Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T05:23:11.368Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

‘Parnellism And Crime’, 1887–901

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

F. S. L. Lyons
Affiliation:
University of Kent at Canterbury

Extract

The Home Rule crisis of 1885–86 is generally held to mark a water-shed in the history of Anglo-Irish relations. This it undoubtedly does, though not necessarily for the reasons commonly advanced. The crisis was certainly important in the sense that it obliged the Liberal and Conservative parties to define their attitudes towards Irish self-government and thus to demonstrate to the Irish nationalist party in the House of Commons that their main hope for the future lay with Mr Gladstone and those Liberals who had remained faithful to him after his declaration in favour of Home Rule. But the course of events during 1886 demonstrated just how far the Irish demand still was from being met. The inadequacies of the Home Rule Bill itself, the split in the Liberal party, the firm negative of the Conservatives, the violence of the Ulster Protestant reaction, the veto of the House of Lords which had not even to be deployed in 1886 but was there for future use when necessary—all these things suggested that Home Rule, if it came at all, would not happen overnight at the waving of any Parnellite wand, but would require years, perhaps decades, of labour before it came within sight of achievement.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 For the genesis of the Plan of Campaign, see Lyons, F. S. L., John Dillon (London, 1968)Google Scholar, chap. 4; for the government's reaction, see Curtis, L. P. jr, Coercion and Conciliation in Ireland (Princeton, 1963)Google Scholar, chap. 10.

3 Lyons, F. S. I.., ‘Johń Dillon and the Plan of Campaign, 1886–90’, Irish Historical Studies, xiv (09 1965), pp. 313–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 The Times, 7 Mar. 1887.

5 The Times, 18 Apr. 1887.

6 John Walter to J. A. Macdonald, 27 Jan. 1887 (Printing House Square Papers); The History of The Times, 1884–1912 (London, 1947), p. 48Google Scholar.

7 J. A. Macdonald to W. H. Smith, 27 Jan. 1887, photostat copy (Printing House Square Papers). So far as can be ascertained the original of this lette? has not survived in the papers of W. H. Smith (Hambleden Papers).

8 Henry Matthews to ‘My dear Sir’ (if not Macdonald, then probably either John Walter (the proprietor) or George Buckle (the editor)), 14 Feb. and 12 Apr. 1887 (Printing House Square Papers).

9 Hansard, H. C. deb., 3rd ser., cccxxviii, cols 1225–32 (18 Apr. 1887).

10 Morley, J., The Life of William Ewart Gladstone (London, 1911 cdn.), iii, p. 297Google Scholar [hereafter cited as Gladstone ].

11 McCarthy, J. and Praed, R. M., Our Book of Memories (London, 1912), pp. 102–3Google Scholar.

12 Anderson, R. A., The Lighter Side of my Official Life (London, 1910), pp. 3132Google Scholar, 111, 283–86; he disclosed his authorship in an article in Blackwood's Magazine, April 1910. For a discussion of his role, see Broinn, L. Ó, The Prime Informer (London, 1971)Google Scholar, chap. 10.

13 The action is fully reported in The Times, 3, 4, 5 and 6 July 1888.

14 Viscount Alverstone ( SirWebster, Richard), Recollections of Bar and Bench (London, 1914), p. 143Google Scholar.

15 Hansard, H. C. deb., 3rd ser., cccxxviii, cols 575–81 (6 July 1888);Morley, , Gladstone, iii, p. 299Google Scholar.

16 Hansard, , loc. cit., cols 712–13, 1101–2 (9 and 12 07 1888)Google Scholar.

17 Morley, , Gladstone, iii, p. 298Google Scholar.

18 Sir William Harcourt to John Morley, 6 July 1888 (Harcourt Papers, Box 11/B, 1–4).

19 Morley, , Gladstone, iii, p. 299Google Scholar.

20 Justin McCarthy to Mrs Campbell Praed, 9 July 1888 (McCarthy, and Praed, , Our Book of Memories, pp. 157–58)Google Scholar.

21 Hansard, H. C. deb., 3rd ser., cccxxviii, cols 1101–2 (12 July 1888).

22 Ibid., cols 1495–1501 (17 July 1888).

23 SirClarke, Edward, The Story of my Life (London, 1918), pp. 267–68Google Scholar; Chilston, Viscount, W. H. Smith (London, 1965), p. 250Google Scholar. There were also, as Lord Randolph Churchill was quick to point out, good constitutional grounds, backed by the authority of Sir T. Erskine May, for arguing that matters which might or should come within the cognizance of the courts of law were not suited to inquiry by select committee; Churchill, W. S., Lord Randolph Churchill (London, 2nd edn., 1907), pp. 757–58Google Scholar.

24 Hamilton, Lord George, Parliamentary Reminiscences and Reflections, 1886–1906 (London, 19161922), i, pp. 7274Google Scholar.

25 Garvin, J. L., The Life of Joseph Chamberlain (London, 1933), ii, pp. 386Google Scholar, 387.

26 For the motivation of what he calls ‘the Chamberlain-O'Shea combination’, see Harrison, H., Parnell, Joseph Chamberlain and Air Garvin (London, 1938)Google Scholar, chap. 10. The omission from the official history of The Times of any reference to Chamberlain led Mr Harrison to draw attention to this and other deficiencies in the account there given, as a result of which The Times eventually made honourable amends (The History of The Times, 1921–1948 (London, 1952), pp. 1145–48Google Scholar; also Harrison, H., Parnell, Joseph Chamberlain and The Times (Dublin and Belfast, 1953)Google Scholar.

