Chapter XVII: The End (13)

“Who will show us any light?” exclaims one of the Young Ireland bards in a well-known and beautiful poem. Such might well have been the exclamation of Ireland in 1867. Was this to be the weary cycle of Irish effort, for ever and for ever? Was armed effort hopeless, and peaceful effort vain? Was there no alternative for Irishmen but to become “West-Britons,” or else dash their brains out against a dungeon wall? Could no one devise a way whereby to give scope and vent to the Irish passion for national existence, to give a field to Irish devotion and patriotism, which would be consonant with the spirit of manhood, without calling for these hecatombs of victims?

Suddenly a new element of consideration presented itself; new, indeed, and rather startling.

It was Irish Protestantism offering the hand of reconciliation to Ireland.

The Tory party had come into power in the course of the Fenian prosecutions, and had carried on the work in a spirit which Cromwell himself would approve. They really held office, not because they had an effective majority in the House of Commons, but because the liberals were broken up and divided, unable to agree on a policy. To turn to his own account the “Fenian scare” was Mr. Gladstone’s brilliant idea. To make a dash on the Irish Church establishment would rally all the mutinous fractions of liberalism, on the principle of “hit him, he has no friends.” It would gratify all England as a sort of conscience-salve for the recent dragonnades and coercion laws. Yes; this was the card with which to beat Disraeli. True, Mr. Gladstone had only a few years before put down his foot and declared that never, “no, _never_,” could, would, or should that Irish Church be disestablished or interfered with in any way. What was he to say now to cover this flank movement, made for purely party purposes? In all Britain there is no brain more subtle, none more fertile of strategic resource, than that of W. E. Gladstone. He put it all on Fenianism. He had changed his mind, _not_ because he was out of office with a weak and broken party, and wanted to get back with a strong and united one, but because he had opened his eyes to Fenianism! He never hit on a more successful idea. On the cry of “Down with the Irish Church!” he was swept into office at the head of the most powerful majority commanded by any minister since Peel in 1841. It must not be thought that Mr. Gladstone was insincere, or meant anything but service to Ireland (while also serving his party) by this move. He has the faculty of intensely persuading himself into a fervid conscientiousness on any subject he likes, whether it be Free Trade, Church Establishment, Church Disestablishment, or Vaticanism.

The Irish Protestants had an unanswerable case against England—that is, as between them and her—on this matter of disestablishment. It was, on her part towards them, an open, palpable, and flagitious breach of faith—breach of formal treaty in fact. The articles of the Union in 1800 expressly covenanted that the maintenance of the Irish Church establishment was to be one of the cardinal, fundamental, essential, and everlasting conditions of the deed. Mr. Gladstone snapped his fingers at such considerations. “Mind, you thereby repeal and annul the Union,” cried Irish conservatives. “We will kick another crown into the Boyne,” said Parson Flanagan at an Orange meeting. “We have held by this bargain with you with uneasy consciences,” said and wrote numbers of sincere Irish Protestants; “break it, and we break with you, and become Irishmen first and before everything.”

It was rightly judged by thoughtful observers that, though noisy braggarts of the Parson Flanagan class would not only let the crown alone, but would cringe all the more closely by England’s side even when the church was swept away, there was much of sober earnestness and honest resolve in what hundreds of Protestant laymen (and even clergymen) spoke upon this issue. Yes, though the bulk of Irish Protestants would prove unequal to so rapid a political conversion, even under provocation so strong, there would still be a considerable movement of their numbers towards, if not into, the Irish camp. Time, moreover, and prudent and conciliatory action on the part of their Catholic countrymen, would be always increasing that _rapprochement_.

And so in the very chaos and disruption and upheaval of political elements and parties in Ireland from 1868 to 1870 there was, as by a mysterious design of Providence, a way made for events and transformations and combinations which otherwise would have been nigh impossible.

The church was disestablished; Irish Protestants were struck with amazement and indignation. England had broken with them; they would unite with Ireland. But, alas! no; this was, it seemed, impossible. They could never be “Fenians.” No doubt they, after all, treasured in their Protestant hearts the memory, the words, and, in a way, the principles of their great coreligionists, Grattan and Flood, Curran and Charlemont. In _this_ direction they could go; but towards _separation_—towards an “Irish republic,” towards disloyalty to the crown—they would not, could not, turn their faces. These men belonged in large part to a class, or to classes, never since 1782 seen joining a national movement in any great numbers. They were men of high position; large landed proprietors, bankers, merchants, “deputy-lieutenants” of counties, baronets, a few of them peers, many of them dignitaries of the Protestant church, some of them fellows of Trinity College. Such men had vast property at stake in the country. They saw a thousand reasons why Irishmen alone should regulate Irish affairs, but they would hold by a copartnership with Scotland and England in the empire at large. This, however, they concluded, was not what the bulk of their countrymen was looking for; and so it almost seemed as if they would turn back and relapse into mere West-britonism as a lesser evil for them than a course of “rebellion” and “sedition.”

At this juncture there appeared upon the scene a man whose name seems destined to be writ large on the records of a memorable era in Irish history—Isaac Butt.

When, on Friday evening, the 15th of September, 1865, the British government seized the leading members of the Fenian Society and flung them into Richmond jail, it became a consideration of some difficulty with the prisoners and their friends how and by whom they should be defended. In one sense they had plenty of counsel to choose from. Such occasions are great opportunities for briefless advocates to strike in, like ambitious authors of unacted plays who nobly offer them to be performed on Thanksgiving day or for some popular public charity. No doubt the prisoners could have had attorneys and lawyers of this stamp easily enough; but it was not every man whom they would trust equally for his ability and his honesty. Besides, there was the money difficulty. The crown was about to fight them in a costly law duel. To retain men of the front rank at the bar would cost thousands of pounds; to retain men of inferior position would be worse than useless. Could there be found amongst the leaders of the Irish bar even one man bold enough and generous enough to undertake the desperate task and protracted labor of defending these men, leaving the question of fee or remuneration to the _chance_ of funds being forthcoming? What of the great advocates of the state trials of 1843 and 1848? Holmes—_clarum et venerabile nomen_—dead! Shiel—gone too; Whiteside—on the bench; O’Hagan—also a judge; Sir Colman O’Loghlen—a crown prosecutor; Butt—yes, Butt, even then in the front rank, the most skilful, the boldest, the most eloquent, and most generous of them all—_he_ is just the man! Where is Butt?

