[The Grail of Catholic
EmancipationCopyright
© 2002 by Desmond Keenan. Book available from Xlibris.com and Amazon.com]
Aftermath
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The Second Election
in Clare ................................
Winding up
..............................................................
Conclusions
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This chapter describes the various events which
followed the passing of the Catholic Relief Act in 1829. The English Catholic
lords took their seats in the House of Lords, and the seat in a family borough controlled by the
Duke of Norfolk speedily went to his son, the Earl of Surrey. O’Connell was
determined to capitalise on his victory over Lord Killeen for the leadership of
the Irish Catholics. He was a changed man, and was now determined to make
politics and not the law his main pre-occupation. Most of the other Irish
Catholic leaders were now satisfied that they could secure any further reforms
without agitation.
As the
British Government had given up its claim for a veto on the appointment of
Catholic bishops, the Pope issued his own instructions on the matter.
The Second Election in Clare
The passing of the Catholic Relief
Act seemed another marker of the end of an era and the beginning of a new one.
The eighteenth century and the whole period called Georgian came to an end. The
long period of almost unbroken Tory rule was over, and the alternation of
parties so characteristic of the modern political scene commenced. Few of those
who had commenced their political careers before the Act of Union survived. The
Age of Victoria was about to begin. The Age of railways and steam ships, mass
production and great industrial towns and cities had arrived. In October 1829
the Rainhill trials to find a suitable locomotive for the Liverpool
to Manchester Railway were held, George Stephenson’s ‘Rocket’ being victorious.
The electric telegraph was soon to revolutionise communications. The shape of
politics in the following decade was totally different from what anyone had
foreseen. The old corrupt system of election to Parliament was swept away.
Melbourne’s
claim to the young Victoria
that no party backed by the king ever lost an election was to prove a thing of
the past. The anti-Popery sentiment that came strongly to the fore in the final
stages of the campaign was to grow as the numbers of the Evangelical or
Nonconformist churches grew. They were to be more often associated with the
Liberal Party, and were to be particularly strong against alcoholic drink and
for Sabbath observance.
The
big question remains why did Peel change his mind, or to put it the opposite
way, why did he hold out so long? For the previous ten years he was the only
major political figure to hold out resolutely against the Catholics.
‘I do
not see how he can be acquitted of
insincerity’, Greville wrote long afterwards, ‘save at the expense of his sagacity
and foresight’ (Gash I)
But
Gash himself came to no conclusion on the question.
[May
1829] The English Catholic peers, Lords Stourton, Stafford,
and Petre, could take their seats immediately and did so on the 1 May 1829.
When the Duke of Norfolk took his seat he did so on the Government side, along
with Lord Dormer and Lord Clifford. Most of the Catholic peers sat on the Whig
Opposition side. The Duke of Norfolk had a pocket borough that he was keeping
for his son. This was quickly vacated, an election quickly held on 4 May, and
Henry Charles Howard, by courtesy the Earl of Surrey, took his seat, the first
Catholic MP since the Penal Laws were enforced. O’Connell went to the House of
Commons on 15 May to take his seat. Again this was pure theatre, for he knew
and it was clearly expressed in the debates, that the Act and consequently the
new form of oath only applied to those
elected after the Act came into
effect. Brougham claimed the matter was doubtful and forced a vote on the
matter that the Government won easily. The Solicitor General caused a new writ
to be made out by the Clerk of the Crown for a new election in Clare. O’Connell
mixed in Whig society in London,
and pledged himself to support the next big issue, namely Parliamentary Reform.
During a debate in the House of
Lords on 4 May Anglesey
gave an account of the time he had spent in Ireland,
especially the events in the months preceding his recall. Wellington gave
his version of events. Wellington
noted that Northumberland removed Steele and O’Gorman Mahon from the
magistracy. The next attack on Peel came during the Irish Estimates before the
budget when the anti-Popery faction attacked the annual grant for Maynooth
first granted by William Pitt. Peel said it was the first time it had been objected
to in 36 years, even Spencer Perceval not interfering with it. Predictably, one
of the attackers was Sir John Inglis. The objectors got only 14 votes.
