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n 
 
 i, ■ . 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LORD CHANCELLORS 
 
 OF 
 
 I RELAN D, 
 
 FROM A. D. 1186 TO A. D. 1874. 
 
 BY 
 
 OLIVER J. BURKE, A. B. T. CD., 
 
 BARRISTER-AT-LAW; 
 AUTHOR OF " THE ABBEY OF ROSS," " HISTORY OF THE CONNAUGHT CIRCUIT," 
 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 DUBLIN: 
 E. PONSONBY, 1 1 6, GRAFTON-STREET. 
 
 LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., PATERNOSTER -ROW. 
 
 I879- 
 
DUBLIN : 
 
 inwfeir at i\t WLmSsmrty | M8) 
 
 BY PONSONBY & MURPHY. 
 
TO 
 
 THE RIGHT HONORABLE LORD O'HAGAN. 
 
 My Loan, 
 
 Whes the O'Neils were sovereigns of Ulster, the office of Chief 
 Brehon or Chancellor belonged for many centuries to the Chief of the 
 tribe of O'Hagan, with the territorial title of Lord of Tullaghogue. The 
 sceptre, however, in the revolution of things, departed from the 
 O'Xeils — another kingdom was set up, and the O'Hagans, their race 
 and their religion, were proscribed in the land of their birth. During 
 three centuries and a-half, for a "time and times and half a time" 
 they were disabled from filling those high offices in the State : and it is 
 not unworthy of remark that you, my Lord, the first Catholic who for 
 many generations has occupied the chief place in the Court of Chancery, 
 bear the same name and the same title of honour that the Chief 
 Brehon of the O'Neils bore in the old times before us. 
 
 It is with pleasure, then, and with pride, that I dedicate to your 
 Lordship this work on the Loed Chanceiloes op Ireland. 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 Tour Lordship's obedient Servant, 
 
 OLIVER J. BURKE. 
 
 7, Adelaide Teeeace, Morehamfton Roao, 
 Dublin, ZUt March, 1879. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IT is now some years since I was first led to investi- 
 gate the subject of which the following pages 
 treat. In the course of my professional duties a con- 
 siderable amount of antiquarian research was often 
 necessary; and the study of ancient patents and of 
 other old-world documents naturally led me to in- 
 quire into the lives of the men by or through whom 
 they had been executed. Amongst those the Chancel- 
 lors were ever first in place and were often first in 
 intellect and influence, and to them therefore my 
 attention was most frequently directed. It may be, 
 too, that the natural bent of my mind led me to grope 
 through the dark ways of history — to disinter long- 
 buried memories — to commune with the spirits of the 
 dead, of the " mighty men of old, men of renown," 
 whose policy for good or for evil has moulded the 
 destinies of our country. And there was much in all 
 this very fascinating to the imagination. Amongst 
 the Chancellors were some, the founders of Houses 
 which have long since been famous ; while others be- 
 longed to the historic races "nobler than the royalty 
 that first ennobled them." Cowled monks and mitred 
 prelates and mail-clad knights from the Hospital help 
 in more ancient times to swell the number ; while in 
 later years the Sage, the Philosopher, the Statesman, 
 and the Wit have adorned by their merit the elevated 
 position to which they had attained. Venerable 
 men — they maintained the dignity of Justice on the 
 highest seat of Justice ; and few amongst them were 
 ever accused, and none were ever convicted, of having 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 suffered the sacred balance to be weighted with gold. 
 Hesiod, in his book " Of Works and Days," calls 
 the judges of Greece "the bribe-devouring judges." 
 The judges of Ireland are free from this reproach. 
 In a word, then, partly the bent of my mind, partly 
 the course of study to which chance or business led 
 me, have induced me to explore the histories of the 
 Lord Chancellors of Ireland, and it seemed to me a 
 pity that what had cost so much trouble to accu- 
 mulate should lie upon its shelf and be forgotten! 
 For this reason I published some years since the first 
 outlines of the present work in the Dublin University 
 Magazine. I had already printed as far as the life of 
 the eighty-fourth Chancellor, when my learned and ac- 
 complished friend Mr. James Roderick O' Flanagan 
 produced a valuable work on the same subject, and I 
 should therefore probably have hesitated to continue 
 my labours had he not brought his to a conclusion 
 with the one hundred and eleventh Chancellor, Lord 
 Plunket, while I had already accumulated materials 
 for the lives of his seven successors. I persisted, 
 therefore, in my original design. Some friends have 
 recently counselled me to gather those separate papers 
 into a single volume and to recast the whole. I felt 
 at first much disinclination to act on this advice ; but 
 to listen is to yield ! and the partiality with which a 
 writer views the child of his thought has led me into 
 what perhaps is the imprudence of yielding to the sug- 
 gestion of my friends. The result of my labours is 
 the book which I now present to the public. 
 
 OLIVER J. BURKE. 
 
 Ower, Headford, 
 
 31si March, 1879. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 n~THE Lord Chancellors of Ireland had, from the conquest 
 by Henry II. until the close of the reign of Edward III., 
 in 1377, a wide jurisdiction in this country. Thenceforward, 
 and all through the reign of Eichard II., and during the long 
 contests between the Houses of York and Lancaster, the power 
 of England here declined, and at the opening of the reign of 
 Henry VIII. there was nothing left of English dominion in 
 Ireland beyond the narrow limits of the Pale, which extended 
 from Dundalk on the north to Dalkey on the south, forty- 
 seven miles asunder, and from Dublin to Kilcoek on the west, 
 fifteen miles. The jurisdiction of the Chancellors, as a matter 
 of course, extended no farther, save to a few English colonies 
 in Wexford, Waterford, Cork, and Gralway.* 
 
 The Plea Rolls of the Courts are not bad criterions of the 
 extent of English law and power at different epochs in Ire- 
 land. During the reigns of Henry III., Edward I., Ed- 
 ward II., and Edward III., they are all large and well written. 
 Pleas and assizes were then held in most parts of Ireland ; and 
 plea follows plea in all the regularity of form and precedent. 
 But at the close of the fourteenth century they become ill 
 written and diminished in size, and the Plea Rolls continue to 
 decrease from ninety membranes per term in the reign of Ed- 
 ward III. to four in the reign of Henry VI. Declining in 
 
 * Vid. "Cause of the Decay of Irelande, by Patrick Finglas, one of the 
 Barons of the Excheq.," a.d. 1524. Carew MSS., temp. Hen. VIII., p. 1. 
 
Till INTRODUCTION. 
 
 influence, the English power had almost vanished in the year 
 1500. But the tide of fortune turned in the reign of Henry 
 VIII., and within sixty years from his death the whole country 
 was Drought under the sway of James I. The area of the 
 Chancellors' jurisdiction was then established all over the 
 country, and English law took the place of the Brehon code. 
 
 The Courts of Law were in the year 1300 held at Collet's 
 Inn, outside the city walls, on the ground on which Exchequer- 
 street now stands. Here, unwisely it would seem, the Exche- 
 quer was located. The lawyers were lodged in this inn ; but 
 in 1348, upon a day when the Lord Deputy and the garrison 
 were absent, the Byrnes, making a swoop from their rocky 
 homes in the Wicklow mountains, came down on the money- 
 chests, put the lawyers to flight, demolished the inn, and re- 
 turned homewards laden with plunder. Sir Eobert Preston, 
 Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, taking compassion on the 
 houseless lawyers, assigned them his house on the spot now 
 occupied by the City Hall, at the south end of Parliament- 
 street, where for two hundred years " Preston's Inn " was their 
 home. Meanwhile the Courts of Chancery and of Law became 
 ambulatory, being sometimes held in Carlow and sometimes 
 in Drogheda, but more frequently in the Castle of Dublin. 
 On the suppression of St. Patrick's Cathedral by Henry VTII. 
 they were transferred to its venerable walls ; but on its resto- 
 ration by Queen Mary to its original destination, the Courts 
 again found refuge in Dublin Castle : in 1695 they were thence 
 removed to Christ Church Lane, where they were held for 101 
 years, until 1796, when they were finally removed to the present 
 buildings, on the site of the King's Inns on the Inns-quay — for 
 the King's Inns had been held there since 1542, in the grand 
 old priory of St. Dominick, then suppressed. 1 
 
 The Benchers, on the Inns being thus converted into the 
 Four Courts, purchased from the Dean and Chapter of Christ 
 
 1 Vid, Recitals in 38 Geo. III. chap. xlix. (Ir.). 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 Church Cathedral a plot of ground, containing ahout three 
 acres, and thereon erected the buildings now denominated The 
 King's Inns. 
 
 Before entering upon our history of the Chancellors, we 
 have to call the attention of our readers to the fact that the 
 great measure with which the names of Lord Clare, George 
 Ponsonby, and Lord Plunket are so intimately connected — the 
 Union — is only alluded to cursorily in their memoirs; but is 
 treated at length in the note which will be found at page 351. 
 
ERKATA. 
 
 Page 11, line 9, " archbishop " should be " archbishops." 
 
 12, 7th last line, " Sir Ealph who " should be " Sir Halph D'Ufford, 
 who." 
 
 13, 14th last line, " wrote the Lord Deputy " should be "wrote to the 
 Lord Deputy." 
 
 21, line 21, " A. d. 1430 " should be " A. D. 1413." 
 23, line 1,/or "Chancellor" read " Vice-Chancellor.'' 
 31, line 16, " Henry " should be " Henry VII." 
 37, line 3, omit word " first." 
 
 59, line 1, for " in the parish church, in which " read " in the parish 
 church of which." 
 , , 7th last line, for " Igalda "read" Isolda. ' ' 
 87, line 16, " the limits of our work." 
 89, line 21, "returned" should be "retired." 
 „ 13th last line, for "1782" read " 1702." 
 105, 15th last line,/«»- "From the time of his return to England " read 
 
 " From the time of his return from England." 
 125, 6th last line, " third " Earl of Anglesey should be " fifth." 
 145, lines 20, 21, " observers of great " should be " of your great." 
 179, 10th last line, " 29th of July" should be " 2nd of August." 
 293, line 8, for " BallymuUen " read " Ballyfallon." 
 
LORD CHANCELLORS OF IRELAND. 
 
 The following are the names of the Lord High Chancellors 
 of Ireland, as they appear in the Rolls, from the year 1186 to 
 the present time. The dates given below are those at which 
 they received for the first time the Seals. Thns Lord St. 
 Leonards was Chancellor from 1841 to 1846, but he had pre- 
 viously been so for a few weeks in 1835, and it is his first ap- 
 pointment alone that is noticed in the subjoined Table. For 
 convenience of reference, to ascertain under what sovereign any 
 particular Chancellor may have held the Seals, a table of regnal 
 years is given at page xviii. 
 
 1. a. d. 1186. — Stephen de Eiddel. 
 
 2. a. d. 1219. — John de "Worchley. 
 
 3. a. d. 1230. — Fromund le Brurm. 
 
 4. a. d. 1232. — Ralph De Neville, Bishop of Chichester. 
 
 Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors of England, 
 toI. i. 127 ; Le Neve's Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, vol. i. 
 240. 
 
 5. a. d. 1235. — Alan of the Holy Faith. 
 
 Cotton's Fasti Ecclesiae Hiberniae, 121. 
 
 6. a. d. 1236. — Robert de Luttrell. 
 
 Mason's Hist, of St. Patrick's Cathedral. 
 
 7. a.d. 1237.— Geoffry de Turville. 
 
 8. a. d. 1237. — Ralph Bishop of Norwich. 
 
 Le Neve's Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae; Dalton's Arch- 
 bishops of Dublin, 95. 
 
 9. a. d. 1245. — William "Wilward. 
 
 10. a. d. 1259. — Fromund Le Brunn. 
 
 Dalton's Archbishops of Dublin, p. 103. 
 
 11. a. b. 1283. — "Walter de Fulburn. 
 
XU THE LORD CHANCELLORS OF IRELAND. 
 
 12. A. d. 1285. — William de Beauclerc. 
 
 13. a.b. 1292.— Thomas Cantoc, Bishop of Emly. 
 
 Ware's Irish Bishops ; Morrin's Patent Bolls, xii. 
 
 14. A. b. 1293.— Walter de Thornbury. 
 
 Mason's Hist, of St. Patrick's Cathedral. 
 
 15. a. d. 1294.- -Adam de Woddington. 
 
 16. a. n. 1307.— Eichard Beresford. 
 
 17. a.b. 1317. — W. Pitz John, Archbishop of Cashel. 
 
 Ware's Irish Bishops. 
 
 18. a.b. 1321. — Eoger Outlawe, Prior of Kilmainham. 
 
 Hist, of the Priory of Kilm., p. 42 ; Dalton's Co. Dublin ; 
 Trial of the Dame Alice Kettler, published in Latin by 
 the Camden Society ; Clynn's Annals for 1324; Harleian 
 MSS. ; Archdall's Monasticon. 
 
 19. a. d. 1325. — Alexander de Bicknor, Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
 Dalton's Archbishops of Dublin. 
 
 20. a. n. 1330. — Adam de Limberg. 
 
 21. a. n. 1331. — William Prior of Kilmainham. 
 
 History of the Priory of Kilmainham. 
 
 22. a. n. 1337. — Thomas Charleton, Bishop of Hereford. 
 
 Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Anglicanae, vol. i. 462. 
 
 23. a. b. 1338. — Bobert de Henningsberg. 
 
 24. a. n. 1340. — Bobert de Askeby. 
 
 25. a. b. 1341. — John L' Archer, Prior of Kilmainham. 
 
 History of the Priory of Kilmainham. 
 
 26. a. n. 1346.— John Morris. 
 
 27. a.b. 1350.— John de St. Paul, Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
 Dalton's Archbishops of Dublin. 
 
 28. a.b. 1356.— Eichard d'Askeaton. 
 
 29. a. b. 1357. — John de Frowick, Prior of Kilmainham. 
 
 History of the Priory of Kilmainham. 
 
 30. a.b. 1357. — Thomas de Burleigh, Prior of Kilmainham. 
 
 History of the Priory of Kilmainham; Gilbert's Viceroys 
 of Ireland, p. 226 ; Cox's History of Ireland. 
 
 31. A. b. 1363. — Bobert de Askeaton, Prior of Newtown. 
 
 Archdall's Monasticon. 
 
 32. A. b. 1368.— Thomas le Eevi, Bishop of Waterford. 
 
 Ware's Bishops ; Statute of Kilkenny, by Hardiman, in 
 Tracts Eelating to Ireland, 97-106. 
 
 33. A. b. 1371. — John de Botheby. 
 
THE CHANCELLORS OF IRELAND. x iii 
 
 34. a.d. 1372.— William Taney, Prior of Kilmainham. 
 
 Patent Rolls, Close Rolls, n. f. R. 3. 
 
 35. a. d. 1377.— Robert de Wickford, Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
 Daltou's Archbishops of Dublin. 
 
 36. a.d. 1377.— Alexander Balscott, Bishop of Ossory. 
 
 37. a.d. 1379. — John Colton, Archbishop of Armagh. 
 
 Ware's Irish Bishops. 
 
 38. a.d. 1387.— Richard White, Prior of Kilmainham. 
 
 History of the Priory of Kilmainham. 
 
 39. a.d. 1391.— Sir Robert Preston. 
 
 40. a.d. 1391.— Robert Walby, Archbishop of York. 
 
 Dalton's Archbishops of Dublin ; Le Neve's Fasti Eeclesias 
 Anglicanse. 
 
 41. a. d. 1393.— Richard JSTorthalis, Bishop of Ossory. 
 
 Patent Rolls. 
 
 42. a. d. 1397.— Robert de Baybroke, Bishop of London. 
 
 Le Neve's Fasti Ecclesise Anglicanse. 
 
 43. a.d. 1398. — Thomas Cranly, Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
 Dalton's Archbishops of Dublin. 
 
 44. a.d. 1410. — Patrick Barret, Bishop of Perns. 
 
 Ware's Irish Bishops. 
 
 45. a.d. 1413. — Sir Laurence Merbury. 
 
 Grace's Annals, p. 147, u. ; Davis's Discovery, 143, 144 ; 
 vide Errata, supra, p. x. 
 
 46. a. d. 1416. — "William Pitz Thomas, Prior of Kilmainham. 
 
 History of the Priory of Kilmainham. 
 
 47. a. d. 1423. — Richard Sedgrave. 
 
 48. a. d. 1423.— William Tinbreagh. 
 
 49. a. d. 1423. — Richard Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
 Dalton's Archbishops of Dublin ; Gilbert's Viceroys of Ire- 
 land, 311, 312, p. 22, line 21. 
 
 50. A. d. 1426. — Sir Robert Pitz Eustace. 
 
 51. a.d. 1438.— Thomas Chace. 
 
 52. a. d. 1446. — Richard de Wogan. 
 
 53. a. d. 1446.— Sir John Talbot. 
 
 54. a. d. 1449.— Thomas FitzGerald, Abbot. 
 
XIV THE CHANCELLORS OF IRELAND. 
 
 55. a. d. 1451.— Edmund Ouldhall, Bishop of Meath. 
 
 Ware's Bishops of Meath. 
 
 56. a.b. 1453. — Sir Edward Fitz Eustace. 
 
 Gilbert's Viceroys of Ireland. 
 
 57. a. d. 1459.— The Earl of Rutland. 
 
 Gilbert's Viceroys of Ireland, 369. 
 
 58. a. n. 1460. — John Dynham. 
 
 59. a. d. 1461.— Sir "William Welles. 
 
 60. a. b. 1462.— The Earl of "Worcester. 
 
 Journal of the Historical and Archaeological Society of 
 Ireland, vol. i., 3rd series, p. 13. 
 
 61. a. d. 1463.— The Earl of Kildare. 
 
 Gilbert's Viceroys of Ireland; Betham's Constitutional 
 History of Ireland, 367. 
 
 62. a. d. 1468. — Eobert Allameston. 
 
 63. a.b. 1468.— Sir "William Dubley. 
 
 64 \ a. d. 1472. — Lord Portlester and John Taxton, jointly. 
 
 & ( Gilbert's Viceroys of Ireland; History of the Earls of 
 
 65 ' Kildare. 
 
 66. a. b. 1474. — George de Venbam. 
 
 67. a. d. 1480. — "William Sherwood, Bishop of Meath. 
 
 68. a.b. 1481. — Laurence de St. Lawrence. 
 
 69. a.b. 1483— Lord Howth. 
 
 70. a. b. 1483. — Thomas Fitzgerald. 
 
 History of the Earls of Kildare ; Kennett's History of 
 England, vol. ii. 587. 
 
 71. a.b. 1492. — Sir Alexander Plunket. 
 
 72. a. d. 1494. — Henry Deane, Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 Hooke's Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. v. 
 507. 
 
 73. a. d. 1496. — Walter Fitzsimons, Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
 Dalton's Archbishops of Dublin. 
 
 74. a.b. 1498. — William Eokeby, Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
 Dalton's Archbishops of Dublin. 
 
 75. a. b. 1509. — Lord Howth. 
 
 Lodge's Peerage, tit. Howth. 
 
 76. a. d. 1513. — Sir "William Compton. 
 
 Sir Bernard Burke's Visitation of Seats and Arms, edition 
 1854, 2nd series, p. 48 ; Playfair's Family Antiquities 
 vol. i. 264. ' 
 
LORD CHANCELLORS OF IRELAND. XT 
 
 77. a. d. 1527. — Hugh Inge, Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
 Dalton's Archbishops of Dublin. 
 
 78. a.d. 1528. — John Allen, Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
 Dalton's Archbishops of Dublin; State Papers, temp. 
 Henry VIII., Contents; Carew MSS. temp. Henry VIII., 
 Index ; Morrin's Patent Rolls, Index ; Renehan's Irish 
 Church History. 
 
 79. a. d. 1532. — George Cromer, Archbishop of Armagh. 
 
 "Ware's Archbishops of Armagh. 
 
 80. a. d. 1534. — Lord Trimleston. 
 
 "Ware's List ; Playfair's Family Antiquities. 
 
 81. a. d. 1538. — Sir John Allen. 
 
 Morrin's Patent Rolls ; State Papers, temp. Henry VIII., 
 vols. ii. and iii. 
 
 82. a. d. 1547. — Sir Eichard Eeade. 
 
 Morrin's Patent Rolls ; State Papers, temp. Henry VIII., 
 vols. ii. and iii. 
 
 83. a.d. 1550. — Sir Thomas Cusack. 
 
 Morrin's Patent Rolls ; State Papers, p. 45 ; Carew MSS. 
 temp. Edward VI. 
 
 84. a. d. 1555. — Hugh Curwen, Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
 (Authorities given in text). 
 
 85. a.d. 1567. — Eobert Weston. 
 
 Mason's History of St. Patrick's Cathedral; Carew MSS., 
 vol. ii. p. 92 ; State Papers ; Hollingshed's Chronicles. 
 
 86. a.d. 1576. — William Gerrard. 
 
 Mason's History of St. Patrick's Cathedral; Hollingshed's 
 Chronicles ; Carew MSS. ; Morrin's Patent Rolls. 
 
 87. a. d. 1581. — Adam Loftus, Protestant Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
 Mason's History of St. Patrick's Cathedral ; Hollingshed's 
 Chronicles ; State Papers, temp. Elizabeth. 
 
 88. a. d. 1605. — Thomas Jones, Protestant Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
 Dalton ; Ware ; in addition to authorities given in text. 
 
 89. a. d. 1619.— Lord Ely. 
 
 Dalton ; Ware; Ellington's Life of Archbishop tTssher, 82 ; 
 Strafford's Letters, vol. ii. 67-72; Carte's Life of Or- 
 mond, vol. i. 235 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, 
 390, 391; Rushworth's Collections, vol. viii. 221 ; Cox's 
 History of Ireland, 67. 
 
 90. a. n. 1638. — Sir Eichard Bolton. 
 
 Rinuocini Papers ; other authorities in text. 
 
 91. a. d. 1656.— Sir William Steele. 
 
 Fosse's Dictionary of the Judges of England. 
 
XVI THE CHANCELLORS OF IRELAND. 
 
 92. a. d. 1660. — Sir Maurice Eustace. 
 
 Carte's Life of Ormond, vol. ii. 
 
 93. a. d. 1665. — Michael Boyle, Protestant Archbishop of Armagh. 
 
 Ware. 
 
 94. a. r. 1686.— Sir Charles Porter. 
 
 Lives of the Norths, vol. ii. 192-94 ; Shirley v. Fagg, 
 State Trials ; Hommersham Cox's Institutions of the 
 English Government, 476 ; Clarendon's State Letters, 
 148-170. 
 
 95. a. d. 1686.— Sir Alexander Pitton. 
 
 (All the Records of the Parliament of James II. were pub- 
 licly burnt.) Morrin's Patent Rolls, Preface, p. xviii. ; 
 Copy of an Act of James II. Repealing the Act of Settle- 
 ment ; PUrwden's Review, vol. i. ; Memoirs of James II., 
 vol. ii. 328-9. 
 
 96. a. n. 1696.— John Methuen. 
 
 Fenwick'a Case ; State Trials, vol. xiii. 712 ; Chalmer's 
 Collection of Treaties, vol. ii. 307. 
 
 97. a. d. 1703.— Sir Eiehard Cox. 
 
 Archdall's "Ware ; Life of Cox, p. 250. 
 
 98. a. d. 1707. — Eiehard Freeman. 
 
 (Authorities in text). 
 
 99. a. d. 1710. — Sir Constantine Phipps. 
 
 Craik's Romance of the Peerage ; State Trials ; Dalton's 
 Archbishops of Dublin, p. 462 ; Lords' Journals. 
 
 100. a.b. 1714.— Lord Middleton. 
 
 Lords' Journals, vol. ii. 660. 
 
 101. a. d. 1725.— Eiehard West. 
 
 (Authorities in text). 
 
 102. a. d. 1726.— Lord "Wyndham. 
 
 Boulter's Letters, Index; Lords' Journals (Ir.). 
 
 103. a. d. 1739.— Lord Jocelyn. 
 
 Lords' Journals; Clanricarde's Memoirs. 
 
 104. A. d. 1756.— Lord Bowes. 
 
 (Authorities given in text.) Burke's Extinct Peerage, tit 
 Lord Anglesey. 
 
 105. a.d. 1767.— Lord Lifford. 
 
 Dalton's Archbishops of Dublin, 474-6; Journal of the 
 Duke of Grafton ; Parliamentary Debates : Lords' 
 Journals. 
 
THE CHANCELLORS OF IRELAND. xxn 
 
 106. a.d. 1789.— Lord Clare. 
 
 Journals of the Houses of Lords and Commons (Ir.), vol. ix., 
 part i. 304 ; Hardy's Life of Lord Charlemont ; Irish 
 Parliamentary Debates ; Curran's Life by his Son ; Dub- 
 lin Evening Post; Pue's Occurrences; Lord Clonmel's 
 Diary; Grattan's Speeches; Authorities in text; Sir 
 Jonah Barrington. 
 
 107. a. d. 1802.— Lord Redesdale. 
 
 (Authorities in the text.) Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. 
 
 108. a.d. 1806.— George Ponsonby. 
 
 Irish Parliamentary Debates: English do., Hansard. 
 
 109. a.d. 1807.— Lord Manners. 
 
 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates ; Fosse's Judges of Eng- 
 land ; Recollections of Lord Cloncurry ; Sheil's Legal 
 and Political Sketches. 
 
 110. A. d. 1827.— Sir Anthony Hart. 
 
 Law Recorder. 
 
 111. a.d. 1830.— Lord Plunket. 
 
 (Authorities in the text.) Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. 
 
 112. a.d. 1835. — Lord St. Leonards. 
 
 113. a.d. 1841. — Lord Campbell. 
 
 114. a.d. 1846. — Sir Maziere Brady. 
 
 115. a.d. 1852. — Francis Blackburne. 
 
 116. a.d. 1857. — Sir Joseph Napier. 
 
 117. a.d. 1867. — Abraham Brewster. 
 
 118. a.d. 1868.— Lord CHagan. 
 
 119. a.d. 1874. — John Thomas Ball. 
 
TABLE OF REGNAL YEARS OF THE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND 
 SINCE THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 
 
 a. B. 1172.- 
 
 — -Henry II. 
 
 a. b. 1553.- 
 
 — Mary I. 
 
 A.D. 1189.- 
 
 —Richard I. 
 
 a.b. 1558.- 
 
 —Elizabeth. 
 
 A.B. 1199.- 
 
 — John. 
 
 a. b. 1603.- 
 
 —James I. 
 
 A.D. 1216.- 
 
 —Henry III. 
 
 a. b. 1625.- 
 
 — Charles I. 
 
 a.b. 1272.- 
 
 —Edward I. 
 
 a. b, 1649.- 
 
 —Commonwealth . 
 
 a. b. 1307.- 
 
 —Edward II. 
 
 a. b. 1660.- 
 
 —Charles II. 
 
 a.b. 1327.- 
 
 -Edward III. 
 
 a.b. 1685.- 
 
 —James II. 
 
 a.b. 1377.- 
 
 — Kichard I. 
 
 a. d. 1689.- 
 
 —William III. an 
 
 a.b. 1399.- 
 
 —Henry IV. 
 
 
 Mary II. 
 
 A.B. 1413.- 
 
 —Henry V. 
 
 a.b. 1694.- 
 
 -William III. ale 
 
 a. b. 1422.- 
 
 —Henry VI. 
 
 a.b. 1702.- 
 
 —Anne. 
 
 A.B. 1461.- 
 
 -Edward IV. 
 
 A. B. 1714.- 
 
 —George I. 
 
 a.b. 1483.- 
 
 —Edward V. 
 
 A.B. 1727.- 
 
 — George II. 
 
 a.b. 1483.- 
 
 -Richard III. 
 
 a.b. 1760.- 
 
 —George III. 
 
 a.b. 1485.- 
 
 -Henry VII. 
 
 a.b. 1820.- 
 
 —George IV. 
 
 a. b. 1509.- 
 
 -Henry VIII. 
 
 a.b. 1830.- 
 
 -William IV. 
 
 a.b. 1547.- 
 
 -Edward VI. 
 
 a.b. 1837.- 
 
 — Victoria. 
 
THE LORD CHANCELLORS OF IRELAND. 
 
 TN the latter days of the Eoman Empire the chief notary of 
 J- the Emperor was called the Chancellor. It was his duty to 
 cancel such parts of the Imperial Edicts as appeared to him to 
 be contrary to law. On the downfall of the western portion of 
 the Empire, the various sovereigns who divided that vast in- 
 heritance erected each his Chancery, where functions similar to 
 those just mentioned were performed. All the modern states 
 of Europe have or have had their Chanceries. In France, the 
 Chancellor was an officer whose duties were not unlike those 
 which belong to the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain. Abo- 
 lished at the Eevolution, the office was restored by the first 
 Napoleon, and its occupant was graced with the loftier title 
 of Arch-Chancellor of France. In later years his functions 
 have been transferred to the Minister of Justice. In Germany, 
 Austria, and Eussia, the office of Chancellor of the Empire is of 
 the highest dignity. In Scotland, previous to the Union, in 
 1707, the rank and duties of Chancellor were similar to those 
 held and performed by the Lord Chancellor of England, and 
 now by the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain. 
 
 When the English, in the reign of Henry II., established 
 themselves in Ireland, the government was modelled on that of 
 England, and the great officers of the Crown for conducting 
 public affairs were (together with a Privy Council) the Chief 
 Governor, the Lord Chancellor, and the Lord Treasurer. Owing 
 to the loss of the records, we can point to no Chancellor earlier 
 than in the year 1186, fourteen years after Henry II. received 
 the submission of the Irish potentates. 
 
 From the establishment of the Anglo-Norman power in this 
 country, and during the hundred and thirty years succeeding, 
 there existed a High Court of Justice — that of the Justiciary, as 
 the Lord Lieutenant was then called — and of this Court the 
 Chancellor and the Treasurer were members, together with such 
 feudal barons as thought proper to attend. The language of 
 the Courts in those times was Norman-French ; the Chancellor 
 
Z HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE. 
 
 and other Judges, as their names indeed betoken, were French, 
 and many of their patents were signed by the Kings of Eng- 
 land at their palaces in Normandy or Bordeaux. We shall now 
 commenoe our list with the first Chancellor of whom there is 
 mention in history — Stephen de Eiddell. 
 
 1. A. D. 1186. — Stephen de Eiddell was appointed by 
 Henry II. while he held his Court at Rouen, in Normandy. 
 Of this Chancellor nothing is known further than his name, 
 and that he held the seals of ofiice during the long term of 
 thirty-three years,, commencing in 1186 and terminating in 
 1219. 
 
 2. A. D. 1219. — John de Worchley. 
 
 3. A.D. 1230 — Eromund le Brunn. 
 
 4. A.D. 1232. — Ralph de Neville, Bishop of Chichester, 
 a scion of an illustrious family which numbers amongst its 
 members a Queen of England and many prelates, earls, 
 and barons. Ralph in early life entered the Church, where 
 his knowledge of civil and ecclesiastical law soon won for 
 him an enviable notoriety. He was a strenuous opponent of 
 Magna Gharta, and to this opposition, perhaps, may be attri- 
 buted his appointment of Lord High Chancellor of England 
 and Ireland, for life. An ecclesiastical lawyer, named (xeoflry 
 de Turville, Archdeacon of Dublin, was at the same time named 
 his deputy in Ireland. But De Neville did not uninterrupt- 
 edly enjoy the royal favours, for in 1235 he was summarily 
 removed from both offices, owing to his having been appointed 
 Bishop of "Winchester by the Pope, in opposition to the king's 
 brother. When, however, His Majesty discovered that the Holy 
 See had acted on the uninfluenced suggestion of the ecclesiastics 
 who returned his name as " the most worthy," he restored De 
 Neville, then Bishop of Winchester, to his place in the English, 
 but not in the Irish, Court of Chancery. 
 
 5. A.D. 1235. — Alan, of the Holy Eaith. 
 
 6. A.D. 1236. — Robert de Luttrel, Treasurer of St. 
 Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. 
 
 7. A.D. 1237. — Geoffry de Turville, Archdeacon of Dub- 
 lin, afterwards Bishop of Waterford, who had been Deputy- 
 Chancellor to Ralph de Neville. 
 
 8. A.D. 1237. — Ralph, Bishop of Norwich — being at the 
 same time a Canon of St. Patrick's Cathedral — was one of the 
 wittiest and most amusing men of his day, and it was to his wit, 
 rather than to his piety, that he owed his subsequent nomina- 
 tion, in 1256, by his brother canons, to the Archbishopric of 
 
BURNING OF THE RECORDS. -3 
 
 Dublin ; tut tlie Court of Bome, awake to the interests of the 
 Church, disregarded the election, and rebuked the electors for 
 having recommended a man so unfitted for the office. 
 
 9. A.D. 1S45. — William de Will-svard. 
 
 10. A.D. 1259. — Fromtjnd le Brtjnn, son of the late Chan- 
 cellor of that name, held the seals for four-and-twenty years. 
 In 1279 he was elected by the Dean and Chapter of St. Patrick's 
 to be Archbishop of Dublin, in opposition to Wilham, chosen by 
 the prior and convent of the Holy Trinity (now Christ Church 
 Cathedral). Both the elections were annulled by Nicholas III., 
 "the then Pope. 
 
 11. A.D. 1283. — Walter de Fulburn; appointed by Ed- 
 -ward I. 
 
 12. A.D. 1285. — William de Buerlaco. 
 
 13. A.D. 1292. — Thomas de Cantoc, Bishop of Emly, was 
 of Norman extraction, and was appointed Chancellor in this 
 year. In 1293 he was compelled by a summons from the 
 Pope to attend the Court of Rome, and on his return in 1295 
 -was reappointed to his office. In 1300 he attended a parlia- 
 ment held before Richard de Burgo, Earl of Ulster, by which 
 several statutes were enacted, of which one was for the regula- 
 tion of the currency, one for the regulation of servants' wages, 
 another and a stringent one against depasturing pigs on the 
 Curragh of Kildare, and another granting to the Prior of All 
 Hallows (now Trinity College) four large oaks of the forest 
 of Grlencree to repair the Prior's Mill, and Bridge at the Steyne 
 (Donnybrook). In 1306 the Lord Chancellor was consecrated 
 Bishop of Emly, in the Church of the Holy Trinity, in the 
 city of Dublin, in presence of vast numbers of the nobility 
 and gentry, whom, with a magnificence unheard of in those 
 times, he feasted right worshipfully with divers dainties, " so 
 that all men wondered." 
 
 During Cantoc's Chancellorship, an accidental fire broke 
 out in St. Mary's Abbey, when the records of ages were con- 
 sumed. This national calamity is thus noticed in the Patent 
 Rolls:— "Be it remembered, that all the Rolls of Chancery 
 of Ireland were, at the time Master Thomas Cantoc was Lord 
 Chancellor of Ireland, in the 28th year of King Edward 
 (a.d. 1300), son of King Henry III., destroyed by an acci- 
 dental fire in the Abbey of the Blessed Virgin, near Dublin, 
 except two rolls of the same year." These two rolls— one of 
 them called Antiquissimce literce patentes — which contain several 
 interesting charters and muniments of an historical nature, 
 are yet in existence, and in the custody of the Master of the 
 
 b 2 
 
4 UNIVERSITY IN DUBLIN. 
 
 Eolls. The Chancellor, who felt this loss bitterly, resigned^, 
 and died in the same year. 
 
 14. A.D. 1293. — Walter be Thornbury, Chantor of St.. 
 Patrick's, was appointed Lord Chancellor on the departure of 
 De Cantoc for Rome, in 1293. This office, however, he- 
 resigned in a few months, and returned to his cathedral 
 duties. The death, in 1313, of John Lech (remarkable- 
 amongst the Archbishops of Dublin, as having been the first 
 who obtained Papal Bulls for the founding of a university 
 in that city), brought De Thornbury forward as a candidate- 
 for the vacant mitre. He was supported by the Dean and' 
 Chapter of St. Patrick's : the Priory of the Holy Trinity put 
 forward Alexander de Bicknor, Prebendary of Maynooth, and 
 Lord Treasurer of Ireland. De Thornbury resolved on bring- 
 ing his claims under the notice of the Holy See, and with this 
 view took shipping for France, but was lost in a storm that 
 arose on the night of his departure ; " whereupon, as if heaven 
 had promulgated its judgment, De Bicknor's election was no- 
 longer opposed." 
 
 15. A.D. 1294. — Adam de Woodington. 
 
 16. A. D. 1307. RlCHARD DE BeRESFORD. 
 
 17. A.D. 1317. — William Fitz- John, Archbishop of CasheL. 
 who had previously been Canon of the Cathedral of Kilkenny, 
 was consecrated, in 1303, Bishop of Ossory. In 1317, a vacancy 
 having occurred in the See of Cashel, the Dean and the greater 
 part of the canons elected as dignissimus one John McConnell,. 
 Bishop of Cork, while the remaining portion of the canons pre- 
 sented Thomas O'Lonchy, as best suited for this high office. 
 The Pope, however, set both candidates aside, and appointed,, 
 on the 1st of April, 1317, William Fitz-John to the Arch- 
 bishopric. Edward II., on the 10th of July following, ele- 
 vated him to the Chancellorship of Ireland. On the 6th March, 
 1318, he was constituted Deputy Governor-General of the- 
 country, at a salary of £500 a-year, during the temporary 
 absence of the Lord Justice, which office he filled until the 8th 
 of October following. The most reverend Chancellor resigned 
 the seals in 1321, and died on the 15th September, 1326. 
 