Where, indeed? He had to be searched and sought for, so utterly and sadly had a great figure silently disappeared from the forum. Thirty years before Isaac Butt was the young hope of Protestant conservatism, the idol of its _salons_. He had barely passed his majority when he was elected to the professorship of Political Economy in Trinity College; and, at an age when such honors were unprecedented, was elevated to a “silk-gown,” as Queen’s Counsellor at the bar. Yet there was always about young Butt an intense Irishism; he was a high-spirited Protestant, a chivalrous conservative; but even in that early time the eagle eye of O’Connell detected in him an Irish heart and a love of the principles of liberty that would yet, so he prophesied, lead Butt into the ranks of the Irish people. The English Tory leaders enticed him over to London, and sent him into Parliament for one of their boroughs—Harwich. They made much of him—and were his ruin. In the whirl of parliamentary life, in the fascination of London society, he abandoned his professional business and fell into debt difficulty, and dissipation. Had he been less independent and less self-willed, he would no doubt have been richly placed by his ministerial friends. Somehow or another he and they drew apart as he went sullenly and recklessly downward. In 1864 he had almost dropped out of sight, having just previously ceased to sit in Parliament.

To the solicitation to undertake the defence of the Fenian prisoners he responded by giving them, it may be said, three whole years of his professional life. He flung himself into that fight for the men in the dock with the devotion, the enthusiasm, the desperate energy of a man striving for life itself. His genius and ability, conspicuous before, shone out more than ever. He was admittedly the first lawyer of his day; and now not only the crown counsel but the judges on the bench felt they were dealing with their master. Of money he took no thought. Indeed, in the best and worst days of his fortunes he gave it little heed. He has been known in the depth of his difficulties to hand back a special fee of a hundred guineas which he knew a poor client could not spare, and the same day pay his hotel bill with a check doomed never to be cashed. The incident is unfortunately only too typical of one phase of his nature.

Three or four years immersed in such labors—one protracted series of state trials—dealing in the most painfully realistic way with the problem of Ireland’s destiny, could not fail to have a profound effect on a man like Butt. Meantime, he grew into immense popularity. His bold appeals for the prisoners, which soon came to be the sentiments of the man rather than the pleadings of the advocate, were read with avidity in every peasant’s cottage and workman’s home. The Fenians, broken and defeated as an organization, yet still ramifying throughout the country, looked to him with the utmost gratitude and confidence. Under his presidency and guidance a society called the Amnesty Association was established for the purpose of obtaining the royal clemency for at least some of the Fenian convicts. A series of mass-meetings under its auspices were held throughout the island, and were the largest assemblages seen in Ireland since the Repeal meetings of Tara and Mullaghmast. In fine, Mr. Butt found himself a popular leader, at the head of at all events the pro-Fenian section of Irish political elements, and daily becoming a power in the country.

The resentful Protestants, just now half-minded to hoist the national flag, were many of them Butt’s old comrades, college-chums, and political associates. He noted their critical position, and forthwith turned all his exertions, in private as well as in public, to lead them onward to the people, and to prevent them from relapsing into the character of an English garrison. In his public speeches he poured forth to them the most impassioned appeals. In private he sought out man by man of the most important and influential among them. “Banish hesitation and fear,” he cried. “Act boldly and promptly now, and you will save Ireland from revolutionary violence on the one side, and from alien misgovernment on the other. You, like myself, have been early trained to mistrust the Catholic multitude, but when you come to know them you will admire them. They are not anarchists, nor would they be revolutionists if men like you would but do your duty and lead them—that is, honestly and faithfully and capably lead them—in the struggle for constitutional liberty.” The Protestants listened, almost persuaded; but some sinister whisper now and again of the terrors of a “Catholic ascendency” in an Irish parliament—a reminder that Irish Catholics would vote for a nominee of their clergy right or wrong, and consequently that if the Irish Protestant minority threw off the yoke of England, they should bear the yoke of Rome—seemed to drive them, scared, from the portals of nationality.

About this time, the beginning of 1870, Mr. Gladstone raised to the peerage Colonel Fulke Greville Nugent, M.P. for Longford County. He was a respectable and fairly popular “liberal” in politics, was a good landlord, and, though a Protestant, kindly and generous to the Catholic clergy and people around him. He had held his seat by and from the priests; for Longford County, from the days when it heroically won its independence a generation before, had been virtually in the gift of the Catholic clergy. This vacancy occurred in the very fever of the Amnesty excitement. A few months before Mr. Gladstone had rather harshly refused the appeal for Amnesty; and Tipperary made answer and commentary thereon by electing to Parliament one of the Fenian convicts, at the moment a prisoner in Chatham. It was proposed to imitate this course in Longford, but a more worthy resolve was taken: John Martin of Rostrevor—“Honest John Martin”—one of the purest, most heroic, and lovable of Irish patriots, was put in nomination, although at the moment he was travelling in America and unaware of the proceedings. But the clergy had at a private conference committed themselves to the son of their late member—a brainless young officer in the army. Neither party would withdraw their man; and out of this arose a conflict as fierce, bitter, and relentless as if the parties to it had been ancient and implacable foes instead of lifelong and loving friends. Altar denunciations of the most terrible kind were hurled at the men who dared to “oppose their clergy” by advocating John Martin. Platform denunciations were hurled at the men who dared to go “against Ireland” by preferring to a stainless and devoted patriot a brainless little fop who had not a political idea in his head or a spark of Irish patriotism in his heart.

