1893. It seems to leave
small doubt that the mysteriously masked prisoner was no other
than General de Burlonde,

ALSO IN:
_G. A. Ellis,
True History of the State Prisoner commonly called
the Iron Mask._

_E. Lawrence,
The Man in the Iron Mask
(Harper's Magazine, volume 43, page 98)._

_M. Topin,
The Man in the Iron Mask
(Cornhill Magazine, volume 21, page 333)._

_Quarterly Review,
volume 34, page 19._

{1802}

IRONCLAD OATH.

An oath popularly styled the "Ironclad oath" was prescribed by
the Congress of the United States, during the War of the
Rebellion, in July, 1862, to be taken by every person elected
or appointed to any office under the Government of the United
States, the President only excepted. He was required to swear
that he had "never voluntarily borne arms against the United
States"; that he had "voluntarily given no aid, countenance,
counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed
hostility to the National Government"; that he had "neither
sought nor accepted, nor attempted to exercise the functions
of any office whatever under authority or pretended authority
in hostility to the United States"; that he had "never yielded
a voluntary support to any pretended Government within the
United States, hostile or inimical thereto."

_J. G. Blaine,
Twenty Years of Congress,
volume 2, page 88._

IRONSIDES, Cromwell's.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (MAY).

"IRONSIDES, Old."

A name popularly given to the American frigate "Constitution."

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814.

IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY, The.

According to their traditions, the founder of the League or
confederacy which united the five nations of the Iroquois—the
Mohawks, the Onondagas, the Oneidas, the Cayugas, and the
Senecas, was Hiawatha, the hero of Iroquois legend.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

He was an Onondaga chief, and is supposed to have lived about
the middle of the 15th century. "Hiawatha had long beheld with
grief the evils which afflicted not only his own nation, but
all the other tribes about them, through the continual wars in
which they were engaged, and the misgovernment and miseries at
home which these wars produced. With much meditation he had
elaborated in his mind the scheme of a vast confederation
which would ensure universal peace. In the mere plan of a
confederation there was nothing new. There are probably few,
if any, Indian tribes which have not, at one time or another,
been members of a league or confederacy. It may almost be said
to be their normal condition. But the plan which Hiawatha had
evolved differed from all others in two particulars. The
system which he devised was to be not a loose and transitory
league, but a permanent government. While each nation was to
retain its own council and its management of local affairs,
the general control was to be lodged in a federal senate,
composed of representatives elected by each nation, holding
office during good behavior, and acknowledged as ruling chiefs
throughout the whole confederacy. Still further, and more
remarkably, the confederation was not to be a limited one. It
was to be indefinitely expansible. The avowed design of its
proposer was to abolish war altogether. He wished the
federation to extend until all the tribes of men should be
included in it, and peace should everywhere reign. Such is the
positive testimony of the Iroquois themselves: and their
statement, as will be seen, is supported by historical
evidence. … His conceptions were beyond his time, and beyond
ours; but their effect, within a limited sphere, was very
great. For more than three centuries the bond which he devised
held together the Iroquois nations in perfect amity. It
proved, moreover, as he intended, elastic. The territory of
the Iroquois, constantly extending as their united strength
made itself felt, became the 'Great Asylum' of the Indian
tribes. … Among the interminable stories with which the
common people [of the Five Nations] beguile their winter
nights, the traditions of Atotarho and Hiawatha became
intermingled with the legends of their mythology. An
accidental similarity, in the Onondaga dialect, between the
name of Hiawatha and that of one of their ancient divinities,
led to a confusion between the two, which has misled some
investigators. This deity bears, in the sonorous Canienga
tongue, the name of Taronhiawagon, meaning 'the Holder of the
Heavens.' The Jesuit missionaries style him 'the great god of
the Iroquois.' Among the Onondagas of the present day, the
name is abridged to Taonhiawagi, or Tahiawagi. The confusion
between this name and that of Hiawatha (which, in another
form, is pronounced Tahionwatha) seems to have begun more than
a century ago. … Mr. J. V. H. Clark, in his interesting
History of Onondaga, makes the name to have been originally
Ta-own-ya-wat-ha, and describes the bearer as 'the deity who
presides over fisheries and hunting-grounds.' He came down
from heaven in a white canoe, and after sundry adventures,
which remind one of the labors of Hercules, assumed the name
of Hiawatha (signifying, we are told, 'a very wise man'), and
dwelt for a time as an ordinary mortal among men, occupied in
works of benevolence. Finally, after founding the confederacy
and bestowing many prudent counsels upon the people, he
returned to the skies by the same conveyance in which he had
descended. This legend, or, rather, congeries of intermingled
legends, was communicated by Clark to Schoolcraft, when the
latter was compiling his 'Notes on the Iroquois.' Mr.
Schoolcraft, pleased with the poetical cast of the story, and
the euphonious name, made confusion worse confounded by
transferring the hero to a distant region and identifying him
with Manabozho, a fantastic divinity of the Ojibways.
Schoolcraft's volume, which he chose to entitle 'The Hiawatha
Legends,' has not in it a single fact or fiction relating
either to Hiawatha himself or to the Iroquois deity
Taronhiawagon. Wild Ojibway stories concerning Manabozho and
his comrades form the staple of its contents. But it is to
this collection that we owe the charming poem of Longfellow;
and thus, by an extraordinary fortune, a grave Iroquois
lawgiver of the fifteenth century has become, in modern
literature, an Ojibway demigod, son of the West Wind, and
companion of the tricksy Paupukkeewis, the boastful Iagoo, and
the strong Kwasind. If a Chinese traveler, during the middle
ages, inquiring into the history and religion of the western
nations, had confounded King Alfred with King Arthur, and both
with Odin, he would not have made a more preposterous
confusion of names and characters than that which has hitherto
disguised the genuine personality of the great Onondaga
reformer."