 18. A. D. 1321.— Roger Outlawe, Prior of Kilmainham. 
 The Priory of Kilmainham, one of the grandest monasteries 
 in Europe, was situated where the Eoyal Hospital now stands. 
 Founded by Strongbow for the Knights Templars, the hospi- 
 tal passed, on the suppression of that illustrious order by the 
 Pope, in 1307, to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. Its 
 Prior was a Lord of Parliament, who not unfrequently, during 
 the absence of the Lord Deputy, was one of the Chief Gover- 
 
PRIORY OF KILMAINHAM. 5 
 
 nors of the country, with the title of Lord Justice. Of the 
 ■once powerful family of the Outlawes none are now left. 
 Roger Outlawe became Prior in the early part of the fourteenth 
 century, and his elevation in the Church was followed by his 
 elevation in the State. In 1318 he became Lord Treasurer, 
 and in 1321 Lord High Chancellor of Ireland. During his 
 -Chancellorship one of the most remarkable trials recorded in 
 the long history of superstition took place ; the trial was that 
 of the Dame Alice Kettler, for witchcraft. She was not 
 indeed tried before the Chancellor, but the applications to him 
 were so numerous in the matter, that it deserves to be noticed 
 in this place. The criminal law was then administered by 
 the Chief Justice, but there was a class of cases against God 
 and religion, in which the temporal and spiritual Courts had 
 concurrent jurisdiction. The imaginary crime of witchcraft 
 was of this class: — Now in the year 1324 informations were 
 sworn before the Chief Justice against divers persons accused 
 of the offence, and were by him remitted to Richard de 
 L'Edred, Bishop of Ossory, for trial. Great was the excite- 
 ment caused by this prosecution, "for this bizness about the 
 witches troubled all the estate of Irelande, the more so as the 
 accused were connected more or less with the quality." Dame 
 Alice lived in the town of Kilkenny. She was four times 
 married — first to Roger Outlawe, a banker, nephew of the 
 Lord Chancellor. The principles of banking were not generally 
 understood in those days ; but Roger Outlawe, upon his death, 
 bequeathed a fabulous fortune to his widow and child, William 
 •Outlawe. The lady, finding herself in easy circumstances, 
 married secondly a Monsieur Le Blunt, and he dying after 
 a few years, she married one Richard de Valle, on whose 
 death she married last of all Sir John de La Poer. This 
 Sir John, together with her younger children, were the pro- 
 secutors in this case; the defendants being the dame, her 
 son, William Outlawe, and two women named Dyonesia Basil 
 and Florinda Petroneuil. 
 
 The Bishop of Ossory had been a Franciscan friar in Nor- 
 mandy, and woe to the unhappy prisoner who should stand 
 accused of the soul-destroying sins of either heresy or witchcraft 
 in his court. His leanings being well known, an application 
 was made to the Chief Justice (Monsieur L'Bnfant), that as the 
 crime was an indictable one at Common Law, the trial should 
 take place in the temporal Court, but the Chief Justice re- 
 mitted the case to the ecclesiastical Judge, inasmuch as witch- 
 craft involved the crime of heresy. How deeply the Lord 
 Chancellor felt for the position in which his relations were 
 placed may be estimated by the fact, that he sent down at his 
 own expense two able lawyers to defend them, their fees being 
 
O TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 three shillings and eight pence a-day and four pence for their 
 dinner each. On their arrival in the cathedral town of Kilkenny, 
 the learned counsel, who had ridden hard from Dublin, pro- 
 ceeded through the main street to the Court, which was held in 
 the chapter-house. 
 
 There were seven counts in the indictment: the first was that 
 the prisoners were guilty of sorcery, witchcraft, and heresy, that 
 they absented themselves from the services of the Holy Church, 
 and that they received not the Eucharist nor took holy water. 
 
 The second was that they sacrificed to the devil out of hell. 
 
 The third — That by his assistance they knew what was 
 coming to pass in after times. 
 
 The fourth — That meeting with each other on a wild morass,, 
 they cursed the faithful. 
 
 The fifth — That on a wild common, and in the darkness of 
 the night, they made a hell-broth of horrible ingredients, where- , 
 by they excited amongst God's people unlawful loves, hatred,, 
 and revenge. 
 
 The sixth indictment, which contained the sting of the pro- 
 ceedings, was as follows : — " That many of the sons and daugh- 
 ters of the aforesaid Alice, by her former husbands, demanded 
 vengeance upon her and upon her co-conspirators — that she so- 
 bewitched her aforesaid three husbands, and so deprived them 
 of reason, that they bequeathed to her and to her son William 
 Outlawe all their worldly wealth." 
 
 Seventhly— That her present husband, John de La Poer, by 
 means of her enchantments, was reduced to such a state of 
 emaciation that his nails all fell off. That in proof of all the 
 aforesaid statements, the said John de La Poer, by means of 
 keys which he had obtained from a female servant, opened an 
 oaken closet, and found the Host with the devil's name, instead 
 of the name of Christ, inscribed upon it, and that the said John 
 de La Poer then took from out of the said chest those poisoned 
 charms, and committed them to the care of two reverend priests, 
 who took them to the Most Reverend Father in God, Bichard of 
 Ossory. That the aforesaid Dame Alice was in the constant 
 habit of sleeping in one and the same bed with a certain devil 
 out of hell, who might be sometimes seen in the shape of a 
 black cat, and of other times in the shape of a mangy dog 
 accompanied by two black slaves. 
 
 When the clerk of the Court had read those accusations 
 (which to other generations appear puerile and childish), a moan 
 of horror arose from the swaying multitude — arrectceque horrore 
 comae, et voxfaucibus hcesit. 
 
 Evidence was then given of the vast wealth which the Out- 
 lawes had accumulated, and it was put beyond all contradiction 
 that a sum of £3000 [equivalent to £60,000 of the present 
 
TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT. 7 
 
 currency] was found buried in her kitchen ; and counsel for 
 the prosecution called on the Judge to presume that all this 
 vast wealth must have been accumulated by the aid of the 
 demon; and evidence was produced and received, without a 
 smile, that it was the custom of the Dame Alice to watch for the 
 monthly appearance of the new moon, and then having said the 
 Lord's prayer backwards, at once to sweep the filth of the streets 
 to the house of her son, muttering all the time — 
 
 " To the house of William my son 
 Hie all the wealth of Kilkenny town." 
 
 "Witnesses were also called to prove that the Sacred Host, with 
 the devil's name imprinted upon it, was found in her chest, toge- 
 ther with a box of ointment, wherewith she used to grease the 
 broom-stick upon which she used of her custom to ride through 
 the fog and filthy air. 
 
 The counsel for the prisoner denounced the accusations as 
 groundless, and contended that Dame Alice and her son were 
 industrious and clever people, who put together vast riches 
 without a charge of dishonesty having been ever made against 
 them. As for witchcraft and sorcery, it was a charge made by 
 those who endeavoured to work their ruin and possess them- 
 selves of their wealth. When all the pleadings, proofs, and 
 addresses of counsel had closed, the matter was referred to the 
 consideration, not of a jury, but of a single Judge, and he 
 thereupon framed his interlocutory sentence, which was after- 
 wards referred to the Bishop, and by him confirmed. 
 
 On the appointed day the prisoners were brought up to hear 
 their doom, and the Judge having dwelt on the enormity of the 
 crime they were charged with, felt no doubt on his mind that 
 the Dame Alice, Basil, and Petroneuil, were guilty. The 
 doomster was then called on to read the sentence, which he 
 gabbled over after the clerk, condemning them to the flames. 
 Petroneuil was burnt at the Cross of Kilkenny on that night ; 
 but whether the Dame Alice suffered at the stake it is impossi- 
 ble now to state. "William Outlawe was discharged by the 
 Lord Chancellor on the application of Arundel Le Poer, Senes- 
 chal of Kilkenny. 
 
 Foiled in his attempt to crush the thrifty and unfortunate 
 William Outlawe, the Bishop turned to wreak his vengeance on 
 the Seneschal, and he accordingly applied to the Lord Chan- 
 cellor for a warrant to arrest him on the serious charge of heresy. 
 The Chancellor, knowing the temper of the Bishop, retired to 
 his convent at Kilmainham, and then having taken counsel with 
 the Chief Justice, refused the application, on the very technical 
 ground, it is true, that the accused was not excommunicated ; 
 
8 TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 and if he had heen excommunicated, the writ sought for should 
 he de excommunicato capiendo (for capturing an excommunicated 
 person), which could not he granted until forty days had elapsed 
 after the sentence of exoommunication. Forthwith La Poer 
 was excommunicated, and one would suppose that a man of 
 worldly wisdom should at once have fled to another country ; 
 however, there he remained, and appeared Sunday after Sunday 
 in the cathedral. The forty days went over, and La Poer was 
 then arrested, and confined in goal, where he died of the hard- 
 ships he had endured. 
 
 The conduct of the Bishop of Ossory now became intolera- 
 ble, and his sanity was doubted, especially when questions of 
 heresy or sorcery were raised. The Lord Chancellor, though 
 Prior of Kilmainham, was his inferior in the Church, and the 
 odium — perhaps the peril — of crossing the Bishop's path de- 
 volved on the Chief Justice ; and in this opposition he had the 
 entire concurrence of Alexander de Bicknor, Archbishop of 
 Dublin, who was resolved to check the mad career of his brother 
 of Ossory. An opportunity soon presented itself, and it hap- 
 pened in this wise. Several persons were accused before L'Edred 
 of sorcery and heresy ; they were excommunicated, and he ap- 
 plied to the Lord Chancellor Outlawe for a writ to capture the 
 excommunicated persons wherever they might be found within 
 the diocese of Ossory. The writ was at once granted, and 
 Outlawe immediately resigned the seals, and was succeeded by 
 Alexander de Bicknor, Archbishop of Dublin, as Lord Chan- 
 cellor, but the accused parties had meanwhile taken shelter in 
 the archdiocese of Dublin ; while the writ was not large enough 
 to capture them in any other diocese than that of Ossory. The 
 Chancellor Archbishop^ not only refused to back the warrant, 
 but took the accused under his protection. L'Edred appealed 
 to Rome, and the appeal appears to have been unsuccessful ; for 
 he was prevented from returning to his diocese, and the profits 
 and jurisdiction of his see were seized by the Archbishop. That 
 a trap had been set for L'Edred by Lord Chancellor Outlawe 
 and De Bicknor is a self-evident proposition, and that the ac- 
 cused were aware of the trap can hardly be doubted. The 
 Bishop of Ossory being silenced, De Bicknor, who was then 
 (1326) not in high favour with the Crown, resigned the seals 
 which Outlawe resumed. One of his first acts was to appoint a 
 standing counsel for the Priory of Kilmainham, his counsel 
 being a lawyer of great reputation, a Monsieur Nicholas de 
 Ross, whose annual fee, payable at All-Hallow-een, was twenty 
 shillings of solid silver. 
 
 In the year 1327 the Chancellor was sworn in as Lord Jus- 
 tice^ to act as Chief Governor in the absence of the Lord Deputy. 
 A violent feud broke out about this time between Thomas Fitz- 
 
BANQUET IN ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL. 9 
 
 <*erald, afterwards Earl of Desmond, and Lord Arundel de La 
 £oer. ±he former was aided by the great families of the 
 gutters and Birminghams, and the latter by the De Burghos 
 On the cause of this faction fight it is needless to speculate': 
 blood flowed on both sides. But in the year 1329, Outlawe 
 ettected a reconciliation between them ; and although it was 
 the season of Lent, a great banquet was given in St. Patrick's 
 Cathedral to celebrate the event. To many it might appear 
 that a feast given in so holy a place as a Cathedral Church was 
 a sacrilegious desecration, but it was surely not sacrilegious 
 to establish peace, and a feast even in the sanctuary was no 
 desecration, when those who had before been enemies sat recon- 
 ciled at the same board. The tradition is, that FitzGerald and 
 De La Poer shook hands, the one standing in the sacristy and 
 the other in the church, with the door wisely closed between 
 them, in which a hole had previously been cut for their hands 
 to pass through, so that no deadly weapons could be used by 
 either. In 1330 the Prior was appointed Lord Deputy, and 
 resigned the Chancellorship, when a lawyer named Adam de 
 Limberg, of whom nothing further is known, succeeded him. In 
 this year the area of the Lord Chancellor's jurisdiction was 
 narrowed, on account of the Earls of Ormond and Desmond 
 being appointed Lords Palatine of the counties of Tipperary 
 -and Kerry respectively, both counties being created counties 
 Palatine. In each the appointment of the Judges, Sheriffs, and 
 Coroners, was vested in the Earl, and both those territories were 
 consequently withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Court of 
 Chancery. 
 
 In 1331, Anthony de Lucy, a soldier of eminence, was sent 
 ■over as Lord Deputy, to curb the arrogance and violence of the 
 Anglo-Norman nobility, and the Prior of Kilmainham, in con- 
 sequence, resigned the sword of state, and was remitted to his 
 former place as Chancellor, of which he remained in undisturbed 
 possession until 1334. In this year the Lord Deputy having 
 •caused one of the Birminghams to be hanged in the Tower of 
 Dublin, ever since called Birmingham's Tower, the severity of 
 the punishment led to his recall, and Chancellor Outlawe was 
 once more appointed Lord Justice. Appalling atrocities were 
 about this time perpetrated with impunity by the Irish chief- 
 tains, one of whom, M'Dermot, prince of Moylurg, took the habit 
 of a monk in the Abbey of Boyle, in whose silent cloisters "he 
 did penance for his crimes." The subsequent career of the 
 ■Chancellor appears to have been a constant oscillation between 
 the places of Lord Deputy and Lord Chancellor, and yet he 
 was not forgetful of his duty as churchman, for we find him 
 granting to "priest Joyce the church of St. Michael, Wexford," 
 with all the profits thereof for life, at the annual rent of four 
 
10 m'dermot prince of moylurg. 
 
 marks (£2 13s 4d) of silver money, he taking proper care that 
 the church should be well attended. In 1335 he was Lord 
 Deputy to the Lord Lieutenant, Sir John Darcy, in which year 
 , he granted an annual pension of 13s. 4d. to a lawyer named Adam 
 de Kingston to act as counsel for the Priory of Kilmainham 
 whenever he should he required so to do. He also made a grant 
 to the ranger of the Kilmainham park, which extended from 
 the Priory (now the Royal Hospital) almost to where the Vice- 
 regal Lodge now stands: it was then known as the "Park of the 
 Spring of the pure Water " — in Irish, Pare na fionn uisge, a name 
 which has since been corrupted into the " Phoenix Park." The 
 allowance for the park-keeper was a "big loaf of white bread, a 
 dish of meat from the kitchen, and two flaggons of ale— *-one of 
 the best, and the other of the second kind — daily, with a half a 
 mark annually." 
 
 In 1337, for some reason now unknown, Outlawe mad© 
 such a grant for his life to Master Walter de Islep as demon- 
 strates that the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem lived in com- 
 parative splendour at Kilmainham. De Islep was " to have- 
 place for himself, for his chamberlain, chaplain, two upper ser- 
 vants, one lower servant, five stable boys, and five horses," and 
 "to sit at the Prior's table, and at his right hand, so that 
 he might be more commodiously served as well in eating as 
 in drinking." The chaplain was not to sit at the Prior's table, 
 but with the brethren of the house, and his upper servants to- 
 rank with the upper servants of the reverend the Prior. In 
 the same year he was again Chancellor, the Bishop of Hereford 
 having resigned the seals, which he had held for one year. In 
 1338 he was again Lord Deputy, resigned the seals, and was 
 replaced in the Court of Chancery by Robert de Henningburg, 
 Master of the Polls. In 1340, being then at once Chancellor 
 and Lord Justice, he proceeded to one of the monasteries of his 
 order at Aney, in the county of Limerick, and there died full of 
 years and honours. His contemporary, Friar Clynn, says that 
 " Outlawe was a prudent and upright man, and well learned in 
 the laws." 
 
 19. A. D. 1325. — Alexander de Bicknor, Archbishop of 
 Dublin. This Chancellor had previously, from 1307 to 1309, 
 filled the office of Lord Treasurer. A vacancy having occurred 
 in the See of Dublin, two names were put forward : the Cathe- 
 dral (St. Patrick's) supporting Walter de Thornbury, and the 
 Church of the Holy Trinity, now Christ Church, declaring for 
 De Bicknor, who was descended from an English family of 
 great antiquity. Walter's election having been confirmed by 
 the Holy See, he took shipping for France, where the Pope, 
 who then resided at Avignon, held his Court. The night of his- 
 departure a great storm arose, and the vessel, with all hands on 
 
DUBLIN UNIVERSITY. 11 
 
 board, was lost. No obstaole then presenting itself, De Bicknor 
 was consecrated Archbishop of Dublin. In the same year, on 
 the return to his diocese, Pope John XXII. instructed him to 
 excommunicate Edward Bruce and his several followers, if he 
 did not render satisfaction for the ravages and burnings of 
 churches committed by him throughout the kingdom. In 131S 
 De Bicknor was appointed Lord Justice, and was summoned on 
 the 10th of November, in the same year, to attend a parliament 
 at Lincoln, the Archbishop of Dublin having, in right of cer- 
 tain two manors in England, conferred by King John upon 
 them, the privilege of sitting in the English parliaments. A 
 university was founded in Dublin in 1320 by the Archbishop, 
 which soon, however, dwindled away. About this time, ne- 
 gociations of a delicate nature were entrusted to De Bicknor, 
 in relation to a proposed marriage between the king's eldest 
 son, afterwards Edward III., and the daughter of the King of 
 Arragon. The Archbishop was not, however, destined to enjoy 
 the uninterrupted sunshine of royal favour. The Castle of La 
 Eoyalle, in Aquitaine, was in 1321 besieged by the French 
 army ; this fortress, which it was considered might have held 
 out, surrendered by his advice. The king complained bitterly 
 to the Pope of the prelate's conduct, and besought His Holiness 
 to remove him from the Archbishopric of Dublin, and to appoint 
 another in his place. De Bicknor, in the next year, was restored 
 to the king's favour, and was appointed Lord Chancellor. 
 Complaints were made that while he was Lord Treasurer he 
 had squandered the public moneys. A writ of sequestration 
 was issued, and the revenues of the see were seized, in satisfac- 
 tion of the arrears alleged to be due to the Crown. The Pope 
 refused to believe the accusations. The Archbishop then retired 
 from the Chancery, in which he had presided for eleven months, 
 and was never afterwards restored. He died on the 14th of 
 July, 1349, and was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral. 
 
 20. A. D. 1330. — Adam de Limberg. 
 
 21. A.D. 1335.— William, Prior of St. John's, near Dublin. 
 22 A D. 1337.— Thomas Charleton, Bishop of Hereford, 
 
 Canon of York, Archdeacon of Wells, and King's Treasurer, 
 was appointed Bishop of Hereford in 1327, and raised to the 
 Chancellorship in 1337, and to be Lord Deputy in 1338, when he 
 resigned the seals on Prior Outlawe's being recalled. Ihese he 
 resumed in 1339, and continued to hold them, together with the 
 office of Chief Governor, until ill health compelled him to resign, 
 and returning to his diocese, he died in 1343. 
 
 23. A. D. 1338.— Eobert de Henningberg, Master of the 
 Eolls. 
 
12 WAGER OF BATTLE. 
 
 24. A. D. 1340. ROBERT DE ASKEBY. 
 
 25. A. D. 1341. — John L' Archer, Prior of Kilmainliam. 
 The first notice of this churchman is found in the Clarendon Ma- 
 nuscripts in reference to a suit which he had with Archbishop 
 De Bicknor, for the church of Dunboyne ; the one insisting that 
 the advowson was appurtenant to the Priory of Kilmainham, 
 and the other that it belonged as of right to the See of Dublin. 
 The two litigants appealed to arms, or as it is called in the lan- 
 guage of the law, waged their battle, and being churchmen, ap- 
 pointed their champions, but the suit was compromised, and thus 
 the unseemly spectacle allowed by the jurists of that age was 
 avoided. In 1341 L' Archer was appointed Chancellor. Having 
 escaped the unpleasant mode of trial above described, he was soon 
 after involved in a matter of great national importance. Edward 
 III. had long since desired the breaking down of the ascendancy 
 of the great Anglo-Irish lords. His first step in doing so was 
 the resumption of all lands, liberties, seignories, and jurisdic- 
 tions, which either he or his father had granted to those lords in 
 Ireland. To allay the excitement produced by this and other 
 measures, the Lord Deputy, Sir John Morris, summoned a par- 
 liament to meet in Dublin in October, 1342, which the Earl of 
 Desmond and many other lords refused to attend, and in oppo- 
 sition thereto held a general assembly or convention of their 
 own at Kilkenny, in November, where, after setting forth their 
 titles, they protested against the injustice of the measure, and 
 deplored the peculation, fraud, and mismanagement of the Eng- 
 lish officials. Amongst other things, they complained of the re- 
 conquering by the Irish of one-third of what the king's ancestors 
 had conquered, as well as of the abandonment to the Irish of the 
 castles of Roscommon, Athlone, Eandtown, and Bunratty. A 
 memorial was accordingly drawn up by the Kilkenny assembly, 
 and forwarded, by the hands of the Chancellor, to Edward III. 
 It appears unaccountable that the seals could have been left one 
 moment longer in the custody of one who should thus become 
 the mouthpiece of this anti-parliament, yet no steps to remove 
 him from the Bench were taken. The remonstrance having 
 been laid before the king, he was pleased to comply with the 
 requirements thereof, so far as confirming the Anglo-Irish 
 nobles in the grants made to them by his predecessors. 
 
 In 1346 the Lord Deputy, Sir Ralph, who, as many of his 
 predecessors had done, resided at the Priory of Kilmainham ; 
 whilst there he died on Easter Sunday. L' Archer was ap- 
 pointed to succeed him, and resigned, in consequence, his Priory 
 of Kilmainham and the Chancellorship. In the next year, 
 however, having relinquished the sword of state, he took posses- 
 sion once more of both the offices of which he had so lately di- 
 
LORD CHANCELLOR MORRIS. 1& 
 
 vested himself. But he too was out down by that plague which 
 in this year threatened, according to Friar Clynn, " to sweep 
 away the whole race of Adam." L' Archer being dead, the Pre- 
 ceptor of the Priory appeared in Court on the next morning 
 before the Judges, and delivered up the Great Seal. 
 
 26. A. D. 1346. — John Morris. The family of Morris, then 
 ancient, was distinguished in Ireland from the reign of Henry II. 
 From Sir Harvey de Monte Maurescisco, who accompanied 
 Strongbow to that country, was descended Sir John Morris, 
 Viceroy of Ireland, and his son John Morris became Lord Chan- 
 cellor in 1346. He was ancestor of the family of that name 
 which afterwards settled in the town of Gralway, and was of 
 the fourteen tribes of that tribal city. The lineal descendant 
 of Lord Chancellor Moms is now Chief Justice of the Court of 
 Common Pleas. 
 
 27. A. D. 1350. — John de St. Paul, Archbishop of Dublin, 
 who had been Prebendary of Mornington, York, and Canon of 
 Dublin, was promoted to the Archbishopric by Pope Clement VI. 
 He was soon engaged in a contest with the Archbishop of 
 Armagh as to his right to raise the Primatial cross within the 
 See of Dublin. The king, having vainly endeavoured to put 
 an end to this oft-recurring scandal, brought the matter under 
 the notice of the Holy See, and Pope Innocent VI. at length 
 decided that each of those prelates should be Primate, but, for 
 distinction of style, that the Archbishop of Armagh should be 
 entitled "Primate of all Ireland," while the Metropolitan of 
 Dublin should be " Primate of Ireland." In 1350, De St. Paul 
 was appointed Lord Chancellor, and in 1352 he presided at a 
 provincial council in the Church of the Holy Trinity (Christ 
 Church), when several canons were enacted, which are given at 
 length in Wilkins' Concilia, vol. iii., p. 18. In 1358 the Most 
 Eeverend Chancellor was appointed Privy Councillor, where- 
 upon the king wrote the Lord Deputy, recommending him in 
 all cases of difficulty to follow the suggestions of this able pre- 
 late. The lords of the Marches of the Pale— so De St. Paul 
 insisted — should be made to live in their castles and on their 
 lands, and should be compelled to improve and defend them. 
 In the council he invariably strove to reconcile opposing interests, 
 and strenuously advised that a general amnesty should be 
 granted to those who had fallen under the displeasure of the 
 Court. In 1360 he was one of the commoners appointed " to 
 explore for mines of gold and silver," which were considered to 
 be abundant in various parts of Ireland. The anxious care of 
 the Chancellor through his long career of usefulness was like- 
 wise directed to works of piety and of art, not the least of which 
 was the building, at his own expense, of the choir, east from 
 
14 PRIMACY OF " ALL " IRELAND. 
 
 the chancel arch, of the Church of the Holy Trinity (Christ 
 Church), Dublin, then an Augustinian monastery, whose prior 
 was, ex officio, Lord of Parliament. In 1356 the Chancellor 
 resigned the seals, and thenceforward he appears to have busied 
 himself entirely about things spiritual. He died on the 6th of 
 November, 1362, and was buried in front of the steps of the 
 high altar of Christ Church. 
 
 28. A. D. 1356. BlCHARD DE AsKEATON. 
 
 29. A. D. 1357. — John de Frowick, Prior of Kilmainham, 
 was appointed Chancellor, and in the same year he resigned his 
 Priory and the seals. The succeeding prior (Burleigh) suc- 
 ceeded him also as Chancellor. This last remained in office until 
 1359, when De Frowick returned to power, and the Hospital 
 obtained a confirmation of their privileges. 
 
 30. A. D. 1357. — Thomas de Btjrgleigh, Prior of Kilmain- 
 ham, was appointed Chancellor at the salary of £40 a-year. 
 Small as this sum was, he found it almost an impossibility to 
 ■obtain payment of it, and arrears having accumulated, permission 
 was granted to pay himself by retaining the rents of the Manors 
 of Chapel Izod and the Salmon Leap, which he, as Prior of Kil- 
 mainham, held in fee-farm from the Crown. He was soon after 
 called on to resign the seals until he should " account for and 
 clear himself of divers crimes and misdemeanors then laid to his 
 charge," and was accordingly brought to trial, in Drogheda, be- 
 fore the Viceroy, Lionel Duke of Clarence, and the Chief Justice, 
 for accepting in a certain suit in his Court bribes from both the 
 plaintiff and the defendant, and for plundering the country 
 about Kells. The jury however acquitted the accused, who was 
 then restored to his place in Chancery. In 1368, being Prior and 
 Chancellor, he was sent by the Lord Deputy, together with other 
 commissioners, to treat with the Birminghams, who were in open 
 rebellion. No sooner had the King's commissioners presented 
 themselves than they were seized and thrown into prison ; and 
 while the other commissioners were ransomed, the Birminghams 
 refused to liberate the Chancellor on any terms whatsoever until 
 their kinsman, James Birmingham, who was kept a prisoner in 
 the castle of Trim, should be released. Having obtained their 
 terms, Burleigh was discharged from custody, and returned 
 to Dublin, and once more resumed his place as Chancellor : the 
 hardships, however, which he had undergone shortened his life, 
 and he died in 1371 at his Hospital of Kilmainham. 
 
 31. A.D. 1363. — Eobert de Askeaton, Prior of Newtown, 
 Trim, was Chanoellor during one of the retirements of Thomas 
 de Burleigh. 
 
 32. A. D. 1368.— Thomas Le Eevi, Bishop of "Waterford, 
 was Chancellor during the captivity of De Burleigh. Imme- 
 
STATUTE OF KILKENNY. 15 
 
 diately on his appointment he issued writs for the convocation 
 of a parliament at Kilkenny — a parliament which afterwards 
 passed the execrable statute known as The Statute of Kilkenny, 
 the 40th of Edward III. ; which, though recited and amended 
 by other Acts, is yet not on the roll of the statutes. "For it was 
 lent out by the Master of the Rolls in 1630, and lost." A copy, 
 however, in Norman- French, still exists in the Lambeth Library. 
 The Parliament which passed that Act was presided over by 
 this Most Reverend Chancellor, and the scope and intention of 
 the Act are best explained by the preamble, which, slightly cur- 
 tailed, is as follows : — 
 
 " Whereas at the conquest of the land of Ireland, and for a 
 long time after, the English of the said land used the English 
 language, mode of riding and apparel, and were governed and 
 ruled, both they and their subjects, according to the English law, 
 in which time God and holy Church, and their franchises accord- 
 ing to their condition were maintained, and themselves lived in 
 due subjection; but now many English of the said land, for- 
 saking the English language, manners, mode of riding, laws 
 and usages, live and govern themselves according to the man- 
 ners, fashion, and language of the Irish enemies ; and alsojhave 
 made divers marriages and alliances between themselves and the 
 Irish enemies aforesaid ; whereby the said land, and the liege 
 people thereof, the English language, the allegiance due to our 
 lord the King, and the English laws there, are decayed, and the 
 Irish enemies exalted and raised up, contrary to reason ; our 
 lord the King, considering the mischiefs aforesaid, in conse- 
 quence of the grievous complaints of the Commons of his said 
 land, called his Parliament at Kilkenny, the Thursday next 
 after the day of Cinders [Ash Wednesday], in the fortieth year 
 of his reign, before his well-beloved son, Lionel Duke of Cla- 
 rence, his Lieutenant in the parts of Ireland, to the honour of 
 God and of His glorious Mother, and of holy Church, and for 
 the good government of the said land, and quiet of the people, 
 and for the better observation of the laws, and punishment of 
 evil doers there, are ordained and established by our said lord 
 the King, and his said Lieutenant, and our lord the King's coun- 
 sel there, with the assent of the Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, 
 and Priors (as to what appertains to them to assent to), the 
 Earls, Barons, and others of the Commons of the said land, 
 at the said Parliament there being and assembled, the ordi- 
 nances and articles under written, to be held and kept upon 
 the pains contained therein." 
 
 Intermarriage between the English and Irish races was then 
 declared treasonable. The use of the Brehon Law was con- 
 demned. English subjects speaking the Irish language, and 
 English mothers sending out their children to be nursed by 
 
16 STATUTE OF KILKENNY. 
 
 Irish nurses, were denounced, and such acts of theirs were de- 
 clared to be treasonable acts. " And if any one shall do any 
 of the acts prohibited he shall be attainted, and shall suffer 
 death." By this statute, which is of great length, the Irish 
 people were excluded from every kind of benefit at the hand 
 of the law, and the breach between the English and Irish races 
 was widened, and tbeir animosities were intensified. Le Revi 
 held the seals during a considerable portion of 1368 and '69. 
 On his retirement, De Burleigh, Prior of Kilmainham, was- 
 restored to the Court of Chancery, and remained in office until 
 his death in 1371. 
 
 33. A.D. 1371. — John de Eotheby. — This Chancellor was 
 allowed, in addition to his salary of £40 a-year, " six men-at- 
 arms, and six archers on horseback for the custody of the Great 
 Seal." In the early part of 1372 he retired from office. In the 
 month of March of the latter year he was despatched by the- 
 Privy Council to England for the purpose of informing the 
 king of the true state of this country; and for his expenses- 
 in going "to the king's Palace from Dublin, and for his lodg- 
 ing as well as for his entertainment and for his return home- 
 wards," he had an allowance of £8 sterling. 
 
 34. A. D. 1372. — William Tany, Prior of Kilmainham, was 
 in this year Lord Chancellor and Lord Deputy ; the former 
 office he held until 1377, but the latter only for a few months. 
 In the close Polls there occur frequent orders for his salary of 
 £40 a-year. Immediately on the death of Edward III. in 
 1377 he retired from office, and was again Chancellor in 1379, 
 resigned in a few months, and in 1381 resumed office and re- 
 tired after a few weeks, and was once more recalled shortly pre- 
 vious to his death in 1383. 
 
 35. A. D. 1377. — Eobeet de Wickford, Archbishop of 
 Dublin, Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and Archdeacon 
 of "Winchester, had been in 1373 appointed by Edward III. 
 Constable of the Castle of Bordeaux, one of the most impreg- 
 nable of the English fortresses in France. On his return from 
 that office occurred the once celebrated case of Beanstone v. Be 
 Wickford. One John Beanstone obtained a judgment in the 
 King's Court at Bordeaux against the defendant for £400 ; 
 but after judgment it appeared that De Wickford had never 
 been served with the process of the Court., and had known 
 nothing about the proceedings ; as a matter of course he ap- 
 pealed to the Appellate Court, which was then the Court of the 
 Privy Council in England, and he there reversed the judgment 
 of the Court below. In 1375 he was appointed by His Holiness 
 Gregory IX. Archbishop of Dublin. Immediately on his arri- 
 
ABSENTEE TAX. 17 
 
 ■val in Ireland, a case occurred which demonstrates that a plain 
 tiff in the Courts in Westminster might in the fourteenth century, 
 when the cause of action arose in England, mark judgment 
 against a defendant residing in Ireland, even though no process 
 had issued from the Irish Courts. The matter in dispute was 
 merely a sum of £10, for which De Wickford was sued in Eng- 
 land, and judgment was there recovered against him. The writ 
 oifi.fa., as such writs were then, as now, called, was directed to 
 the sheriff of one of the English counties to take the goods of 
 the defendant for satisfaction of that sum. The sheriff inquired 
 and found that he had no goods, and the return he made to the 
 Court was to that effect. A writ was then directed at "West- 
 minster to the sheriff of the city of Dublin, and was acted 
 upon without any judgment whatever being had in Ireland. 
 In 1377 the Archbishop was appointed Lord Chancellor of 
 Ireland, and was proceeding to hold with the Judge Itinerant 
 the assizes within the Pale, when he was summoned to Eng- 
 land ; whither, having delivered up the seals, he proceeded. The 
 reason for this summons, it may be presumed, was to assist the 
 Crown in passing the absentee tax for this country — a tax which 
 was imposed by the English Parliament (1 Richard II.), and 
 which, amounting to two-thirds of their revenues, was imposed 
 on all persons having lands in Ireland, and not residing upon 
 them. 
 
 In 1382 De Wickford was ordered to attend a conference of 
 the prelates and nobles to be held at Naas, and was then directed 
 not to absent himself from Ireland without licence. In 1385 
 he was again appointed Chancellor, and held the seals during 
 three months, when he was succeeded for a short time by 
 Richard White, Prior of Kilmainham. In 1387 he obtained a 
 patent for holding a fair at Swords, and a grant to the See of 
 Dublin of a portion of the abbacy of Glendalough. In 1390 
 he had leave of absence for one year to visit England, during 
 which interval (on the 29th of August, 1390) he died. 
 
 36. A. D. 1377. — Alexandee Balscott, Bishop of Ossory. 
 Though of English descent and education, the first preferment 
 he obtained in the Church was a canonry in the Cathedral of 
 Kilkenny. His profound learning and abilities soon brought 
 him under the notice of Gregory IX., who appointed him Bishop 
 of Ossory. In 1372, by the favour of Edward III., he became 
 Lord Treasurer, an office he continued to fill with trifling inter- 
 ruptions for the ten years following. In 1377 he was made 
 Lord Chancellor ; he soon after retired, was reappointed in 1381, 
 and was several times Lord Justice and Lord Deputy. While 
 performing the twofold duties of Chief Governor and Chancellor, 
 he was created Bishop of Meath by the Pope in 1386. It was at 
 
18 ROBERT DE VERE. 
 
 this time that the king allowed a young man, Robert de Vere, to 
 acquire an entire ascendancy over him. Created Marquis of Dub- 
 lin and Duke of Ireland, De Vere had transferred to him by pa- 
 tent, which was confirmed to him by parliament, the entire sove- 
 reignty of the kingdom of Ireland for life. The royal standard 
 was lowered and his own hoisted ; and writs were issued in his 
 name and sealed with his seal. The influence, however, of the 
 favourite was of short duration; he was soon degraded from 
 power, and driven into exile. It is remarkable that no less than 
 two Chancellors fell into disgrace in consequence of the short 
 sunshine of power which he enjoyed. De la Pole, Earl of 
 Suffolk, Lord Chancellor of England, was deprived entirely of 
 office, and Balscott, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, nearly shared 
 the same fate, because he had presumed, after De Yere's dis- 
 grace, to march against the Irish enemy under De Vere's and 
 not under the royal standard. In reply to an angry letter from 
 the king, Balscott, having excused himself as best he could, was 
 restored to the royal favour, and continued, with a few short in- 
 terruptions, to hold office until 1391, when he retired to his 
 diocese ; and thenceforward, until the accession of Henry IV., 
 he bestowed his undivided attention on things spiritual, not 
 taking part in public affairs even during the invasions of the 
 country by Richard II. In the 1st year of Henry IV., 4th of 
 January, 1399, Balscott once more presided in the Court of 
 Chancery, at the same time acting as Lord Deputy. Dying on 
 the 10th of November, 1400, his remains were conveyed with 
 almost kingly state to St. Mary's Abbey, Trim, where they were 
 interred amidst the universal regret of the people. Deeply versed 
 in the civil and canon law, he gave entire satisfaction in the 
 many offices he had filled, while as a Christian prelate his worth 
 and his zeal were unsurpassed. 
 