Ireland, and England too, looked on in intense amazement and curiosity. Here was a great problem brought to a critical test. The old story of the anti-Catholic English press, that Irish Catholics would slavishly “vote black white at the ordering of their priests,” was about to be proved true or put to shame. The Longford clergy defeated John Martin and carried their man, but he was subsequently unseated on petition. The experiment otherwise, however, was decisive. For John Martin, a Presbyterian Protestant, a Catholic people fought their own clergy as vehemently as they and those clergy had ever fought the Tory landlords. It was an exceptional and painful incident, but at the moment one of vast importance, which proudly vindicated both priests and people from a damaging calumny.[142]

There was no misunderstanding all this. No Irish Protestant, patriotically inclined, could any longer be scared by the bugbear of “Catholic intolerance.” The time at last had come for the step they meditated. The moment had arrived also for some attempt to answer the aspirations of Ireland. And “the Hour had brought the Man.”

On the night of Thursday, the 19th of May, 1870, there were quietly assembled in the Bilton Hotel, Upper Sackville Street, Dublin—the most exclusive and aristocratic of the quasi-private hotels in that city—a strange gathering. Such men had never met to confer or act together before. It was a “private conference of Irish gentlemen to consider the state of Ireland.” But looking around the room, one might think the millennium at hand, when the wolf would lie down with the lamb and the lion slumber with the fawn. Men who were Tories, nay, Orangemen; men who were “ultra-montanes,” men who had been Repealers, men who were Whigs, men who had been rebels; Protestants, Catholics, Presbyterians, Quakers, Fenians, anti-Fenians, knights, high sheriffs, aristocrats, democrats—a strange array, about fifty in all.[143] Soberly and earnestly and long they discussed and debated and deliberated. The men seemed thoroughly to realize the gravity of what they were about.

They did not claim any representative character whatever; they spoke each man for himself. The questions they had proposed to discuss dealt merely with “absenteeism and the consequent loss of trade and national prosperity,” and “the advantages of a royal residence in Ireland in a political and financial point of view.” But in the very first moments of discussion even the new converts to nationality took up bolder ground. Lord Mayor Purdon, a Protestant Conservative, a man universally respected in Dublin; Sir William Wilde (husband of the Young Ireland poetess “Speranza”), an archæologist of European fame; the Hon. Capt. King-Harman; and the Rev. J. E. Galbraith, fellow of Trinity College, one of the most distinguished mathematicians of the age, were amongst the men of conservative politics who came especially to the front. The nationalists, both “extreme” and “moderate,” interfered but little in the discussions, looking on greatly astonished at all they heard and saw; but their part of the case was well handled by the man who was really the guiding spirit of the scene, and who eventually rose and in a brief speech of thrilling power proposed:

“That it is the opinion of this meeting that the true remedy for
the evils of Ireland is the establishment of an Irish parliament
with full control over our domestic affairs.”

A dozen men rose to second this resolution of Mr. Butt, which was carried in the meeting not only without a dissentient voice, but with enthusiasm. Considering the composition of the assemblage, this was one of the most startling incidents in Irish politics for half a century. Having appointed a committee to report resolutions to a future meeting, the assembly adjourned.

This was the birth of the Home-Rule movement.

The course of procedure adopted, following upon the above events, was one quite unique in Irish politics. Usually the promoters in such cases would hold a meeting as “we the people of Ireland” and begin to act and speak in the name of the country. Not only was this line of conduct eschewed, it was expressty repudiated, by the semi-private society or association which at first grew out of the Bilton Hotel meeting. It was only four months afterwards (1st of Sept., 1870) that they ventured to assume public form or shape as a political organization. During all this interval they announced themselves simply as a number of Irishmen associated together in an endeavor to ascertain the feeling of the country upon the subject of national autonomy. They had themselves arrived at certain general conclusions or resolutions (hereafter to be noticed), but they declared they could not arrogate to themselves any right or authority to speak for the nation at large. When at length they broke ground and took the field publicly as the “Irish Home Government Association,” they still disclaimed the right to assume the authoritative functions or tone of a great national organization.[144] _That_ would come at the right time, if the country thought well of calling forth such a body; but _this_ was at best a sort of “precursor society” projecting certain views, and submitting them to public examination by the people, with the avowed intention on the part of these “precursors” of some day, if they found encouragement for their course, calling on the country to pass its deliberate and decisive verdict upon those views, so that _Ireland, the nation_, might speak, and, speaking, command obedience from all loyal and faithful sons.

This was all Butt’s sagacity. _Festina lente_ was the motto that befitted work so grave and momentous as an effort to lift Ireland up and bid her hope and strive once more. There was need of this deliberation and caution. The experiment of bringing together such elements as he gathered around this new venture was a hazardous one. There were prejudices to be allayed, objections to be removed, antipathies to be conquered. Notoriously there were men who wanted not to go very far on a road so new to them, and whom a very little bit indeed of self-government would satisfy. Just as notoriously were there men who wanted to go a great deal further than they could get the rest of their countrymen to join them in attempting. These two sections—the Protestant loyalists and the Fenian secessionists—were the most widely opposed. Then there were men of the “Old Ireland” school and men of the “Young Ireland” school—men who objected to “repeal” as worthless without the addition of a separate and responsible Irish administration; and men who objected to repeal as dangerous without stronger guarantees against conflict and separation of the kingdoms.

