Captain O’Shea’s successful divorce petition in November 1890 not only set in motion the forces which shattered the unity of Parnell’s party but also extricated the Salisbury ministry from a position of acute discomfort. Among unionists of all political complexions there was profound relief when news of dissension over the divorce and its aftermath first leaked out of Committee Room 15. Government supporters, already chagrined by Parnell’s triumphant emergence from the ordeal of the special commission, had expected a lengthy and inconclusive hearing in the divorce court. Not even in their fondest dreams did they imagine that the Irish leader would refuse to defend the suit or that the reaction of the Liberal leaders would imperil the ‘union of hearts’. Lord Cranbrook expressed the joy and hopes of his cabinet colleagues when he wrote in his diary on November 27: ‘Consternation prevails among the separatists. Can we get the advantage of the confusion to pass our measures?’ The answer to this question was in the affirmative. Much of the opposition to the Irish land purchase bill disappeared overnight, and parliament adjourned for the holidays on December 9 after a brief session which was notable for the absence of obstruction. O’Shea’s handiwork and Gladstone’s sensitivity to nonconformist opinion thus combined to give the government a new lease of life.

Gladstone’s dramatic commitment of the liberal party to a policy of home rule for Ireland in 1886 was followed by the Grand Old Man’s two attempts at turning his policy into legislation. The first home rule bill, that of 1886, was defeated in the house of commons and then in a general election: the second, that of 1893, was overwhelmed in the house of lords and then dropped by Gladstone’s fourth government. Though the Gladstonian commitment remained and the liberal party continued to be a home rule party — and though the pros and cons of the union of 1800 remained the major structural feature of British party politics — it was not until 1912 that the liberals did anything further about their major Irish policy. For most of the period 1893-1912 they were, of course, impotent in opposition and consequently in no position to take the initiative on home rule. In 1906, however, they won a landslide victory over their unionist opponents and it is striking that this electoral victory and the great impulse it gave to one of the most dynamic governments in the whole history of British liberalism was not followed, as had the last two liberal victories under Gladstone, by the introduction of a third home rule bill. Had the liberal landslide of 1906 been put behind another home rule measure the whole history of the matter would certainly have been radically different. The house of lords would have been easily overwhelmed; the great advance in constitutional reform for Ireland would have been carried in a spirit of liberal reform rather than of political surrender; the development of Sinn Fein would have been frustrated or at least diverted. But the liberal victory of 1906 was not so used. Home rule was postponed and sidetracked and was taken up again only when the liberal party once more desperately needed Irish votes in the budget election which followed the rejection of Lloyd George’s financial measures by the lords in November 1909. The home rule banner was hoisted afresh by Asquith, the prime minister, in his Albert Hall speechof 10 December 1909 and the third home rule bill appeared in due course in 1912 in direct — and significant — succession to the budget and the parliament act for both of which the Asquith government needed Irish support in the commons.