 37. A. D. 1379. — John Colton, Archbishop of Armagh, was 
 a native of the county of Norfolk in England, and was so much 
 devoted to the maintenance of the English interest in Ireland, 
 that he raised at his own expense a regiment of armed men to 
 relieve the town of Athy, then beseiged by the Irish enemy. 
 He had long been Dean of St. Patrick's, and in reward for his 
 services, Richard II. appointed him Lord Chancellor of Ireland, 
 an appointment thus noticed in the annals of St. Patrick's Ca- 
 thedral : — "In 1379 Dean Colton was made Lord Chancellor of 
 Ireland, and continued in the office until the 26th of November, 
 1381, when William Tany, Prior of Kilmainham, was appointed 
 his successor." On the 13th of January following he set out on 
 a tour of inspection, in company with the Lord Deputy, Ed- 
 mund Mortimer Earl of March. Having arrived at Cork, the 
 Lord Deputy was taken suddenly ill at the convent of St. Do- 
 
RICHARD II. 19 
 
 minie, where he expired on the 26th of the December following. 
 Colton, who was then appointed Lord Justice, was in 1382 con- 
 secrated Archbishop of Armagh, and was soon after employed 
 to conduct negociations with the Papal court. In the later 
 years of his life he applied himself with zeal to bring about a 
 happy termination to the great schism which was then rending 
 ihe Catholic Church ; and with this view he wrote a work, which 
 is still preserved in the library of Merton College, Oxford, en- 
 titled, "De Causa Schismatis, et de Remediis ejus." 
 
 38. A. D. 1387. — Richard White, Prior of Kilmainham. 
 
 39. A. D. 1391. — Sir Robert Preston. 
 
 40. A. D. 1391. — Robert Walby, Archbishop of York, who 
 had been an Augustinian friar, was a great orator and an accom- 
 plished theologian. His position was so high at the court of 
 Edward III., that he was appointed to accompany the Prince of 
 "Wales on a tour through the English dominions in France. 
 
 He was reckoned in the first rank amongst the learned, both 
 for his eloquence and skill in languages. He next became Pro- 
 fessor of Divinity at Thoulouse, and such an excellent preacher, 
 that he was advanced to the highest promotions. These quali- 
 fications gained him the esteem of Edward the Black Prince, 
 who obtained for him the bishopric of Ayr. On the accession 
 -of Richard II. he was commissioned by that prince to treat with 
 John, Duke of Lancaster, who had set up a title to the kingdom 
 of Castille and Leon ; he was also appointed on three other com- 
 missions : one concerning a peace with Peter, King of Arragon ; 
 another to negotiate a league with Charles, King of Navarre ; 
 and a third to effect the reduction of John, Earl of Armagnac, 
 the king's vassal, to obedience. Having been elevated to the 
 Archbishopric of Dublin, he was soon after his enthronization 
 appointed Chancellor, which office he resigned in 1393, when 
 Northalis, Bishop of Ossory, succeeded him, and he was re- 
 appointed in the year following, when Richard II. landed at 
 Waterford with an army of 35,000 men. The king, having 
 reduced to temporary submission the Irish chieftains, summoned 
 a council at Kilkenny, which was attended by the most reverend 
 Chancellor, when he obtained a confirmation of the privileges, 
 pleas, courts, fairs, franchises, customs, and appurtenances, to 
 the See of Dublin belonging. The king then departed for 
 England, and Walby continued to hold the seals until 1397, 
 and was successively appointed Bishop of Chichester and Arch- 
 bishop of York. Dying in 1398, his remains were brought, 
 surrounded with great pomp, to St. Edmund's Chapel, West- 
 minster Abbey, where a brass figure, in episcopal robes, under a 
 canopy of the same metal, is inlaid on a flat stone that marks 
 his grave. He was author of several works against the follow- 
 
 c2 
 
20 RICHARD II. 
 
 ers of Wycliffe, a new sect which had then attracted great num- 
 bers of adherents in England : he also wrote a volume of sermons- 
 for every day throughout the year. 
 
 41. A. D. 1393. — Eichard Northalis, Bishop of Ossory, 
 entered the church as a Carmelite friar, in his native city of 
 London. Possessed of great learning and ability, he was 
 appointed Bishop of Ossory in 1386, and, immediately after, 
 was commissioned by Eichard II. to inquire into the corruptions 
 alleged to have taken place in the administration of the Govern- 
 ment in Ireland. In 1391 he was employed as ambassador to 
 Pope Boniface IX. ; on his return, in 1393, was made Lord Chan- 
 cellor of Ireland; in 1394 was intrusted with a secret mission 
 to the Pope in relation to the state of Ireland; and in 1397 was 
 created Archbishop of Dublin, when the king made a grant to 
 him and his successors of the privileges of the admiralty of Dalkey, 
 a town then and for centuries after of considerable importance. 
 Northalis died in 1397, and was interred in St. Patrick's Cathe- 
 dral. 
 
 42. A. D. 1397. — Robert db Bavbrokb, Bishop of London, 
 a member of a noble family in the county of Northampton, 
 became Lord Chancellor of England in 1381. While in office he- 
 opened two parliaments, and on both occasions denounced the doc- 
 trines of Wycliffe. His appointment to the high office of Lord 
 Chancellor of England was distasteful to Robert de Vere, then 
 in the height of his power. His desire was entirely to get rid 
 of what he supposed to be the tyranny of ecclesiastical Chancel- 
 lors, and to have laymen for the future appointed to that office. 
 In 1383 De Baybroke was degraded, and the seals were given 
 to another ; but on the banishment of De Vere, however, he was 
 restored to the royal favour, and in 1397 was made Lord Chan- 
 cellor of Ireland, when a distinguished lawyer named Robert 
 Sutton, Master of the Rolls, was given to him as a deputy. De 
 Baybroke received the Irish seals in 1398, and soon after died, 
 and was buried at the grand entrance of Old. St. Paul's Cathedral, 
 London. 
 
 43. A.D. 1398. — Thomas Cranley, Archbishop of Dublin, 
 Chancellor of the University of Oxford, arrived in Dublin for 
 the first time in 1397, with the Duke of Surrey, Lord Lieutenant 
 of Ireland. While the Archbishop held the seals, Richard II. 
 landed the second time at Waterford. This expedition was 
 more unfortunate than the former, and was decimated by 
 famine and harassed by the guerilla warfare of the Irish 
 enemies. The king, with his shattered army, marched towards 
 Dublin, and men and horses perished from hunger on their way 
 through that hostile country. Famine with its horrors set in, 
 and a biscuit in the day between five men is said to have been 
 
"divers damnable taxes." 21 
 
 thought a good allowance for a soldier. Arrived in Dublin at 
 last, disastrous accounts of the rebellion awaited him from home. 
 After an inglorious campaign he returned to England, leav- 
 ing the Lord Deputy and Lord Chancellor in charge of the 
 Government. Richard II. was then dethroned, and Henry IV. , 
 who usurped the vacant throne, continued the Archbishop in 
 -office as Chancellor. His future career, up to his death in 1417, 
 appears to have been one of reoeiving and resigning the seals, 
 Lawrence Merbury, a then well known lawyer, being appointed 
 as his deputy. 
 
 44. A.D. 1410. — Patrick Barrett, Bishop of Ferns, be- 
 came Lord Chancellor in 1410. The English influence and 
 interest declining rapidly in Ireland, the Lord Chancellor was 
 ordered to retire "to his diocese, partly that he might the better 
 protect it, and partly to restore confidence ; and Robert Sutton, 
 Master of the Rolls, was appointed Deputy-Chancellor in his 
 absence. Resigning the seals in 1413, the remaining years 
 of his life were devoted to writing the history of his predecessors 
 in the See of Eerns — a work of considerable merit, which he 
 concluded in 1415, in which year he died. 
 
 45. A.D. 1430. — Sir Laurence Merbery, who had pre- 
 viously distinguished himself in the service of the Crown by 
 several successful engagements with the Irish enemy. In return 
 for his services, Henry IV., in 1402, appointed him Lord Trea- 
 surer — an office he uninterruptedly held for seven years : he was 
 Deputy-Chancellor to Archbishop Cranley from 1407 to 1409, 
 and in 1413 was appointed Lord Chancellor, the mandate there- 
 to from the Crown having been read in the presence of the great 
 dignitaries of State in the Council Chamber of Christ Church. 
 In 1414, he accompanied the Viceroy, Lord Eurnival (after- 
 wards Earl of Shrewsbury), on a martial tour through the 
 Pale, the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas having been 
 commissioned to hear cases in Chancery during his absence. 
 Victory followed the English arms for a time ; and the suc- 
 cesses thus gained won the approbation of the Anglo-Norman 
 inhabitants of the narrowed boundaries of the Pale. But the 
 enthusiasm thus kindled was of short duration, owing to the 
 imposition of "divers damnable taxes," as those imposts were 
 afterwards styled in the Statute 10th of Henry VII., called 
 " coyn, livery, and pay — that is, horse meat and man's meat for 
 the finding of their horsemen and footmen, and over that 4d. 
 and 6d. daily to every one of them, to be had and paid of the 
 poor earth tillers and tenants, without anything doing or paying 
 therefor." 
 
 Merbery resigned in 1416, and was restored to office in 1420. 
 The next year he obtained leave of absence from "the feast of 
 
22 THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP TALBOT. 
 
 St. Peter ad Vincula" ensuing, when the priest Hugh Danenfc 
 was appointed Deputy-Chancellor in his stead. Returning in 
 1421, Merbery resigned on the 21st of August, hut was restored 
 on the 14th of October, with an increased salary of six shillings- 
 and eight pence a-day. William Young, Archdeacon of Meath, 
 acted as his deputy, an ecclesiastic who, in 1437, was excom- 
 municated by the Primate for divers wise reasons, which are long 
 since forgotten. 
 
 46. A.D. 1416. — "William Fitz Thomas, Prior of Kilmain- 
 ham, was appointed Chancellor this year, during the temporary 
 absence of Merbery. The Prior's name appears in his own 
 handwriting to the charter granted by Henry V. to the city of 
 Dublin ; which city, previous to that time, had been governed 
 by a provost, whose powers were of a very limited nature. 
 Thenceforward the corporation annually elected their own 
 mayors, the first of whom was Cusaek, ancestor to a Chancelloir 
 of that name who lived a century and a quarter later. It is 
 stated in the Liber Munerum Hibernise that " the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant on the 21st of August at Drogheda, in the presence of 
 the council, received the Great Seal into his custody from Hugh 
 Danent, treasurer, and caused the patent to be sealed therewith, 
 after which he sealed up the said seal in a certain leather bag 
 with his own seal, and delivered it to the said Hugh, to keep in 
 the treasury until the Chancellor should be sworn in, who was 
 sworn on the 25th at Athboy, and on the 28th had the seals 
 delivered to him." This prior was several times Chancellor,, 
 and died in 1426. 
 
 47. A.D. 1423. — Richard Sedgrave held the seals from the- 
 8th of April to the 8th of June, and then became Chief Baron 
 of the Exchequer. 
 
 48. A.D. 1423. — William Tinbreagh, Lord Treasurer, was- 
 Chancellor for six weeks. 
 
 49. A.D. 1423.— Richard Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin, 
 brother of Lord Furnival, who had been Lord Deputy, entered 
 early in _ life into the ecclesiastical state, was appointed Arch- 
 bishop in 1417, and was acting as Lord Deputy when the- 
 Chancellor Fitz Thomas died. During the several years he 
 held the high offices of state, Ireland, outside the Pale, was in 
 a condition of anarchy and confusion — incessant broils, rapines, 
 murders, and family warfare. In 1426 the Chancellor's pre- 
 sence being required in England, Sir Robert Fitz Eustace was- 
 appointed Chancellor during his absence. In 1428 a Parlia- 
 ment was held in Dublin, when a memorial was drawn up 
 and signed by Archbishop Talbot, as Chancellor, and entrusted 
 to the Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench (Fortescue), and to- 
 
ENGLISH INNS OF COURT. 23 
 
 Strange, who was afterwards Chancellor, to deliver to the king; 
 in which, after complaining of the annoyances the king's 
 subjects had to endure from their Irish enemies, and expressing 
 their happiness at having so wise a viceroy, they set forth, 
 several grievances, amongst which was the exclusion of the 
 Irish law students from the English Inns of Court, whither 
 they were wont to resort to learn the English laws, as they 
 had done in times past. In 1433 he again proceeded to Eng- 
 land on some public business, when " Priest Chace, a Doctor 
 of Sacred Theology," was appointed Chancellor in his stead. 
 
 In 1436 he was appointed deputy to the Lord Lieutenant, 
 Sir Thomas Stanley, and in 1440 was Lord Justice, and held 
 a Parliament in Dublin in the following year, at which it was 
 enacted that, for the better making provision for war, every 
 twenty pounds per annum worth of land should be charged 
 with the furnishing and maintaining one archer on horseback. 
 This method of providing soldiers, now introduced into Ireland 
 for the first time, had been known in England since the Con- 
 quest as tenure by knight's service, the whole of that country 
 having been then divided into about sixty thousand knights' 
 fees, each knight's fee being equivalent to the maintenance 
 of one mounted knight for forty days per annum ; half a 
 knight's fee being equivalent to the maintenance of a mounted 
 knight for twenty days, and so on down to the fortieth part of 
 a knight's fee, equivalent to one day's maintenance. Whilst 
 this Parliament was sitting, it was rumoured that the Earl of 
 Ormond was about being re-appointed Lord Lieutenant. A 
 petition was thereupon despatched to the king, praying His 
 Majesty that some mighty English lord, and no Irishman, 
 should be intrusted with that important post, and further 
 alleging that the Earl was entirely unfitted for the office. Henry 
 VI., however, remembering the Lancastrian tendencies of the 
 Earl, paid no regard to the prayer of the petition, and appointed 
 Iii'tti Viceroy. But the Earl was not long in office until he was 
 charged with compromising the Crown debts, and misappropriat- 
 ing the public revenue. He was at once arrested and tried for 
 high treason in the Marshal's Court, before the Duke of Bed- 
 ford, Constable of England, and was acquitted. The annals 
 state that Fitzgerald, Prior of Kilmainham, accused the Earl of 
 Ormond of high treason, and that the Prior, in consequence, was 
 challenged to a trial by combat, which was to have taken place 
 at Smithfield ; but that the quarrel, through the intervention of 
 the king, was decided without fighting. 
 
 Having for thirty years filled the highest offices in Church 
 and State, Eichard Talbot died on the 14th of August, 1449, 
 and was buried at the foot of the high altar in St. Patrick's 
 Cathedral. 
 
24 EARL OF RUTLAND, LORD CHANCELLOR. 
 
 50. A.D. 1426. — Sir Eobert Fitz Eustace. 
 
 51. A.D. 1438.— Thomas Chace, Priest, and Doctor of 
 Theology. 
 
 52. A. D. 1446. — Eichard de Wogan, chaplain. 
 
 53. A.D. 1446. — Sir John Talbot, son and heir of the 
 Earl of Shrewsbury. 
 
 54. A. D. 1448. — Thomas Fitzgerald, Mitred Abbot of the 
 Abbey of St. Thomas a-Becket, Dublin. This, the fifty-fourth 
 Chancellor, as also the fiftieth, fifty-first, fifty-second, and fifty- 
 third, appear to have taken office during the temporary retire- 
 ments of Chancellor Talbot, on whose death in 1449 this abbot 
 succeeded him in the Court of Chancery. 
 
 55. A. D. 1451. — Edmund Ouldhall, Bishop of Meath. 
 
 56. A.D. 1453. — Sir Edward Fitz Eustace was appointed 
 Chancellor by Eichard Duke of York, who, though viceroy to 
 Henry VI., was entitled to the throne of England, as descen- 
 dant of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, second son of Edward III. 
 The real object of sending the duke to this country was to re- 
 move him to a distance from the seat of government, as his 
 presence was regarded by the reigning house as dangerous. 
 His winning manners, kindly disposition, and title to the 
 throne, won for hi™ many friends in Ireland, and the native 
 chieftains, whom he was sent to subdue, supplied him with as 
 many beeves for the use of his kitchen as he chose to demand. 
 In 1454, having appointed the Lord Chancellor his deputy, he 
 returned to England. A parliament was then convoked under 
 the presidency of Fitz Eustace, and an Act passed which 
 made it thenceforward illegal for suitors to appeal, save in 
 cases of high treason, to the Appellate Courts in England ; 
 and it was further enacted that in all appeals the appellant, 
 if unsuccessful, should pay a fine of £20. The Chancellor, in 
 1455, resigned the sword of state, and thence until his death, 
 in 1459, confined himself to the duties of his court. 
 
 57. A.D. 1459. — The Earl of Eutland, second son of 
 Eichard Duke of York, was appointed Chancellor at the early 
 age of seventeen ; having, however, for his deputy an aged and 
 accomplished lawyer, John Dynham. To understand how this 
 appointment was made, we have to retrace our steps to the year 
 1454, when the Viceroy left the government of the country in 
 the charge of his deputy, the Lord Chancellor FitzEustace. 
 The duke, on arriving in England, as the head of the House 
 of York, took up arms against the Crown, and demanded a 
 reformation of the government. A battle was fought at St. 
 Albans, when Lord Clifford and many of the flower of the 
 
THE EARL OF RUTLAND KILLED IN BATTLE. 25 
 
 Lancastrian nobility were slain. After a varied succession of 
 victories and defeats, the duke was at length, vanquished, when 
 he returned to Ireland and resumed the viceroyalty in the 
 king's name, an act which, however, was afterwards pro- 
 nounced by the 10th of Henry VII., chap. 10, to be " when 
 Richard Duke of York was in rebellion, and pretended him- 
 self to be Lieutenant to Henry VI." On his return to the 
 government of this country, he appointed his son, the Earl of 
 Rutland, Chancellor. The enthusiastic reception they both 
 received in Dublin passes description, and that, too, at the very 
 time when an Act of attainder had been passed against them by 
 the English Parliament. The king had now conceded to Ire- 
 land the right of coinage, and it was declared by the Irish Par- 
 liament that as Normandy and Gruienne, though under the rule 
 of England, were separate from her laws, so also should Ireland 
 be. The duke, accompanied by his son, who then ceased to be 
 Chancellor, took his departure for England after the capture of 
 Henry VI. at Northampton. Too confident of success, he 
 marched at the head of five thousand men to meet the king's 
 troops, which numbered over twenty thousand. Borne down 
 by numbers, his army was swept from the field at "Wake- 
 field, and the Duke of York was numbered amongst the dead. 
 A priest on the field of battle sought to shelter the Earl of Rut- 
 land. Lord Clifford, whose father had been slain at St. Albans, 
 was attracted by the noble appearance of the youth, and asked 
 who he was. The priest told him that he was the Earl of Rut- 
 land, and implored him to spare his life, and the young man, 
 falling on his knees, craved mercy. "No," the chief replied ; 
 "by God's blood, thy father slew mine, and so shall I slay thee." 
 Saying this, he stabbed him to the heart, and so perished, 
 on the 31st December, 1460, in the flower of his youth, Edmund 
 Earl of Rutland, the youngest Chancellor that had ever filled 
 that office. 
 
 58. A.D. 1460. — John Dtnham was appointed Lord Chan- 
 cellor by the Duke of York immediately previous to his leaving 
 for England, and was continued by Edward IV. in 1461. A 
 sum of £53 6s. 8^., issuing out of the fee-farm rent of Drogheda, 
 was granted for the support of the clerks of the Court of Chan- 
 cery. Sir Robert Preston was appointed his deputy. 
 
 59. A.D. 1461. — Sir William Welles, son of Lord Welles, 
 was sworn in at Westminister before Edward IV., who granted 
 him the butlerage and prisage of wines, which had been for- 
 feited by the Earl of Ormond. 
 
 60. A. D. 1462. The Earl of Worcester. — John Tiptoft, 
 otherwise Tibetot, was descended from Henry de Tibetot, who 
 in the reign of Henry III. had a grant of extensive possessions 
 
26 EARL OF WORCESTER, LORD CHANCELLOR. 
 
 in the counties of York and Lincoln. His grandson, a warrior 
 of no mean pretensions, was summoned by Edward II. to Par- 
 liament as a Baron, and from him was descended John Tiptoft, 
 who was horn in 1428, and who, on reaching twenty-one years 
 of age, was created Earl of Worcester. In his nine-and-twen- 
 tieth year he was Lord Deputy of the lordship of Ireland, and 
 in the first year of Edward IV. was constituted a Justice for 
 North Wales for life, and Constable of the Tower of London. 
 His next great appointment was that of Lord High Chancellor 
 of Ireland, and in the same year Thomas FitzGerald, Earl of 
 Desmond, was sent over to this country as Lord Deputy. Now 
 the Earl of Desmond was beloved by Edward IV. ; for during 
 the long and bloody contests for the throne, FitzGerald was 
 ever on the side of the House of York. In nine battles fought 
 against Henry VI. he acted the part of soldier and chieftain,, 
 and when Edward was in peaceful possession of the throne, he- 
 resolved to remunerate the Geraldine according to his deserts r 
 and to invest him with all honours. He therefore created him. 
 Viceroy of Ireland ; and before dismissing him to his govern- 
 ment called him to a private interview ; and, when parting,, 
 asked him " did he see aught in his administration either in- 
 jurious or disagreeable to his people?" The earl replied 
 that he knew of nothing to the prejudice of His Majesty, save 
 the low marriage he had contracted with Elizabeth, widow of 
 Sir John Woodville ; " and," continued the earl, " I think you 
 would do well in divorcing her, and forming an alliance with 
 some foreign princess." The king, who otherwise thought 
 highly of Desmond's opinion, said that he rejoiced to believe- 
 that his marriage could not injure any one but himself ; and 
 so saying, they parted, and the Lord Deputy and Chancellor 
 left London for Dublin. The former continued chief Gover- 
 nor of the country, during the seven succeeding years, while the 
 latter resigned the seals in 1463, and returned to England. 
 The Earl of Desmond, after the period we have named, retired 
 to his own territory, and was succeeded in the viceroyalty by 
 the late Chancellor, the Earl of Worcester. Meanwhile King 
 Edward and his queen lived happily together; but as is too 
 often the case, even in happy married life, some difference of 
 opinion cbanced to occur between them, and His Majesty, un- 
 fortunately losing temper, said that if he had followed the 
 advice of his old and faithful servant, the Earl of Desmond, he 
 would "have long since broken her proud spirit." The queen 
 at the moment made no observation on this remark ; the dis- 
 pute terminated, and was quickly forgotten ; but the words 
 which the king had spoken remained rankling in the mind 
 of his wife, and she frequently thought over them, and at 
 last persuaded him to tell her what it was that had passed. 
 
EARL OF WORCESTER BEHEADED. 27 
 
 She at once resolved on revenge. But how -was that revenge 
 to be accomplished ? At last an idea flashed across her mind. 
 She stole the privy seal, and forged a warrant to the Lord 
 Deputy to behead the earl. This warrant she despatched 
 with the utmost secrecy and haste. Immediately the Earl of 
 Worcester sent for the Earl of Desmond to meet him in 
 Drogheda, "a place somewhat remote from Munster, and 
 whither the said earl's friends could not easily come." The Earl 
 obeyed the Lord Deputy's command, and as soon as he arrived 
 was arrested, and without any kind of examination or crime 
 laid to his charge, was " made shorter by the head, to the great 
 astonishment of the whole nobility of Irelande being at that 
 time there present." The earl left at his death five sons, 
 who, hearing of their father's unexpected end, sought for re- 
 venge. "Now King Edward himselfe, on learning of the 
 death of his most worthy and illustrious subject, was woefully 
 offended. The queen fled, and took sanctuary. The Earl 
 of Worcester was summoned to explain the matter, and the 
 earl appearing before the king in council, in his own defence, 
 shewed his commission for the execution of Desmond, but 
 all his excuses would not save him — off goes his head from 
 his neck, to make satisfaction to the angry ghost of the Earl 
 of Desmond." 
 
 The Earl of Worcester is said to have been one of the most 
 learned, eloquent, and accomplished men that ever presided in 
 the Irish Court of Chancery. He was a travelled man in days 
 when the perils of travel were great. He had spent much time 
 in Jerusalem and Rome ; and it is said that he made so eloquent 
 an oration before Pius II., that he drew tears from the eyes of 
 His Holiness. The leisure hours of the earl were passed in 
 translating works into the English language, and his name is 
 mentioned with high commendation in Walpole's Royal and 
 Noble Authors, Bale also makes honourable mention of him, 
 and his memory was long precious in the Baliol College at Ox- 
 ford, where he had graduated. His tragic end in 1470 is told 
 in the " Unpublished Geraldine Documents," page 13, edited 
 by the Rev. Samuel Hayman, from the Journal of the Royal 
 Historical and Archaeological Association of Ireland, 1870. 
 
 61. A. D. 1463. — The Earl or Kildare. Thomas, the 
 seventh Earl of Kildare, had long filled high offices in the 
 State, and had been in 1454 deputy to the Lord Lieutenant, 
 Richard Duke of York, on his departure for England. During 
 the five ensuing years he continued in office, and resigned when 
 the Duke, then in rebellion against Henry VI., returned to the 
 Castle of Dublin. On the duke's final departure he was again 
 deputy, and was continued in his office by Edward IV. in 1461. 
 In 1463 he was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland for life, 
 
28 THE EARL OF KILDAEE, CHANCELLOR. 
 
 and in the following year founded the friary of Adair Manor, 
 for. the Friars Minor. The earl, however, did not continue to 
 hold the seals longer than five years, when he again became 
 Lord Deputy — an office which was then, however, but the 
 shadow of what it had once been. Every man in England 
 was ranged on the side either of the House of York or of 
 that of Lancaster, and with difficulty could an army of two 
 hundred men be kept on foot, to protect the vanishing power of 
 the English in Ireland. To remedy so great an evil, a military 
 society under the name of " the Brothers of St. Q-eorge " was 
 founded. It consisted of thirteen brethren, of whom the ex- 
 Chancellor was one. By this brotherhood, a small army of one 
 hundred and sixty men was maintained. Strange to say, the 
 native Irish never thought of using such an opportunity for a 
 national purpose ; but, clan fighting against clan, they forgot 
 their common foe ! The earl died on the 25th March, 1477, 
 and was interred in the monastery of All Hallows, where 
 Trinity College now stands. 
 
 62. A. D. 1468. — Eobert Allameston. 
 
 63. A.D. 1469. — Sir William Dudley. 
 
 64 and 65. A.D. 1472. — Lord Portlester and John 
 Taxton, priest, jointly. Although the Great Seal, when put in 
 commission, now as in times past, is entrusted to several com- 
 missioners, we have yet been unable to find any other instance 
 where, as in the case of which we write, the office of Chancellor 
 was given to two joint tenants, and to the survivor of them 
 — for so the patent is worded. Neither, however, of the co- 
 Chancellors took advantage for any lengthened period of their 
 joint tenancy, which would appear to have been sundered 
 and surrendered in 1474, when another Chancellor was ap- 
 pointed. Of Taxton, or of his previous or subsequent career, 
 nothing whatever is known. Lord Portlester was again Chan- 
 cellor in 1488, and then retained office during four years. In 
 1492 he retired into private life, died in 1496, and was interred 
 at the new abbey which he himself had founded at Kilcullen, 
 in the county of Kildare. He had also built, in 1455, a chapel 
 attached to St. Audeon's Church, Dublin, in the porch of which 
 there still remains a cenotaph bearing the figures of a knight in 
 armour, with his wife. Encircled on the margin is the follow- 
 ing inscription :— " Orate pro anima Roland Fitz-Eustace de 
 Portlester, qui hunc locum sive ca/pellam dedidit in honorem Beatw 
 Marias Virginia ; etiam pro anima Margarita; uxoris sum, et pro 
 animis omnium ftdelium defunctorum, a.d. 1455." — "Pray for 
 the soul of Roland EitzEustace of Portlester, who has given 
 this place or chapel to the honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary; 
 
LORD HOWTH, CHANCELLOR. 29 
 
 also pray for the soul of Margaret, his wife, and for the souls of 
 all the faithful departed, a. d. 1455," this being the date of 
 the building of the ohapel. In the churchyard of Cotlands- 
 town, near Ballymore Eustace, is a curious stone, about four 
 feet long, apparently the shaft of some ancient cross, on one side 
 of which is "Eustace, Lord Portlester, 1496," and on the other 
 the baron's coronet. 
 
 66. A. D. 1474. — George de Yenham. 
 
 67. A. D. 1480. — "William Sherwood, Bishop of Meath. 
 
 68. A.D. 1481. — Lawrence de St. Lawrence. 
 
 69. A.D. 1483. — Lord Howth, (15th baron). 
 
 70. A.D. 1483. — Thomas FitzGerald. As the FitzGeralds, 
 Earls of Kildare, were during the Wars of the Roses active in 
 supporting the pretensions of the House of York, so now that 
 Edward IV., a prince of that house, sat upon the throne, they 
 found placed by him at their disposal the chief posts in the 
 government of this country. The office of Lord Deputy was 
 filled by the Earl of Kildare, that of Lord Treasurer by his 
 father-in-law, Lord Portlester, while the seals of the Court 
 of Chancery were held by Thomas FitzGerald, a brother of 
 the Earl. Under Edward V. and Richard III. they con- 
 tinued in power ; and though it might have been presumed 
 that on the accession of Henry VII. their places would be 
 filled by men of Lancastrian tendencies, yet that prince, never- 
 theless, pursuing a temporizing policy, continued those high 
 officers of state in their respective positions. It was his wish 
 to win for the House of Lancaster the affections of a people 
 that had been enthusiastically devoted to the House of York ; 
 but their loyalty to the White Rose was incorruptible, and 
 whilst they shuddered at the crimes of Richard III., they yet 
 looked back with affectionate remembrance on the gentle rule 
 of his father, the Duke of York. The Earl of Warwick, son 
 of the Duke of Clarence, whom the genius of Shakspere and 
 the butt of Malmsey have made famous, was grandson of the 
 Duke of York, and was his nearest male representative. As 
 such, he gathered to himself all the hopes of the Yorkist party ; 
 and though he was not heir to the throne (for undoubtedly 
 Elizabeth, wife of Henry VII., and eldest daughter of Edward 
 IV., was by right the first in succession), still faction was ready 
 to overlook that flaw in his title, and to accept him as the 
 champion of his House. The Earl of Warwick was at the 
 moment we speak of a prisoner in the Tower, but a report was 
 spread that he had escaped, and had made his way to Ireland. 
 A young man named Lambert Simnel chanced to bear a 
 striking resemblance to the Earl, and in consequence was taken 
 
30 THE LORD CHANCELLOR KILLED IN BATTLE. 
 
 in hands by the malcontents, and instructed in the part he was 
 to play. Sensible, nevertheless, that in England the imposture 
 would be easy of detection, his partisans thought it better to 
 exhibit him at the first on a distant stage, and conveyed him 
 therefore to Ireland, where the prince was almost unknown, 
 and where, therefore, the truth was less likely to be discovered. 
 He was welcomed in Ireland by the people with a burst of 
 enthusiasm, and the Lord Deputy, the Lord Treasurer, and the 
 ■Chancellor, received him with open arms. He was solemnly 
 crowned on Whit-Sunday, 1487, in the Priory of the Holy 
 Trinity, by Walter FitzSimons, Archbishop of Dublin, after- 
 wards Lord Chancellor, with the title of Edward VI., King 
 of England and Lord of Ireland. To place him on the throne 
 of his fathers was a work, however, not yet half done; and 
 to accomplish this a descent should be made on the English 
 •coast. Multitudes flocked to his standard; amongst them, as 
 we have said, the Chancellor and the Chief Justice of the 
 King's Bench; Thomas Plunket, third son of Christopher, 
 the first Lord Killeen. Meanwhile the king caused the true 
 oarl to be led through the streets of London, that so the 
 fraudulent nature of the claim might be manifest to all ; and 
 in England, accordingly, the cause of the Pretender made but 
 little way, while the Irish, on the contrary, retorted on the 
 Crown the charge of an imposture. An army of eight 
 thousand men, mostly Irish and Germans, followed the stand- 
 ard of Simnel as far as Stoke in Nottinghamshire, where 
 -they were met by the royal forces. A battle ensued, the 
 imposter was taken prisoner, and four thousand of his fol- 
 lowers were slain. Amongst the slain, and covered with many 
 wounds, was found the body of the Lord Chancellor. The 
 Chief Justice escaped, and was afterwards, but with much 
 difficulty, pardoned, though he was degraded from the Bench ; 
 while the Earl of Kildare, who had not accompanied the 
 expedition, was continued in the office of Lord Deputy ; and 
 Lord Portlester, whose pardon was duly enrolled in the Court 
 of Chancery, was appointed to the office of Lord Chanoellor — 
 a situation he was permitted by Henry VII., during the four 
 succeeding years, to enjoy. [Supra, 64th Chancellor]. 
 
 71. A. B. 1492.— Sir Alexander Plunket. The Chief 
 Justice, Sir Thomas Plunket, survived his degradation from the 
 Court of King's Bench for the short space of two years. He 
 had been twice married : first to a daughter of T. Cusack of the 
 county of Meath, and secondly to a daughter of C. Cruise of 
 Eathmore. At his death he left several sons, of whom the 
 second was Alexander, the subject of our memoir. Sir Alexander 
 we are informed, was a " man of great account " in his day ; he 
 
POYNINGS' LAW. 31 
 
 •was seised and possessed of vast estates within the Pale, and was 
 one of the Knights of St. George, of whom we have already 
 spoken. Of his deoisions or his acts in the counoil nothing is 
 now known. He held the seals during two years, and then re- 
 tired. His will is still in existence, and he thereby makes pro- 
 vision for his sons and daughters, and endows a chauntry priest 
 ■" to say or sing masses in the church of St. Lawrenoe, Rathmore, 
 for ever for his father's soul and his mother's soul, and for all 
 the souls of all the Plunkets." Dying in 1503, he was interred 
 in Eathmore, under a monument erected to his memory. 
 
 72. A. D. 1494. — Henry Deane, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 •was a canon regular of the order of St. Augustine, of the abbey 
 of U.anthony, in Monmouthshire, of which in 1490 he became 
 prior. This high ecclesiastical appointment brought him under 
 the notice of Cardinal Morton, then Archbishop of Canterbury 
 and Lord Chancellor of England, by whose advice Henry, 
 alarmed at the chronic state of disaffection in Ireland, sent Sir 
 Edward Poynings as his deputy and the Prior Deane as Chan- 
 cellor to that co untry. Immediately on their arrival a parliament 
 ■was convoked at Drogheda under the presidency of the Lord 
 Chancellor, of whom Hall, the chronicler of those times, speaks 
 as a man of great wit and diligence, and that " he addressed the 
 assembled nobles with a gentle exhortation, -requiring them to 
 persevere in due obedience and fidelity towards their king, and 
 to aid the Lord Deputy with their might, power, and strength." 
 This parliament passed the celebrated Act of 10th Henry VII., 
 chapter 4, whereby it was enacted, that no parliament be held 
 hereafter in Ireland, but at such season as the king's lieutenant 
 and council do first certify to the king under the Great Seal, 
 and the causes for summoning the parliament to be convoked ; 
 and further, that all the Acts to be passed by any parliament in 
 Ireland must be first approved of by the king. This Act virtually 
 made the Irish parliament a nullity ; and when in after times 
 it came to affect not merely the English Pale, for which it was 
 originally framed, but the whole of Ireland, when brought under 
 English law, it was felt to be one of the most intolerable among 
 the grievances under which this country suffered. Another Act 
 was then passed confirming in Ireland all the statutes made 
 theretofore in England. This Irish parliament further distin- 
 guished itself by an Act destroying the independence of the Irish 
 Judges, and making them subject to instant removal at the 
 pleasure of the Crown. Henry VII., elated at his success in 
 passing these measures, was resolved to reward the Chancellor 
 t>y obtaining for him the first ecclesiastical preferment that be- 
 came vacant. This chanced to be the Bishopric of Bangor ; and 
 the Chancellor having resigned the seals, became in 1496 bishop 
 
32 . ARCHBISHOP FITZ SIMONS, CHANCELLOR. 
 
 of that diocese. He was translated thence in 1497 to Salisbury,, 
 and on the death in. 1499 of Cardinal Morton, was consecrated 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, and immediately after was entrusted 
 as Lord Keeper with the Great Seal of England. In 1501 he 
 was appointed by Pope Alexander VI. Papal Legate in that 
 country. The name of Deane, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 must ever remain associated with events remarkable in the his- 
 tory of England. It was he who performed the marriage cere- 
 mony between James IV., King of Scotland, and Margaret, 
 daughter of Henry VII. — a union which bore fruit, and which, 
 after a hundred years had passed away, put an end to all future- 
 wars between the two kingdoms, by the accession of the grand- 
 son of that marriage to the throne of both. The Archbishop also 
 performed the marriage ceremony between Arthur Prince of 
 Wales, the eldest son of Henry VII., and Katharine of Arragon,. 
 a marriage which caused so many and such great changes in the 
 national religion of the three kingdoms. On the 11th of Febru- 
 ary, 1503, he expired at his palace at Lambeth. His decisions 
 in the Irish Court of Chancery have not come down to our day, 
 but his capabilities as a Chancellor are said to have been of alow 
 order. 
 