It was expected that the greatest difficulty would be with the (Irish) Fenians; but this was not so. Mainly through Mr. Butt’s great influence with them, but partly because adversity had taught them useful lessons, they either came into the new scheme or else declared for a friendly neutrality. Not that any of them did so in the sense of recanting their Fenian principles. They expressly reserved their own convictions, but announced their determination to give a fair trial and a friendly aid to an honest endeavor in the direction proposed. Some of their body, absent in America, disapproved of this resolve, and bitterly decried the idea of letting any patriotic scheme but their own find tolerance, much less favor, from their ranks. In England, however—_i.e._, among the Irish in England—where the wreck and disorganization that had broken up Irish Fenianism had had little effect, and where for several years past there had resided whatever of strength and authority remained of that body, the proposals of Mr. Butt were taken up heartily, and even enthusiastically, by them.

A much more formidable work it was found to be to assure the men of large property that this was not an embryo scheme for rebellion and revolution; to persuade the Catholic clergy that it was not either a cloak for Fenianism or a snare of Orangeism; and to convince the Protestants that it was not a trap laid for them by Cardinal Cullen and the Jesuits.

And now what was the scheme or plan or “platform” put forward after such deliberation, inquiry, negotiation, and investigation? What specifically has been the Irish national demand as put forth to the world in 1870, solemnly ratified in a great National Conference in 1873, and unmistakably and triumphantly endorsed at the general elections of February, 1874?

Substantially the old demand and declaration on the basis of which Ireland has been ready enough any time for the last two hundred and fifty years to compromise with the English connection—equality in a copartnership, but no subjugation; the national autonomy of Ireland secured; the right of Ireland to legislate for and control her own affairs established. The Irish Confederate government of 1642, the free Irish parliament of 1690, the free Irish parliament of 1782, and the decree of the Irish millions organized in the Repeal movement of 1843 formulated just that programme—modified somewhat, no doubt, each time, it might be, according to the requirements of the period; but still, as the student of authentic historical documents will discover, it was on all those memorable occasions in substance the same. The Catholic Confederation at Kilkenny in the seventeenth century, and the Protestant convention at Dungannon in the eighteenth, spoke in almost identical tones as to Ireland’s position under the triple crown of Scotland, England, and Ireland. It was very much as if Virginia in 1865 said: “I have fought you long and bravely; recognize and secure to me the fulness of state rights, and I will loyally cast in my lot as a member of the United States.” How closely the founders of the new Irish movement kept on the old lines may be seen from the subjoined “platform” laid down by the “Home Government Association” in 1870:

“HOME GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION.

“GENERAL PRINCIPLES.

“I.—This association is formed for the purpose of obtaining
for Ireland the right of self-government by means of a
national parliament.

“II.—It is hereby declared, as the essential principle of
this association, that the objects, and THE ONLY OBJECTS,
contemplated by its organization are:

“To obtain for our country the right and privilege of
managing our own affairs, by a parliament assembled in
Ireland, composed of her majesty the sovereign, and her
successors, and the Lords and Commons of Ireland:

“To secure for that parliament, under a federal
arrangement, the right of legislating for and regulating
all matters relating to the internal affairs of Ireland,
and control over Irish resources and revenues, subject to
the obligation of contributing our just proportion of the
imperial expenditure:

“To leave to an imperial parliament the power of dealing
with all questions affecting the imperial crown and
government, legislation regarding the colonies and other
dependencies of the crown, the relations of the United
Empire with foreign states, and all matters appertaining
to the defence and the stability of the empire at large.

“To attain such an adjustment of the relations between the
two countries, without any interference with the
prerogatives of the crown, or any disturbances of the
principles of the constitution.

“III.—The association invites the co-operation of all
Irishmen who are willing to join in seeking for Ireland a
federal arrangement based upon these general principles.

“IV.—The association will endeavor to forward the object it
has in view, by using all legitimate means of influencing
public sentiment, both in Ireland and Great Britain, by
taking all opportunities of instructing and informing public
opinion, and by seeking to unite Irishmen of all creeds and
classes in one national movement, in support of the great
national object hereby contemplated.

“V.—It is declared to be an essential principle of the
association that, while every member is understood by
joining it to concur in its general object and plan of
action, no person so joining is committed to any political
opinion, except the advisability of seeking for Ireland the
amount of self-government contemplated in the objects of the
association.”

Though rather diffidently and unostentatiously projected, the new movement was hailed with general approbation. Yet it had for some time hanging on either flank very bitter though not very numerous assailants. The ultra-tories, led by the Dublin _Daily Express_, shrieked fiercely at the Protestant conservatives that they had entered the camp of Fenianism and Romanism; the ultra-whigs, led by the Dublin _Evening Post_, howled wildly at the Catholics that they were the tools of Orangemen who shammed Home Rule merely to spite Mr. Gladstone for disestablishing the Protestant Church. There can be no doubt this latter idea had long a deterrent effect on the Catholic bishops and clergy; they thought the new movement too like a Protestant revenge on an English minister whom they regarded as a benefactor. “The newly-born patriotism of these Tory-nationalists will soon vanish,” they said (not without show of reason); “wait until they have driven Mr. Gladstone from office, and got Disraeli back again—they will then draw off quick enough from Home Rule.” “Very likely,” answered the Catholic Home-Rulers; “we are quite prepared to find a large percentage of these men fall off, but enough of them will remain faithful and true to make the movement a success; and especially the Protestant _youth_ of the country henceforth will be ours.”

Time—at all events such time as has since elapsed—has quite vindicated this view.