Charles Butler was the great
survivor, outlasting Milner. He seems to have been the only major figure to
have lasted from the first beginnings in the 1780’s until the passing of the
last Relief Act in 1829. Burke, Fox, and Sheridan, his early parliamentary
assistants were long since gone. In 1831 the Whig Government crowned his career
by making him a King’s Counsel. He died in 1832. Counsellor William Bellew in Ireland had
lasted from the early 1790’s but he was never a major player. He too was made a
KC.
Registration under the new Act
proceeded in Ireland,
and by the middle of May it was claimed that 800 voters had registered in Limerick.
Dr Doyle felt it necessary to issue a pastoral letter to his diocese explaining
the meaning of perjury, and how the Ten Pound freehold must be computed. (The
Irish Government had some years earlier commenced a national civil survey
(always called the Ordnance Survey because it was conducted by officers of the
Board or Ordnance) and a valuation of lands. Wellington,
replying to a question said the survey and valuation were not sufficiently
advanced to allow independent valuation. Purcell O’Gorman set out for Clare to
supervise the registering. Sheil offered himself to the electors of Louth,
despite the declared intention of Sir Patrick Bellew that he would stand. This
was the signal for all Catholic gentlemen with ambitions for a career in
Parliament to stake their claims to various constituencies. Conway in the
Post noted that there were increasing
notices of evictions for arrears of rent, which had often in the past been
overlooked at election time. But now the Forty Shilling Freeholders have lost
their commercial value. He noted too that for the first time since 1688
Catholics were selected in Dublin
for a Grand Jury which dealt with presentments, namely projects to be paid for
out of the local tax or cess. (Some Catholics had been called earlier for
ordinary Grand Duty duties.)
[June
1829] O’Connell arrived back in Dublin, to be
greeted with the formal triumphal entry
that had been postponed. The last Catholic Aggregate Meeting was
held on 3 June 1829 in
Clarendon Street chapel
with Gerald Dillon in the chair. An apology from Lord Killeen was read. It was
called to dispose of the remaining Catholic funds. Sheil said that of the
£13,000 there were claims on it for £3,000 leaving a balance of £10,000. He
suggested various ways it could be disposed of, to help with education, the
endowment of a Catholic university in Maynooth, the building of churches,
combating proselytism and so one. It was proposed and seconded that £5,000
should be given to cover election expenses in Clare. When someone objected that
this had never been an object of the Catholic Rent he was shouted down. Then
O’Connell was called on to speak and he addressed himself to various topics.
The Finance Committee continued to meet for a considerable time to deal with
outstanding claims, particularly that of Eneas MacDonnell who felt that he had
been underpaid.
William
Edward Major, the newly appointed assistant barrister for Clare, arrived to
commence his register. He later expressed his astonishment at the perjury, the
enormous increase in the value of land, and the astonishment of the landlords
at this (SNL 14 July 1829). Stephen
Woulfe was appointed assistant barrister in Galway.
Stephen Woulfe, Nicholas Ball, and Michael O’Loughlen, along with William Bellew,
were Catholic barristers who had concentrated largely on their legal careers,
and so were the first to benefit when Catholics were being appointed to the posts now open to them. Vesey
Fitzgerald announced that he would not be contesting
county Clare. The
parliamentary session came to an end on 24 June.
[July 1829]
The Orange Order in Ireland
had been linked to the Orange Order in Britain of
which the Duke of Cumberland who was now given the title of Imperial Grand
Master. Serious rioting broke out in Orange
districts around the 12 July. Peel regarded Cumberland as
responsible, but Wellington
said,
I
entertain no doubt that the Duke of Cumberland is doing all the mischief in Ireland he
can. The difficulty will be to prove a case of which we can take notice (Gray).
The
Earl of Northumberland proclaimed meetings, marches, and parades. He made it
clear that meetings for the lawful purpose of preparing for an election were
not included. The Orange Benevolent Institution was merged with the parent
body.
It was reported that 674 Ten Pound
freeholders were registered in Clare. The writ for a new election in Clare was
issued and the sheriff fixed the 30 July to be polling day. In the event the
election of O’Connell was uncontested. Parliament had risen, and O’Connell
retired to Kerry. [Top]
Winding up
The return of O’Connell was of no
particular significance other than the final finishing of a campaign that had
started with the resignation of Vesey Fitzgerald in June 1828. He was not the
first member or first commoner to take his seat.