 73. A. D. 1496. — "Walter Eitz Simons, Archbishop of Dub- 
 lin, to which see he was promoted in 1484, having been pre- 
 viously Precentor of St. Patrick's. The hostility that prevailed 
 in those early times between the English inhabitants of the Pale 
 and the Irish enemies outside the borders thereof is evidenced 
 by an unprinted Act passed in this year (1484), whereby it was 
 recited " that many of the parishes of the Archbishop of Dublin, 
 in right of his see, were situated amongst the Irish enemies ; and 
 as no Englishman could inhabit those parishes, and that inas- 
 much as the English priests did not understand the Irish lan- 
 guage, by which means the cure of souls was neglected, it was 
 therefore enacted that the archbishop may appoint Irish priests 
 for a certain time to those parishes." In 1487, Fitz Simons^ 
 deluded by the impostor Simnel, assisted at his coronation in 
 Christ Church, but in the following year he was pardoned, and 
 was allowed to renew his allegiance. In 1492 he was appointed 
 Lord Deputy to the Viceroy, the Duke of Bedford. Having 
 retired from that office, he was Chancellor from 1496 to 1498. 
 In 1501 the Archbishop was once again Chancellor, and remained 
 in office, with an interruption of a few months in 1509, until 
 his death in 1513, when Lord Howth succeeded him. 
 
 74. A. D. 1498. William Eokeby, Archbishop of Dublin. 
 This Chancellor held the seals from 1498 to 1501, in which year 
 he became Bishop of Meath. He was an Englishman by birtb, 
 as the prelates of the English colonies in Ireland invariably 
 
LORD HOWTH, CHANCELLOR. 33 
 
 "were, while the bishops of the Irish-speaking districts were 
 always taken from the Celtic race. He took his seat in the 
 Privy Council in 1507, in 1511 became Archbishop of Dublin, 
 aud in 1514 brought to a happy termination differences that had 
 long existed between the Archbishops of Dublin and the Dean 
 and Chapter of St. Patriok's. In 1515 he was again appointed 
 Lord Chancellor by Henry VIII. ; and in 1518 convened a pro- 
 vincial synod, whereat many wise rules and regulations were 
 framed. Amongst others, provision was made for the due exa- 
 mination of candidates presenting themselves for Holy Orders 
 from the provinces of Armagh and Tuam. It is amusing to 
 road one of its decrees — that no priests should thenceforward 
 play at football under a penalty of three shillings and four- 
 pence, to be paid to his bishop. In this year an ecclesiastical 
 college, which was founded at Maynooth by Gerald, Earl of 
 Kildare, received the especial confirmation of the Chancellor 
 Archbishop of Dublin. Having healed the unhappy feuds that 
 had raged between the Ormond Butlers and the Earl of Des- 
 mond, the Most Reverend Chancellor died in 1527, and was 
 succeeded in the same year, in the office of Chancellor, by Hugh 
 Inge, Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
 75. A. D. 1509. — Lord Howth, Sir Nicholas St. Law- 
 rence, 16th baron of Howth, was chief of a family even 
 then old — so old that the memory of its remote origin is 
 almost buried in oblivion. Long before the Norman Conquest 
 it occupied a high position in England. Its name had been 
 Tristram, and was changed to St. Lawrence by one of its 
 chiefs, who was in command of an army marshalled on St. 
 Lawrence's day, on the plains of Clontarf, against the Danish 
 invaders. This chieftain, before he unsheathed his sword, made 
 a solemn vow to the saint on whose day the battle was about to 
 be fought, that if victory were granted to his arms he would 
 change his name to that of St. Lawrence. After a hot but suc- 
 cessful engagement he performed his vow, and took that name, 
 which has ever since been the surname of the family. Sir 
 Nicholas was entirely devoted to the interests of the house of 
 Lancaster ; and when Simnel personated the Earl of Warwick, 
 in 1486, his lordship made known the designs of that impostor 
 to the king, whose cause he was foremost in supporting. Nor 
 were those services unrequited, for his lordship was presented by 
 his sovereign with three hundred pieces of gold, and had a con- 
 firmation of the patent of his estates. He attended the parlia- 
 ments of 1490 and 1493, and afterwards accompanied the Lord 
 Deputy, the Earl of Kildare, to the famous battle of Knockdoe — 
 in Irish, Knock-ne-thuagh (the hill of the battle-axes), fought in 
 the county of Gralway, on the 15th of August, 1504 — a battle that 
 
31 LORD HOWTH, CHANCELLOR. 
 
 resulted in breaking down the power of the Burkes of Clan- 
 rickard in the countries west of the Shannon. The struggle was 
 sanguinary, four thousand men having perished on the field. 
 In 1509 Lord Howth became Lord Chancellor, but held the 
 seals for a few months only. His name, however, is frequently 
 appended to orders of the court of the Privy Council, then the 
 court of ultimate appeal. 
 
 76. A. D. 1513. — Sir William Compton. On the death of 
 Archbishop Fitz Simons, in this year, Sir "William Compton was 
 appointed Lord Chancellor at the early age of two-and-thirty. 
 He had previously been honoured by Henry VIII. with sundry 
 appointments. He was groom of the stole, groom of the bed- 
 chamber, and constable of Gloucester castle ; had many manors 
 and lands granted to him, and in 1513 was entrusted with the 
 command of the rear guard of the army then in Flanders. In 
 the same year he was recalled and appointed Lord Chancellor 
 of Ireland for life, in which high office he gave great satisfaction. 
 Cardinal Wolsey felt, it was said, a jealous apprehension of the 
 growing power of Compton. Though empowered to execute 
 the office of Chancellor by deputy, he felt it more prudent to 
 perform in person those responsible duties. Having held office 
 for two years, he resigned the seals on the 24th March, 1515, 
 and returned to England, where his good fortune followed him. 
 The Duke of Buckingham, having fallen into disgrace with 
 Henry VIII., was attainted, and his estates confiscated ; and 
 numbers of his manors in Yorkshire and Warwick were granted 
 to Sir William Compton. Having been sent in 1523 to make 
 incursions into Scotland, he soon returned to England, where he 
 busied himself about domestic rather than state affairs. He 
 built a noble mansion on his manorial estate of Compton, in 
 Warwickshire, which, standing at the present time, is known as 
 Compton Wynyate, and is one of the seats of the Earl of North- 
 ampton, his lineal descendant. His princely residence Sir William 
 was not long. destined to enjoy : he had no sooner gone to reside 
 there than he was attacked with the sweating sickness, and died 
 in the early part of 1528. 
 
 77. A.D. 1527.— Hugh Inge, Archbishop of Dublin, was a 
 graduate of the University of Oxford. Having taken Holy 
 Orders, he obtained several preferments in the Church ; was ap- 
 pointed Bishop of Meath in 1512, and in 1521 succeeded 
 Archbishop Eokeby in the See of Dublin. In 1527 he was 
 appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Polydore Virgil says : 
 "He was distinguished for wisdom and justice, and for putting 
 the kingdom into as good a state of defence as the untowardness 
 of the wild Irish would suffer ; he was zealous as an archbishop 
 and upright as a judge." He repaired the episcopal palace of 
 
THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP, ALLEN. 35 
 
 St. Sepulchre's, and placed his arms over the entrance door. 
 Having served for the short space of one year as Chancellor, 
 he was attacked by the sweating sickness, of which he died on 
 the 3rd of August, 1528, and was buried in St. Patrick's Cathe- 
 dral. 
 
 78. A.D. 1528. — John Allen, Archbishop of Dublin, was 
 educated at Oxford, where his brilliant abilities brought him 
 under the notice of the Archbishop of Canturbury, who in 1515 
 entrusted him with important negotiations at the court of Rome. 
 The satisfaction he had given was sufficient introduction to Car- 
 dinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York, who had shortly previous 
 to that time been made papal legate in England. His vast 
 powers in the ecclesiastical and civil estates of the realm made 
 it incumbent on the cardinal to erect a court which had hitherto 
 been unknown to the common law, called the Legatine Court, 
 where matters of conscience — perhaps of scandal — were inquired 
 into ; and of this court John Allen was appointed judge. He 
 was one of Wolsey ? s great abettors in procuring the dissolution 
 of forty of the lesser monasteries, for the purpose of endowing 
 the cardinal's colleges at Oxford and Ipswich. New ideas were 
 at this time fastening themselves on the minds of men. The 
 ancient institutions of the Catholic Church were prostrate in 
 foreign countries; and to defend the doctrines now assailed, Allen 
 was in 1528 raised by the Holy See to the diginity of Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin. In the same year he was appointed by 
 Henry VIII. Lord High Chancellor of Ireland. He imme- 
 diately applied himself to the strengthening of the castle fortifica- 
 tions — the better to protect the Court of Chancery, which was 
 then held within its walls — and paid the expenses of the work out 
 of his private income. In 1532 he was deprived of the seals by 
 the Lord Deputy, the Earl of Kildare ; and George Cromer, Arch- 
 bishop of Armagh, was appointed Chancellor in bis place. The 
 provisions of the Statute of Kilkenny had at this time fallen into 
 disuse, and marriages between those of English and Irish blood 
 were matters of every-day occurrence, and were unnoticed by the 
 deputy. Of these offences the crown was duly informed, and 
 complaint was made, that the lords and gentlemen of Kildare 
 and Carlow, instead of obeying the king's writ, would only 
 answer the summons -of the Earl of Kildare. These were heavy 
 accusations against the deputy; he was, therefore, summoned 
 to the king's presence, there to give an account of his steward- 
 ship, and was instructed at the same time to appoint a deputy 
 upon whom he could depend in his absence. The person selected 
 for this responsible office was his son Thomas, a youth not then 
 twenty-one years of age. Having caused him to be duly sworn 
 in, the Earl took his departure for England, where, after 
 
 d2 
 
36 ARCHBISHOP ALLEN MURDERED. 
 
 his defence, he was committed to the Tower. The report 
 at once spread in Ireland that the Earl of Kildare had been 
 executed in London, and the unprincipled enemies of the Geral- 
 dines, who had circulated this and other false statements, went 
 so far as to assert that the deputy, Lord Thomas, would be 
 treated in lite manner. The youthful Geraldine thereupon, at 
 the head of 140 armed men, marched to the council, which were 
 just then sitting in St. Mary's Abbey ; and there renounced his 
 allegiance to the king. He and his followers then appealed to 
 arms, and setting up the standard of revolt, rushed on that course 
 which afterwards brought ruin upon himself and his whole family. 
 Silken Thomas, as this rash young nobleman was called, from 
 the silken banners carried by his standard-bearers, without in- 
 quiring as to the truth of the report of his father's death, made an 
 onslaught on the Anglo-Irish, wasting with fire and sword all 
 before him, even to the Castle gates. Archbishop Allen, terrified 
 at the outbreak, and remembering that he was one of those who 
 had joined in laying before the king the offences of the Earl of 
 Kildare, well knowing that the storm of popular fury would be 
 directed against himself, made the best of his way, therefore, 
 to a small quay on the Liffey, close to where Essex Bridge now 
 stands, and there he took shipping for England. The vessel sailed, 
 but owing, it was pretended, to a strong wind from the south, 
 but more likely to the treachery of the seamen, the whole party 
 were cast on the Olontarf shore. Allen hastened to claim the 
 hospitality of a Mr. Holywood, of Artane, which was, of course, 
 extended to him. But Silken Thomas, hearing that the Arch- 
 bishop, the enemy of his race, was a guest in that house, caused 
 him the next day to be dragged forth and cruelly beaten and 
 murdered in his presence. This bloody deed was committed on 
 the 28th of July, 1534, and was followed by the public excom- 
 munication of all the parties concerned therein. On his death 
 the temporalities of the see were granted to George Browne, the 
 first Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, and they have, with the 
 exception of a few years in the reign of Queen Mary, remained 
 to_ our day in the possession of the prelates of the Protestant 
 faith. Allen was the author of several works of considerable 
 merit — the Eepertorium Viride and Liber Niger — containing a 
 true account of the churches in the archdiocese of Dublin. He 
 also wrote a commentary on St. Paul's epistle. Lord Thomas 
 Fitz Gerald was captured soon after the Archbishop's death, 
 and was sent in chains to London, and there hanged, drawn, 
 and quartered, and with him his five uncles ; his father having 
 died in the Tower shortly before that time. 
 
 79. A.D. 1532.— George Cromer, Archbishop of Armagh, 
 entirely devoted to the Geraldines, was raised to the primatial 
 

 o U 
 
 * i-I 
 
 i N 
 
 O S 
 
 o u 
 
 o V 
 
SENTENCE OF EXCOMMUNICATION. 37 
 
 see in the same year in which he was appointed Chancellor, 
 through the influence of the unfortunate Earl of Kildare. One 
 of his first official acts was to issue an excommunication against 
 all those who took any part in the murder of the late Archbishop. 
 The account, however, given in this interesting document of the 
 bloody affair differs slightly from that given above : — 
 
 " Murder of the Archbishop of Dublin. — The excommunication 
 of Thomas Fitz Gerald and his uncles for killing the Archbishop 
 of Dublin. — "Whereas Thomas Fitz Gerald, eldest son of the 
 Earl of Kildare, not only procured John Teyling and Nicholas 
 Wafer, to put violent hands upon John Allen, late Archbishop 
 of Dublin, taking him prisoner at Howth, and from thence con- 
 veying him to Artane, within the diocese of Dublin, but also he 
 the said Thomas, accompanied by Thomas Fitz Gerald and 
 Oliver Fitz Gerald, brothers to the said Earl, together with 
 divers other evil-disposed persons, murdered the said Arch- 
 bishop, we publish and declare all the said persons to be excom- 
 municated. We also declare interdict the place where the 
 Archbishop was killed, and likewise all cities, lands, castles, vil- 
 lages, chapels, and other places wherein the said cursed persons 
 are or shall be, commanding all persons of the province of Dub- 
 lin to cease from the administration of divine service so long as 
 any of the said persons shall be present. To the terror and fear 
 of all the said damnable persons, we have directed the bells to be 
 rung and the candles to be quenched." 
 
 This primate protested openly against the revolt of Henry 
 VIII. from the Church, and summoned the prelates and priests of 
 his province to advise with him on the situation of ecclesiastical 
 matters. Forthwith he despatched two discreet and learned 
 divines to Rome, to represent to his Holiness "the dangers 
 that were threatening the Church of Christ in this country." 
 Henry had, however, cast in his lot with the Reformers, and 
 an Act of Parliament was passed, decreeing that his Majesty 
 was the supreme head of the Church in Ireland. He now 
 undertook to fill the See of Dublin, without any communica- 
 tion with the court of Rome, and accordingly appointed 
 George Browne — who had been an Augustinian monk, but 
 who had forgotten his vows — the first Protestant Archbishop 
 of the Metropolitan See. Browne sought to establish the Re- 
 formation in this country, but in this he was strenuously opposed 
 by the Archbishop of Armagh. The latter was meanwhile re- 
 moved from the office of Chancellor, and was cast into prison ; 
 and the king, spurred by the love of plunder, resolved to take 
 measures for the suppression of the monasteries. Oppressed with 
 _grief at the desolation that reigned around him, Cromer died 
 on the 10th of March, 1542. 
 
38 CARDINAL WOLSEY. 
 
 80. A.D. 1534. — Lord Trimleston. On the removal of 
 Cromer from the Court of Chancery, the seals were committed 
 to John Barnewell, Lord of Trimleston, and one of the judges 
 of the Court of King's Bench. As it had been the custom of 
 the Chancellors of earlier years to put themselves at the head 
 of the troops, so this Chancellor, buckling on his armour, headed 
 the royal forces, and marched into Offaly to oppose Cahir 
 O'Conor, an Irish chieftain, who was then laying waste the 
 borders of the Pale. After some sharp encounters, the chief- 
 tain returned a beaten man to his western home. By the 
 advice of Lord Trimleston the king extended the area of tax- 
 ation to the river Barrow — an extension which his lordship 
 calculated would add some £5000 a-year to the public purse. 
 Nothing otherwise remarkable occurred during the term of his 
 office. 
 
 81. A.D. 1538. — Sir John Allen was nephew of the- 
 murdered Chancellor-Archbishop, whose private secretary he 
 had been. The influence of Cardinal Wolsey procured him the 
 appointment of Clerk of the Privy Council in Ireland ; and his 
 letters on the state of that country occupy a large portion of 
 the State Papers of the time of Henry VIII. A grave question 
 as to the legatine jurisdiction of Cardinal Wolsey in Ireland 
 arose soon after the above-mentioned appointment of Sir John 
 Allen ; the native Irish outside the Pale insisting that th& 
 Papal Bull appointing Wolsey legate in England was not large- 
 enough to embrace Ireland ; while the Anglo-Irish party in- 
 sisted that it was. On this subject Allen thus advised his 
 eminence under date of the 4th of July, 1524 : — 
 
 " As you have admitted me to your service, I have thought 
 it my duty to write to you from time to time of the causes com- 
 mitted to me. Enclosed is a list of the dispensations and other- 
 things which have been sped by your authority since our coming 
 into these exile parts, containing what sums of money have been 
 received from the same. It is a great marvel that so much is 
 done, considering the great poverty of the Irishry, which it is 
 said is greater than hitherto." He then goes on to state that 
 the Irish people took no notice whatever of the legatine powers,, 
 and that much doubt prevailed in the English districts " about 
 your grace's bulls (from Eome), whether you be legate here or 
 not." The Archbishop of Armagh and his suffragans, living 
 amongst the Irishry, entirely denied that his powers extended 
 to Ireland. By patent of the 25th Henry VIII., Allen was 
 made Master of the Polls, to hold to him " for life with a salary 
 of £20, payable out of the customs of the ports of Dublin and 
 Drogheda." On the last day of August, in the same year (1534), 
 
SIR JOHN ALLEN, CHANCELLOR. 39 
 
 he took the oaths before the Lord Chancellor Cromer, Arch- 
 bishop of Armagh. The duties of his new office were not of so 
 onerous a nature as to compel him to resign the clerkship of the 
 counoil, which had also been bestowed upon him for life. 
 Shortly before his elevation to the bench, commands were given 
 him by the council to report to the king " the cause of the 
 great decay of the land, that neither the English order, tongue, 
 nor habit, nor the king's laws, be obeyed there above twenty 
 miles in compass." He replied that the people, in effect, were 
 plundered by the connivance of the viceroy; that they were 
 rackrented by their landlords ; and that the Englishry preferred 
 " Irish barbarism " to the English rule. Allen having prepared 
 the report, it was brought up before the king, and was soon 
 after, in 1534, followed by the great ordinance for the govern- 
 ment of Ireland. Many acts of tyranny on the part of the 
 landlords were prohibited — such as compelling their tenants to 
 give them and their followers suppers, and enforcing " the 
 charge of a peck of oats at seed time for every plough; that the 
 tenants be no longer compelled to send their carts and men to 
 build their landlords' houses without payment, and that they 
 be no longer compelled to send their carts and horses to labour 
 at their landlords' buildings unless on the borders or marshes, 
 when erecting fortifications against the Irish enemy." 
 
 Although John Allen was nephew to the Chancellor- Arch- 
 bishop, still he faltered not in following in the footsteps of 
 Henry VH1., supporting by word and deed the doctrines of 
 the Reformers. He was unrivalled in his denunciations of the 
 bishop of Rome, as he affected to call the Pope ; and he chose 
 for his constant ally George Browne, the Protestant Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, fie was therefore the fittest to aid the King 
 in dissolving the monasteries, and was accordingly appointed 
 for that purpose to the office of Lord Chancellor. Even before 
 the suppression, he applied that the monastery of St. Thomas, 
 close to the city of Dublin, where Thomas-street now stands, 
 might be granted to him, " if it should be dissolved." " I have 
 no house," he wrote to Cromwell, " to live in, nor provisions for 
 one horse for myself there ; and if it please your lordship that 
 I may have the monastery of St. Thomas' Court to farm." This 
 alleged poverty of the Chancellor does not appear to accord with 
 the fact, when the following letter from his friend, Archbishop 
 Browne, written on the 16th of February, 1538, to Cromwell, is 
 remembered. " God knoweth what a treasure the king's majesty 
 and your lordship have here in my Lord Chancellor, who is a 
 right wise gentleman and an impartial judge, who sifteth mat- 
 ters depending before him full briefly, to the great ease of the 
 king's subjects, the poor suitors. His lordship also keepeth a 
 right sumptuous house, like a Chancellor, as much to his prince's 
 
40 SUPPRESSION OP THE MONASTERIES. 
 
 honour as any Chancellor did here for many years past, notwith- 
 standing that his possessions were not so good as other Chancel- 
 lors' were. I am ashamed to tell your lordship how my Lord 
 Deputy doth use himself towards my Lord Chancellor ; what 
 the cause is I cannot understand, unless it be in disdayne that 
 my Lord Chancellor keepeth so bountiful a house, which, indeed 
 hitherto is far above the Lord Deputy's." 
 
 The Act passed for the suppressson of monasteries was fol- 
 lowed by a commission to the Lord Chancellor and others therein 
 named. That commission, which contains no charge of immo- 
 rality or other offence, is as follows : — " Whereas, from informa- 
 tion of trustworthy persons, it being manifestly apparent that 
 the monasteries, abbeys, priories, and other places of religion, 
 are at present in such a state that in them the praise of God and 
 the welfare of man are next to nothing regarded, the regulars 
 and nuns dwelling there being so addicted, partly to their own 
 superstitious ceremonies, partly to the pernicious worship of 
 idols, and to the pestiferous doctrines of the Romish pontiff, that 
 unless an effectual remedy be promptly provided, not only the 
 weak lower order, but the whole Irish people, may be speedily 
 affected to their total destruction by the example of these per- 
 sons. To prevent, therefore, the longer continuance of men and 
 nuns in so damnable a state, the king, hath resolved to resume 
 into his hands all the monasteries and religious houses for their 
 better reformation, to remove from them the religious men and 
 women, and to cause them to return to some honest mode of 
 living and to the true religion." The king then directs the 
 Chancellor and other commissioners to signify his intention to 
 the heads of the religious houses to receive their resignations 
 and surrenders willingly tendered, " and to apprehend and punish 
 such as adhere to the authority of the Romish pontiff and con- 
 tumaceously refuse to surrender their houses." The commissioners 
 to take charge, for the king's use, of the possession of those 
 houses. They visited and closed the religious houses in the 
 city; and the monks departed from those peaceful retreats in 
 which many of them had lived from youth to age. Abbeys 
 more remote were next treated in the same fashion : priceless 
 manuscripts were burnt ; the church plate was seized by the 
 Chancellor and Chief Justice for the use of His Majesty ; the 
 bells were taken down from their lofty bell-stages, and the gar- 
 dens and the fields which the industry of the monks had rescued 
 from the forest or the morass were vested in the commissioners 
 and sold by auction, and the produce of the sale transmitted to 
 the king. The commissioners who had been authorised to in- 
 quire and report on the immoralities of the inmates, specifying 
 the names of those " that led such damnable lives," made their 
 report accordingly ; but they failed to find that any of these 
 
SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES. 41 
 
 aoousations had been substantiated. The Lord Deputy, Lord 
 Leonard Ghrey, endeavoured to shelter six of these religious 
 houses from ruin — " For there," he writes to the king, " man- 
 kinde and woman-kinde and young childer be taught in religion, 
 in vertue, and in the English tongue ; " but the king was inex- 
 orable. Thus fell those monasteries whioh had for many cen- 
 turies sent missionary monks over the continent of Europe — mis- 
 sionaries to whom the nations of the West owe that civilization 
 which has elevated them over the empires of Africa and the 
 East. The suppression of the monasteries cast a shadow over 
 the country, from which it has not even yet emerged. Up to 
 "that period, their property was devoted with a discriminating 
 liberality, which, however it may be censured by political eco- 
 nomists, relieved the people. They felt not the cancer of the 
 succeeding poor laws. The magnificent evidences of monastic 
 bounty are scattered in ruins over the land: churches, abbeys, 
 colleges, schools, hospitals. These, though in decay, still pow- 
 erfully record the generous forethought of those who dwelt 
 there, for all that could promote the encouragement of learning 
 and the comfort of the poor. Constantly residing in their 
 convents, in the centre of their estates, the monks are acknow- 
 ledged to have been the best and most indulgent of landlords. 
 They afforded a ready market for the produce of the vicinity ; 
 they expended their income amongst their tenants ; they ex- 
 tended hospitality to the pilgrim and the stranger ; they edu- 
 cated the fatherless, they were friends to the friendless ; and, 
 by the mildness and justice of their rule, were a living protest 
 against the anarchy of the time and the oppression of the neigh- 
 bouring chieftains. 
 
 By the confiscation of the monasteries, the royal reformer, 
 Henry, acquired enormous wealth. He now resolved to add a 
 new title to the Crown — that of King of England and Lord of Ire- 
 land being beneath his dignity. A parliament was accordingly 
 summoned to meet before the Lord Deputy St. Leger at Trim, 
 when the statute 33 Henry VIII., chapter 1, was passed, 
 whereby it was declared that the king, his heirs, and his suc- 
 cessors, were to enjoy the style, title, majesty, and honours of 
 King of Ireland. The Lord Deputy thus informed his majesty 
 of the passing of the Act : " After our most humble and bounden 
 duties, it may please your most excellent Majesty to be adver- 
 tised that your Highness' parliament began crastino Trinitatis, 
 and the Tuesday next following resorted to the same the Earls 
 of Ormond and Desmond, and with them the Lord Barry, the 
 Lord Eoche, the Lord Eitzmaurice, and hither came also the Lord 
 Bermingham of Athenry, in Connaught, which lords have not 
 been here of many years before ; and the Thursday being Corpus 
 Christi day, after a solemn mass of the Holy Ghost, resorted 
 
42 SIR JOHN ALLEN, CHANCELLOR. 
 
 to the parliament-chamber, where the commons presented to us 
 their speaker, one Sir Thomas Cusack, who made a right good 
 speech in praise of your majesty, most worthily deserved, and 
 also declared what benefit came of obedience to princes and ob- 
 serving of laws, which, after being answered by your grace's 
 Chancellor (Sir John Allen) in English, and by the Earl of 
 Ormond translated into Irish, contented the said Lords and 
 Commons." The next step taken by the king was to reconcile 
 the great chieftains to the English government. 
 
 The Lord Deputy St. Leger and Sir John Allen were now 
 involved in endless disputes. The former accused the latter of 
 being a subverter of all deputies, which accusation, if false, lied 
 like truth, remembering that Lord Grey had been sent to the 
 scaffold some short time previously through the intrigues of this 
 unscrupulous Chancellor. His reply, together with his many 
 letters to the Lord Deputy, are collected in the state papers of 
 those times. In his answer to the privy council he repels St. 
 Leger's accusations of being a subverter of deputies, and states 
 that he invariably did his duty, and that it will be found yet 
 that he " was the cleanest-handed chancellor in matters of jus- 
 tice that ever was in Irelande within the remembrance of man." 
 The deep-seated animosity which rankled in the Chancellor's 
 heart against the Lord Deputy St. Leger, was owing perhaps to- 
 the outward reverence paid by him to Catholic forms of worship. 
 On the 20th of October, 1538, Allen wrote that the deputy was 
 a Papist, a hypocrite, and a worshipper of idols ; that notwith- 
 standing Archbishop Browne, Sir Thomas Cusacke, and the 
 Lord Treasurer, had refused to come into the Abbey of Trim to- 
 hear mass, "the Lord Deputy, devoutly kneeling before the 
 idol of Trim, heard three masses." 
 
 Archbishop Browne was in 1544 a suitor in the Court of 
 Chancery in a cause in which Lord Howth was defendant, the 
 subject matter in dispute being " the right, title and inheritance 
 of the island called and known by the name of Ireland's Eye." 
 The Lord Chancellor decided that it belonged to the see of 
 Dublin, and that Lord Howth never had any seisin thereof, 
 otherwise than by the license of the Archbishop, and at a certain 
 reserved rent. 
 
 Towards the close of the reign of Henry VIII., Allen got 
 entangled in some disputes that arose between the Lord Deputy 
 St. Leger and the Earl of Ormond — the deputy, it appears, 
 having resolved to impose certain taxes, which imposition the 
 earl opposed. Each party accused the other of high treason, 
 whereupon they and the Chancellor were summoned to the 
 king's presence — William Brabazon being appointed Lord 
 Justice, and Sir Thomas Cusack Lord Keeper. The matter was 
 heard at considerable length, in 1547, before the king and 
 
SIR THOMAS CTJSACK. 43 
 
 council, when both parties were reconciled; "but Allen, being- 
 found an ambidexter, or double dealer, was committed to the 
 Fleet and discharged of the Chancellorship." The following 
 year Sir Edward Bellingham, a zealous Protestant, was chosen 
 by Edward VI. as Lord Deputy, and, through his interest, Sir 
 John Allen was once more appointed Chancellor, when a cause 
 of considerable importance, as affecting the trade of the town of 
 Galway, was brought before him — the case of Fitzsimons v. The 
 Corporation of Galway, which was shortly as follows : — 
 
 In 1542 a bye-law was passed by that corporation, whereby 
 it was enacted that merchants from Dublin should, if they sold 
 their wares in the town of Galway, pay the same customs as 
 they should do if the said goods were thither imported in foreign 
 vessels, and in default of payment of such customs the goods 
 were liable to be forfeited. Now, in 1548, the plaintiff did im- 
 port a cargo of cloth into the town, and paid therefor merely 
 the duties payable on wares coming in from the country districts. 
 Forthwith the corporation, by their officers, seized the cargo, 
 and the plaintiff brought the matter before the Lord Chancellor 
 of Ireland, the sole resource in those times for many cases which 
 at present would be entertained by a court of law. The case 
 was heard, and on the 13th February, 1548, a decree was made, 
 declaring that the monopoly was -void, as contrary to public 
 policy and to the law of the land, and that the plaintiff was 
 entitled to have his cloth restored. 
 
 In 1550, Allen was deprived of the seals, which were never 
 again entrusted to him. The aged Chancellor, from some cause 
 now unknown, appears to have been the object of much conside- 
 ration from Queen Mary: "In respect," she writes, "of his great 
 age and infirmities, we mind that he be not called on to go on 
 any hostings or journeys, save when he conveniently may." 
 Allen lived in seclusion for some years previous to his death, of 
 which we have been unable to find any reliable record. 
 
 82. A. D. 1547. — Sir Eichard Eeade was appointed Chan- 
 cellor on the committal of Lord Chancellor Allen to the Fleet, 
 Sir Richard's salary being increased by £200, payable out of 
 the customs of Dundalk, Drogheda, and Dublin. On the 8th 
 of November, in the same year, a commission was directed to 
 Sir Anthony St. Leger, Lord Deputy, to Sir Eichard Eeade and 
 others, commanding them to receive their surrender from the 
 Dean and Chapter of St. Patrick, with all the jewels and orna- 
 ments of the church. Having remained a few months in office, 
 he retired, on the re-appointment, as above stated, of Sir John 
 Allen. 
 
 83. A. D. 1550. — Sir Thomas Cusack. In the province of 
 Guienne in the south of France there stood, at the close of the 
 
44 SIR THOMAS CUSACK. 
 
 twelfth century, the castle of Cusack, which, surrounded by vast 
 domains, gave its name to its proprietor. The first of the house, 
 then ancient, who came to England was Geoffrey. He accom- 
 panied King John in his expedition against the Welsh, and in 
 return for the bravery he then displayed received many castles 
 and lordships. In Mayo he was granted the lordship of Ty- 
 rawley; in Meath, the castles of Gerardstown, Clonardran, Boss, 
 Brennanstown, Folystown, Nowil, and the lordship of Killeen, 
 which afterwards in 1403, on the marriage of Joan, sole heiress 
 of Sir Lucas Cusack, with Sir Christopher Plunket, passed into 
 the hands of the latter, by whose descendants, the present lords 
 of "Killeen and earls of Fingal, it is still enjoyed. Geoffry left 
 on his death two sons; the younger of them was Andrew, father 
 of John de Cusack, to whose military prowess may be attributed 
 in a great measure the success of the English at the battle of 
 Faughard, near Dundalk, in 1318, where Edward Bruce was 
 killed. The dignity of knight banneret was then bestowed on 
 John de Cusack as a reward for his heroic deeds of valour. He 
 was married to a daughter of Fitz Gerald, Lord of Offaly, and 
 was the ancestor, fifth in the ascending line, of Thomas Cusack, 
 the subject of this memoir. Thomas Cusack entered early in 
 life on a public career. On the 24th of May, 1534, he was 
 appointed second Justice of the Common Pleas, at an annual 
 salary of £20, and the following year was nominated Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer. In 1542 he was chosen Speaker of the House 
 of Commons, and was a supporter of the measure which elevated 
 into a kingdom the lordship of Ireland. His next appointment 
 was that of Master of the Rolls, which is thus stated on the 
 Calendar of the Patent Polls : — " 15 June, 1543, Sir Thomas 
 Cusack, of Cushington, was appointed to the office of Master of 
 the Polls, at a salary of £33 a-year." In 1546 he was associated 
 on a commission with the Lord Deputy to receive the surrender 
 of St. Patrick's cathedral, and on the 8th of January following 
 the commissioners met in the chapter-room, when the vestments, 
 chalices, and church ornaments were seized by them in the king's 
 name, while the dean, on his own part and on the part of the 
 chapter, surrendered the patrimony of that ancient body to the 
 crown. St. Patrick's was then closed as a church, and was de- 
 graded into a place for holding the four courts. The vicar's . 
 house, however, was assigned, in the words of the patent, " for 
 a grammar school, and for the lodgings of the pedagogue and 
 hypodidasculum of the said school." In the division of the 
 church property Sir Thomas Cusack was not forgotten. Ap- 
 pointed Lord Chancellor on the 14th of January, 1550, a grant 
 was immediately made to him of the dissolved " monastery of 
 Cleonarde, with 225J acres thereunto appertaining, in the county 
 of Meath." The Chancellor's first concern was to make an 
 
SIR THOMAS CUSACK. 45 
 
 official tour through many parts of the kingdom, and visited 
 amongst others the country of Olanriokarde, which had been 
 lately surrendered to the crown. He made many valuable sug- 
 gestions for its pacification ; and so struck was the Earl of Clan- 
 rickarde with the wisdom of these suggestions, that he resolved 
 to enforce them, and with this end " caused," as he tells the lords 
 of the council, " certain gentlemen to be hanged, drawn, and 
 quartered, and others only to be hanged, so that all the Chan- 
 cellor's conclusions might sink the more surer into the hearts of 
 others." 
 
 In the year 1552 he addressed a letter to the Duke of 
 Northumberland on the then state of Ireland. This work (of 
 great rarity and much curiosity) tells us of the manners and 
 customs of our ancestors over 300 years ago, and it speaks of the 
 laws of the country, and of how those laws were carried out ; 
 and it also suggests many improvements, as follows : — 
 
 " State of Irelaxd. — The copy of this book sent from Sir 
 Thomas Cusack, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, to the Duke of 
 Northumberland's grace, for the present state of Ireland : — 
 
 " Munster, under the rule of such lords and captains as 
 are there, and of the Earl of Desmond, is in good quiet, so that 
 the justices of the peace ride their circuit, in their counties of 
 Limerick, Cork, and Kerry, being the farthest shires west in 
 Munster, and the sheriffs are obeyed. The lords and captains 
 of those counties, as the Earl of Desmond, Viscount Barrie, 
 Lord Roche, Lord Eitz-morris, and divers others, who within a 
 few years would not hear or obey the law, are now in the com- 
 mission, with the justices of peace, to hear and determine causes. 
 The Irish captains in those quarters do not stir, but live in such 
 quiet that the English captains at Cork, with forty horsemen, 
 cause the offenders to stand to right. M'Cartie More, who is 
 the most powerful Irishman in Ireland, is now very conform- 
 able to good order, having of late, by persuasion of the said 
 English captains, obeyed and performed certain orders taken 
 betwixt him and others of the country. If a stout gentleman, 
 skilful and of estimation among them, were president at 
 Limerick, to see justice indifferently administered amongst 
 them, and the captain appointed to attend upon him, to see the 
 orders and decrees put in due execution, no doubt but the king 
 should not only win many good subjects, but also, within a 
 short time, have a large revenue, where now he has nothing 
 more than obedience in Munster. 
 