Meantime the country was pronouncing gradually but decisively on the movement. Within the first six months the following corporations, town commissions, and boards of guardians passed formal votes endorsing its principles:

Cork (Municipal Council).
Limerick “ “
Athlone (Town Commission).
Ballinasloe “ “
Clones “ “
Dungarvan “ “
Galway “ “
Kingstown “ “
Longford “ “
Nenagh “ “
New Ross “ “
Mullingar “ “
Queenstown “ “
Tuam “ “
Dublin (Board of Guardians).
Cork “ “
Drogheda “ “
Galway “ “
Kilkenny “ “
Kilmallock “ “
Millstreet “ “
Limerick Farmers’ Club
Cork “ “
Mallow “ “

This was barely a few months’ work as to the pronouncement of popularly-elected public bodies. A number of public meetings in various parts of the country, attended by tens of thousands of the people, gave a further stamp of approval and a cheer of welcome to the movement.

The mode of electing the governing body or council of the association was peculiar. In place of the usual mode—proposing the list at the annual public meeting, and passing it there and then—the members of the council were elected by ballot-papers; each member of the association, no matter where resident, receiving his paper and exercising his vote as well as if he lived on the spot in Dublin. Much curiosity existed to see the result of this secret ballot-vote in a large body so mixed in religious class and (in a sense) political opinions. Two-thirds or three-fourths of the voters would be Catholics—was it not a grievous peril that by any chance they might ballot in a nearly exclusively Catholic council, and thus sow misgiving and mistrust amongst the Protestants? But never yet have the Catholics of Ireland, in private or in public, failed to refute by a noble tolerance the evil suspicions of their foes. The very first council thus elected (under circumstances, too, that precluded concert or arrangement as to either general or particular result) turned out to be composed of thirty-two Catholics and twenty-nine Protestants; and two Protestants headed the poll![145] The announcement had a profound effect, not only in cementing and solidifying the new union of parties and creeds within the organization, but also in spreading its principles abroad. A good idea of the varied classes composing the governing body thus elected may be gathered from the following analysis of the Home-Rule Council for 1872:

Catholic clergy, 5
Protestant clergy, 4
(The late) Lord Mayor, 1
Aldermen, 7
Deputy lieutenants, 3
Doctors of medicine, 3
Knights, 3
Justices of the peace, 4
Lieutenant-Colonel, 1
Members of Parliament, 5
Queen’s counsel, 1
Solicitors, 2
Town councillors, 3

The British Liberal party, who at first pooh-poohed the “Home-Rule craze,” at length began to take alarm; for without the Irish vote that party could neither attain to nor retain office. They warned the Catholic hierarchy to discourage this mischievous business. It was at best “inopportune”; it would arrest Mr. Gladstone’s beneficent design of settling the Catholic university education question; and would only “play the Tory game.” Liberalism was not going to die easily. Things came to a crisis in the Kerry election of 1872. On the death that year of Lord Kenmare, his son, Viscount Castlerosse, then Catholic-whig-liberal member for Kerry, attained to the earldom, and thus created a vacancy in the parliamentary representation. By a compact between the great landlords of the county, Whig and Tory, thirty years previously, it was agreed to “halve” the county between themselves: one Protestant Tory member from the great house of Herbert of Muckross, and one Catholic Whig from the noble house of Kenmare—an “alliance offensive and defensive” against all third parties or popular intruders being thus established. On this occasion the new Earl of Kenmare nominated as his successor in the family seat his first cousin, Mr. James A. Dease, an estimable Catholic gentleman acceptable to the people in every way but one: he was not a Home-Ruler. Although the Catholic bishop, Right Rev. Dr. Moriarty, joined the county landlords in nominating Mr. Dease, the bulk of the Catholic clergy, and the people almost unanimously, revolted, and, amidst a shout of derision at such a “hopeless” attempt, hoisted the flag of Home Rule. They, Catholics almost to a man, chose out as their candidate a young Protestant Kerryman barely home from Oxford University—Roland Blennerhassett, of Kells. He was a Home-Ruler, and much loved even as a boy by the Celtic peasantry of that wild Iveragh that breaks the first roll of the Atlantic billows on the stormy Kerry coast. Ireland and England held breath and watched the struggle as a tacitly-admitted test combat.

“Who spills the foremost foeman’s life,
His party conquers in the strife.”

Such an election-struggle probably had not stirred Ireland since that of Clare in 1829. It resulted in an overwhelming victory for Home Rule. Deserted by every influence of power that should have aided and befriended them (save their ever-faithful priests, who, in nearly every parish, marched to the poll at the head of their people)—the frieze-coats of “O’Connell’s county,” rising in their might, tore down the territorial domination that had ruled them for thirty years, and struck a blow that decided the fortunes of the Home-Rule movement.

Barely less important (and only less important because of some peculiar features in the Kerry struggle) was another election being fought out in Galway County at the same moment. That county, about a year previously, had elected unopposed, on Home-Rule principles, a man the value of whose accession to the national ranks it would be almost impossible to overestimate. This was Mitchell Henry, of Kylemore Castle, near relative by descent of that Patrick Henry illustrious in American annals. Not because of his large wealth—he is said to have succeeded on his father’s death to a fortune of over a million pounds sterling—but for his high character, his great ability and thoroughly Irish spirit, he was a man of great influence, and his espousal of Home Rule was quite an event. Now, however, another election, this time contested, fiercely contested, had arisen; the candidates being Colonel Trench, son of Lord Clancarthy, Whig and Tory landlord nominee, and Captain John Philip Nolan, Home-Rule candidate, under the auspices of the great “Prelate of the West,” the world-famed Archbishop of Tuam. For years the grand old man had not interfered in an election or emerged from the sorrowful reticence into which he retired after the ruin of the Tenant League. But Ireland was up for the old cause, and “John of Tuam,” O’Connell’s stoutest ally in the campaign for Repeal, was out under the old flag. Not to let his name and his influence be discredited in his old age was as much the point of battle, certainly the point of honor, on the part of the people, as to return the Home-Ruler. The struggle was one of those desperate and merciless encounters between landlord tyranny on the one side and conscience in the poor man’s breast on the other, which used to make Irish elections as deadly and disastrous as armed conflicts in the field. Happily, it was the last of its class ever to be seen in Ireland; for the Ballot Act, passed a year after, closed for ever the era of vote-coercion. Captain Nolan was triumphantly returned. The famous “Galway Election Petition,” in which Judge Keogh so distinguished himself, unseated him (for a time) soon after; but Kerry and Galway struck and won together that week in February, 1872; and the one blaze of bonfires on the hill-tops of all the western counties, the following Saturday night, celebrated the double victory for the national cause.