But there were various loose ends to
be tidied up. The first came in October, when the new Pope Pius VIII, learning that the British
Government required no Securities published his own Rescript Cum ad gravissimum to regulate the election of bishops in Ireland. The
contention of the parish priests that they were the true successors of the
defunct chapters was recognised, and to them was accorded the primary task of
submitting three names to the Pope for his choice. The election of bishops was
not restored, only the election of three names. The rights of the bishops to
comment on the names presented was granted. If the bishops of the province
rejected all three names, the Pope himself would provide. A curious feature of
this Rescript was the definition of a parish priest in Ireland. ‘Qui in Hibernia nuncupantur parochi,
(Those who in Ireland
are called parish priests) namely clerics of the order of priests… who are in
the actual and peaceful possession of parishes or unions of parishes’. A parish
is assumed to be understood, but nothing is said about how they came to be in
the actual and peaceful possession of the parish. The exclusive right of
bishops to appoint parish priests was not supported against appointments by the
Pope or a lay patron (SNL 3 Dec
1829).
The second loose end to be tidied up
was the withdrawal of priests from political campaigning and the prohibition of
the use of churches or chapels for political purposes. In most parts of Ireland the
church or chapel, often at that time a low thatched building, was the only
large building in a district where Catholics could meet. Many priests resented
the order to confine themselves to their sacred duties, and for the next
century great efforts were made to whittle away its effects. The use of the
buildings had been conceded during the struggle for Emancipation even by
conservative bishops like Troy
because it was regarded as closely connected with the Catholic religion. Purely
political campaigns like that for Repeal had no connection with religion. The
fact that some orators preferred to stand on the altar when delivering their
speeches was obviously a factor that influenced the bishops. Most Catholic
churches did not have pulpits, and sermons were preached from the altar steps.
Urged by Lord Leveson-Gower the
Government called several Catholic barristers to be King’s Counsel. The first
to be called was William Bellew, who had been the first to be called to the
outer bar in 1793. Also called were Richard Sheil, Nicholas Ball, Michael
O’Loghlen, and Richard More O’Ferrall. Rather pointedly, O’Connell was not
called, doubtless because he was so outspoken about the need to repeal the Act
of Union, but also because of his activities in the twice suppressed Catholic
Association. More were to be called and promoted to office when the Whigs came
to power in 1830. (Why O’Connell was to spend the rest of his life harping on
Repeal which he knew had not the slightest chance of success is another mystery
about his character.) About the same time commissions of the peace were given
to the members of the English Catholic nobility for the first time.
When
O’Connell turned his mind towards the Repeal of the Act of Union most of those
who had worked with him in the Catholic Association went their own way. These
included Lord Killeen, Sheil, Wyse, Woulfe, Lawless, Purcell O’Gorman and the
O’Gorman Mahon. Killeen
was returned unopposed for Meath on 22 February 1830 being
the third Catholic to be elected. In the general election in July 1830 which
followed the death of George IV and the crowning of the Duke of Clarence as
William IV, Sir John Burke, the O’Conor Don, Thomas Wyse, the Hon. William
Browne (brother of the Earl of Kenmare), O’Gorman Mahon, and Richard More O’Farrell
were returned. Both Sheil and Montesquieu Bellew, in a four-cornered contest in
Louth, were defeated. It was some years before the Bellews could secure the
regular return of one of their family for the county. Lawless never succeeded
in getting elected to Parliament. The Whigs, who now took office required
Sheil, so a pocket borough was found for him. Sheil, when elected, regarded
himself as a citizen of the Empire and largely devoted himself to foreign
affairs. Wyse had a special interest in promoting education. They all supported
the Whigs in Parliament. Sir Patrick Bellew was ennobled as Baron Bellew and
was appointed a Lord in Waiting by the young Queen Victoria.
After
the Whigs took office under Earl Grey in 1830 William Gregory, the last
survivor of the Castle clique was finally dislodged from office. The
negotiations of the bishops for a neutral education system resulted in the
Education Act (1831). Under this Act local committee were required to build the
schools, and the Catholic Rent, if applied to this purpose would have been of
enormous help. But it never was.