 " Leixster," the writer says, " is in good stay at this in- 
 stant, for my Lord Deputy, of late repairing into those quarters, 
 took order with Cayrey McArthe, and the rest of the Kava- 
 naghes, and appointed every gentleman his territory, and placed 
 certain English captains with their bands amongst them, some 
 
46 SIR THOMAS CUSACK. 
 
 of said captains at Leighlin, some at Eerns and Enniscorthy, 
 and some at Tymolenge, a place wherein the Cavanaghs and 
 other malefactors formerly disturbed such as brought stuff by 
 water from Bosse or Waterford to Leighlin or Oarlow, and like- 
 wise placed certain of the king's soldiers between them and the 
 county of Wexford. 
 
 " The Byrnes, and such other of Irish sorts dwelling in the 
 rest of Leinster, and next to the Kavanaghs, are of honest con- 
 formity, and pay no rent to the King's Majesty, but support 
 120 light-armed foot soldiers, paying each of them four pence 
 sterling by the day, and are able to have 80 horsemen, with 
 many footmen within their country, being men always ready to 
 stand to good order at the appointment of my Lord Deputy and 
 council. 
 
 " Thomond [a district comprising the whole of the county 
 of Clare, and part of Tipperary] is beside Limerick, wherein 
 the Breanes [O'Briens] do inhabit, and since the time that 
 O'Brean was created earl the same is in good order and quiet ; 
 but after the decease of the late Earl of Thomond, Sir Donough 
 O'Brien, baron of Ibrackan, being, by the king's grant, ap- 
 pointed to be the next earl, for fear of his brother, Sir Donald, 
 and the rest of the gentlemen of the country, did name his said 
 brother to be tanist, after the Irish custom, which being repug- 
 nant to the king's grant, the Lord Deputy, hearing thereof, 
 sent for the same baron, and laid that to his charge, and upon 
 his own confession, and of his misbehaviour therein, sent also 
 his letters to the said Sir Donald, and the rest of the gentlemen, 
 to stand to the King's Majesty's orders, and to refuse their Irish 
 custom of tanistry ; whereupon, without war or force, they all 
 abjured the said Irish custom, and obeyed the baron as Earl of 
 Thomond, according to his Majesty's grant, and abjured the 
 name of tanist, and now there are few countries in Ireland in 
 better quiet than they. 
 
 " Between Limerick and the county of Tipperary are Irish- 
 men of great power, the M'Williams [Burkes], M'Brenes, 
 O'Gronnaght, M'Brien Are, O'Mulryan, with divers others, 
 who, a few years ago, were all wild, and not conformable to 
 any good order, and yet they are now ordered by the sheriffs of 
 the shires, so that men may quietly pass throughout their coun- 
 tries at pleasure, without danger of being robbed, or other 
 annoyance, and everyone dwells in their own country quietly, 
 without annoyance or hindrance from anyone. 
 
 " Other Irishmen's countries, betwixt that and Upper Ossory 
 [now county Kilkenny], as O'Kennedy and O'Dwyre, and the 
 Oarrowlles, support light-armed foot soldiers to His Majesty 
 without contradiction, and those were formerly mortal enemies 
 to the English Pale. So as in all the said circuit, containing 
 
SIR THOMAS CUSACK. 47 
 
 half the realm, whioh, with small charges, will be brought to 
 civil obedience ; and if all the countries were made counties, that 
 the law might have its course, then they would prosper, for 
 the sheriffs would put down their Irish laws and elections of 
 captains. 
 
 "Connaught. — Between Thomond and Galway lies Clan- 
 
 rickard, a plain open country, which was governed by M' William, 
 
 who was created afterwards Earl of Clanrickard, and during 
 
 whose time the country was in good stay and quiet. After his 
 
 death, as his son Richard was but young, and the country 
 
 doubted whether he was mxilier born or a bastard, Sir TJlick 
 
 Burke was appointed captain during his nonage. "When he 
 
 came to his full age he began to be at war with the said captain, 
 
 and between them both the country was all wasted. Being sent 
 
 with a small company to see them ordered, within one fortnight, 
 
 having put certain gentlemen to execution for their offences by 
 
 terror thereof, and by other means, I left the country, and I 
 
 placed the earl quietly, and made every one of the country 
 
 willing to answer and obey him, and took orders betwixt them 
 
 for their contentions to the parties' contentation, and left two 
 
 ploughs manuring the land where at my going thither there 
 
 were not past forty ploughs in all the country, but all waste 
 
 through war, which ploughing increaseth daily, thanks be to 
 
 God! whereby the country is universally inhabited, and so 
 
 brought to quiet that now the people leave their ploughs, irons, 
 
 and cattle in the fields without fear of stealing. Experience 
 
 showeth that there can be nothing so good to be used with such 
 
 savage people as good order to be observed and kept amongst 
 
 them, for execution of the law is more feared when it is done in 
 
 order than any other punishment. 
 
 "Mac William Bourke [of Mayo], second captain of most 
 power in Connaught, is of honest conformity, and doth hinder 
 none of the King's Majesty's subjects, and is ready to join 
 with the Earl of Clanricarde, and every other captain to serve 
 the King's Majesty in every place in Connaught; and if a 
 president, or yet a captain, with a competent number of men, 
 continuing at Athenry or at Galway, will cause all that 
 country to be true subjects; and those two, with a captain, 
 will be able to rule all Connaught, which is the fifth part 
 of Ireland. 
 
 "There is in Connaught, besides O'Connour Slyggaghe 
 [Sligo], O'Connour Doyne [O'Connor Don], O'Connour Roo, 
 and McDermott, men of no great power. The same Slyg- 
 gaghe country belongs to the king, and it is the best haven 
 town in all the country ; and the same O'Connour and certain 
 his predecessors keep the same by usurpation, and the one of 
 themselves continually warreth against the other. O'Connour 
 
48 SIR THOMAS CTJSACK. 
 
 Doyne and O'Connour Eoo did strive about Eossecamman, a 
 fair manor of the King's Majesty [yea, one of the fairest in 
 all Ireland, lying in the plains of Connaught] ; and in their 
 contention this Earl of Clanricarde got the house off their 
 hands, and kept ward in the same by a policy. And now of 
 late upon my repair to Athlone for certain conclusions there, 
 the same earl resorted to me, and condescended to deliver the- 
 same castle to my Lord Deputy, to be kept to the king's use, 
 and he to be considered otherwise, so as between that house and 
 Athlone, being but twelve miles asunder, all their countries 
 would be made obedient. O'Bourke's country is but fourteen 
 miles from Roscommon. O'Donnell's country is not passing- 
 nine miles from it, and Sliggaghe is but fourteen miles from 
 it ; so as, thanks be to God, all those countries be now quiet ; 
 but when one of themselves make warre upon another, and 
 so between Athlone, Roscommon, and the Earl of Clanricarde,. 
 all the rest of course must be obedient with small charges. 
 
 "Between Athlone and Clanricarde is O'Keally's country. 
 O'Kelly is a captain of great power of horsemen, gallowglasse- 
 and kerne [heavy-armed and light-armed foot-soldiers] and 
 no men in Ireland of wilder nature than they are, and many 
 times, in times of warre, they have done much harm to the 
 English Pale. And now lately my Lord Deputy, being at 
 Athlone, I attended upon his lordship, at which time O'Kelly, 
 by persuasion, was content to hear and yield to the house of 
 Athlone, as other English in the Pale did. 
 
 "O'Connour Poo aforesaid, upon eight days before my 
 arrival there, was plundered by McDermod of 4000 kyne and 
 500 stud mares ; and perceiving the obedience of O'Kelly and 
 the orders which was taken between him and others, he- 
 [O'Connor Poo] came to me to complain to Athlone ; where- 
 upon, to prove their obedience, I concluded with the Earl 
 of Clanricarde and divers other captains and gentlemen who- 
 then were with me, that unless he would make restitution 
 upon my letters, they should meet together the Sunday after 
 May-day with 300 horsemen, 400 gallowglas, and 800 kerne, 
 with seven days' victuals, to punish the same McDermod, and 
 to see the poor men restored, whereupon all they condescended ; 
 and after the same conclusion I determined with them that 
 they should in no wise get forward till they should hear from 
 my Lord Deputy and have his consent; so as it is good 
 obedience that gentlemen in such countries would be so willing- 
 to punish such offences upon a sudden, without putting his 
 Majesty to charge, whereby it appeareth that if there be a 
 president amongst them to see them kept in good order, their 
 country would be brought to good quiet. 
 
 " Between Athlone and Offaly are the countries of O'Brynne, 
 
SIR THOMAS CUSACK, CHANCELLOR. 49 
 
 MoCoghlan, the Fox, O'Molmoy, and McGroghecan — very strong 
 countries for woods, moors, and bogs, by means whereof much 
 cattle are stolen out of the English Pale ; all of them condescen- 
 ded to cut passes in their fastnesses. I sent for the same Irish 
 captains to answer complaints; and for as many thereof as were 
 duly proved, I caused the sheriff of Westmeath, with ten horse- 
 men, to destrain the value of all the goods stolen. I caused 
 them, within four days, to restore to the poor people £300, and 
 besides to pay as much more to the king as a fine. Before 
 this time no Irishman was to pay more than to restore the 
 goods stolen, and for that the countries be no shire lands, no 
 thief can be punished by the law. The sheriff, with a few men, 
 will be so regarded as to put such order in execution, in those 
 strong countries, which, within seven years, 800 men, nor yet 
 1000, were not able to bring to pass in any of these places. 
 
 " Between the Shannon and 0'E.aylie's country [now the 
 eastern portion of the county Cavan], is the Annale [now 
 the county Longford], a strong country where the Farrells 
 dwell, men of good obedience, who pay yearly to the king 100 
 marks rent, and find 240 gallowglass for the quarter of the year 
 after the rate of four pence sterling the spear by the day. 
 Lately, in the absence of my Lord Deputy, I being there for 
 the settlement of their contentions, they obeyed my letters. 
 
 "Next to the An alee is a large country, well inhabited, 
 called the Breany [Breany or Breffny, comprehended in 
 what is now known as the whole of the county Leitrim, and 
 part of the county Cavan], wherein O'Raile is chief captain, 
 who has seven sons. He and they make 400 horsemen, all 
 of the same name, and 1000 kerne, and 200 gallowglass. The 
 country is divided between them, which joineth to the English 
 Pale, upon a country called Plunkett's country, betwixt which 
 country there hath been divers murders, stealths and robberies, 
 by night and day committed. On the complaint of the inhabi- 
 tants of both parties, in the absence of my Lord Deputy, I re- 
 paired to these borders, O'Eeily was accompanied by 400 horse- 
 men, and 300 footmen, whilst I had not more than 100 horsemen, 
 and as many footmen. I required him to come to me with a 
 few horsemen, and accordingly he did. I commanded him to 
 deliver such pledge into my hands as I would name; and 
 though he was loth so to do, yet at length he condescended. 
 Upon receipt of his pledge, I made proclamation that every 
 complainant, at a certain day, should meet to receive his due. 
 On the next day of meeting I caused him to restore as much 
 goods as were stolen and taken from the English Pale in six 
 years before, which came to £400. I also caused him to pay 
 £200 as a fine to them for maintenance of such stealth. The 
 like hath not been that a man of such power as he is of would 
 
50 SIR THOMAS CUSACK, CHANCELLOR. 
 
 redeliver without greater circumstances ; whereby it appeareth 
 that the poor simple people be as soon brought to good as to 
 evil, if they were taught; for hard it is for such men to know 
 their duties to Grod and to the king, when they shall not hear 
 preaching or teaching throughout all the year to instruct them 
 in their duty. [Many of the monasteries were suppressed in 
 this part of the country at the time.] 
 
 " If the countries of Leix [afterwards constituted a county 
 by Queen Mary, with the appellation of Queen's County], and 
 Offaly [King's County] were made shireland, that men might 
 have estates of inheritance there, by copyhold or fee-farm, and 
 both the forts were made market towns [the fort of Dain- 
 gean was afterwards called Philipstown, and that of Campa 
 called Maryborough] ; and if other former devices were put 
 in execution, the king's profit would much increase, the countries 
 would be well inhabited and manured, and his grace's charges 
 would be diminished. Such manurance will bring good cheap 
 corn and cattle, and the English Pale will be thereby discharged 
 of exceeding yearly charges, for now there lieth between the forts 
 600 or 700 soldiers, daily in effect, and can do service out of the 
 same countries which standeth the king's majesty [Edw. VI.] 
 as though they were extraordinary, assuring your grace that the 
 countries be now greatly charged with the finding of them ; for 
 the countries supply the soldiers with the peck of wheat for five 
 shillings, which is sold in the market for twenty shillings ; they 
 also give them the beef for twelve shillings, which is solid in the 
 market for £4, yet the country do not grudge or gainsay the 
 same, but, like obedient subjects, pay the same without excla- 
 mation, which, by alteration of the forts, would be redressed, 
 and a great yearly saving to his majesty. 
 
 " Next to the Breany is M'Mahon's country, called Orryell 
 [now the counties of Louth, Monaghan, and Armagh], wherein 
 lieth three captains, the one in Dartarie [near Clones], and 
 other and M'Mahone in Loghtye, of which three countries 
 M'Mahone is chieftain — these countries, both large, fast, and 
 strong, among whom there were continuous intestine wars for- 
 merly, whereby the most part of the country was made waste. 
 Nevertheless, they be tall men, to the number of 80 horsemen, 
 200 keme, and 120 gallowglass, and all of these for the most 
 part do follow husbandry, except the kerne, and yet some of 
 them occupy likewise. [By the following it would appear 
 that the Chancellor was pushing the authority of the king's 
 courts into Ulster, as well as in the southern countries.] " Of 
 late, before Easter, by appointment of my Lord Deputy, I re- 
 sorted to them to see the countries' order. They all assembled 
 before me, and I caused them to find, at their owncharge, 120 gal- 
 lowglass yearly, to serve the king, and to attend upon the English 
 
SIR THOMAS CUSACK, CHANCELLOR. 51 
 
 captain of the English Pale, who has the order of the country 
 committed to him for the keeping of the king's peace. I also 
 caused them to put their pledges into my hands for the finding of 
 the gallowglass, and for the due performance of the orders, which 
 I took between them. This was done without force or rigour. 
 Besides this, they pay for all cesses to the soldiers of Monaghan, 
 and in other places beeves and carriages, like as others in the 
 English Pale do. 
 
 " The next country between that [Orryell] and Mac- 
 Gynnose's country, called Iveaghe [county Down] is O'Han- 
 lan's country, called Orrer. The same O'Hanlon is an honest 
 man, and he and his country are ready to obey all command- 
 ments. The next to O'Hanlon is McGinnesses' country aforesaid, 
 where, in the Nivorye, Mr. Marshal's farm is situated. The same 
 M'Ginness is a civil gentleman, and useth as good order and 
 fashion in his house as any man in his vocation in Ireland, and 
 doeth the same English like. His country is obedient to all 
 cesses and orders. The same Iveagh hath been parcel of the 
 country of Downe, and he being made sheriff thereof, hath ex- 
 ercised his office there as well as any other sheriffs doth. 
 
 " The next to that country is M'Cartan's country, a man of 
 small power, wherein are no horsemen, but kerne, which country 
 is full of bogs, and beareth the captain of Lecaill. The next to 
 that country is the Doufrey, whereof one John White was land- 
 lord, who was deceitfully murdered by McEanyl Boy's son, a 
 Scot. 
 
 "The next country to the same is Lecaill [country about 
 Downpatrick], where Mr. Brereton is farmer and captain, which 
 is a handsome plain and champion country, ten miles long 
 and five broad, without any good wood growing there. The 
 sea doth ebb and flow round about that country, so as in full 
 water no man can enter in upon dry land but in one way, 
 which is less than two miles in length. The same country for 
 English freeholders and good inheritance is as civil as few places 
 in the English Pale. 
 
 " The next country to that and the water of Strangford is 
 Arde Savage's country. 
 
 " The next country to Arde is Clanneboy [south portion of 
 the County Antrim], wherein is one Moriartnagh Dulenaghe; 
 one of the Neyles ; but he is not able to maintain himself. He 
 hath eight tall gentlemen to his sons, and they cannot make past 
 twenty-four horsemen. There is another sept in that country of 
 Phelim Backagh's sons, tall men, who take part with Hugh 
 McNeil Oge. The same Hugh McNeil was plundered by Mr. 
 Marshal. McNeil sought to have the matter heard by my Lord 
 Deputy and counsel, and a day was named in May ; and now 
 lately I repaired to his country to talk further with him, to de- 
 
 e 2 
 
52 SIR THOMAS CUSACK, CHANCELLOR. 
 
 lay the time till the grain grow, for before then the country is 
 barren of victuals." 
 
 The Chancellor next describes the country of Claneboy. He 
 speaks of the castles of Eeough and Bealfarst, of the country of 
 the Grlynnes, of O'Cahan's country on the Bann, of the country 
 of Tyrone, " where the Earl of Tyrone hath rule," of Armagh, 
 of " O'Donnell's country, named Tyreonnell." lie then approves 
 of the policy of the government in sending to England the 
 Earls of Desmond, Thomond, Clanrickarde, Tyrone, and others, 
 which sending immediately followed the invitation issued to 
 them by the king to confer upon them their titles of honour. 
 He then suggests the appointment of presidents of the provinces 
 of Ulster, Munster, and Connaught, and the division of the 
 whole country into counties, which involved the appointment of 
 sheriffs to execute the king's writs. He next informs the Duke 
 of Northumberland that " many hold to the opinion that the 
 realme of Ireland should remain under the government of the 
 lords of the same," as in times past, while others are of opinion 
 " that it were good with the sword to destroy all the inhabitants 
 of that country." 
 
 Having thus given the Lord Chancellor's observations on 
 Ireland in his time, let us return to the subject-matter of our 
 narrative. 
 
 On the death of Edward VI., in 1553, one of the first acts of 
 Queen Mary was to direct that Sir Thomas Cusack should be 
 continued in the office of Chancellor. She next ordered the 
 cathedral of St. Patrick's to be restored to the service of the 
 ancient faith; and accordingly it was done. The ex-monk 
 George Browne was then expelled from the See of Dublin, which 
 was declared vacant, and Hugh Curwen was presented thereto by 
 the Pope ; for the Queen, though styled by the lords of the council 
 " Supreme Head of the Churches of England and Ireland," en- 
 tirely repudiated all claim to any such title, as appears by the 8th 
 section of the 3rd & 4th Philip and Mary, chapter viii. (Irish), 
 which contains the following recital : — " Whereas your High- 
 ness, Sovereign Ladye, since your coming to the Crowne of these . 
 realmes of England and Ireland, of a good and Christian con- 
 science, omitted to write the said style of supremacie." On the 
 13th of September, 1554, their Majesties addressed the follow- 
 ing letter to Sir Thomas Cusack : — 
 
 " The King and Queen to the Lord Chancellor : — "Whereas 
 we have received from our Holy Father the Pope a Bull, herein 
 enclosed, by which you shall clearly understand that his Holiness, 
 upon our recommendation, hath preferred unto the Archbishop- 
 ric of Dublin our trusty and well-beloved chaplain, Hugh 
 Curwen ; whereupon he hath done unto us his homage and 
 fealty. We therefore will and command you, that under our 
 
SIR THOMAS CUSACK, CHANCELLOR. 53 
 
 Great Seal you make out such and as many writs as shall be re- 
 quisite and necessary for the restitution of the temporalities of 
 the archbishopric to our said chaplain accordingly." 1 
 
 This was the last communication Sir Thomas had with the- 
 government in his capacity of Chancellor. On the same day the 
 new Archbishop of Dublin was appointed Lord Chancellor of 
 Ireland. In the succeeding reign Sir Thomas was continued in 
 the rank of Privy Councillor, and afterwards, in 1563, was asso- 
 ciated with Gerald, Earl of Tvildare, on a royal commission to 
 treat with O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone, and to frame articles of peace 
 between that haughty chieftain and Queen Elizabeth. He was 
 also commissioned to settle the disputes which had long existed 
 between the Earls of Desmond and Ormond. During the re- 
 mainder of his life Cusack continued firm in his adhesion to the 
 Protestant religion, and in this he appears to have been an excep- 
 tion to the lawyers of that day, who as a body were unanimous 
 in their opposition to the Reformation. " Sir Thomas Cusack," 
 writes Dr. Brady, Protestant Bishop of Meath, "is the only man 
 in his profession that favours religion. All the lawyers are 
 thwarters of the Reformation." Sir Thomas died on the 1st of 
 April, 1571, and was interred in the parish church of Tryvit, in 
 the county of Meath. He had been three times married : first 
 to Jane Hussey, daughter to John Hussey, baron of Galtrym ; 
 secondly, to Mathilda, daughter of George Darcy of Platten ; 
 and thirdly, to Janette Sarsfield of Eucan. From him are de- 
 scended the Cusacks of Cushington, in the county of Meath. 
 
 84. A. D. 1555. — Hugh Curwen, Archbishop of Dublin, was 
 a native of Westmoreland, and claimed descent from the Percys, 
 Earls of Northumberland ; his ancesters, however, residing in 
 the district of Corren in Galloway, adopted as their own the 
 name of the place, which, in the course of time, was afterwards 
 changed to Curwen. In early life he was remarkable for his 
 piety and zeal, and having taken holy orders, obtained, soon after 
 his entering on the mission, the appointment of Dean of Here- 
 ford and chaplain to their majesties, Philip and Mary. He was 
 next consecrated Archbishop of Dublin, according to the Roman 
 Pontifical, in St. Paul's Cathedral. On the 13th of September, 
 1555, he was raised to the Chancellorship of Ireland, and on his 
 arrival in Dublin was sworn into office, the form of oath having 
 been altered from that used in the preceding reign. It is as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Ye shall swear that you shall be a faithful and true coun- 
 cillor to our most dear Sovereign Lord the King, and our most 
 dear Sovereign Lady the Queen's Majesty, their heirs and suc- 
 cessors, kings of England, France, and Ireland, and shall faith- 
 
 1 Morrin, " Pat. Rot.," Unq>, Mary, p. 339. 
 
54 CATHOLIC FAITH RESTOKED. 
 
 fully, truly, and uprightly demeane yourselfe in the room of 
 Lord Chancellor of the realme of Irelande, as well towards their 
 Majesties, their heirs, and successors, as towards their High- 
 ness's subjects, and all others that shall have to do before you. 
 You shall maintain, execute, and keep the laws, ordinances, and 
 rights, of our mother the Holy Church, in all their points and 
 articles, and the law ordinances, and most godly statutes of the 
 realme agreeable and consonant to the same — you shall adminis- 
 ter justice indifferently to all persons, refusing no man thereof — 
 you shall also do all other things that appertain to the office of 
 Lord Chancellor and councillor, to the uppermost of your power — 
 so help you God, all the saints in heaven, and by this book." l 
 
 On the 25th of the same month, the queen wrote to the 
 dean and chapter of Christ Church, to receive Dr. Curwen with 
 due respect, announcing that he was preparing " to reside on 
 the cure of his bishopric, which now of long time hath been des- 
 titute of a Catholic bishop, as also to occupy the office of our 
 High Chancellor of that realme." Immediately after his eleva- 
 tion he resigned the Deanery of Hereford, but in a month re- 
 sumed it, and held it on until the year 1558. A letter is still 
 extant in which the following allusion is made to his first ser- 
 mon : — " The Archbishop of Dublin did preach his first sermon 
 that he made in this land in Christ Church, and did set forth 
 the word of God sincerely in his sermon, and after such a sort, 
 that those men, both the learned and unlearned, do give him as 
 high praise as I have heard given to any one man." In the 
 same year he held a provincial Synod, in which many constitu- 
 tions were made concerning the ceremonies of divine worship. 
 
 On the 28th of April, 1556, the king and queen sent written 
 instructions to Lord Eitz-Walter, Earl of Sussex, who was then 
 about to enter on his duties of Lord Deputy, and also to 
 Dowdall, Archbishop of Armagh, and Hugh Curwen, Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, and others of the Privy Council, directing 
 them " to bring about by their own good example, and all other 
 good means, the restoration of the Catholic religion, now, by 
 God's goodness and special grace, recovered in our realme of 
 England and Ireland ; and they shall set forth the honour and 
 dignity of the Pope's Holiness and See Apostolic of Bome, and 
 from time to time be ready with our aid and secular force, at the 
 request of all spiritual ministers and ordinaries, then to punish 
 and repress all heretics and Lollards, and their damnable sects 
 and opinions and errors." They also informed them, that Ee- 
 ginald Pole, Archbishop of Canterbury, had been sent as papal 
 legate to England, to effect the reconciliation of that country to 
 the Church, and that his eminence was about despatching com- 
 missioners to Ireland for a like purpose, and they called upon 
 1 Morrin, "Pat. Rot.," p. 340. 
 
QUEEN MARY.' 55 
 
 the deputy and council to assist them in that behalf by every 
 means in their power ; they directed that the deputy is also to 
 have regard to the administration of justice, and that the laws 
 be executed, the lack whereof has caused grievous complaints 
 and many mischiefs, and they complained that although the 
 fees of the ministers of the law were more and more increased, 
 there was a great lack in the administration of justice. The de- 
 puty should declare to the judge of the bench and Common 
 Pleas, that their majesties were " not ignorant of the ill-hus- 
 bandry in times passed used in those courts, which," they trusted, 
 " should from thenceforth be amended." A similar rebuke was 
 administered to the Barons of the Exchequer, and with these 
 and other instructions the Earl of Sussex took his departure for 
 Ireland, where he arrived on Whit Sunday, the 24th of May, 
 1556, and on the following Tuesday was sworn into office in 
 Christ Church. 
 
 The interesting ceremonial of resigning the sword of state 
 by the outgeing, and the acceptance thereof by the incoming 
 deputy, before the Lord Chancellor and the pursuivant-at-arms, 
 is thus quaintly described in the " Carew Manuscripts," p. 258 : — 
 " On Tuesday Sir Anthony St. Leger came to Dublin, and then 
 to Christ Church, not permitting any of the gentlemen to pre- 
 cede him, or the sword to be borne before him. He went till he 
 came to the chapel on the left hand of the altar in Christ Church, 
 and there devoutly kneeled until the service was done, the Lord 
 Eitz- Walters kneeling somewhat distant from him. The ser- 
 vices being ended, the Lord Deputy [Sir Anthony St. Leger] 
 proceeded forth, Sir George Stanley [Knight Marshal] bearing 
 the sword before him, and after this business, humbly bowing 
 unto the altar, sat down. The Lord Walter's patent was then 
 delivered to John Parker [Master of the Rolls], who read it, Sir 
 Anthony kneeling before the altar, who, after his thanks given 
 unto Almighty God, rose up, set Lord Walters in his place, took 
 the sword from Sir George Stanley, and, upon his knees, sur- 
 rendered it to Lord Eitz- Walters. Then Hugh Curwen, Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, read the oath of 
 Lord Fitz- Walters, and the pursuivant-at-arms held the mass- 
 book, whereon he took his oath. That done, the trumpets 
 sounded and the drums beat, and then the Lord Deputy kneeled 
 down before the altar until the Te Deum was ended." 
 
 The manuscript then proceeds to detail the reception of the 
 Lord Deputy at both the cathedrals by Archbishop Curwen. On 
 the next day, " Wednesday, the Lord Deputy came to Christ 
 Church, nobly accompanied, and, under a canopy at the church 
 door, was received by the Archbishop of Dublin, with the clergy 
 kneeling. There he was censed, and after kissed the cross, being 
 blessed by the Archbishop. He then proceeded to the high 
 
56 THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP CURWEN. 
 
 altar, where he kneeled till the Te Deum was sung, and being 
 censed and blessed, and service done, he rose up from his place 
 and proceeded to the altar, where he kneeled a certain space, 
 and offered a piece of gold. Then he departed to his lodgings. 
 
 " On Thursday the Lord Deputy came to the church of St. 
 Patrick's and there, after the form aforesaid, was received by 
 the said Archbishop, being Lord Chancellor, and there offered, 
 and dined with him that day." 
 
 Immediately on the conclusion of those proceedings a parlia- 
 ment was summoned, and an Act passed for the reconciliation of 
 the kingdom with the Apostlic See. The ease with which the 
 sovereigns of those days prevailed on their parliaments to pass 
 such laws relating to religion as suited their passing fancies 
 appears to our generation wholly unaccountable. In 1537 the 
 legislative assembly abolished the Catholic religion, and stamped 
 its holiest rites as "divilish abuses," and the authority of the 
 Pope as usurped, and yet a score of years had not gone over until 
 the Irish Parliament restored that Church, which they after- 
 wards overturned at the beck of Queen Elizabeth. If anything 
 can deepen the astonishment one feels at such vacillating con- 
 duct, it is this, that the Lord Chancellor was adviser of the 
 Crown, and Speaker of the House of Lords, at the passing of 
 the Acts both of Mary and Elizabeth. 
 
 Disturbances were at this time widespread, and the Irish 
 people appear to have been as hostile to English rule under the 
 Catholic king and queen as they had previously been uuder the 
 Protestant kings Henry VIII. and Edward VI. The dangers 
 of travelling, too, in the Irish districts, between Gralway and 
 Dublin, were so great that they deserve to be recorded, and 
 might well provoke the doubts of the incredulous in our own 
 times, if they were not so well authenticated. Thus Cristopher 
 Bodkin, Archbishop of Tuam, the Earl of Clanricade, and others, 
 were bound in their recognisances of £1200, to appear before 
 the Lord Chancellor of Ireland in Dublin, on the morning of 
 Ascension-day, 1556 ; and not having attended, they incurred 
 the risk of the forfeiture of their bonds; but they alleged in 
 defence the impossibility of the performance of the condition, 
 owing to " the feare they had of the waies, and doubting much 
 if they should have travelled through Irishmen's countries with- 
 out companie, that they should have been taken and spoyled," 
 and this defence was deemed sufficient to save the forfeiture. 
 
 On the 4th December, 1556, a commission was issued to 
 Archbishop Curwen and others, empowering them to inquire 
 concerning the chalices, crosses, ornaments, bells, and other 
 property which had lately belonged to the parish churches and 
 chapels in the diocese of Dublin, and the sales made thereof to 
 any person, or persons, the price, in whose hands they then re- 
 
THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP CURWEN. 57 
 
 mained, and also in whose possession were the houses, lands 
 and tenements belonging to their churches ; and to cause an 
 inquisition to he thereof made and returned into Chancery 
 without delay. Similar commissions were at the same time 
 issued to all the bishops in Ireland, doubtless with the view of 
 restoring their property to the parish churches. Widely diffe- 
 rent was their Majesties' policy with respect to the monasteries, 
 which by the sanction of the legate were not restored to the 
 religious orders. The Patent Rolls are loaded with grants, 
 made by Queen Mary, of the abbeys, priories, oommanderies, 
 nunneries, and lesser houses, to lay grantees. In the statute, 
 however, re-establishing the Catholic Church in this kingdom, 
 it was permitted that lands might be given or devised to spi- 
 ritual bodies without the license of mortmain. On the 9th of 
 November, 1557, the Lord Chancellor and Sir Henry Sidney 
 were appointed Lords Justices during the temporary absence of 
 the Earl of Sussex, who was then viceroy, and who had been 
 summonned to Greenwich, to take the queen's commands with 
 respect to the future government of the country. Having re- 
 mained in England for several weeks, he returned to Dublin, 
 and resumed office. He made several journeys throughout the 
 country, which are well told in the " Carew Manuscripts." On 
 the 10th July he arrived in Limerick, where, after high mass, the 
 Earl of Thomond swore to forsake the name O'Brien, and to use 
 the name and style of the Earl of Thomond. On Tuesday, 12th 
 of July, he pushed on towards Galway, and remained that night 
 at Gort, where "he dined so worshipfully that divers wondered 
 at it." 
 
 On the accession of Queen Elizabeth in 1558, the government 
 of Ireland continued in the hands of the earl, who was speedily 
 summoned to her Majesty's presence. On the 4th December 
 he "took his departure from Kilmainham, with my lady, his 
 wife, to Howth, where that night he took shipping for England ; 
 and on the following day, Hugh Curwen, Archbishop of Dublin 
 and Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and Sir Henry Sidney, "were 
 sworn in as Lords Justices in Christ Church." Dr. Curwen, 
 now that a Protestant occupied the throne, immediately accom- 
 modated his faith to that of the reigning sovereign. He was 
 permitted, therefore, to retain his see, and continue in the office 
 of Chancellor, and, as a further reward for his elasticity of con- 
 science, was nominated to the privy council. On the 25th 
 May, 1559, he caused the pictures that adorned the walls of 
 Christ Church and of St. Patrick's to be whitewashed, so com- 
 pletely had he accommodated himself to the religious principles 
 of the Eeformation. 
 
 Archbishop Curwen was one of the spiritual peers who sat in 
 the parliament assembled in January, 1560, by which was passed 
 
58 THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP CURWEN. 
 
 the Act abolishing the power of the Pope in Ireland. This was 
 the parliament that had four years previously restored the papal 
 power! The Act was nominally passed for all Ireland; but 
 was of little consequence to "the Irishry" outside the Pale, 
 where, indeed, the English laws were then but little respected. 
 How little respected appears from the following report made by 
 the Earl of Sussex in 1652 : "The people are governed either 
 by English laws or the Brehon law, which is a corrupt kind 
 of civil law ; or by Irish customs, grounded upon the will of the 
 lord, that is to say, the English people by English laws, except 
 where the great lords, to maintain their extortion, use the other; 
 and the Irish people by the Brehon laws and customs. The 
 Brehon law doth admit the eldest of every nation to be by 
 election captain of his nation, which, by custom, hath of late 
 been so abused; as for the most part, the strongest of every 
 nation is chosen to be captain, which kind of election causeth 
 great numbers of men-of-war to be maintained, who bring in 
 quoyny, and livery, and all other kinds of exactions. And 
 although the English people ought not to use such election, yet 
 the same is in many places used." 
 
 To effect a thorough change, to substitute the laws, the lan- 
 guage, and the religion of England, had become the policy of the 
 state. A great national university was supposed to be one of the 
 fittest means for compassing this end, and the cathedral of St. 
 Patrick's, it was suggested, should be suppressed, that from its 
 ruins might spring the new institution. The most reverend 
 Chancellor, however, unable to brook the idea that one of his 
 cathedral churches, with all its worldly advantages, should be 
 thus niched from his grasp, wrote a letter, which is still in exis- 
 tence, to the Earl of Sussex, deprecating the proposed change. 
 His protest had the desired effect, and the affair was at an 
 end. 
 
 Old age had now come upon the Chancellor- Archbishop, and 
 with it dishonour — he was a disgrace alike to the faith he had 
 abandoned and the faith he had adopted. It seemed as if, in 
 the sunset of life, his virtues were turned into vices — vices 
 which so shocked the feelings of Loftus, the Protestant Arch- 
 bishop of Armagh, 'that he besought of Parker, Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, to aid him in obtaining his removal from the See 
 of Dublin. Queen Elizabeth, seeing how deeply the presence 
 of such a prelate must compromise those religious principles 
 which she had inherited from her father, Henry VIII., offered 
 Curwen a pension to retire from his see and from the Court of 
 Chancery. The offer was rejected, but a vacancy soon after 
 occuring in England, by reason of the death of the Bishop of 
 Oxford, Doctor Curwen was translated thither, and having 
 spent one year in that diocese, he died at Swinbroch, near 
 
■ , i CO 
 
 1 
 
LORD CHANCELLOR WESTON. 59 
 
 Burford, in the parish church, in which he was buried on the 
 1st of November, 1568. 
 
 85. A. D. 1567.— Eobert Weston, LL. D., Dean of the 
 Arches, Fellow and Professor of the College of All Souls, Ox- 
 ford. 
 
 On the borders of the great forest of Gouffern, near Argen- 
 tan in Normandy, the moat and remains of the chateau or 
 castle of Bailleul may still be traced. In this stronghold, 
 centuries ago, and long before the time of .William the Nor- 
 man, ruled the seigneurs of lands that extended for many a 
 mile around. Those seigneurs, after the custom of the times, 
 were known by the name of their castle as the lords de Bail- 
 leul. One of these lords, Raynold de Bailleul, accompanied 
 the conqueror to England, and married Aimeria de Mont- 
 gomery, niece of Roger de Montgomery, one of the greatest 
 barons in the conqueror's train. The " cross and the mullets " 
 of the Montgomeries were in the next generation well known to 
 the Soldiers of the Cross, at the first capture of Jerusalem. 
 Raynold' s powers won for him the manors of Weston-under- 
 Lyzard, and Burton, and Broton, and Newton, in the county 
 of Stafford. He was succeeded in those manorial estates by 
 his son Hugo de Bailleul, whose son Ralph de Bailleul enjoyed 
 the possession of them in the reign of Stephen. This Ralph 
 had a son, sir Hamo de Bailleul, who in the reign of Henry II. 
 adopted the name of the principal manor of his English estates, 
 just as his Norman ancestor had assumed the name of the castle 
 in which he lived, and ruled in the fertile fields of France. Their 
 Norman territories had doubtless at this time passed into other 
 hands. Thenceforth, after the custom of that day, the De Bail- 
 leuls are known in story as the lords of Weston-under-Lyzard. 
 At first they bore the Norman prefix, as De Weston, but in the 
 course of ages, dropping the "De," they became what they now 
 are called, Westons. 
 