In the course of the next succeeding year every election vacancy in Ireland but one resulted in the return of a Home-Ruler, Mr. Butt himself being among the number. There was now no longer any question as to the magnitude of the dimensions to which the movement had attained. “Home Rule” had become a watchword throughout the land; a salutation of good-will on the road-sides; a signal-shout on the hills. To this had grown the work begun almost in fear and trembling that night at the Bilton Hotel in 1870. The hour could be no longer delayed for convening the whole Irish nation in solemn council to make formal and authoritative pronouncement upon the movement, its principles, and its programme. In the end of the summer of 1873 it was accordingly decided that in the following November an Aggregate Conference of Delegates from every county in Ireland should be convened in the historic Round Room of the Rotunda, memorable as the meeting-place of the Irish Volunteer Convention more than three-quarters of a century before.

But the history of that important event fitly belongs to another chapter of such a record as this. The point now arrived at closes the first stage of the Home-Rule movement—from 1870 to 1873. The second three years—from 1873 to 1876—will exhibit it in a new light, with the mandate of a nation as its authority, and a powerful parliamentary party as its army of operation.

[139] The above article is from the pen of Mr. A. M.
Sullivan, M.P. for Louth, editor of the Dublin
_Nation_, and one of the leaders in the national
movement for Home Rule in Ireland. The movement is one
of great importance and significance. It has many
enemies. It has been and continues to be much
misrepresented. For these reasons we open our pages to
one of its ablest and most eloquent exponents to give
its history to our readers. Mr. Sullivan will resume
and close the subject in the next number of THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.—ED. C. W.

[140] There were certain other issues, chiefly as to
alleged profligacy of financial expenditure, and as to
audit and publication of accounts, etc., which need
not be considered here.

[141] Their meetings in Dublin were constantly
“mobbed” for some time.

[142] Not many months later the climax was capped
by the triumphant return of Mr. Martin for Meath,
probably the most Catholic constituency in Ireland;
the candidate whom he defeated (in a stiff but
thoroughly good-humored contest) being the son of Lord
Fingal, one of the best and most popular of the Irish
Catholic nobility.

[143] As this assembly has become in a degree historical,
it may be interesting to give the following list
(never before published) of those who attended it, and
others added by vote thereat to make up a Committee on
Resolutions. In nearly every case an indication of the
political and religious opinions of the parties is now
added. The list includes some of the largest merchants
in Dublin:

The Rt. Hon. Edward Purdon, Lord Mayor, Mansion House,
Protestant Conservative.

Sir John Barrington, ex-Lord Mayor, D.L., Great
Britain Street, Prot. Cons.

E. H. Kinahan, J.P., ex-High Sheriff, Merrion Square,
Tory.

James V. Mackey, J.P., Beresford Place, Orangeman.

James W. Mackey, ex-Lord Mayor, J.P., 40 Westmoreland
Street, Catholic Liberal.

Sir William Wilde, Merrion Square, F.R.C.S.I., Prot.
Cons.

James Martin, J.P., ex-High Sheriff, North Wall, Cath.
Lib.

Cornelius Denehy, T.C., J.P., Mountjoy Square, Cath.
Lib.

W. L. Erson, J.P., Great Charles Street, Or.

Rev. Joseph E. Galbraith, F.T.C.D., Trinity College,
Prot. Cons.

Isaac Butt, Q.C., Eccles Street, Prot. Nationalist.

R. B. Butt, Eccles Street, Prot. Nat.

R. W. Boyle, Banker, College Green, Tory.

William Campbell, 26 Gardiner’s Place, Cath. Lib.

William Daniel, Mary Street, Cath. Lib.

William Deaker, P.L.G., Eden Quay, Prot. Cons.

Alderman Gregg, Sackville Street, Prot. Cons.

Alderman Hamilton, Frederick Street, Cath. Repealer.

W. W. Harris, LL.D., ex-High Sheriff of the County
Armagh, Eccles Street, Prot. Cons.

Edward M. Hodson, Capel Street, Prot. Cons.

W. H. Kerr, Capel Street, Prot. Cons.

Major Knox, D.L., Fitzwilliam Square (proprietor of
_Irish Times_), Prot. Cons.

Graham Lemon, Town Commissioner of Clontarf, Yew Park,
Prot. Cons.

J. F. Lombard, J.P., South Hill, Cath. Repealer.

W. P. J. McDermott, Great Britain Street, Cath. Rep.

Alexander McNeale, 104 Gardiner Street, Prot. Cons.

W. Maher, T.C., P.L.G., Clontarf, Cath. Rep.

Alderman Manning, J.P., Grafton Street, Prot. Cons.

John Martin, Kilbroney, “Forty-eight” Nationalist,
Presbyterian.

Dr. Maunsell, Parliament Street (editor of _Evening
Mail_), Tory.

George Moyers, Richmond Street, Or.

J. Nolan, Sackville Street (Secretary Fenian Amnesty
Association), Cath. Nat.

James O’Connor, Abbey Street (late of _Irish People_),
Cath. Fenian.

Anthony O’Neill, T.C., North Strand, Cath. Rep.

Thomas Ryan, Great Brunswick Street, Cath. Nat.

J. H. Sawyer, M.D., Stephen’s Green, Prot. Nat.

James Reilly, P.L.G., Pill Lane, Cath. Nat.