_H. Hale, editor,
The Iroquois Book of Rites
(Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature,
number 2, pages 21-36)._

{1803}

IRREDENTISTS.

"This is the name given to a political organisation formed in
1878, with the avowed object of freeing all Italians from
foreign rule, and of reuniting to the Italian kingdom all
those portions of the Italy of old which have passed under
foreign dominion. The operations of the 'Italia Irredenta'
party are chiefly carried on against Austria, in consequence
of the retention by that Empire of Trieste and the Southern
Tyrol. Until these territories have been relinquished, Italy,
or at least a certain part of it, will remain unsatisfied."

_J. S. Jeans,
Italy (National Life and Thought, chapter 8)._

ISAAC II. (Comnenus),
Emperor in the East (Byzantine, or Greek), A. D. 1057-1059.

Isaac II. (Angelus), Emperor in the East (Byzantine, or
Greek), 1185-1195.

ISABELLA,
Queen of Castile
(wife of Ferdinand II., King of Aragon), A. D. 1474-1504.

Isabella I., Queen of Spain, 1833-1868.

ISABELLA.
The city founded by Columbus on the island of Hispaniola, or
Hayti.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1493-1496.

ISANDLANA, The English disaster at (1879).

See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1877-1879.

ISASZEG, Battle of (1849).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

ISAURIAN DYNASTY, The.

See BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 717-797.

ISAURIANS, The.

The Isaurians were a fierce and savage race of mountaineers,
who occupied anciently a district in Asia Minor, between
Cilicia and Pamphylia on the south and Phrygia on the north.
They were persistently a nation of robbers, living upon the
spoils taken from their neighbors, who were never able to
punish them justly in their mountain fastnesses. Even the iron
hand of the Romans failed to reduce the Isaurians to order,
although P. Servilius, in 78 B. C., destroyed most of their
strongholds, and Pompey, eleven years later, in his great
campaign against the pirates, put an end to the lawless
depredations on sea and land of the Cilicians, who had become
confederated with the Isaurians. Five centuries afterwards, in
the days of the Eastern Empire, the Isaurians were the best
soldiers of its army, and even gave an emperor to the throne
at Constantinople in the person of Zeno or Zenon.