 The estate of Weston-under-Lyzard was handed down from 
 father to son, until, in the reign of Edward II., it came into the 
 hands of Sir John de Weston, who was twice married, and whose 
 grandson by his first wife having died without issue, an heiress 
 conveyed the property into the family by whom it is still pos- 
 sessed—that of the Earls of Bradford, whose principal residence 
 is Weston Hall. This John, by his second wife, Igalda, was 
 father of Robert de Weston of Beterton, whose grandson 
 Richard was denominated of Rugeley in the county of Staf- 
 ford. The grandson of this Richard, John Weston, had several 
 sons, of whom the eldest continued the line of the Rugeley until 
 nearly the middle of this century, while a younger son, John 
 Weston of Lichfield, married Cecilia, daughter of Lord Neville, 
 
60 
 
 LORD CHANCELLOR WESTON. 
 
 and sister of the Earl of Westmoreland. The descent of this 
 lady from the fair maid of Kent entitles her descendants to toast 
 that they inherit, through her, the blood of the Plantagenets. 
 There were several children of this marriage, amongst whom 
 two reached to eminence — Richard, a judge of the Common 
 Pleas in England, who died in the year 1572; and Bobert 
 "Weston, of Weeford, Lord High Chancellor of Ireland, the 
 subject of this memoir. Perhaps before we treat further of 
 his life, we should mention, that several other members of this 
 family have sat on the English benches, and that their lives are 
 to be found in Fosse's Judges of England. 
 
 The great abilities of Robert soon brought him under the 
 notice of Queen Elizabeth, who after the passing of the Act of 
 Uniformity appointed him commissioner for administering the 
 required oaths to ecclesiastics. He was also consulted on the 
 propriety of the Queen's commission, granted on the 6th of 
 December, 1559, for the confirmation of Mathew Parker Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, of whose court he was immediately ap- 
 pointed judge, with the title of Dean of the Arches. The Court of 
 the Arches was a court of appeal belonging to the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, and was anciently held in the Church of St. 
 Maryle Bow (sancta Maria de arcubus), whence the name. The 
 Judge of this court determined appeals from the sentences of 
 all the ecclesiastical courts within the province of Canterbury, 
 and from him, before the change of religion in England, the 
 appeal lay to the Pope ; but when Henry VIII. had constituted 
 himself head of the Church of England, the appeal was thence- 
 forward to the king in Chancery. 
 
 In 1564 disputes having arisen between the subjects of the 
 king of Spain and those of the Queen of England, commission- 
 ers, amongst whom "Weston was one, were appointed to consider 
 the several matters in controversy, and it was in great part 
 owing to his sagacity and prudence that many of the difficulties 
 were smoothed, and that a peaceful solution was at length arrived 
 at. On the removal of Curwen from the Court of Chancery, 
 Weston was appointed to succeed him, and was allowed, in addi- 
 tion to the salary and fees attached to the office, the emoluments 
 of the deanery of St. Patrick's. Queen Elizabeth thus alludes 
 to the subject when writing to the Lord Deputy:— "We are 
 pleased for some increase of his livinge, whilst he (Dr. Weston) 
 remaineth in our service there, to give unto hym the deanery of 
 St. Patrick's, whereof the Archebusshoppe of Ardmaghe (Dr. 
 Loftus) is now deane, and yet is to leave it at our order, as wee 
 know he will — and therefore wee will that you move the said 
 Archebusshoppe to surrender the same, and thereupon cause Dr. 
 Weston, our Chancellor, to be fully admitted, under such forme as 
 other deans of that place have heretofore obtained and held the 
 
LORD CHANCELLOR WESTON. 61 
 
 same, nevertheless for that our especiall meaninge is that he 
 shall yield over that deanery againe unto our disposicion, when- 
 soever he shall leave the office to our Chancellor — you shall, 
 before his acceptation thereof, take bonds of hym to our use in 
 such sumnie as shall be fit for such a case, that he shall duly 
 accomplish our intent and pleasure, for the surrender of it in 
 forme aforesaid." 
 
 It would appear that the emoluments of the office of Chan- 
 cellor were about this time £500 a-year ; and this was deemed 
 insufficient without some other auxiliary appointment. " Whoso- 
 ever shall be Chancellor here," writes the Lord Deputy to 
 Cecil, Secretary of State, " and have no other living here but 
 £500 yearly for his office, shall either live here like a miser, or 
 come home a beggarman, as I am like to do." On the 8th of 
 August, 1567, "Weston was sworn into office — and in that office 
 he gave the most unqualified satisfaction, " for he was," writes 
 Hooker, "a notable and singular man — by profession a lawyer, 
 but in life a divine — a man so bent to the execution of justice, and 
 so severe therein, that by no means would he be seduced or 
 averted from the same, and so much good in the end ensued by 
 his upright, diligent, and dutiful service, as that the whole realme 
 found themselves most happy, and blessed to have him serve 
 amongst them." He had not long been Chancellor when he was 
 appointed Lord Justice, during the temporary absence of the 
 Lord Deputy in England. 
 
 In 1568 Sir Henry Sidney returned to his post, and immedi- 
 ately called a parliament, which was opened with great ceremony. 
 On the lords being seated, the Lord Chancellor addressed them, 
 " declaring what law was, the great effect and value thereof, and 
 how the common society of men was thereby maintained." After 
 this preface he pointed out the vigilant care exercised by her 
 Majesty over the welfare of her subjects, and informed them 
 " that she had caused the present parliament to be assembled, that 
 by their advice such good laws might be decreed as would tend 
 to the honour of God, the preservation of Her Majesty's person 
 and crown, and safety of the commonwealth." He then ad- 
 dressed himself to the knights and burgesses, members of the 
 lower house, "whom for the avoiding of confusion he desired to 
 assemble in an house appointed for themselves, and there to make 
 choice of some wise and sufficient man to be their speaker;" he 
 then closed his speech with an exhortation to obedience and 
 dutifulness ; after which the house adjourned till Thursday the 
 20th of January. 
 
 The Lord Chancellor, then taking his seat, presided in this 
 parliament, the first Act of the third session of which was passed 
 for the attainder of Shane O'Neil. By the second section, it was 
 enacted that the use of the name of O'Neil was thenceforward 
 
62 
 
 LORD CHANCELLOR WESTON. 
 
 illegal. For that " name doth cany in itself so great a sove- 
 reignty, that all the lords and people of Ulster should rather live 
 in servitude to that name than in subjection to the Crown of 
 England." 
 
 The Deanery of St. Patrick's was not the only ecclesiastical 
 living with which Weston was rewarded. He was granted also 
 in England the deanery of Wells with its emoluments. The 
 Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, had about this time succeeded 
 in capturing the rebellious sons of the Earl of Clanricarde and 
 the more rebellious Earl of Desmond, and having put great 
 numbers to death, returned to Dublin, when he sought and ob- 
 tained permission to explain and account for his cruelties in the 
 south to the Queen in person. He accordingly proceeded to Eng- 
 land in the month of October, 1567, leaving the Government of 
 the country in the hands of the Lord Chancellor and Lord Treasu- 
 rer, who remained in office as Lords Justices during the ensuing 
 eleven months. For six years Weston held the seals of the Court 
 of Chancery, and died on the 23rd of May, 1573. His death, 
 which occurred at a time when the whole country was plunged 
 in ceaseless turmoil, is thus noticed in the chronicles of Hooker, 
 a contemporary writer: "Besides those universal troubles, it 
 pleased God to call out of this miserable life Dr. Weston, Lord 
 Chancellor, a man in his lifetime most godlie, upright, and 
 vertuous, and such a one, as that place was not possessed of the 
 like for many currents of yeares ; in his life most vertuous and 
 godlie, in matters of council most sound and perfect ; in justice 
 most upright and uncorrupted ; his hospitalities were bounteous, 
 and liberal, and his manners and conversation most courteous 
 and gentle." He was buried under the communion table, in his 
 cathedral. At his death he left one son, who died in 1632, and 
 a daughter, Alice, who was married first to Dr. Brady, Protest- 
 ant Bishop of Meath, and secondly to Sir Geoffry Eenton, Secre- 
 tary of State, whose only daughter, Eatham, was married to 
 Eichard, first Earl of Cork. _ 
 
 Within a month from his death a memorial was presented 
 to the queen by the privy council for a grant from the public 
 purse on behalf of his widow, " who hath borne herselfe as com- 
 mendably as beseemed the wife of so good a man." Amongst the 
 monuments of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the most conspicuous is that 
 erected in 1631, to the memory of Eichard Boyle, Earl of Cork, 
 and other individuals of his family, of whom there are no less than 
 sixteen figures in native marble. On the upper stage, and in a 
 Tecumbent position, and arrayed in his Chancellor's robes, is the 
 figure of Weston, while on two slabs of black marble placed 
 under his effigy is the following inscription :—" Here lyeth 
 interred the body of that reverend honourable gentleman, 
 Eobert Weston, Esq/., Doctor of Civil and Canon laws, grand- 
 
LORD CHANCELLOR GERRARD. 63 
 
 father of the ladie Catharine Countess of Corke, being sometime 
 one of the Lords Justices of Ireland, and for six years Chancellor 
 of the realm, who was so learned, judicious, and upright in the 
 course of judicature, as in all the time of that employment he 
 never made an order or decree that was reversed. He changed 
 his mortal for an eternal life on the 20th of May, 1573, whose 
 honourable memory no time shall extinguish." 
 
 Richard "Weston, brother of the Chancellor, was no less an 
 ornament of the English than Robert was of the Irish bench ; his 
 grandson, another Richard, knight of the garter, was created first 
 Earl of Portland, and Lord High Treasurer of England, and so 
 much beloved by Charles I., that he commmanded the Court 
 to go into mourning on his decease in 1634. We believe that 
 we are correct in our conclusion that the Westons of Lane House, 
 in the county of Dorset, are now the sole representatives of Robert 
 Weston, Lord High Chancellor of Ireland. 
 
 86. A. D. 1576. — William Gerrard. Immediately on the 
 death of Lord Chancellor Weston, the Great Seal was put in 
 commission, Adam Loftus, Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, 
 being Lord. Keeper, for which office he had £300 a-year, 
 " though he never sat in court." Intense excitement prevailed 
 about this time amongst her Majesty's subjects within the Pale, 
 owing to the arbitrary exercise of what was at that time claimed 
 to be the royal prerogative — the imposition of taxes without 
 the aid of Parliament. The Lord Deputy, by the sole authority 
 of the privy council, levied a cess on all the subjects of the 
 Crown resident in Ireland. The lords of the Pale insisted that 
 the imposition of a tax without the aid of Parliament was un- 
 constitutional and illegal. The queen, on the contrary, resolved 
 to enforce her prerogative. It was at this time that Gerrard, 
 who had previously been Attorney- General for England, was 
 appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland, " with the deanery of 
 St. Patrick's annexed," his patent being dated at Gorhambury 
 the 23rd of April, 1576. 
 
 Immediately on his arrival, a petition was presented to him, 
 calling his attention to the intolerable burden sought — unconsti- 
 tutionally as we have said — to be imposed, amounting to a sum 
 of £12 on each ploughland. The Lord Chancellor replied that 
 the right of imposing taxes was a portion of the royal preroga- 
 tive, and was exercised by the Crown ever since the reign of 
 Edward III. ; that the money was required, but as to the 
 amount, "it should be reduced to five marks to the ploughland." 
 Dissatisfied with this reply, the petitioners appealed to the 
 queen, and instructed counsel, Barnaby Sherlock, who had been 
 Attorney-General under Queen Mary, Netterville, and Burnell, 
 to appear in support of the appeal. When her Majesty heard 
 
64 
 
 CROWN IMPOSES TAXES. 
 
 what those lawyers had to offer, the Hood of Henry VIII. rose 
 in his daughter's veins : she rejected the petition, and instantly 
 committed Sherlock and his learned companions to gaol. The 
 Lord Deputy desired " that they might be right well punished 
 for their indecent and undutiful speaches." " And this Bar- 
 naby Sherlock," he writes to the Queen, "was Attorney-General 
 to your sister, and owed his fortune to Queen Mary." Hol- 
 linshead in his" Chronicles," taking the side of the Crown, says, 
 amusingly enough, that " those counsellors being well acquainted 
 with Littleton's Tenures, thought themselves so well fraughted 
 in the knowledge of the lawe, as they were able to trade in all 
 matters of the deepest points of the lawes ; but if they had first 
 looked into the Booke of God, they would have found it written 
 there that it was God himself who first made kings, and esta- 
 blished their thrones . . . that all inferiors and subjects 
 should and ought, in all humblenesse and in dutifulnesse, sub- 
 mit themselves to the obedience of them for their Lord's sake, 
 because it is the will of God, without sifting of his authority or 
 examining his government, for there is no power but of God, 
 and they are ordained of God ; wherefore, whoso resisteth them 
 resisteth God. If this be the infallible truth, how far were 
 these men overshot that thus would dispute the prince's prero- 
 gative with their Littleton's Tenures ? " 
 
 The Lord Chancellor then made many suggestions (which 
 are still preserved in the Lambeth Library) as to the reforma- 
 tion of the country, which was then, as now, the great problem 
 for English statesmen to solve. Religious animosities had deep- 
 ened the ancient feuds that existed between the two countries. 
 While in Ireland the people clung with tenacity to the Catholic 
 faith, in England they adopted the principles of the Reforma- 
 tion ; and in the middle of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Pro- 
 testantism had become the state religion in both countries. But 
 there was this great difference between the two, that in England 
 the " reformed " clergy, in taking possession of their churches, 
 were followed by the people, while in Ireland the ministers, for 
 the most part Englishmen, found themselves alone in sanctuaries 
 which the flocks had deserted to follow their pastors to worship 
 in the caverns or mountain glens. 
 
 In 1577 the Lord Chancellor was sent to England to inform 
 Queen Elizabeth of the real state of things in this country; and 
 so pleased was her Majesty with his account of himself and of 
 his conduct in relation to the government, that she granted him 
 a license to export yarn, notwithstanding the statute which pre- 
 vented its exportation. He then returned to Dublin, and re- 
 sumed the duties of his office in the Court of Chancery. In 
 1579 he received the honour of knighthood from the hands of 
 the Lord Deputy, in consideration of his services, and in token 
 
THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP LOFTUS. 65 
 
 her Majesty's approbation. Next year he was appointed chief 
 commissioner for ecclesiastical causes in Ireland. His health 
 however, failing, "he obtained licence to goto England as often 
 as he pleased, and to remain there until he should recover." He 
 died at Chester in 1591, and was, it is stated in Mason's 
 Mutory of St. Patrick's Cathedral, buried at St. Werburgh's 
 church, in that city. The " Carew Manuscripts " state that " he 
 was one of the most popular Chancellors, and the best beloved 
 man that ever sat in his place." 
 
 87. A. D. 1581. — Adam Loftis, Archbishop of Dublin. He 
 was a native of Yorkshire, and was educated in the university 
 of Cambridge. During his undergraduate course he so dis- 
 tinguished himself at a publio exhibition in the presence of the 
 Queen, that he won the royal favour, and she graciously en- 
 couraged him to proceed with his studies by a promise of early 
 promotion. _ He was sent to Ireland as chaplain to the Earl of 
 Essex on his appointment to the government of that country. 
 In 1561 he was presented to the rectory of Painstown, in the 
 diocese of Meath, and at the early age of twenty-eight was ap- 
 pointed by the Queen her Archbishop of Armagh, his consecration 
 being performed by Hugh Curwen, Archbishop of Dublin. In 
 1564 he became Dean of St. Patrick's, and in 1567 Archbishop of 
 Dublin. He then resigned the Deanery of St. Patrick's, for the 
 purpose of allowing Dr. "Weston, the newly-appointed though un- 
 ordained Chancellor, to enjoy the emoluments of that dignity. 
 In 1572 her majesty granted Loftus a dispensation to hold with 
 his archbishopric " other comfortable sinecures," not exceeding 
 £100 a-year in value. On the death of Weston, in 1573, the arch- 
 bishop was appointed Lord Keeper of the Great Seal — an office 
 which he. resigned on Gerard becoming Chancellor ; and now 
 that there was again a vacancy in this office, Loftus was selected 
 to fill it. In the following year he was Lord Justice. 
 
 The war in Munster at this time assumed a savage character, 
 of which it is impossible to give any adequate idea. Barbarities 
 followed barbarities in quick succession. Conspiracies were said 
 to have been detected ; the conspirators were tried, and on the 
 most shadowy evidence were found guilty and hanged on the 
 spot. Amongst others, Nugent, Chief Justice of the Common 
 Pleas, was brought to trial for some imaginary treason, and 
 perished on the scaffold. 
 
 It was when Loftus was Lord Justice that a trial by combat 
 worthy of being remembered took place. The facts are these : — 
 " Mac Cormack O'Conor prosecuted Tieg O'Conor for the wilful 
 murder of certain men the servants of the prosecutor. The tra- 
 verser, Tieg O'Conor, admitted that he had killed them, but 
 justified the act on the ground that they were rebels. The jury 
 found in accordance with the plea. The verdict appearing to 
 
66 
 
 TRIAL BY COMBAT. 
 
 the prosecutor to be altogether against the weight of evidence, 
 he appealed to the privy council, and offered to maintain his 
 appeal by combat. The traverser, by his counsel, accepted the 
 challenge, and the Castle-yard was selected as the place for the 
 appeal to heaven. The Lords Justices, one of whom was the 
 Lord Chancellor, and the judges, arrayed in their judicial robes, 
 were present in the places allotted to them according to their 
 rank, and a vast assemblage filled the whole of the court-yard. 
 Meanwhile the combatants, the appellant and the respondent, 
 were seated on stools at either end of the inner square ; and the 
 officers of the court having certified that they had no weapon 
 other than their swords, they took each other by the right hand, 
 and thus addressed the court : — " Hear ye — hear ye this, ye Jus- 
 tices, that I have not upon me any enchantment, sorcery, or 
 witchcraft, whereby the law of God may be abated, and the law 
 of the devil extolled, so help me God, and his saints, and by this 
 Booke." Then, after a flourish of trumpets, the battle began, 
 and it lasted until far in the day, when the appellant made a 
 lunge at the respondent, who, stepping aside, gave a wheel to 
 his sword, swept off the appellant's head, and then reverently 
 presented the same to the Lords Justices. The traverser was 
 then acquitted, and the judgment of the court below affirmed." 1 
 During the continuance of the Lord Chancellor in the lord 
 justiceship, another and not less remarkable case occurred — 
 the prosecution of Darby O'Hurley, Catholic Archbishop of 
 Cashel, for high treason done in places beyond the seas; the 
 act of treason being, the acceptance by O'Hurley of the ap- 
 pointment to the Archbishopric of Cashel at the hands of the 
 Pope. It appeared that the accused had been resident in a col- 
 lege at Eome, and on his appointment he set out for his desti- 
 nation. He landed at Dundalk, and proceeded thence by a 
 circuitous route towards Cashel, stopping on his way at Slane 
 Castle, the residence of Lord Fleming, a Catholic nobleman, 
 where he continued until the circumstances occurred which led 
 to his tragic end. It happened that Mr. Justice Dillon, one of 
 the judges of the superior courts, arrived at the castle on a visit, 
 and there had an opportunity of observing the information of 
 the disguised archbishop. On every topic that was advanced he 
 spoke, and spoke well. At length the judge arrived at the con- 
 clusion that the stranger was none other than a popish prelate 
 in disguise, and he communicated his suspicions to the Lords 
 Justices. A warrant came down in consequence on a charge of 
 alleged " treason in foreign parts," under which he was arrested 
 and kept prisoner in the tower of Dublin Castle during eight 
 months. Meanwhile the Crown lawyers were consulted, and 
 they, having doubts that he could legally be put on his trial for 
 
 i Whitelaw's, History of Dublin, and Hooker's Chronicles. 
 
MARTYRDOM OF ARCHBISHOP o'HURLEY. 67 
 
 a treason alleged to have been committed in places beyond the 
 seas, advised against the prosecution, on the ground that the law 
 did not in this particular stretch as far in Ireland as in England, 
 where an indictment for a like offence would lie. The prosecu- 
 tion in the court of Queen's Bench was then abandoned, but the 
 Lords Justices had no idea of permitting his escape. They re- 
 solved to put him to the torture, and thus enforce a confession of 
 guilt. Lord Justice Loftus wrote to the secretary of state in 
 England, " that he had commissioned Mr. Waterhouse and Mr. 
 Secretary Fenton to put O'Hurley to the torture, "as your honour 
 advised us, which was to toast his feet against the fire with hot 
 boots." 1 This expedient was tried, and his feet were stuffed into 
 boots filled with boiling pitch ; but the archbishop, nevertheless, 
 could not be coerced into making any admission. He was then in 
 his agony brought to trial by court martial, and found guilty, and 
 was hanged — according to some in St. Stephen's Green ; but 
 the truth is, that he was dragged on a hurdle to Oxmantown 
 Green, and that his body, after he had been hanged there, was 
 taken down, and brought to St. Stephen's Green, where it was 
 suspended in chains for many months as a terror to others. 
 
 Four days after this miserable event Sir John Perrot re- 
 sumed, with the title of Lord Deputy, the government of the 
 country ; and from the commencement of his conciliatory career, 
 until the close of his life, he found in Loftus a deadly foe. The 
 Chancellor, when Dean of St. Patrick's, had alienated some of the 
 cathedral lands to enrich his own immediate family, thereby 
 permanently impoverishing many of the prebends. The Lord 
 Deputy's proposed plan for converting the cathedral into an 
 university would have detected or interfered with these private 
 designs of the Chancellor, and hence the energy, extending to 
 personal enmity, against the Viceroy, with which he exerted 
 himself to overthrow the new project. The object of the Lord 
 Deputy was not to restore the university formerly established 
 there, but to convert the revenues of the cathedral to the new 
 colleges. His reasons are given in a letter written by him to 
 the Lord Treasurer of England, in which he states :— 
 
 " That there being two cathedrals in Dublin : this dedicated 
 to St. Patrick, and the other to the name of Christ. St. Patrick's 
 was held in more superstitious reputation than the other, and 
 therefore ought to be dissolved. The revenues of St. Patrick's 
 are, by estimation, 4000 marks (£2666 13s. 4rf.) per annum, 
 which would serve to begin the foundation of two universities, 
 and endow a couple of colleges in them with £1000 a-year a- 
 piece, and the residue may be employed on tbe reparation of 
 the said church and houses, and be annexed unto Christ Church, 
 by way of augmentation of the choir." 
 
 1 Hamilton's "State Papers," temp. Elizabeth, p. 445. 
 
68 THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP LOFTUS. 
 
 In each of these colleges he intended to have settled six 
 masters, with one hundred scholars, "to be instructed by them 
 in civility, learning, and loyalty — the six masters to be chosen 
 out of the most learned residentiaries of the cathedral, who in 
 their turns, three and three of each college, were to reside and 
 keep hospitality in the several prebends whereunto the cure of 
 souls was annexed." 1 
 
 "Great unkindness," writes Perrot's biographer, "then burst 
 out between the Lord Deputy and Archbishop Loftus, partly 
 upon public accounts, and chiefly on St. Patrick's church, 
 which the Lord Deputy had in his instructions to convert into 
 a college, and had a great desire to get it forward, but Loftus 
 opposed him, being interested in the livings of St. Patrick's, by 
 long leases, and other estates thereof, granted either to himself, 
 his children, or kinsmen, and therefore did by all means with- 
 stand the alienation of tbese revenues ; and being a man of high 
 spirit, and used to bear sway in the governments, he grew into 
 contradiction, and from contradiction to contention, with the 
 Deputy, who, on the other' side, brooking no opposition, it 
 grew to some heat between them, whereof the Queen, taking 
 notice, wrote to them both to reconcile themselves together. 
 But the Archbishop stuck to him to the last, and was a main 
 instrument in bringing him to his condemnation ; and Perrot, 
 in his last will, solemnly testified that the Archbishop falsely 
 belied him in his declaration against him." 
 
 The Lord Deputy, in urging on the parliament the necessity 
 that existed for the establishment of a university, and the disso- 
 lution of St. Patrick's, was merely carrying into execution Her 
 Majesty's instructions, which were as follows: — "For the better 
 training up of youth in our realme of Ireland, in the knowledge 
 of God and good learning, it were necessary that some college 
 were erected, for which purpose consideration is to be had for 
 St. Patrick's, in Dublin, and the revenue belonging to the same 
 may be made to serve for that purpose, as it hath been hereto- 
 fore intended, and also to consider how by parliament some 
 contribution may be given out of every diocese, to be charged 
 upon the leases of unappropriated parsonages, such also as are 
 inclined to civility would be moved to yield voluntarily, and 
 with good contentment, some yearly contributions, to be charged 
 upon the lands, whereby readers and instructors of youth might 
 have convenient salaries." The whole of this project was, how- 
 ever, defeated by the unflinching opposition of the Archbishop, 
 whose " ambition and avarice was of service in preserving the 
 ancient cathedral from being converted into a university." 
 
 A plan was soon after proposed by Loftus himself which 
 
 Dublin University Calendar for 1833, p. 22. 
 
PRIORY OF ALL- HALLOWS. 69 
 
 met with a happier success. Within sight of his episcopal 
 palace of St. Sepulchre's were the stately towers of the long- 
 deserted Priory of All-Hallows. Fifty years had passed over 
 since the service of the Most High was performed within its 
 walls. Its sanctuary was broken, and its priests were scat- 
 tered. The church itself was less injured than the other 
 buildings of the monastery : the roof was still graced with 
 the groined arches, in which the owl, the bat, and the night 
 birds now nestled. It was to those ruins that Loftus turned, 
 and it was upon those ruins that he resolved to raise the new 
 university, and thus save the cathedral, and shelter from ex- 
 posure the scandalous leases he had made, when Dean of St. 
 Patrick's, to members of his own family. The corporation of 
 Dublin he therefore addressed in a lengthened speech, delivered 
 at the Tholsel. 1 
 
 "Mr. Mayor, — The abundant joy which you and your 
 worthy brethern expressed, upon the representation lately made 
 of Her Highness's most gracious intention to erect an university 
 of good literature in the kingdom, assures me that what I have 
 to say unto you will raise a jubilee of rejoicing in every of your 
 affections. 
 
 " What I represented unto you formerly, you apprehended 
 as the happiness of an equal communication in a common bene- 
 fit, but what I am now to impart to you is that which speaks of 
 Her Highness's design to give you a peculiar advantage in par- 
 ticipating much more largely than others of that common benefit 
 intended to the nation, by placing the seat of that university 
 within the neighbourhood of this her beloved city. What ad- 
 vantage a university of learning, and other common societies 
 and general assemblies, ordinarily bring to places wherein or 
 nigh whereunto they are situated, is apparent in that growth 
 of prosperity in the city of Oxford and town of Cambridge, 
 proportionable to the augmented number of colleges and mul- 
 tiplication of students therein. 
 
 "And to argue from our own experience is it not clear, 
 in truth, that the late dissolution of societies [in allusion to 
 to the dissolution of the monasteries] hath occasioned a too sen- 
 sible decay of commerce in this city, and consequently hath 
 demolished the wealth and growth thereof, tho' fully recom- 
 pensed in another kind by the blessings of a happy and glorious 
 reformation in religion thereupon introduced." This speech of 
 the Archbishop leads us to conclude that the mayor and alder- 
 men had embraced — as numbers of nations now Catholic in 
 Europe had then embraced — the doctrines of the Eeformers. 
 
 1 Camdeni Annates Elizabeths, torn. i. Editoris Praefatio. Ed. Thorn. 
 Hearnius. Dalton's Archbishops of Dublin, p. 240. 
 
70 
 
 THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP LOFTUS. 
 
 The Archbishop continues : — " You are also sensible of the 
 great benefit you receive by the constant residence of the chief 
 authority and state of this kingdom amongst you, in so honour- 
 able a representation of Her Majesty, and of the royal presence 
 maintained by Her Highness's bounty in a post of splendour 
 and magnificence. 
 
 " Tou may further consider that the inhabitants of this city 
 are in a great measure maintained and relieved by the holding 
 of four terms of the year for the administration of justice in 
 this place, whereunto resort great multidudes of people for the 
 determination of causes and controversies, and I know you are so 
 considerative as to apprehend how unhappy the city would be 
 were the tribunal for the general administration of justice re- 
 moved hence into the remote parts of the kingdom, as it was once 
 in the space of seven years in England, from London to 
 York." 
 
 The Archbishop then makes use of an argument which in 
 later years has been often repeated by those who would restore 
 to the city of Dublin its High Court of Parliament : — " More- 
 over it may serve as an argument to convince you of the benefit 
 of general assemblies and public societies, that you will consider 
 that the great and general convention of all the states of this 
 land, the High Court of Parliament, doth draw into this city, 
 when here assembled, an extraordinary access of noble persons 
 and others, to the enriching of the city. 
 
 " I having thus spread before you the large advantages ac- 
 cruing to the places where universities are founded, where the 
 seat of the State is established, the tribunal settled, and parlia- 
 ments held, I hope you will account it no extravagancy, but a 
 branch of natural amplification to mind you of a thankful ac- 
 knowledgement to Her Highness, by whose royal favour you 
 have, or may hope to enjoy, every one of those benefits ; and it 
 is my hearty desire that you would express yours and the cities' 
 thankfulness to Her Majesty, in an act of so much piety as the 
 free granting of a fitting place whereon to found a college, and 
 the conveniences that necessarily belong unto such society near 
 the citie, whereby your memories will shine to posterity in the 
 long lasting good work you will thereby leave behind you. For 
 a monument of this kinde erected in parliament may be as 
 durable as an inscription graven in marble. You will thereby 
 receive honour from the world, thanks from your Sovereign 
 Lady the Queene, approbation from your enemies, applause 
 from your friends, for that act which will be rewarded with far 
 more than proportionable advantages of gain to your posterity in 
 the line of natural propagation. Nay, you will, in this time of 
 reformation, dazzle the eyes of the Papists with the lustre of 
 well-doing. 
 
UXIYEKSITY OF DUBLIN. 71 
 
 " Mr. Mayor, I preached lately in your hearing against Papist 
 merit, and the presumptuous pretension of the Romanist to works 
 of supererogation, and it is not from the persuasion of an altered 
 man that I now desire to promote good work's. For charity re- 
 quires the one, and the Holy Scriptures condemn the other ; and 
 it is enough to attract benefactors that Grod is well pleased with 
 our good works, though they be not in themselves meritorious ; 
 whereas to ascribe too much to good works, as do the Papists, is 
 to turn the virtue of charity into the crime of sacrilege. I do 
 not, therefore, urge you to this grant as an act of merit, but as 
 of good acceptance with God Almighty, of great reward here- 
 after, and of honour and advantage to yourselves, and more to 
 your learned offspring in the future, whereas by the help of 
 learning they may build your families some stories higher than 
 they are, by advancement either in church or commonwealth. 
 It is a true observation among all moralists that men will 
 easily bend to those virtues, which comport, or may be con- 
 verted into their own complexions; and orators will tell you 
 that assent is easy, where the proposal patronizeth the gain of 
 him to whom it is made. Hence it is, and it is indeed of sad 
 consideration, that some men, who are most nice in observing 
 the rules of Scripture, as being stamped with deep impressions 
 of conscience in most matters of Christian practice, do too readily 
 decline it in matters of gain, in so much that for greedy lucre's 
 sake they will sinfully put their money to usury, flatly against 
 Scripture, without imitation or consideration had of the contin- 
 gency of gain or loss to the borrower, though such crime of 
 usury is placed by St. Basil amongst the greatest evils. For 
 it is a hard matter to live a usurer and die a good Christian. 
 If then, it bee so, that men so nice in religion, do so desperately 
 comply with that deadly sin for worldly advantages, I cannot 
 but hope for the assent of the city to what is proposed, so con- 
 sonant with religion, and conducing so much to their lawful 
 advantage in every respect, and the rather for that the reasons 
 of public good stand with private emoluments in the matter 
 proposed. 
 
 " I have not much more to say in further invitation of your 
 favourable attention in general, but I'm to speak more parti- 
 cularly to you, who being fathers of children, place your hopes 
 in posterity, and therefore desire that they may be of comfort 
 unto you whilst you live, and an honour to your memory after 
 death. 
 
 " I pray you to consider of their advantage in these few 
 particulars, that the erecting of a college will not only be a 
 means of civilising the nation, and of enriching this city, as 
 I have already observed unto you, but that your children, by 
 their birth in this place, will, as it were, fall opportunely into 
 
72 
 
 THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP LOFTUS. 
 
 the lap of the Muses, and that you need not hazard them abroad 
 for the acquiring of foreign accomplishments, having a well- 
 endowed university at your door. Lastly, that such of your 
 children as be there placed, may be able, with God's blessing 
 on their endeavours, to work their advancement without being 
 too burthensome to their parents. 
 
 " Sir, I need say no more, as I conceive, to soften your ears 
 to persuasion, having already urged both reason and interest. 
 I therefore desire you and your worthy brethren, my ancient 
 friends and acquaintances, to apply your industry to the effect- 
 ing of what is now before you, and that in order thereunto you 
 will be pleased to call a common councell to declare thereon, 
 having first informed the several masters of every company of the 
 pregnant likelihood of advantage, thereby to twist and inter- 
 weave itself with most, if not all trades in the city, as also of 
 the other arguments I have offered in furtherance of my well- 
 intended proposal, together with such motives as your discretion 
 shall think fit, to add as conducable thereunto, and then I shall 
 not doubt but that the plurality, or rather universality of votes, 
 will be regulated by the voice of reason. 
 
 " Mr. Mayor, you know that I have always held myself tyed 
 to the inviolable maintenance of yours and the city's liberty and 
 privileges in general, and amongst themselves ; and now I de- 
 sire that you will be no more failing in setting forward this good 
 work by your assistance, than I have been wanting by the 
 strength of my prayers and best endeavours to promote the 
 welfare of this city in every respect ; and I shall finally dismiss 
 you with my blessing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
 and of the Holy Ghost, praying to God that the prosperity of 
 this ancient city, and now well-governed corporation, may never 
 be disturbed in the least degree of infelicity, and that its con- 
 stant happiness may fill up the largest catalpgue of all divine and 
 humane blessings to the length of the world's duration, which is 
 the period of all successions, natural and civil. — Amen — Amen." 
 
 The mayor, aldermen, and commons unanimously granted 
 the request of the Lord Chancellor. Having thus far succeeded, 
 his Grace employed Henry Usher, archdeacon of Dublin, to 
 petition the queen for her royal charter, and for a mortmain 
 license for the land granted by the city. The queen received the 
 petition favourably, and by warrant, dated the 29th of December, 
 ordered a license of mortmain to pass the seals for the grant of 
 the priory (which was stated to be of the yearly value of £20), 
 and for the foundation of a college incorporated, with a power 
 to accept such lands and contribution for its maintenance as any 
 of her subjects should be charitably moved to bestow, to the 
 value of £400 a-year. 
 
 On the 3rd of March following, letters patent passed in due 
 
COLLEGE OF SALAMANCA. 73 
 
 form, pursuant to said warrant, and thereby the Lord Chan- 
 cellor was appointed the first provost of the university, or as it 
 is more vaguely described, of the mother of the university — the 
 name of the body corporate being the "Provost, Fellows, 
 and Scholars of the College of the Holy Trinity founded by 
 Queen Elizabeth, near Dublin." 
 
 That the new university was founded by a Protestant sove- 
 reign for the dissemination of Protestant principles was manifest, 
 though from the patent no such intention can be gathered. The 
 Catholics in the provinces outside the Pale held the college in 
 detestation, and they sent their sons for the most part to Sala- 
 manca for their education, where loyalty to the king of Spain 
 and disloyalty to the queen of England were inculcated. The 
 Catholics, however, within the Pale did not regard Trinity Col- 
 lege with the same disfavour. Now the college of Salamanca 
 at that time was presided over by a Jesuit, whose name was 
 Thomas White, an Irishman, but of the Anglo-Irish Catholics 
 within the Pale whose detestation of the Irish Catholics of 
 Ulster and Connaught was intense ; and to remove this Jesuit 
 from his office was the object of O'Donel, who, on the 22nd of 
 May, 1602, caused a memorial (still preserved in the Irish col- 
 lege of Salamanca) to be presented to the King of Spain on the 
 subject. 
 
 " To His Catholic Royal Majesty — The Conde O'Donel, of 
 Ireland, kisses the feet of your majesty, and says that, in the 
 kingdoms of your majesty there are several colleges or semi- 
 naries for the instruction of Irish students, who, through the 
 persecution of the heretics, cannot [in their own country] be 
 instructed in the sound and Catholic doctrine ; and that in 
 particular your majesty has a college at Salamanca, which is 
 maintained for this purpose by the charity of your majesty, 
 added to the funds .set apart for its support by the bishops and 
 titularies of Spain. 
 