Alderman Plunket, James’ Street, Cath. Nat. Rep.

The Venerable Archdeacon Goold, D.D., M.B., Protestant
Tory—son of Goold of ’82.

A. M. Sullivan, T.C., P.L.G., Abbey Street, Cath. Nat.
Rep.

Peter Talty, Henry Street, Cath. Rep.

William Shaw, M.P., Beaumont, Cork (President of
Munster Bank), Prot. Lib.

Captain Edward R. King-Harman, J.P., Creevaghmore,
County of Longford, Prot. Cons.

Hon. Lawrence Harman King-Harman, D. L., Newcastle,
County of Longford, Prot. Cons.

George Austin, Town Commissioner of Clontarf,
Winstonville, Prot. Cons.

Dr. Barry Rathmines, Cath. Lib.

George Beatty, Henrietta Street, Prot. Cons.

Joseph Begg, Capel Street, Cath. Nat. (Treasurer of
Fenian Amnesty Association).

Robert Callow, Alderman, Westland Row.

Edward Carrigan, Bachelor’s Walk, Cath. Lib.

Charles Connolly, Rogerson’s Quay, Cath. Lib.

D. B. Cronin, Nassau Street, Cath. Fenian.

John Wallis, T. C., Bachelor’s Walk, Prot. Cons.

P. Walsh, Merrion Row, Cath. Nat.

John Webster, Monkstown, Prot. Cons.

George F. Shaw, F.T.C.D., Trinity College, Prot. Cons.

P. J. Smith, Dalkey, Cath. Nat. Repealer.

George E. Stephens, Blackhall Place, Prot. Cons.

Henry H. Stewart, M.D., Eccles Street, Prot. Cons.

L. J. O’Shea, J.P., Margaret Place, Cath. Rep.

Alfred Webb, Abbey Street, Nat., “Quaker.”

[144] “This association has never proposed to itself
the position and duties of such a great popular
organization as must eventually take up and carry out
to the victorious end the national question. It has
rather proposed to itself the less ambitious though
not less arduous task of preparing the ground for such
a comprehensive organization.”—_First Report of the
Irish Home Government Association._ Dublin: Falconer,
Upper Sackville Street. 1871.

[145] Every year nearly the same five or six men
have been returned at the head of the paper; Isaac
Butt always first, next to him either O’Neill Daunt or
John Martin; the others almost invariably being Rev.
Professor Galbraith, A. M. Sullivan, J. P. Ronayne,
and Mitchell Henry.—[Mr. Ronayne, we regret to say,
died while this article was in our hands.—ED. C. W.]

SIR THOMAS MORE

_A HISTORICAL ROMANCE._

FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON

IX.

After the king had declared that he no longer wished her to assume any authority in the household, the queen secluded herself entirely in the most retired portion of the palace. In default of happiness, she at least found forgetfulness there; for it was no longer thought necessary to watch over her. Her rival, on the contrary, glorying in the light of the king’s favor and of her own youth and beauty, spent her days in festivity and enjoyment. She allowed herself to be carried away by the flattery of the throng of courtiers who followed in her train and servilely implored a glance from the eye, a smile or a word from her whom they had so quickly abandoned but a short time before.

For several days, however, the tumult of these _fêtes_, the sound of music and dancing, had not entered to wound the heart of Catherine in her seclusion. She was seated near the fire, and turning in her hands some worsted stuff intended to make a garment for a poor child. The heavy folds of the curtains hung motionless, the light flame of the waxen tapers burning near her had not wavered, and yet Catherine started nervously and trembled. The anguish of mind she had so long endured had, so to speak, worn away the mortal covering and brought her soul in direct contact with exterior objects; she saw that which possessed no corporeal shape, she heard that which had no sound. Some person unknown has entered her apartments; her beautiful eyes are turned towards the door. Very soon, in fact, the curtains roll on their golden rings. A man enters. He advances a step and pauses. It is Norris, the favorite attendant of Henry VIII.

“What wouldst thou?” asked the queen with that sweet but imposing majesty of manner so natural to her that she could not lay it aside.

“Madam—the king—madam!” And the unfortunate man hesitated, trembling in every limb.

A mist passed over Catherine’s eyes.

“Madam,” he was at last able to articulate, “the king, my lord, sends me to tell you that before daybreak to-morrow morning he wishes you to be ready to leave the palace.”

The queen turned pale.…

“Has your majesty any command to give me?” said Norris after a moment’s silence.

“The king shall be obeyed,” replied the queen coldly, and she made a sign for him to withdraw. He bowed and hastily left the apartment. Catherine remained mute with grief and astonishment. “I have, then, still more to suffer!” she cried at length, falling on her knees. “He drives me from his presence—he, my own husband. He will not even permit me to breathe in the most remote corner of his palace!… Ah! well. Yes, I will fly from this house of malediction, whose hearthstone has been soiled by infamy, and may I never enter it again!”

But, alas! Catherine had as yet spoken for herself alone. Suddenly the mother’s heart asserted its supremacy; she arose hastily, seized one of the lights near her, and, passing rapidly through several apartments, she at length paused, panting for breath.

“No one!” she exclaimed, looking wildly around her, “no one has been near these apartments to disturb her rest. The most profound silence reigns.” And in her turn she feared to awaken her daughter.

Softly approaching the bed on which reposed the little Mary, she drew aside with her royal hand the heavy curtain of purple and gold. The child was sleeping profoundly; her head rested on one of the delicate arms; her long, golden hair, loosened from all confinement, hung over her lovely neck and shoulders, and down on her light muslin nightdress. She had thrown off the bedclothing that covered her. The blood, pure and calm, circulated gently through the transparent veins. She seemed as happy, as tranquil, as her mother was agitated and miserable. Catherine, in an agony inexpressible, regarded her sleeping child, her hand nervously clenching the curtain she was holding back.