O’Connell
was an enormous figure. It is impossible to write about Irish history between
1810 and 1848 without having repeatedly to mention him. He was a man of
enormous powers and energy who could have been an immense success if he had
devoted himself to his career in the law, or else to a career in Parliament and
in administration. But he lacked the temperament for regular and patient
application. Conway
said that in Parliament he could not play the first fiddle or even the second
or third, so he sighed for aggregates and the shouts of the mob (DEP 21 Oct 1830).He was totally unable
to see another’s point of view except in the strictest legal sense. He could
not work with even the most moderate and liberal Protestants. Politically,
apart from Repeal, his views were close to those of Peel, but he could never
see any good in Peel. His jokes are often still funny, though humour rarely
passes from one generation to the next. He could work intensely when preparing
cases, rising early to prepare his briefs, spending the morning pleading in the
courts, devoting the afternoons to the associations he was involved with, and
spending the evenings at dinners and other entertainments. He was able to use
the structures built up by the Catholic Association, though mostly with
different supporters, to assist his various campaigns until the end of his
life. There was this big difference: in the various associations he formed
later: there was no room for critics. All that was required was blind faith in
his abilities. It was also alleged that he was indifferent to the personal
probity of those who supported him, so long as the support was unquestioned.
His only real achievement was that he made Repeal of the Act of Union a
Catholic issue and in doing so established an undying hostility between the
Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. His
legacy to the Catholics was the habit of sneering at and belittling those with
whom he disagreed.
The success of the Catholic
Association and of O’Connell strengthened the Orange Order. By 1823 it was
virtually defunct, but O’Connell revived it, and would continue to revive it.
It became the refuge of Protestants who felt threatened in any way, whether in
their religion, their political position, or their control of the local
rackets. The moderate Toryism on which the Catholics had so long relied
virtually disappeared, and when Peel became Prime Minister he found few Irish
Tories to support him. The Irish Government on which Earl Grey relied was
largely composed of moderate Tories like Plunket.
Wellington was
unsuccessful as prime minister. He gratefully resigned at the end of 1830
following a defeat in Parliament, but lived until 1852 as a respected elder
statesman. Peel threw open the Conservative Party to Catholics in his Tamworth
Manifesto in 1834, and eventually became prime minister. Primate Curtis died in
1832 and Dr Doyle in 1834. The leadership of the Catholic Church in Ireland was
taken up by the moderate and conciliatory Archbishop Murray and Archbishop
Crolly of Armagh.
These worked closely with Archbishop Richard Whately, who was appointed
Protestant Archbishop of Dublin.
But all three were to face strong opposition in their own Churches. The Duke of
Cumberland became King of Hanover in 1837 when William IV died, and Queen
Victoria was
excluded because she was a woman. Wellington’s
ministry survived the general election in 1830. The Whigs had made some gains,
but not enough to overthrow the ministry. But the Tory ultras were unwilling to
support Peel ‘the arch betrayer’ and the death of Huskisson at the opening of
the Liverpool to
Manchester
railway released his followers in Parliament. The Government was defeated in
November, and Wellington
gratefully took the opportunity to resign, hoping that Peel would follow him as
prime minister. But a majority of the Commons preferred to unite under the
sixty six year old Earl Grey who was of a rather conservative cast of mind. A
new parliamentary era began.
Top]
Conclusions
What conclusions can we draw from
this struggle? Did the Catholics aim at the wrong target? Should they have at
first accepted lesser objectives than seats in Parliament? Did their campaign
degenerate into a direct struggle for supremacy with the more conservative and
entrenched Protestants who, as is usual when a single party dominates a state
or part of a state for a prolonged period of time, became used to sharing out offices and other
perquisites only among its own supporters?
From the very start the struggle
attracted two very different types of Catholics. There were those who believed
in a gradual and low-keyed Parliamentary approach, during which their
Protestant friends in Parliament would gradually build up support for their
cause. There would be as little possible popular clamour to arouse the
opposition. They had no objections to modest royal controls, expecting that
they in practice would go no further than those already in force. This was the
position taken by what was called the aristocratic faction in Ireland and
their supporters, usually labelled the vetoists. It was also the approach of
the English Catholics where the influence of noblemen and gentlemen was more
pronounced in their counsels. It may have been that if this policy was followed
Emancipation would have been granted either early in the reign of George IV
after 1820 or at least early in the reign of Victoria after
1837. There would have been no legacy of sectarian bitterness.
The other faction believed in straight-forward
confrontation, believing that the British Government would concede nothing
unless it was forced from it. They had two examples before their minds, the
concessions to the Irish patriots in 1782 and the American colonists in 1783.