 " Over this college presides a religious, a member of the Irish 
 order of Jesuits, and a native of those provinces that are sub- 
 ject to the queen, and consequently schismatical, who does not 
 entertain a pious affection for the open and avowed Irish 
 Catholics of Ulster and Connaught, who have for_ so many 
 years held arms in defence of the faith, and on this account 
 does not wish to receive the students of those provinces; the 
 truth being, that they more than any others ought to be 
 sustained by the alms of the faithful, because of their having 
 remained true Catholics and vassals of the Church and of your 
 majesty, on which account it may be expected that they will 
 produce better fruit than those who have been reared on such 
 bad milk as obedience to the queen and an affectionate love for 
 her interests, and [for persons] outside the pale of the Church ; 
 
74 THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP LOFTUS. 
 
 the result being, that when they return among their own 
 people, they will let themselves be carried with the current, 
 and thus do much more evil than if they had not studied at 
 all, because they teach that it is permissible to obey the queen 
 and to take arms against your majesty; and those that do 
 so, they confess and absolve, and admit to mass and the [in 
 allusion to Trinity College] divine offices. 
 
 " But those students are usually the sons of rich merchants, 
 who could be educated at the expense of their parents, and 
 who, if it were not to save the cost, would be sent to pursue 
 their studies in England, like others of the same class. Even 
 in Ireland itself, in those provinces subject to the queen, there 
 are considerable facilities for study; but ours are Catholic of 
 the Catholic, who cherish in their hearts obedience to the 
 Church, and who from their cradle abhor the accursed sect of 
 the queen, and proclaim against it. Owing to continual wars, 
 they have no means or opportunities of study ; those who come 
 to Spain are the sons of the nobles who have lost their proper- 
 ties for the faith, and have no means of obtaining the advan- 
 tages possessed by the others. 
 
 " Eor these and other reasons I supplicate your majesty, on 
 the part of O'Neill' and of myself, and on behalf of those two 
 provinces, that your majesty will command that the said semi- 
 nary of Salamanca shall receive one-half of its students from 
 Ulster and Connaught. For the carrying out of this arrange- 
 ment, it will be necessary to remove from the administration 
 of the college the religious who at present directs it, whose 
 name is Thomas White, and to appoint a Spanish rector to 
 preside over it, who will punctually obey the orders he shall 
 receive, because it is certain that the father referred to will 
 always be prepared with plausible excuses for rejecting those 
 students ; and even should he be compelled by force to receive 
 them, he will treat them in a way that will be impossible to be 
 endured. In thus acting, your majesty will do a great service 
 to our Lord, and confer the greatest possible benefit and an 
 especial favour on the true Catholics of Ireland." 
 
 On the death of Queen Elizabeth, Loftus was appointed by 
 her successor Lord Chancellor of Ireland. One of the last of 
 this Chancellor's communications with the Secretary of State 
 shows the intolerance and bigotry that darkened all his acts : — 
 "Tour lordship hath wisely considered that the word alone 
 without the stvord is not sufficient to bring the people of this 
 realm from popery — a thing whereto they are misled over from 
 their cradles. But I assure your lordship, that unless they be 
 forced, they will not ever come to hear the word preached ; as 
 by experience we observed at the time appointed by the Lord 
 Deputy, for a general assembly of all the noblemen and 
 
THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP JONES. 75 
 
 gentlemen of every county, after her Majesty's good success 
 against the Spaniards, to give God thanks for the same : at 
 which time, although the sheriffs of every county did their 
 duties with all diligence, and warned all men to repair to the 
 principal church, where order was taken for public prayers 
 and thanksgiving unto God, together with a sermon to he 
 preached by choice men in every diocese, yet very few or 
 none almost resorted thereto ; but even in Dublin itself, the 
 lawyers in term time took occasion to leave the town on purpose 
 to absent themselves from that godly exercise. It is bootless 
 labour for any man to preach in the country out of Dublin, 
 for want of hearers ; but in mine opinion this may be easily 
 remedied, if the ecclesiastical commission be put in force, and 
 if liberty be left to myself to imprison and fine all such as are 
 obstinate in popery. The sooner this course of reformation is 
 begun the better it will prosper, and the longer it is deferred 
 the more dangerous it shall be." What that Protestant Eccle- 
 siastical Commission was which Loftus so sought to be enforced 
 is thus explained by Hume, under date of 23rd November, 
 1584: — "She," the queen, "appointed forty-four commis- 
 sioners, twelve of whom were ecclesiastics ; three commissioners 
 made a quorum ; and thus its methods of proceeding were con- 
 trary to the clearest principles of law and natural equity. 
 The commissioners were empowered to visit and reform all 
 errors, heresies, schisms — in a word, to regulate all opinions, 
 as well as to punish all breaches of uniformity in the exercise 
 of public worship. They were directed to make inquiry not 
 only by the legal method of juries and witnesses, but by the 
 rack, by torture, by inquisition, and by imprisonment." 
 
 Early in March, 1605, the Chancellor Archbishop was 
 seized with his death sickness, and on the 5th of April follow- 
 ing, having held the seals for two-and-thirty years, he closed 
 a life remarkable for bigotry, avarice, and cruelty. His 
 remains were interred in St. Patrick's Cathedral, on the right 
 hand of the communion-table. He left at his death several 
 children ; and his second daughter, Anne, was married^" to Sir 
 Henry Colley, of Castle Carbery, ancestor of the Duke of 
 Wellington. 
 
 88. A. D. 1605. — Thomas Jones, Protestant Archbishop of 
 Dublin, was educated at Christ Church College, Cambridge. 
 Having been ordained a minister of his Church, he crossed over 
 to Ireland, and married the sister-in-law of Archbishop Loftus, 
 to which alliance he was probably indebted for his subsequent 
 advancement in Church and State. His first promotion was 
 to the Chancellorship of St. Patrick's, and he was subsequently, 
 in 1581, advanced to the deanery of that cathedral. As 
 
76 THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP JONES. 
 
 Dean, he impoverished the deanery hy the scandalous leases 
 he made — leases which Dean Swift in after years, hy the 
 following endorsement on one of them, so severely censured : — 
 "Lease of Coolmine, made by that rascal Dean Jones, and 
 the knaves or fools of his chapter, to one John Allen, for 
 eighty-one years, to commence at the expiration of a lease 
 made in 1585, so that there was a lease for eighty-one years, 
 of 253 acres, within three miles of Dublin, for £2 a year, 
 worth £150 a year." 
 
 In 1584 Dean Jones became, by the favour of Queen Eliza- 
 beth, Bishop of Meath, and it was while he filled that office, 
 namely in 1591, that he performed the cermony of marriage 
 between O'Neil Earl of Tyrone and Mabel, sister of Marshal 
 Bagnal. This union, not untinged with romance, is told in the 
 State Papers of that day, and as the solemnization of that 
 marriage cost Jones much uneasiness, and was well nigh being 
 the cause of his degradation from the espiscopal bench, we shall 
 tell it almost as it is told in the translation of the Burgundian 
 Manuscripts, made by the Rev. C. P. Meehan, the accom- 
 plished Catholic curate of SS. Michael and John's, Dublin. In 
 the manuscript we speak of, also entitled the " Noctes Louvain- 
 enses." — it was written in the year 1616 — two exiled friars, 
 Father Purcell, and Father Mooney, of the Franciscan order, 
 are supposed to be seated in the library of the convent of Lou- 
 vain, and in a conversation between those reverend fathers, the 
 following, which we have altered from the dialogue form, is told : 
 " Sir Nicholas Bagnal, the first of that name who figures promi- 
 nently in our history, came to Ireland in 1542. He was a native 
 of Staffordshire, in England; and being a hotheaded person, 
 killed a man in a brawl, for which he had to fly his own coun- 
 try, and seek refuge in Ireland ; where, at the urgent entreaty 
 of Con O'Neill, first Earl of Tyrone, he received pardon from 
 Henry VIII. , and in course of time, and by way of gratitude to 
 his benefactor, he became an energetic enemy of the O'Neills. 
 Having obtained large grants of land in Down — the princi- 
 pality of the MacGinnesses — he laid the foundation of the 
 modern Newry, and there built a strong castle, in which he 
 constantly resided. Early in the reign of Elizabeth he was 
 appointed marshal of the queen's forces in Ireland, and when 
 he died his son Sir Henry succeeded to all his honours. The 
 latter was a man of considerable ability at the pen, for he wrote 
 a description of Ulster in 1587. Sharing his father's hatred of 
 the Irish, and intent on his own aggrandizement, he lost no op- 
 portunity of adding to the grants which he had inherited; so 
 much so, indeed, that he ultimately became one of the most 
 active of the supplanting foemen of the O'Neills and their sub- 
 ordinate lords. When the MacMahon of Monaghan was 
 
THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP JONES. 77 
 
 executed at his own door, by the infamous order of deputy 
 Fitzwilliam, Sir Henry Bagnal received a considerable portion 
 of the murdered chieftain's lands ; and there can be little doubt 
 that he hoped to oust Tyrone himself, and share the partition 
 of his wide domains. He was, in truth, a greedy adventurer, 
 restless, rapacious, unscrupulous ; in a word, one who deemed it 
 no sin or shame to aid in any process by whioh the rightful 
 occupant might be driven from his holding, provided he got 
 share of the spoil. This man hated Tyrone with implacable 
 animosity ; and indeed the earl reciprocated the sentiment, and 
 branded him in public and private as a coward, who shrank from 
 the ordeal of single combat. Bagnal had refused to encounter 
 Tyrone, when the latter proposed to meet him — and this, too, 
 although the earl offered to allow him to come armed from head 
 to foot against himself in hose and jerkin, to encourage him to 
 accept the challenge. Bagnal was valiant enough with the pen, 
 was a perfect master of fence when nothing but the pen was 
 needed to deal an assassin thrust; but when there was a question 
 of cold, glittering steel, his heart melted within him like wax. 
 Tyrone's first wife, the countess Judith, sister of Hugh Eoe 
 O'Donnell, died early in 1590 ; and some months afterwards 
 the earl met in Newry Mabel, Sir Henry's second sister. Fas- 
 cinated by the beauty of the English maiden, then just entering 
 her twentieth year, and captivated by the grace of her manners, 
 the earl resolved to marry her, and declared his intentions to her 
 brother. Sir Henry, however, on hearing the proposal, raised 
 some difficulties about the incivility of the earl's country. 
 
 " Finding, nevertheless, that his sister had set her heart upon 
 this marriage, Sir Henry refused to allow the nuptial ceremony 
 to take place till he had received letters from Queen Elizabeth's 
 cabinet sanctioning the project ; and in the meanwhile he caused 
 Mabel to be removed from the castle of Newry to Turyey, some 
 eight or nine miles north of Dublin, the residence of Sir Patrick 
 Barnwell, her sister's husband. How it fared with the marshal's 
 application to the queen's ministers is untold ; but it is quite 
 certain that Mabel's removal to her sister's mansion did not 
 realise her brother's intent ; quite otherwise indeed, for the earl 
 followed her to Turvey, and employed all his persuasive elo- 
 quence to obtain Lady Barnwell's consent to the marriage ; and 
 she was little loath to see her fair sister mated with one whose 
 ancestry, chivalry, and wide domains entitled him to the hand 
 and heart of the most nobly-born dame in Christendom. Sir 
 Patrick Barnwell, too, gave willing ear to his pleading ; and, as 
 for Mabel, such was the vehemence of her .love, that she solemnly 
 trothed herself to Tyrone, who presented her with a chain of 
 gold, as a symbol of that union in which their hearts were to be 
 linked for evermore. The ' trouthaV took place early in July 
 
78 THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP JONES. 
 
 (1591), and towards the close of that month the earl, accom- 
 panied by a gay retinue of English gentlemen, went to dine at 
 Turvey, where their host made them good entertainment, and 
 where it had been previously arranged that Mabel should bide 
 her opportunity, and leave the mansion with one of those who 
 had come in Tyrone's suite. After dinner, accordingly, when the 
 guests were betaking themselves to various games, she mounted 
 on horseback behind the earl's friend, who, followed by two 
 serving-men, never drew bridle till they arrived at the house of 
 a Mr. Warren, who lived at Drumeondra, within a mile of Dub- 
 lin. As soon as the earl ascertained that his ' prey ' — the word 
 is his own — was well forward on her road to the place agreed 
 upon, he, too, mounted his horse, and accompanied by his Eng- 
 lish friends, spurred hard after his lady-love. There was no 
 time to be lost in solemnizing the nuptials ; and the earl des- 
 patched a messenger to Jones, the queen's Bishop of Meath, who 
 happened to be in Dublin at that moment, praying him to hasten 
 without delay to Warren's house, where his presence was urgently 
 needed. The bishop may have imagined that Tyrone was about 
 to renounce his faith ; but if any such idea haunted his mind it 
 was soon removed, when, on entering the house, he found arrange- 
 ments made for a wedding, and the fair girl in a noble apart- 
 ment, attended by a considerable number of English ladies and 
 gentlemen. ' My lord,' said the earl, ' I have invited you hither 
 to marry myself and this gentlewoman, to whom I was be- 
 trothed about twenty days ago ; and I am desirous that rather 
 you than any other should perform the office between us, that 
 the world may know we are married according to her majesty's 
 laws' ' What you require from me,' replied the bishop, ' is a 
 matter of great importance ; and you must first permit me to 
 confer with the gentlewoman herself ; ' and with this he took 
 Mabel aside, and demanded of her whether she had plighted her 
 troth to the earl. She answered that she had done so twenty 
 days before, and that she had received from him a gold chain, 
 worth a hundred pounds, as a token. To the question whether 
 she had come away voluntarily from Turvey, she replied that 
 she had done so of her own free consent ; and finally, when asked 
 whether she was resolved to take the earl to her husband, she 
 answered : ' My lord, you see in what case I am, how I came 
 hither with mine own consent, and have already promised the 
 earl to be his wife. I beseech you, therefore, for my credit's 
 sake, to perfect the marriage between us; the sooner the better 
 for my honour's sake.' Satisfied with the examination, the 
 bishop remarked that it barely remained for him to perfect ' the 
 knot that themselves had already knytt. ; ' and he instantly 
 solemnized the marriage according to Her Majesty's laws. The 
 merrymakings on this occasion lasted four or five days, and such 
 
THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP JONES. 79 
 
 revel was never before witnessed in Drunicondra. At its conclu- 
 sion, the earl hastened back to the north with his young bride, 
 and Mabel was now Countess of Tyrone. 
 
 " Sir Henry Bagnal was furious at this marriage, indignant 
 that his father's blood and his own, which had been often spilled 
 in repressing this rebellious race, should now be mingled with 
 so traitorous a stock and kindred ! And not satisfied with this, 
 he vented his rage on Jones for celebrating the marriage. ' The 
 Bishop of Meath,' said he, ' participated in this villany ; and by 
 such like examples in men of his sort, God's word is greatly slan- 
 dered, and many men in this kingdom, who would otherwise wil- 
 lingly embrace the truth, are brought into detestation of the gos- 
 pel ! ' But he made a graver charge against him, and asserted that 
 Mabel's nuptials were solemnized while the earl's wife was still 
 alive, and that he, the bishop, was aware of the impediment. 
 Burghley, on receiving this intelligence, wrote by the queen's 
 orders, commanding Jones at once to account for his conduct ; 
 and the poor man, frightened out of his wits, replied ' that he 
 never was cognizant of any such " barr ; " and that if he had had 
 an inkling of it, he would not have done what he did, not even 
 for the marshal's yearly revenue.' Fortunately for the bishop, 
 the queen, through her minister, pronounced that the Earl of 
 Tyrone had acted honourably in the matter, and Jones was ac- 
 quitted of the charge brought against him, although it was 
 said that this marriage had so deeply offended Elizabeth, who 
 thenceforward regarded the earl as her bitter enemy, and she 
 wternum servam pectore minus would never, had she outlived Arch- 
 bishop Loftus, have raised Jones to the archiepiscopal dignity. 
 It was well for him, then, that she died in 1603, two years before 
 the death of Loftus. Jones had long been a member of the 
 Privy Council, and, accordingly, we find his name attached to 
 the proclamation announcing the formation of the Connaught 
 circuit in 1604. In the following year he became Archbishop 
 of Dublin and Lord Chancellor of Ireland." 
 
 On the 4th of July following his appointment, his name was 
 attached to a proclamation commanding all the Catholic clergy 
 to depart from the realm ; and in the same year the custom of 
 tanistry was abolished, and the law of primogeniture introduced. 
 The persecution of the priests went on, and while the foxes had 
 holes and the birds of the air had nests, the priests had not 
 wherein to lay their heads. A price was set upon them and 
 upon their protectors, and the lives even of the O'Neils, Earls 
 of Tyrone, and of the O'Donels, Earls of Tyrconnell, were not 
 worth, in consequence, an hour's purchase. Then followed— 
 it was on the 14th of September, 1607— the flight of the earls, 
 and their vast territories declared confiscated to the Crown. 
 The history of their flight is told to us in his own fascinating 
 
80 THE CHANCELLOR ARCHBISHOP JONES. 
 
 manner by the Rev. Charles P. Meehan, in his work on Fate and 
 Fortune of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell. A new planta- 
 tion was, in consequence, made in Ulster ; and the Lord Chan- 
 cellor was active in the removal of the old and the planting of 
 the new tenants of the soil. His name appears to the warrant 
 of removal, the mandatory part of which wicked document is as 
 follows : — 
 
 "To the Sheriff of the County of Now know ye the 
 
 Sheriff of the county of , that we charge and authorise you 
 
 forthwith after the end of the present harvest to remove the na- 
 tives of that county ; and you are to admonish and intimate to 
 the said natives that they must prepare themselves to depart, 
 with their goods and chattels, before the 1st day of May next, 
 to whatsoever part of the realm they may please to go." 
 
 Archbishop Jones was rewarded for his apostolic zeal by a 
 grant of the dissolved monastery of Trim with its vast estates. 
 In 1611 he presided at a council of the bishops of the Episcopal 
 Church, held in Dublin for the purpose of devising some sure 
 methods for the extirpation of Popery. Diocesan schools were 
 to be forthwith established, and the churches of the Establish- 
 ! ment were, as soon as the legislative enactment could be obtained, 
 to be repaired ; and further, they, with the wisdom of the wise, 
 devised that those reparations were not to be at their own cost, 
 but rather at the cost of others, that is to say — at the cost of 
 those differing from them most widely, and whom they stigma- 
 tised as " Papist recusants." 
 
 In the following year, 1612, the Lord Chancellor presided 
 daily in the parliament " which was opened on the 18th of May, 
 and he made at the opening a grave and worthy speech touching 
 the causes there to be debated upon for the good of the kingdom 
 and for the commonwealth thereof." 
 
 In 1614 the Chancellor attended a "commencement held in 
 Trinity College for the purpose of conferring degrees ; but the 
 room being small, they adjourned to St. Patrick's Cathedral. In 
 1615 the convocation of the Protestant church met in Dublin 
 under his presidency. He died in the month of April, 1617, 
 and was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral. He had been many 
 times Lord Justice. His son was, in 1628, raised to the peer- 
 age, and from him is descended the present Viscount Eanelagh. 
 
 89. A. D. 1619. — Lord Ely. Adam Loftus, nephew of the 
 Chancellor, Archbishop Loftus, represented the King's County 
 in the parliament of 1598. It was said that he was unrivalled 
 in debate, and he soon won the offices of Master in Chancery 
 and president of the province of Munster, and on the death of 
 Archbishop Jones was appointed Lord Chancellor with a peer- 
 
 1 Porter's "Compend. Annal. Eccles." p. 249. 
 
LORD ELY. 81 
 
 age. In the same year his lordship was present in Christ Church 
 Cathedral at the inauguration service of Lord Falkland, then 
 sent over as Lord Deputy, when the celebrated and learned 
 James Ussher, afterwards Archbishop of Armagh, delivered a 
 violent harangue against the Catholic faith, which excited great 
 alarm throughout the country. Then followed the memorable 
 proclamation commanding all popish priests, numbering 1160, 
 of whom 120 were Franciscans, and 53 Jesuists, to depart from 
 the kingdom. Not satisfied with the confiscation of Ulster, 
 the king succeeded, immediately before his death, in having 
 placed at his disposal 384,000 acres of land in Leinster, which 
 he had the gratification of seeing planted with Protestant 
 settlers. 
 
 In 1625 Charles I. ascended the throne, and the Catholics 
 were led to believe that the severities of the penal laws would 
 soon be mitigated; but the advisers of the king were deter- 
 mined, on the contrary, to stamp out the last spark of the Ca- 
 tholio faith, and Lord Ely was the right man to carry out this 
 policy. In 1625 the relations between the Lord Deputy and 
 Lord Chancellor were of the most unfriendly nature ; since, al- 
 though vieing one with the other in their abhorrence of " the 
 woman of Babylon," as they affected to call the Catholic Church, 
 yet neither would brook the slightest interference by the other 
 in the duties of his office. Lord Falkland called on the Chan- 
 cellor to affix the Great Seal to several patents presented to him 
 for that purpose, and to appoint certain judges for the circuits, 
 and issue commissions of the peace to several persons named by 
 him for the magistracy. To every one of these applications, or, 
 more properly speaking, commands, the Chancellor replied in 
 the negative. This created much excitement in England, and 
 was at length brought before the king, who decided in great 
 measure against the Chancellor. On the first point, Lord Ely 
 insisted that many questions of public policy and of law were 
 involved in the passing of patents. The king ordered, that if 
 the Lord Chancellor should thenceforward refuse to affix the 
 Great Seal to patents presented to him, he should state the rea- 
 sons for his refusal ; and if those reasons were on the grounds of 
 public policy, that the matter should be mentioned to the Privy 
 Council ; and if they were of opinion that the Seal should be 
 affixed, that then the Chancellor might at his peril appeal to the 
 king ; but if the question be one of law, that it should be brought 
 before the judges, from whose decision, likewise, an appeal 
 might be made to the king. On the other questions His Majesty 
 held that the Lord Chancellor should state his reasons for re- 
 fusing to appoint judges of the circuit and justices of the peace, 
 and that these reasons should then be brought before the Privy 
 Council, whose decision was to be absolute and binding ; " while 
 
 G 
 
82 LORD ELY. 
 
 in all these eases it becomes the Lord Chancellor to repair to the 
 Deputy, and to acquaint him with the reasons why he refuses." 
 
 In 1627 Lord Ely was commanded to deliver up the Seals, 
 and to repair to the king's presence, there to answer certain 
 charges made against him in relation to the raising of money 
 for the king's service in Ireland, as well as for acts done by him 
 in the administration of justice. His lordship conducted his 
 own defence, and so successfully that he was restored to the 
 office of Chancellor on his return to Ireland. 
 
 In 1629 Lord Falkland, who had permitted, by way of grace, 
 Catholic barristers to practise at the bar, was recalled, and the 
 Lord Chancellor was appointed Lord Justice. The penalties 
 provided by the 2nd of Elizabeth were then put in force, and 
 the celebration of Catholic worship prohibited. Dr. Buckley, 
 Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, a privy councillor and magis- 
 trate, took, on Christmas Day, 1629, a file of soldiers to Cook- 
 street Catholic chapel; where a iarge congregation were gathered. 
 The priest was torn from the altar. " The pastor was smitten 
 and the flock were dispersed ; " but the dispersion was far from 
 being a peaceable one, and the archbishop narrowly escaped in 
 a riot that followed. The name of the Chancellor — then, as we 
 have said, Lord Justice — is appended to an Order of Council 
 directing the demolition of the house, " where the friars ap- 
 peared in their habits." Such was the spirit of the times when 
 Lord Wentworth, whose hateful memory is better preserved by 
 his subsequent title of Earl of Strafford, assumed the duties 
 of Lord Deputy in 1633. This nobleman, supercilious and 
 overbearing, could brook no advice from the equally overbearing 
 Chancellor, and perpetual quarrels were the result. 
 
 Within the month after the Lord Deputy's arrival in Ireland 
 the summer assizes commenced, when at Trim one of the judges 
 of the home circuit died. This matter was at once made known 
 to the Lord Chancellor, who issued a commission to a Mr. 
 Alexander, a member of the circuit, to act as judge. The Lord 
 Deputy required the instant revocation of the commission, and 
 suggested that Serjeant Eustace (afterwards Lord Chancellor), 
 a man of noted ability, should be appointed. The gaol of Trim 
 was then full to overflowing, and His Excellency was apprehen- 
 sive that Alexander was incompetent to fill the post. The sub- 
 ject was brought in all haste before the king, and he commanded 
 the Chancellor forthwith to comply with the suggestion of the 
 Lord Deputy, and directed, if he did not do so, that the Seals 
 should be taken from him. The commission to Alexander was 
 accordingly revoked, and Serjeant Eustace was appointed. 
 
 The confiscation and plantation of Ulster having been now 
 for several years completed, a commission was issued for Con- 
 naught, with the design of confiscating the whole of that pro- 
 
LORD ELY. 83 
 
 vince to the Crown by fiotitious forms of law. The ingenuity of 
 the crown lawyers was employed to subvert the title of the land- 
 lords to every estate beyond the Shannon, and the juries of 
 Roscommon and Mayo found that the title to these counties 
 was vested in the Crown ; but when it came to the turn of the 
 county of Galway, the jury of this noble county refused to 
 sanction the nefarious plunder by their verdict. In consequence, 
 the jurors were fined ; and the high sheriff, Mr. Darcy, who re- 
 turned their names, was fined and cast into prison, where he 
 died of the hardships he had there endured. Another commis- 
 sion was then issued to Lord Ranelagh, President of Connaught, 
 Sir James Donelan, and others. A jury was again sworn, and 
 they, terrified by the treatment of their predecessors, found for 
 the Crown. One-half of the lands of that refractory county 
 was confiscated, while only one-fourth was confiscated in the 
 other counties. The next instrument of torture invented for the 
 Catholics was the establishment of the Court of Wards, under the 
 presidency of the Chancellor, for the avowed purpose of rearing 
 in the Protestant faith the heirs of Catholic proprietors. There 
 was also a High Commission Court, which exercised a fearful 
 tyrranny over all classes ; and the extortions practised by the 
 ecclesiastical courts were intolerable. " The Bible in one hand 
 and the sword in the other" was the only method of converting 
 the Irish papist. 
 
 Lord Ely held the Seals until 1638. His family was large, 
 and amongst them was one remarkable for her beauty, who was 
 married to Sir Luke Gifford. The Chancellor had made no 
 suitable provision for her on her marriage ; but this was surely 
 a matter of private concern, with which the Deputy should 
 never have interfered. It was, however, too true that he did 
 interfere, and that this interference was caused by bis unhal- 
 lowed love for Lady Gifford, to whom he had written impas- 
 sioned letters, breathing tenderness, affection, and familiarity. 
 The Seals were thent aken from the Chancellor, and he was cast 
 into prison. It is almost certain that questions other than his re- 
 fusal to make a suitable settlement on his daughter were before 
 the Privy Council, since, without more serious cause, they could 
 never have suspended him from office. Their reasons for doing 
 so, however, they have not specified in their following despatch to 
 the king : — 
 
 " May it please your most sacred Majesty, — We feel it to 
 be our duty to represent to your Majesty, that we, by the en- 
 tire votes of us all now in Council, until your Majesty's royal 
 pleasure be further known, have this day prevented the Lord 
 Chancellor from sitting at his Court, and required him to for- 
 bear from exercising his office of Chancellor, and by warrant 
 commanded his lordship to-morrow morning to bring the Great 
 Seal to be delivered here to me the Lord Deputy. The reasons 
 
 G2 
 
Si SIR RICHARD BOLTON. 
 
 which have oompelled us thus far to proceed we shall transmit 
 over with all duty and speed, and most humbly beseeching your 
 Majesty to believe that we are able to give full satisfaction." 
 
 Lord Ely left Dublin immediately on his release from 
 prison, and went to reside with his daughter, Lady Moore, wife 
 of Lord Moore, at the abbey of Monasterevan, now known as 
 Moore Park. Lord and Lady Moore were ancestors of the 
 present Marquis of Drogheda. Though the Chancellor left 
 several sons, his short-lived peerage expired in 1725 ; but sixty- 
 four years later the title of Viscount Ely was again conferred on 
 a branch of the Loftus family. 
 
 90. A. D. 1638. — Sir Richard Bolton, who had been pre- 
 viously Chief Baron of the Exchequer, was appointed Chancellor 
 by Lord Strafford (Wentworth) immediately on the dismissal of 
 Lord Ely. In the year 1641 Strafford was called on to account, 
 amongst other things, for his misconduct in Ireland. Sent to 
 the Tower, he was impeached by the English House of Commons ; 
 and one of the many articles of impeachment was the imprison- 
 ment of Lord Ely. Immediately the Irish House of Commons, 
 which had flattered that unscrupulous minister when he was in 
 office, now that he was out of office sent a deputation to aid the 
 English parliament in obtaining his conviction. Sir Richard 
 Bolton, whom he had created Chancellor, was then impeached 
 for " delivering unjust and erroneous judgments whereby thou- 
 sands had been ruined in their goods, liberties, and lives, and 
 many of them utterly destroyed by the mutilation of their mem- 
 bers and other punishments, and also for conspiring to destroy 
 the liberties of the people. 1 The matter of his impeachment hav- 
 ing been brought before the House of Lords, a question was put 
 to the judges, for their opinion — whether the Lord Chancellor, 
 " whilst lying under an impeachment, could act as Speaker of 
 that House." The unanimous opinions of their lordships was 
 that the Chancellor, until cleared of the articles of impeachment, 
 was not competent to act as Speaker. The business of the Court 
 of Chanoery therefore came to a dead lock, and so remained 
 until the Lords Justioes signified their pleasure that no further 
 proceedings should be taken in the matter, which then dropped. 
 Many years after Sir Richard Bolton's death, both Houses 
 (a. d. 1661) voted that all records of this transaction be ex- 
 punged, " inasmuch as they seemed to be an entrenchment on 
 the honour, worth, and integrity of honourable persons, whose 
 memory this House cannot in justice suffer to be sullied with 
 the least stain of evil report." 
 
 Much indignation was excited in Ireland during the early 
 portion of the year 1641, on account of the superiority claimed 
 
 1 Commons' Journal, vol. i., 198 ; Lords' Journal, vol. i. 
 
SIR RICHARD BOLTON. 85 
 
 by the Court of Ultimate Appeal in England over the Court of 
 Appeal in Ireland. On the 9th of June this question was argued 
 at considerable length before the Lord Chancellor, Sir Richard 
 Bolton, and a committee of the House of Lords. Counsel ap- 
 peared on both sides — the celebrated Patrick Darcy having been 
 instructed to defend the jurisdiction of the Irish courts. His 
 argument, published in 1643, is preserved in the library of 
 Trinity College, Dublin; and though this question has been 
 from that time frequently dealt 'with by others, yet nothing has 
 been added to his luminous and exhaustive treatment of it. 
 
 But questions of another nature now agitated the minds 
 of men. Confiscation and persecution were at work; and to 
 landless outcasts it mattered little whether the Court of Ulti- 
 mate Appeal was in Westminster or in Dublin ! The province 
 of Ulster had been confiscated ; Munster was desolated ; and 
 Leinster and Connaught stood awaiting their doom ! The Irish 
 landlords were gone ; the Irish tenants were to be cast like weeds 
 from the soil ; the monasteries were in ruins ; the poor were 
 perishing from hunger; and their only friends, the Catholic 
 clergy, were hunted like the wild birds from the mountains. 
 Such was the unhappy state of this country when, on the 23rd 
 of October, 1641, the great rebellion broke out. From that 
 time, for twenty years, the Chancellor's duties were confined to 
 the Privy Council, for his Court was powerless to enforce its de- 
 crees, and indeed was unsought by suitors. 
 
 The only law during that dreary period was the law of the 
 sword. In 1642 the Confederation of Kilkenny was called to- 
 gether, composed of the Catholic prelates, with deputies from 
 several of the counties, Patrick Darcy, the celebrated lawyer, 
 assuming to represent the Lord Chancellor, and Nicholas 
 Plunket acting as Speaker of the House. This council, which 
 professed devoted attachment to the king, disclaimed the title of 
 " parliament," lest they might infringe on the royal prerogative ; 
 and pretended to act merely as a provisional government, "to 
 consult for their own affairs till His Majesty's wisdom had 
 settled the present troubles." 
 
 In 1644 the Marquis of Ormond was appointed Lord Lieu- 
 tenant. At that time the king, anxious to obtain the support of 
 the Irish people, had entered into a treaty of peace with the 
 confederates, who thereby engaged to pay His Majesty a sum of 
 £30,000. It was also agreed that the whole of Connaught and 
 Leinster, with the exception of the county and city of Dublin 
 and the county Louth, which were to remain in the possession 
 of the Protestants, should continue in " Catholic " hands. That 
 in Ulster each party was to remain in possession of such places 
 as they had held at the time of signing the treaty ; and that 
 Kerry, Clare, Waterford, and Tipperary, with the exception of 
 
86 SIK WILLIAM STEELE. 
 
 certain towns, should be in the possession of the Catholics. 
 With these articles, the Catholics of the Pale were satisfied ; not 
 so the Catholics outside the Pale. Between these parties arose 
 incessant broils and recriminations, and it was to reconcile them, 
 one with the other, that the Nuncio, Biauccini, proceeded 
 to Ireland.. On his arrival in Kilkenny he found estab- 
 lished there a court pretending to be the Court of Chan- 
 cery, of which John De Burgh, Catholio Archbishop of 
 Tuam, was then Chancellor, appointed by the confederation, 
 but not by the king. Another actor, however, now appeared 
 on the scene, and through him another conquest was at 
 hand; and the differences of the Catholic parties were to be 
 silenced in the ruin of both ! On the 15th of August, 1649, 
 Oliver Cromwell landed in Dublin ; the result of his mission is 
 known to all men ; and to tell of his conquests and of his cruel- 
 ties would be outside the limits of work. In those times we 
 find little mention made of the Chancellor Bolton. His 
 leisure hours, previous to the rebellion, had been devoted to the 
 compilation of the Irish Statutes from Edward II. to James I. ; 
 and he was author of works entitled respectively The Justice of 
 the Peace and Rules for a Grand Juror, and of an inquiry 
 as to Hoio the Laws and Statutes of England came to be of 
 force in Ireland. Sir Puichard was married to a daughter of 
 Pui chard "Walter Stafford, Esq., and by her left at his death in 
 1650 several children, the eldest of whom, Sir Edward Bolton, 
 was the Chief Baron of the Exchequer from 1640 to 1655. 
 
 On Sir Richard's death, the Great Seal was put in commis- 
 sion, and from that time until 1656 there was no Lord Chan- 
 cellor of Ireland. The commissioners were the Chief Justice 
 Pepys, who had previously been a puisne judge in England, 
 Chief Justice Sir Gerard Lowther, of the Common Bench, and 
 Chief Baron Corbett. These men lost no opportunity in hunting 
 hapless papists from their homes and estates. " Pray for us," 
 writes Sir John Allen, the commissioner for the disposition of 
 forfeited estates, " that now, as we have come to possess houses we 
 have not built, vineyards we have not planted, that we may not for- 
 get the Lord and His goodness to us in the day of our distress." 
 
 91. A.D. 1656. — Sir William Steele was born at Geddy 
 Hall, a moated house near Sandbach, in Cheshire, became a 
 member of Gray's Inn in 1631, was called to the English bar in 
 1637, and was one of the unsuccessful candidates for the judge- 
 ship of the Sheriff's Court of London, in 1643. Owing to the 
 zeal he displayed against the unfortunate Charles I., as it is 
 said, he was appointed by Oliver Cromwell Attorney-General of 
 England, and successively Recorder of London, Chief Baron of 
 the Exchequer in England, and, lastly, Lord Chancellor of Ire- 
 
SIR MAURICE EUSTACE. 87 
 
 land. Why he was thus rewarded it is difficult to state, 
 seeing that he feigned illness at the trial of that unfortunate 
 monarch, and cast the whole burden on the Solicitor-General. 
 On his arrival in Ireland the work of confiscation and plunder 
 had been done, "so that he had not an acre left for him to 
 covet." On the death of Oliver Cromwell, in 1658, Lord 
 Chancellor Steele, observing the turn of the tide in favour of 
 Charles II., endeavoured to secure his personal safety by betray- 
 ing the secrets of Henry and Richard Cromwell to Clarendon 
 and Ormond Though proud, crafty, insincere, and insolent, he 
 is said to have been a lawyer of ability and learning. 
 
 92. A.D. 1660. — Sir Maurice Eustace, Knt., was son of 
 William Eitz- John Eustace, of Castle Martin, in the county Kil- 
 dare ; was called early in life to the bar, appointed Serjeant in 
 1634, and elected Speaker of the House of Commons in 1639. 
 In 1642 he was commissioned by Charles I. to treat with the 
 Catholic confederates at Kilkenny. Sincere in his attachment to 
 the Protestant Episcopal Church, he was voted the thanks of the 
 House of Commons " for his earnest advancement " of that faith. 
 In 1644 he became Master of the Rolls ; and on the restoration 
 of Charles II. was appointed Lord Chancellor, with an annuity 
 of £1500 a year, chargeable on the customs of the city of Dub- 
 lin and town of Drogheda. 
 