“Sleep on, my daughter, sleep!” she murmured. “Mayst thou never know the weary vigils and bitter anguish of suffering! But what do I say? Does he not involve thee in the unjust proscription of thy mother? The hatred he bears towards her, will he not extend it to thee? Art thou not the very link that must be broken?”

And Catherine, in despair, drew back like a stranger in this apartment she must leave before the dawn of the morning.… Again she returned to the couch of her child. She bent over her; her lips almost touched her forehead. Then a gloomy courage took possession of her soul.

“Why torture myself thus,” she cried, “since thou art still left to me? Though all forget me, though the earth open beneath me, I will never more be separated from thee. Thou shalt be my joy, my life, my hope; thou shalt become my sole, my only friend! One day, yes, one day thou wilt understand thy mother. Let him cast thee far away from him—ah! what matters it? I open my heart to thee! The earth is vast; she will welcome her unfortunate children. And when, worn down by sorrow, I shall be ready to yield up my life, my hand will still be raised to bless thee, and my eyes will be fixed upon thine. It shall be thou who wilt close these eyes before I descend into the night of the grave, and thy tears will bedew my last resting-place. Then wilt thou be courageous, and in thy turn learn how to vanquish and defy evil fortune.”

Thus spoke the unhappy queen. She arose and again fell on her knees. But the hour strikes—that hour she had desired, hoped, waited for, as a moment of happiness, of hope and consolation. It now strikes, clashing, resounding through the silent chambers of her stricken heart, only to awaken a new and fearful sorrow. Still, she hesitates not; she again embraces the child, then tears herself away—flies. She hastens eagerly on—Catherine has disappeared.…

* * * * *

On being informed of the clergy’s refusal the king fell into a furious rage. For three days the bishops were shut up in Westminster. The royal commissioners went to and fro continually from the king’s palace to the assembly; but the deliberations were conducted with so much secrecy that nothing was known of them outside.

Meanwhile, night came on, and the most profound silence reigned throughout the long cloisters of the abbey. The pale rays of the moon alone illuminated the splendid arches. The sanctuary was deserted, and the red flicker of a lamp suspended in the immense vault showed no larger than a luminous point set in space. A woman covered with a long veil stood within the sacred place, leaning against the iron railing, apparently absorbed in prayer. But no, she was not praying; the human soul must be calm and resigned before it can truly lift itself up towards God. Burning tears streamed from her eyes in torrents upon the stone pavement beneath her feet; she started at the slightest creaking of the wooden stalls surrounding the choir, and her attentive ear caught even the least breath of air. Anon footsteps were heard.

“St. Catherine, pray for us,” said a dear and well-known voice.

“Amen,” responded the queen; and she advanced towards two men who were approaching.

“More!” she exclaimed, “More! you have abandoned me, then?”

“Never, madam!”

“Well, then,” she cried, seizing his hand, “abandon me now! Cease, cease to sacrifice yourself for me! Know that you have no longer a queen; the banished Catherine leaves to-morrow the palace of her cruel husband. No place of refuge is offered her; she is left to choose some obscure corner of the earth where she will be at liberty to die. But he is mistaken! I will never leave the soil of England—no, never!” she cried. “I will never look again upon my own happy land. ‘Woman,’ they would say to me, ‘you have deserted your children; you have not known how to die in the land over which you ought to reign; has the Spanish blood, then, ceased to flow in your veins?’ No, never!”

On hearing her speak thus More stood transfixed with astonishment and sorrow.

“They have dared!” he said at last, “they have dared, Rochester!”

“Yes,” replied the queen, “they have dared! But, Rochester, speak; the time is short; every moment is precious. What has passed in the assembly?”

“Where shall I find words to tell you, madam?” replied the good and venerable old man. “Parliament has been won over; your friends, powerless, have been made to tremble for their own lives; threats of death pass from mouth to mouth. I myself have scarcely been able to escape their criminal attempts on my life; a dish on my table was poisoned, and several of my people have died from eating of it. Consternation reigns secretly in every heart. The clergy are threatened on all sides; the people are exasperated by a thousand calumnies, the sources of which remain scrupulously concealed. The soil of old England seems about to be shaken to its foundations. Vice stalks forth with head erect, while the virtuous man flies in terror. There is time yet, madam. Save yourself! Save us all! Renounce an alliance so fatal for you; abandon this prince who no longer puts any restraint upon his passions—he is not worthy of you; and let the house of the Lord become your retreat and be your refuge!”

“What sayest thou?” replied Catherine. “Was it for cowardly advice like this I called you to me, Rochester? And my daughter—what kingdom and what father would you give her?”

“God, madam, and the justice of her cause!” cried the afflicted old bishop.

“Then you have yielded?” said the queen.

“Yes,” replied Rochester, “we have recoiled before our worst fears; we have made a pact with falsehood, since we can no longer believe in the veracity of the king. He has summoned before him in turn each one of the most influential members of the conference. He has sworn to them, in the presence of God himself, that he desired in naught to usurp the authority of the spiritual head of the church; that naught could ever change him from being the faithful and obedient child of the church he is; that he hated heresy, and that his sole desire was to prevent it spreading in his kingdom—in a word, that he wished to live and die in the Catholic faith, in the faith of his fathers, and that he only asked of them a title that would give him honor and prove the confidence they had in their prince and the love they bore toward their lawful sovereign. Now, madam, what shall I say to you? He has been so far successful in convincing them that they have carried the majority of votes. We have granted him everything—with this restriction, however: that we acceded to his demand only so far as the law of God would permit. But, alas! discouragement and dissensions have entered among us, and the choice of men by whom the king surrounds himself is sufficient evidence of the road he is resolved to follow. Thomas Audley replaces More, and Cranmer, that base intriguer, is installed in the place of the learned and immortal Warham.”