They also believed that Pitt had caved into their united stand in 1793. They
utterly refused to consider any other factors that might have influenced the
result such as the fact that their supporters in the House of Commons, the
Whigs, were in a position of power. These views were strongly held by the
merchant classes both in Dublin
and the country. They considered that they had a perfect right to all offices,
that anyone who excluded them was wrong, and they had perfect right to demand
full and unqualified emancipation. Such ideas were derived from the American
and French Revolutions and were not shared by a majority of people in Europe
who saw the latter Revolution an awful example of what can happen when you
alter the existing order. This was not a claim for a theoretical right, but a
claim to thousands of jobs all over the country occupied by Protestants. They
also shared the strong folk memory of their people that the Catholics had been
out-witted or over-reached a hundred years earlier at the time of William III. Like their Protestant counterparts they were
mostly literate but unlikely to be great readers of anything. Communication was
largely by word of mouth. O’Connell’s followers later used to purchase a weekly
or tri-weekly paper like the Pilot so
that O’Connell’s speeches could be read aloud. What the Protestants thought of
them did not concern them. (This view-point was to increase, so that early in
the twentieth century, a majority of Catholics had come to believe that the
only way to get the jobs and patronage of the Protestants was to take them by
force.)
Many of the more moderate
Protestants realised that few jobs would go to Catholics at least in the short
term. Protestants were richer, had better contacts, were better educated and
qualified than the Catholics so that it would be a long time before Catholics
would form a majority on the magistrates benches, or on the Grand Juries, and
so they had no objection to token Catholics. But the vast majority of
working-class Protestants, even if they could read, could not afford a
newspaper. If they did read anything other than the Bible it was likely to be a
religious tract. All they could see was that the horrible Church of Rome was
making a come-back.
The part played by the Catholic
bishops is crucial, but is also puzzling. At first, most of them were entirely
on the conciliating side, and then they changed their position to a point where
Archbishop Murray declared the vetoists to be like Judas and strongly resisted
the Pope who wished for a settlement with the British Government. It may be
that the pressure came from the priests in their dioceses, and that the
sentiment of these was close to that of the smaller merchants. The dispute over
Domestic Nomination was an irrelevance for it was concerned only with an internal
dispute among the Catholic clergy.
The agrarian terrorists played no
part in this struggle, unlike the preceding struggle of the United Irishmen,
and the later struggle of Young Ireland, for the various Catholic committees,
boards and associations set their face steadfastly against violence. Also there
was no gain for them if a particular Catholic got elected to Parliament, or got
a place as a sheriff. Their place was in Orange mythology, for Orangemen of
every rank assumed that the Catholic leaders were behind every outrage.
The key figure was that of
O’Connell. There seems little doubt that if O’Connell had stood aside the
leadership would have continued with Lord Fingall’s party and a settlement with
innocuous Securities could possibly have been reached at the beginning of the
reign of George IV about 1820. Why did O’Connell back the popular party when so
many other lawyers like Sheil, Ball, and Wyse supported compromise? As so often
with O’Connell we have no answer. It might have been no more than a trivial
slight by one of the aristocratic party that set him on the path to opposition.
It may have been that the influences of his rural background were stronger than
those of his city background. It may be that he just loved the plaudits of the
common crowd. O’Connell’s legacy to Ireland was to accentuate the sectarian
divisions that he never saw any reason to try to heal, but he did not originate
them.
Had Emancipation been granted at the
time of the Act of Union, so that the Catholics saw some real tangible personal
benefit from it, it is likely that they would have accepted the Union as the
Scots and Welsh had. Even if admission to Parliament was not conceded, had the
Protestants in the towns and counties made some effort to welcome them, and to
allow them a small share in the rackets, sectarian divisions could have been
lessened. Later, if the Irish wanted Home Rule or the Union it
would have been as a united people. It would seem however that George III lost
not only the American colonies but Ireland as well.
[Top]