27 Clarke, , The Story of My Life, p. 274Google Scholar.

28 Churchill, W. S., Lord Randolph Churchill, pp. 757–60Google Scholar, citing a memorandum which the author calls ‘perhaps the most powerful document he ever penned’; for other contemporary reactions, see Curtis, , Coercion and Conciliation in Ireland, pp. 280–81Google Scholar.

29 Hansard, H. C. deb., 3rd ser., cccxxviii, cols 1495–1501 (16 July 1888); Morley, , Gladstone, iii, p. 301Google Scholar.

30 Hansard, H. C. deb., 3rd ser. cccxxix, cols 245–56 and 379–94 (23 and 24 July 1888 respectively); Gardiner, A. G., The Life of Sir William Harcourt (London, 1923), ii, p. 71Google Scholar; Chilston, , W. H. Smith, pp. 280–81Google Scholar.

31 Hansard, H. C. deb., 3rd ser. cccxxix, cols 364–74 (24 July 1888).

32 Morley, , Gladstone, iii, pp. 301–2Google Scholar.

33 Sir William Harcourt to John Morley, 15 July 1888 (Harcourt Papers, Box IIB/1–4); Sir William Harcourt to W. E. Gladstone, 18 [July] 1888 (British Museum, Add. MS. 44,201, fos. 210–11).

34 John Morley to W. E. Gladstone, 10 Aug. 1888 (British Museum, Add. MS. 44,255. fos. 252–55).

35 W. E. Gladstone to John Morley (copy), 11 Aug. 1888 (ibid., fos. 256–59).

36 John Morley to W. E. Gladstone, 24 Aug. 1888(ibid., fos. 264–65).

37 Sir R. Webster to W. H. Smith, n.d. [Aug. 1888], cited in Curtis, , Coercion and Conciliation in Ireland, p. 281Google Scholar; Clarke, , The Story of My Life, pp. 274–75Google Scholar.

38 Curtis, L. P., Coercion and Conciliation in Ireland, p. 282Google Scholar.

39 Sir R. Webster to Lord Salisbury, 7 Sept. 1888 (Salisbury Papers); Viscount Alverstone, , Recollections of Bar and Bench, pp. 144–45Google Scholar.

40 A. J. Balfour to Lord Salisbury, 17 Aug. 1888 (Salisbury Papers).

41 Lord Salisbury to A. J. Balfour, 22 Aug. 1888, cited in Curtis, , Coercion and Conciliation in Ireland, p. 284Google Scholar.

42 These various devices are well summarized in Moody, T. W., (The Times versus Parnell and Co., 18871890), pp. 159–65Google Scholar. Much (though by no means all) of this evidence of government involvement depends on documents collected by Joyce, of which only copies of some remain, and on a memorandum written by him in 1910 when he was a disappointed and embittered man (N.I..I. MS 11, 119); these materials form the basis of Ó Broinn, The Prime Informer. For the interacting roles of Anderson and Le Caron, see Caron, H. Le, Twenty-five Years in the Secret Service (9th ed., London, 1893), pp. 60Google Scholaret seq; R. A. Anderson, Sidelights on the Home Rule Movement, chap. 15, and The Lighter Side of my Official Life (London, 1910)Google Scholar, passim. The government's resolve to help The Times is dealt with in Curtis, L. P., Coercion and Conciliation in Ireland, pp. 284–91Google Scholar. A hitherto unpublished letter from Balfour to the Home Secretary (in the J. S. Sandars Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford), with the request that he would ask Anderson to co-operate with Joyce on all relevant matters is further evidence in the same direction (A. J. Balfour to Henry Matthews, 24 Mar. 1889).

43 The key event in these transactions—Pigott's ordeal in the witness-box— is documented in Special Commission Act, 1888, reprint of the short-hand notes of the speeches, proceedings and evidence taken before the commissioners appointed under the above act (hereafter cited as Spec. Comm. Proc), V, pp. 443–576 (20–22 Feb. 1889).

44 O'Brien, R. B., The Life of Charles Stewart Parnell (2nd edn., London, 1899), ii, p. 233Google Scholar. The judges' findings are in Report of the Special Commission, 1888 [C 5891], H. C. 1890, xxvii, pp. 477640Google Scholar.

45 SirHarcourt, W. to Gladstone, W. E., 9 03 1889 (British Museum, Add. MS. 44, 201, fos. 216–19), The Times, 9 03 1889Google Scholar.

46 Lyons, F. S. L., ‘The Political Ideas of Parnell’, in Historical Journal, xvi, 4 (1973). PP. 749–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 The History of The Times, 1884–1912, p. 89.

48 Ibid., p. 89; Curtis, , Coercion and Conciliation in Ireland, p. 297Google Scholar.

49 Speech at Watford, 19 Mar. 1889 (The Times, 20 Mar. 1889).

50 Hansard, H. C. deb., 3rd ser. cccxlii, cols 511–16 (11 Mar. 1890). For this extraordinary outburst, see Churchill, W. S., Lord Randolph Churchill, pp. 761–72, 876–79Google Scholar.

51 Curtis, , Coercion and Conciliation in Ireland, p. 300Google Scholar.

52 Ibid., p. 301.

53 Spec. Comm. Proc, vii, pp. 1–369, especially pp. 55–110.

54 Lyons, F. S. L., The Fall of Parnell, 1890–91 (London, 1960)Google Scholar, chap. 2.