 The Lord Chancellor and Roger Broghill, Earl of Orrery, 
 who were Lords Justices in 1661, convoked the parliament 
 which passed the Act of Settlement, whereby it was recited that 
 the rebellion of 1641 was a " formed and almost national rebel- 
 lion of Irish papists," that they were represented in a general 
 assembly chosen by themselves, that that assembly assumed, ex- 
 ercised, and usurped the power of life and death, peace and war, 
 and coined money ; at the same time making use of the king's 
 name and authority. The Act then proceeds to reward the 
 murderers of Charles I., and to send outcasts on the world those 
 who had fought for his throne. 
 
 Immediately on the passing of the Act of Settlement, the 
 Chancellor obtained a private act for securing to himself his 
 lands of inheritance and leases for years. An outcry was raised 
 in 1663 against the Catholics ; and the calumnies of 1641 
 were revived. It was said, too, that they met in their chapels 
 under the pretence of hearing mass, but really for treasonable 
 motives. The Lord Chancellor uniformly denied the truth of 
 these charges ; but that he might with greater certainty satisfy 
 his mind on the subject, he directed the judges of the seve- 
 ral circuits to take the opinion of the grand juries on the ques- 
 tion. These directions were faithfully carried out ; and the 
 answers uniformly given were, that there were no apprehensions 
 
00 AKCHBISHOP BOYLE. 
 
 whatever of a revolt. The House of Commons, nevertheless, 
 addressed the Lords Justices on the suhject, and these forwarded 
 the address to the Secretary of State, suggesting, at the same 
 time, that Eoman Catholics ought not to be allowed to practise 
 at the bar. It was also insisted, in the House of Lords, that 
 the Catholic peers, who were twenty-two in number, should not 
 be permitted to take their seats until they had reoeived the sacra- 
 ment at the hands of the Primate, Bramhal, Archbishop of Ar- 
 magh. This was energetically opposed by the Lord Chancellor, 
 whose liberal spirit was manifested on all occasions where it was 
 sought to trample on the liberties of his Catholic fellow-subjects. 
 One suggestion he made — one which, had it been adopted, would 
 have reconciled the Catholic and Protestant parties, and have 
 healed many of the wounds which bigotry inflicted — he sug- 
 gested that the king should purchase from the settlers the lands 
 granted to them by Cromwell, and that the lands so purchased 
 should be reconveyed to the ancient proprietors. That the go- 
 vernment could have become purchasers at a very low figure is 
 certain, inasmuch as the settlers had no security for either their 
 lives or properties. 
 
 The residence of Sir Maurice Eustace stood on the north side 
 of Dame-street, in the city of Dublin. His gardens, which were 
 extensive, and crossed by shaded walks, sloped towards the river. 
 These have long since given place to commercial and business 
 streets, one of which still bears the name of that great and en- 
 lightened Chancellor. In 1663 he made his last will, and died 
 in 1665, having held office for five years. His eldest son became 
 a Catholic, and entered the service of James II. ; was wounded 
 at the battle of Aughrim, and then retired to Prance, where he 
 joined the French army, and was raised to the rank of Major- 
 General by Louis XIV. 
 
 93. A. D. 1665. — Michael Boyle, Protestant Archbishop 
 of Armagh, was son of Richard Boyle, Protestant Archbishop 
 of Tuam. In 1637, he took his degree of Master of Arts at 
 Oxford, and in 1640 was made Dean of Cloyne. During the 
 great rebellion, he was chaplain-general to the royal forces in 
 the province of Munster, at a salary of twenty shillings a day. 
 In 1644 the town of Doneraille, where Lord Inchiquin, Presi- 
 dent of Munster, held his court, was threatened by the confede- 
 rate forces under Lord Castlehaven. Dean Boyle, who was 
 married to Lord Inchiquin's sister, vainly endeavoured to per- 
 suade Lord Castlehaven to spare the town and castle, but to no 
 purpose. In 1660 this divine, writes Mr. Dalton, was by letters 
 patent advanced to the united sees of Cloyne, Cork, and Ross, 
 having been a little before called into the Privy Council ; and 
 was one of the twelve bishops consecrated in St. Patrick's Church, 
 
SIR CHARLES PORTER. 89 
 
 on the 27th January, 1660. Not oontent with the revenues of 
 his bishopric, he held possession of six parishes in his diocese, 
 under the pretence that he was unable to find a clergyman to 
 serve them. In the same year he was sent by the Lords Jus- 
 tices to England, for the purpose of assisting His Majesty's 
 ministers in preparing the draft Act of Settlement for Ireland, 
 a trust which he so executed to the satisfaction of their lordships 
 and the House of Lords, that on the 22nd May, 1662, the thanks 
 of that House were voted to him, and entered accordingly in their 
 journals. On the 27th March, 1663, he was translated to the 
 See of Dublin, and presented with a gift of a thousand pounds 
 by the king, to defray the expenses of his removal, as also to 
 enable him to repair the archiepiscopal palace of St. Sepulchre, 
 which was fast falling to decay. On the 24th June, 1665, he 
 was appointed Chancellor, and immediately entered on the du- 
 ties of his office. In 1671 he was sworn in as Lord Justice, and 
 in 167S became Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ire- 
 land. 
 
 The Archbishop continued to hold the Seals as Chancellor for 
 several months after the accession of James II. in 1685. Before, 
 however, the close of that year, he returned, and was soon after 
 succeeded by another Protestant lawyer, Sir Charles Porter. 
 During the twenty years that the Primate held the Chancellor- 
 ship, he was assiduous in the performance of his duties, some- 
 times presiding in his court (which then stood close to the south 
 side of the nave of Christ Church Cathedral) , but more frequently 
 in his private house at Blessington, in the county Wicklow, 
 where he built houses for the six clerks. Primate Boyle's Chan- 
 cery Orders are familiar to every Irish barrister. It is worthy 
 of note that the town of Blessington was built by him, and that 
 the inhabitants were incorporated by charter in the 21st Charles 
 II. He sat in King James's parliament in 1689, and was sum- 
 moned by William III. to the Privy Council. Having reached 
 the patriarchal age of 93 years, the Primate died in 1782, and 
 was buried by torchlight in St. Patrick's Cathedral. 
 
 96. A.D. 1686. — Sir Charles Porter. The early life of 
 this Chancellor is thus told by Roger North : — "Mr. Charles 
 Porter ran a strange course of variety in his life. He was son 
 of a prebend in Norwich, and was an apprentice boy in the city 
 of London in the rebellious times. Perpetually taking part in 
 riotous assemblies, he at one time had a narrow escape, no less 
 than forty pistol shots having been fired at him as a ringleader. 
 Mingling in the crowd, he had the presence of mind to snatch 
 up a little child who was crying in the streets. The people, see- 
 ing the child in his arms, opened a way for him, saying : ' make 
 room for the poor child.' " Having thus escaped, he made his 
 
90 SIR CHARLES PORTER. 
 
 way to Yarmouth, where he took shipping for Holland ; " but he 
 scarce put out to sea before his pursuers came down after him, 
 so narrowly did he escape hanging at the time. In Holland he 
 trailed a pike, and was in several actions as a common soldier. 
 At length he set up an eating-house ; but his customers being 
 needy, he soon broke down, and returned to England." His 
 appearance, continues his biographer, was in his favour, and he 
 succeeded in obtaining an appointment amongst the clerks of 
 the Court of Chancery ; and then he first conceived the idea of 
 being called to the bar. His industry was great ; and before 
 long he acquired a dexterity and skill in the forms of the court. 
 To every description of vice he was prone ; and " although he 
 was a low companion, and followed much the bottle, yet he made 
 such despatches as satisfied his clients, especially the clerks, who 
 knew where to find him. His person was florid, and his speech 
 prompt and articulate." Notwithstanding his success at the bar, 
 he got into pecuniary difficulties, whereby he was reduced to the 
 greatest penury. Lord North, then keeper of the Great Seal, 
 paid so much attention to his arguments that busiriess again 
 flowed in fast ; and yet withal he was " so careless, and joined 
 others in taking up moneys, and so carried on a jolly way of 
 living, that he was once more plunged in debt." 
 
 In 1675 the once well-known case of Dr. Shirty v. Sir John 
 Fagg and other Members of the House of Commons brought Porter 
 into great notoriety. The entire question was connected with 
 the privilege of parliament, or more correctly speaking, of the 
 House of Commons. It appears that a member of that House 
 was suitor in the Court of Chancery. The Lord Chancellor 
 made his decree, and an appeal was thence taken to the House 
 of Lords. Mr. Porter, who was counsel in support of the appeal, 
 was summoned to the bar of the House of Commons to give an 
 account of why he appeared before the House of Lords in a pro- 
 secution in which a member of the House of Commons was con- 
 cerned. Having excused himself as best he could, he was 
 arrested by the Serjeant-at-Arms while engaged in arguing a 
 case before the Master of the Polls, and was sent to the Tower. 
 Forthwith the House of Lords directed the Usher of the Black 
 Rod to take the lieutenant of the Tower into custody, unless he 
 at once released the counsel who had been committed by the 
 House of Commons. The lieutenant refused, and the matter 
 was brought before the king, who, however, prorogued the par- 
 liament, and thus put an end to a dispute between the two 
 Houses of the Legislature. On the reassembling of parliament, 
 the Commons, being apprehensive that if the Lords lost their 
 appellate jurisdiction it would lapse to the Crown, gave up all 
 further opposition to the entertaining of appeals by the Upper 
 House, and from that time the jurisdiction of the House of Lords 
 
SIR CHARLES PORTER. 91 
 
 in equity appeals has been uninterrupted. Early in April, 1686, 
 Porter was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland; he was, 
 writes Bishop Burnett, " a man of ready wit, and being poor 
 was thought a fit person to be made a tool of." On the 17th of 
 April he arrived at Dunleary harbour (now Kingstown) from 
 England. Lord Clarendon, then Lord Lieutenant, at once sent 
 his carriage to convey him to Dublin. On his arrival, he pre- 
 sented his excellency with the king's letters, announcing his 
 appointment to the Chancellorship, and directing the Primate to 
 deliver up the Great Seal. The ardent wish of James II. was to 
 repeal the Act of Settlement, and to restore to the Catholic pro- 
 prietors the properties that had been filched from them by the 
 regicide parliament. Difficulties unnumbered, however, crossed 
 his path; the intruders everywhere took the alarm, and Sir 
 Charles Porter was instructed to let the public know that the 
 king was determined to uphold the Act of Settlement — a policy 
 in which Lord Clarendon entirely concurred. 
 
 The Chancellor, was now allowed £1500 a-year, a grant 
 highly approved of by the Lord Lieutenant, who wrote inform- 
 ing the Lord Treasurer of the necessity of his being liberally 
 allowed, inasmuch as he had a position to maintain, and that 
 the fees of the office were not worth £500 a-year, and that he 
 had to take a house on the North Strand, for which he paid £100 
 a-year rent (Sir John Cole's house). On the 8th of May, 1686, 
 Lord Clarendon again wrote to the Lord Treasurer, informing 
 him that he had been only a few days away from the castle, and 
 that on his return the Chancellor called at once to bid him wel- 
 come to town. His excellency, in this letter, appears deeply 
 mortified at the conduct of the king in giving the command of 
 the army to the Earl of Tyrconnell, who thenceforward, he 
 writes, would be virtually Chief Governor of the country, and 
 who had " already the Chancellor and the Solicitor- General to 
 dine with him at his residence at Cartowne." At the close of 
 1686, Lord Clarendon was recalled, and Porter was at the same 
 time displaced. On arriving in London, he obtained with diffi- 
 culty an interview from the king, when he humbly asked what 
 was the cause of his removal from the bench. The king replied 
 that it was entirely his own fault, in consequence, it may be pre- 
 sumed, of his aversion to the repeal of the Act of Settlement ; 
 and His Majesty, giving him no further information on the 
 subject, saw him no more. Of Sir Charles Porter's conduct 
 when Chancellor, Lord Clarendon speaks in the highest terms : 
 it may be that his character was then widely different from what 
 it had been when he kept the eating-house in Holland, or when 
 giving his drunken supper-parties in London. Be that as it 
 may, Lord Clarendon writes that " Sir Charles Porter and Eoger 
 North were the only two honest lawyers he ever met." 
 
92 SIR CHARLES PORTER. 
 
 Having retired from the Court of. Chancery, in 1686, Sir 
 Alexander Fitton became Chancellor, and Sir Charles returned 
 to London, and resumed his practice at the English bar. He 
 then recommenced his former habits of dissipation; his days 
 were spent in pleading, his nights in revelry, and so he continued 
 "living a jolly life, and carelessly borrowing money," until, 
 steeped in debt, he was lodged in jail, where his clients still fol- 
 lowed him for advice. Each succeeding year plunged him 
 deeper into ruin, until at length his impoverished condition and 
 reckless mode of living attracted the attention of men in power. 
 James II. had by this time ceased to reign in England. The 
 revolution was an accomplished fact, and the advisers of Wil- 
 liam and Mary could not forget that Porter had been degraded 
 by James for refusing to assist in the repeal of the Acts of Settle- 
 ment and Explanation. They knew of his great talents and 
 embarrassed circumstances ; " and pitying him (for at large, in- 
 deed, he was a very honest fellow), recommended him as a 
 plausible man to be Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and he was ac- 
 cordingly selected and sent over." Arriving in Dublin, after 
 the battle of the Boyne in 1690, he was appointed one of the 
 Williamite Lords Justices, and so continued until the 4th of 
 September following. Two Chancellors then held the Seals in 
 Ireland at the same time — Sir Charles Porter under William 
 III., and Sir Alexander Fitton under James II. It is not for 
 us to detail the memorable incidents of the struggle between the 
 sovereigns whom we have just named. They have been, and 
 they will be, given by writers of the history of the nation, not 
 of the individual. For us it will suffice to say that after many 
 reverses the last stand of the Irish troops was made at Limerick ; 
 that succours long expected from France never arrived ; that at 
 length, on the 3rd of October, 1691, the beleaguered city capitu- 
 lated ; that the celebrated articles of the treaty of Limerick were 
 duly signed and sealed ; and that the signatories on the part of 
 William were the Lords Justices, the Chancellor, Thomas 
 Coningsby, and Baron de Grinkell, the commander-in-chief. 
 
 By article 1st, it was agreed " that the Roman Catholios of 
 Ireland shall enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their reli- 
 gion as they did enjoy in the reign of King Charles II. ; and 
 that their Majesties, as soon as their affairs shall permit them to 
 summon parliament in Ireland, shall endeavour to procure the 
 said Eoman Catholics such further security in that particular as 
 may preserve them from any further disturbance on account of 
 their religion." 
 
 By the 2nd article the Catholios were secured in all their es- 
 tates and properties, such as they were rightfully entitled to in the 
 reign of Charles II., as well as the free exercise of their callings 
 and professions. Irish merchants resident in foreign countries, 
 
SIR CHARLES PORTER. 93 
 
 and Irish officers absent in France on the affairs of the army, 
 "were to have the benefit of these articles. 
 
 By the 5th article it was provided that a general pardon 
 should be granted for all attainders, outlawries, treasons, pra> 
 munires, felonies, &c, incurred since the beginning of the reign 
 of James II. All private suits for trespasses during the war 
 were forbidden, and arrests for debt and damages were not to 
 be made for the space of eight months. 
 
 By article 9 it was solemnly provided that the oath to be 
 administered to such Boman Catholics as submitted to the 
 government of William and Mary was to be the simple oath of 
 allegiance " and no other ; " that is, that they were not to be 
 required to take the oaths of supremacy and abjuration. We 
 should add that these articles were subsequently ratified by 
 William and Mary, and were, on the 2-ith of the following 
 February, 1691-92, duly enrolled in the Court of Chancery. 
 The treaty having been signed, no less than thirty thousand men, 
 following their unhappy sovereign, passed over to France, and 
 there formed themselves, under the banner of the French king, 
 into that brigade whose heroic deeds have been the theme of the 
 poet and the historian. 
 
 On the Sunday following the execution of the treaty, the 
 Chancellor and Lords Justices attended divine service in Christ 
 Church Cathedral. The preacher was Dr. Dopping, Bishop of 
 Meath, who, taking for the subject of his sermon the late impor- 
 tant events at Limerick, argued that no terms of peace ought to 
 be observed with so perfidious a people. Sir Charles Porter was 
 vehemently opposed to these views. He never ceased in the 
 Chancery, the Privy Council, and the House of Lords, to uphold 
 the articles of the treaty of Limerick, and to denounce the 
 treachery of its infraction. An agitation, as violent as it was 
 unjust, was in consequence got up against him ; and, on the 
 30th September, 1695, articles, seven in number, were presented 
 to the House of Commons, charging him with divers acts of 
 misconduct. 1st, with the exaction of illegal fees ; 2nd, with 
 using powers above the law ; 3rd, with the illegal imprisonment 
 of one Elanthan Lunn ; 4th, with unjustly removing the usher 
 of the Court of Chancery ; 5th, with making Irish papists jus- 
 tices of the peace ; 6th, with favouring papists against Protest- 
 ants when both were suitors in his Court ; and 7th, with acting 
 partially in causes pending before him. When those weighty 
 charges were brought before parliament, a debate ensued, in 
 which the Speaker of the House of Commons was loud in their 
 support ; but, on a division, it was voted that the charges were 
 without foundation, and the impeachment was consequently 
 abandoned. Irritated beyond measure at this defeat, the 
 Speaker was proceeding that same night in his carriage along 
 
94 SIR CHARLES PORTER. 
 
 Essex-street to the House of Commons. It so chanced that, 
 following, hut at a more rapid pace, the Chancellor was being 
 driven in his carriage, in the same direction, to the House of 
 Lords. His coachman (let us assume that the rivalries of the 
 masters had descended to their men), as he sought to pass to the 
 front, through the narrow way, was suddenly opposed by a no 
 less formidable obstacle than the Speaker himself, who jumping, 
 mace in hand, to the ground, and violently catching hold of the 
 bridles of his opponent's horses, vowed that he would not permit 
 himself to be run down in the street, neither by the Chancellor 
 nor any other man. It is idle to tell how great was the excite- 
 ment caused by this untoward rencontre. The public laughed 
 or were indignant. The Houses took the part each of its own 
 Speaker, and a quarrel, unseemly in its origin, and possibly 
 serious in its consequences, was on the point of dividing the two 
 great powers of the realm. But the Speaker reflected, and 
 reflection brought regret. An accidental struggle had been 
 tortured into a studied insult, and an apology tendered by him 
 paved the way for reconciliation, and smoothed the ruffled dignity 
 of the Upper House. 
 
 The first glaring infraction of the treaty of Limerick was 
 caused by the English Parliament. Exercising their power of 
 binding Ireland by Acts passed in London, they enacted that 
 no person should sit in the Irish Parliament until he had taken 
 the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and had subscribed the 
 declaration against transubstantiation. Commissioners also were 
 soon after appointed for the purpose of confiscating the proper- 
 ties of those who had fought under the banner of James II. 
 Sir Charles Porter, finding that his voice prevailed no longer in 
 the councils, did what in him lay to mitigate those evils ; and 
 he caused Sir Richard Cox, Bart., one of the Justices of the 
 Court of Common Pleas, a man of well-known clemency, to be 
 appointed chief commissoner. Owing to this appointment it is, 
 that a single Irish Catholic proprietor was left on the soil of 
 Ireland. The burden of proving the guilt, as it was called, of 
 high treason was thereby rendered more difficult ; and we accord- 
 ingly find that in almost every Catholic family whose properties 
 escaped in the revolution of 1688, there exists amongst their 
 muniments of title the following certificate: — "Upon search 
 
 made amongst the pleas of the crown in the county of 1 
 
 do not find that A B of in the said county stands adjudi- 
 cated for any treason by him committed against His Majesty or 
 His royal Consort since their happy accession to the Crown." 
 
 Though softening the rigour of the laws then in force, Sir 
 Charles Porter was powerless to prevent the enactment of others, 
 passed in utter disregard of the treaty of Limerick, which he 
 himself had signed. During the later years of his life he had 
 
SIR ALEXANDER FITTON. 95 
 
 the mortification of seeing statute after statute passed, suppress- 
 ing civil and religious liberty. Catholics were then excluded 
 from the bar ; they could no longer practise medicine, could not 
 intermarry with Protestants, were incapacitated from being soli- 
 citors, traders, tutors, priests, members of corporate bodies ; could 
 neither impart education nor receive it, and were not permitted 
 to ride a horse of greater value than five pounds ; but these 
 were only the beginnings of sorrows. In 1696, the Lord 
 Deputy Capel, prime mover of all those acts, died, and was suc- 
 ceeded in office by the Chancellor, who was thereby precluded 
 from further presiding in the Upper House, and whose influence 
 as Chief Governor would, we may presume, have been exercised 
 in favour of the unhappy Catholics had he been spared to the 
 government of the country ; but on the 8th of December, in the 
 same year, he was struck down with an apoplectic fit, and died 
 almost immediately, and was buried in Christ Church Cathedral. 
 A contemporary writer, who had known him well, thus 
 speaks of his character : " He had the good fortune to be be- 
 loved by everybody. I have remembered this much of that 
 gentleman, who underwent all the extremity of good and evil 
 fortune, though the particulars whereof are not of my own 
 knowledge, yet I had it from his own mouth in very serious 
 conversation, all of which is worthy to be known, and the rather 
 because he had the magnanimity and command of himself, that 
 no surprise or affliction by arrests or otherwise could be discerned 
 in his countenance or society, which was very exemplary, and in 
 cases of the persecuting kind, as in cases of injustice and the 
 malice of powers, he was heroical in perfection." 
 
 95. A. D. 1686. — Sir Alexander Fitton. The history of 
 this Chancellor is the history of a life in which success is 
 chequered with much suffering — straitened circumstances, vast 
 estates, loss of property, an accusation of forgery, the jail, exile, 
 and death in a strange land — such; are the pictures that succeed 
 each other in the life of this remarkable man. The Grawsworth 
 estates, in the county of Chester, had, long before the Conquest, 
 been in the possession of the family of Fitton. Sir Edward, the 
 second baronet, himself old and childless, and desirous that the 
 broad lands which had come to him through so many genera- 
 tions should continue in his name and race, executed, in 1643, 
 certain deeds by which the reversion of his estates was settled on 
 his kinsman, Sir William Fitton, of Awne. Sir William was 
 father of the subject of this memoir. Had those deeds not been 
 executed, the property would have passed to the aunts of Sir 
 Edward, the sisters of his father, one of whom was married to 
 Lord Brandon, afterwards Earl of Macclesfield. 
 
 In time Sir Edward died, and Sir William entered into pos- 
 
96 SIR ALEXANDER FITTON. 
 
 session. On Sir William's death, Sir Alexander succeeded, and 
 remained in undisturbed possession for close upon sixteen years, 
 when Lord Brandon came forward, and produced a will said to 
 have been made by Sir Edward, by which the estates were de- 
 vised to him in fee. The question arose as to the power of the 
 testator to dispose by will of estates which he had previously put 
 in settlement by deed. The argument on this point, however, 
 came to an untimely end, as the validity of the deed was itself 
 impugned, in consequence of the testimony of a wretch named 
 Granger, who alleged that he himself had forged the signatures 
 of one of the witnesses, and had done so at the instigation of Sir 
 Alexander Fitton. If the signatures were forged, then the 
 deed, of course, fell to the ground, and the will would stand. 
 The Chancellor directed an issue to try the question, and when 
 the matter came before a jury, it appeared that Fitton had 
 lately become a Catholic ; the reason of the jurors was perhaps 
 swayed by their prejudices, and a verdict was given against the 
 validity of the deed. Fitton was thereby branded as having 
 procured the execution of a forged instrument. An ejectment 
 was brought against him by Lord Brandon, who, claiming as 
 devisee under the will, succeeded in obtaining a verdict. Sir 
 Alexander was evicted from the ancient inheritance of the Fit- 
 tons ; Gawsworth passed into the hands of another race ; and the 
 wretched Granger, when too late, acknowledged that he had 
 borne false testimony on these trials. Sir Alexander, mean- 
 while, was sent to jail — an appeal to a higher court by him, a 
 Catholic, was little short of an absurdity ; and it was not until 
 two-and-twenty years had gone over that an opportunity offered 
 to recover his property, and to clear his reputation. When 
 James II. was king, an appeal was lodged, and though he had 
 been in prison for so many years, he could still command the 
 unanimous support of the Catholic nobility of England. 
 
 Sir Charles Porter having been forced to resign in 1686, Sir 
 Alexander Fitton was selected by James for the Irish Chancery, 
 and this appointment has been spoken of both by Hume and 
 Macaulay as contemptible ; but their information comes from a 
 polluted source — from Archbishop King, who was instrumental 
 in promoting the Revolution. That James II. should have ap- 
 pointed an incompetent man for his Chancellor in this country 
 seems incredible, having regard to the other judges of his selec- 
 tion. Du Higg, a man of well-known anti-Catholic leanings, 
 thus writes of those men : " A majority of the popish judges 
 then appointed were eminent for legal knowledge and irreproach- 
 able private character. In their judicial decisions no authenti- 
 cated act of cruelty and corruption remains on record." Of 
 Keating, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, the same author 
 writes : " Connected with no party, and dignifying station by 
 
JOHN METHUEN. 97 
 
 despising it, he equally resisted the Protestant Clarendon and 
 the Catholic Tyrconnell." 
 
 Amongst the varied scenes of Fitton's chequered life, not the 
 least remarkable was that of his filling the office of Speaker of 
 the House of Peers during the short and memorable session 
 opened by James II., and held at the King's Inns, Dublin, on 
 the 7th of May, 1689, and terminating the 13th of July follow- 
 ing. That parliament having declared itself independent 
 of the Parliament of England, repealed the Acts of Settlement 
 and Explanation, and passed an Act in favour of civil and reli- 
 gious liberty. There, too, it was enacted that the Catholic 
 clergy should receive their tithes from the members of their own 
 communion, while the professors of other creeds were at liberty 
 to pay their ministers, without being harassed by an insulting 
 law requiring them to support in affluence the members of a 
 hostile church. 
 
 The Acts of Settlement and Explanation repealed, the Ca- 
 tholic gentry were about to be restored to their estates. But 
 this gleam of sunshine was of short duration. James was soon 
 after forced to abdicate, and his agonized mind drew a parallel 
 between his daughter, who sat upon his throne, and that Tullia 
 whom her crimes and the genius of Livy have condemned to im- 
 mortality. In quick succession came the disasters of the Boyne, 
 Athlone, and Aughrim. .Fitton followed the royal standard to 
 Limerick. Meanwhile Tyrconnell lived not to witness the last 
 stand of the Irish troops ; he was struck down by an apoplectic fit 
 on the 10th of August ; and the Chancellor was appointed one 
 of the Lords Justices in his stead. But his occupation was now 
 gone — his sovereign was in exile — his faith was proscribed — like 
 the vision on the bridge of Mirza, he stood alone in the world. 
 His wife, who was daughter of Thomas Joliffe, of Cofton, 
 county of "Worcester, had died on the 7th of October, 1687, and 
 was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral, while his only daughter 
 had taken the veil in a foreign convent. Of his future, the 
 circumstances of his death, and of where he died, we have been 
 unable to obtain any reliable information. He had been raised 
 to the peerage by James II., with the title of Lord Gawsworth. 
 The writ, however, being subsequent to 1688, the validity of the 
 title was not recognised by the revolutionary government. 
 
 96. A. D. 1696. — John Methuen. On the death of the last 
 Chancellor, the Great Seal was put in commission, Nehemiah 
 Donelan, of St. Peter's Well, co. Galway, Chief Baron of the Ex- 
 chequer, grandson of Chief Justice Donelan, being one of the Com- 
 missioners. The authorities in England appear to have taken time 
 to consider on whom the prize should be bestowed ; and their chief 
 object would seem to be, who was the least qualified to fill so 
 
 h 
 
98 JOHN iftETHUEN. 
 
 important a post. JohnMethuen, who had been for many "years 
 envoy at the court of Lisbon, was then member for Wiltshire : 
 though called to the bar, an able diplomatist, and well versed in 
 the principles of international law, he was still said to be igno- 
 rant of the first principles of equity. An active supporter of 
 William III., he delivered a speech in the House of Commons, 
 in Sir John Fenwiek' s case, which brought him more immedi- 
 ately under the notice of the Crown. This memorable case, had 
 it occurred in the reign of James II., would have stamped the 
 last Stuart as the most tyrannical of princes ; but as it did 
 occur almost immediately after the revolution, it is lightly 
 touched upon by some, is explained away by others, and is for- 
 gotten by the multitude. The facts are shortly these : — From 
 the time when William had signed the warrant for the massacre 
 of the MacDonalds at Glencoe, the aversion of the Jacobites to 
 that prince deepened each succeeding day. Negotiations were 
 opened with the Court of St. Germains ; James II. was invited 
 to return to England; and daily communications passed be- 
 tween him and his former subjects. Sir John Fenwiek, deeply 
 implicated in this conspiracy, was apprehended at New Bomney 
 on his way to France. Letters were found on his person, which 
 put, it was said, his guilt beyond all doubt. Bills were sent up 
 to the grand jury, on the sworn evidence of two witnesses, 
 named Porter and Goodman. After a lengthened ex parte exa- 
 mination, true bills were found, and Fenwiek was about to be 
 put upon his trial on a charge of high treason. Lady Fenwiek, 
 however, induced Goodman privately to leave the country, and 
 thus render the proceedings abortive. The Crown, seeing that 
 they could not, as the law stood, successfully proceed without the 
 testimony of two witnesses, determined to bring in a bill of at- 
 tainder, and, upon the uncorroborated evidence of Porter, thus to 
 obtain a conviction. The tory party was arrayed against the 
 bill ; and many even of the whigs, who abhorred as unconsti- 
 tutional this irregular mode of trial, were found voting against 
 the government. It was argued that such a procedure was 
 contrary to the principles of English law, repugnant to the 
 common notions of justice and humanity, diametrically opposed 
 to the last Act regulating trials in cases of high treason, and of 
 dangerous consequences to the lives and liberties of the people. 
 If this mode of trial were allowed, all the chances would be 
 against the prisoner. The trial should be in accordance with 
 the laws of the land : this mode by bill of attainder had never 
 before been adopted by the Commons in a similar case, and if it 
 were successfully persevered in, no British subject could know 
 what was treason, what was the law of evidence, or how he was 
 to be tried. 
 
 Methuen, on the third reading in the Commons, summed up 
 
JOHN METHUEN. 99 
 
 the arguments in favour of the bill, whioh was sent to the Up- 
 per House, where it was also passed, hut by the small majority 
 of seven. Forty-one lords entered a protest, couched in the 
 strongest terms, against this decision ; but Sir John Fenwick 
 was brought to the scaffold. The Chancellorship of Ireland was 
 now vacant, and Methuen's conduct in relation to Fenwick's 
 case gave him strong claims on the ruling powers. Yernon, 
 Secretary of State, accordingly wrote on his behalf to the Duke 
 of Shrewsbury, and secured for him the appointment. At the 
 same time he took care to remind the duke that by bestowing 
 the Irish Chancellorship on him the government would have 
 another place in its gift — that of ambassador at the oouit of 
 Lisbon. Methuen, however, not content with the Irish wool- 
 sack, so managed that his son, Paul Methuen, succeeded him as 
 ambassador at the Portuguese Court. To Vernon, this conduct 
 seemed grasping in the extreme ; but the Prime Minister had 
 no reason, nevertheless, to regret the appointment he had made. 
 Some of the correspondence of Paul Methuen relative to the 
 proposed treaty with the king of Portugal, at a time when Eng- 
 land was drifting into a war with France, is still in existence. 
 Later (on the 16th of May, 1703) he concluded, in his capacity 
 of ambassador-extraordinary of her Britannic Majesty, Queen 
 Anne, a treaty offensive and defensive with Don Pedro. This 
 treaty is signed, by Paul Methuen, and was one of the last official 
 acts of his at the court of Lisbon. Meanwhile his father, John 
 Methuen, entered on the duties of Lord Chancellor of Ireland, 
 and was sworn into office on the 31st of May, 1697, 9th William 
 III. On the 15th of June following he presided for the first 
 time in the House of Lords, as appears from the following me- 
 morandum : — "John Methuen, Esq., Lord Chancellor of Ire- 
 land and Speaker of this House, took the oaths and subscribed 
 the declaration pursuant to the Act of Parliament made in 
 England, entitled, 'An Act for abrogating the Oath of Supre- 
 macy in Ireland,' and appointing other oaths, and then took 
 his place on the woolsack." 
 
 From that day until the close of the session the Chancellor 
 was not even once absent from his post. On the 27th of July, 
 1697, the speech from the throne pressed on the House the ne- 
 cessity of encouraging Protestant strangers to settle in Ireland, 
 especially as they may contribute " to the increase of the linen 
 manufacture, which is the most beneficial trade that can be en- 
 couraged in Ireland." This speech was well received by both 
 houses of the legislature. On the following Saturday, 21st of 
 July, the Chancellor reported that the House did wait on the 
 Lords Justices "to thank them for their excellent speech. " It 
 was then ordered by the House of Peers " that the Bill entitled 
 ' An Act suppressing all friaries, monasteries, nunneries, and 
 
 H 2 
 
100 SIR RICHARD COX. 
 
 other popish convents, and for banishing all the regulars of the 
 popish clergy out of the kingdom,' be read for the first time." 
 A few days later, on the 16th of August, the Commons having 
 approached the bar of the House of Lords " with three courtsies," 
 the Chancellor received from them an engrossed draft of an Act 
 entitled, " An Act to prevent Protestants intermarrying with 
 Papists." The parliament was then prorogued, and the Chan- 
 cellor left for England, Lords Meath, Longford, and Blessing- 
 ton having been sworn in as Commissioners for the custody of 
 the Great Seal. Returning shortly previous to the opening of 
 parliament, which took place on the 27th of September, 1698, 
 he again presided day after day as Speaker in the House of 
 Lords. Dissolved on the 14th of June, 1699, parliament did 
 not reassemble during the next five years. Methuen left Ireland 
 again on the 20th of January, 1700, and returned on the 20th 
 of July, 1701. In the month of December following he went 
 to England and, conscious of his own deficiency, came back no 
 more to his place in the Court of Chancery. Ignorant, at his 
 arrival in Ireland, of the principles of equity, he does not appear 
 to have turned his attention much to the judicial duties of his 
 office. On the removal of his son, Paul Methuen, from the post 
 of ambassador at the court of Lisbon, in the autumn of 1703, 
 Sir John Methuen was once more appointed to that embassy, 
 one of the first of his official acts being the treaty signed on the 
 27th of December, 1703. This was entered into between Her 
 Majesty Queen Anne and Don Pedro, King of Portugal, whereby 
 His Majesty agreed to admit into Portugal the woollen manu- 
 factures of England ; while by the second article Queen Anne 
 engaged to grant a differential duty in favour of the wines of 
 Portugal, so that the duties on those wines should be always 
 one-third less than on the wines of France. By this treaty the 
 wine trade of' England for one hundred and fifty years has 
 been governed. Methuen was diligent at the embassy in Por- 
 tugal until 1706, when he was seized with an apoplectic fit, and 
 died almost immediately. 
 
 The loss of that able minister at a time when England was 
 involved in a continental war is deplored by Bishop Burnet as 
 a national calamity. Sir John Methuen was succeeded in his 
 estate by his son Paul, then minister at one of the Italian courts, 
 and afterwards Secretary of State for England ; and he, dying 
 without issue in 1757, was succeeded by his cousin, Paul 
 Methuen, M. P. for Warwick, ancestor of the present Lord 
 Methuen. 
 
 97. A. D. 1703.— Sir Eichard Cox. The family of Cox 
 was for centuries resident in the south of England. Having 
 come over to this country early in the seventeenth century, they 
 
SIR RICHARD COX. 101 
 
 settled near Kilworth, in the county of Cork. The first of the 
 family of whom we shall make especial mention is Captain 
 Richard Cox, renowned for his great strength and courage. An 
 adherent, in his early career, of Charles I,, he espoused in latter 
 years the cause of the parliament. Meanwhile he met a lady 
 whose name was Catherine Patten, the widow of a brother 
 officer, and daughter of Captain Walter Bird, a gentleman of 
 position residing in the neighbourhood of Clonakilty. Her hus- 
 band had been captain in the parliamentary forces, and was 
 killed at the siege of Dungarvan. Mrs. Patten ia said to have 
 felt his death bitterly. Captain Richard Cox was then quar- 
 tered in the town where she lived. He essayed to console her, 
 and she was consoled. Time and the gallant captain made good 
 their ground against unavailing memories — and at last the lady 
 consented to cast in her lot with his. But their happiness was 
 short-lived. In the glow of youthful affection they had parted 
 in the morning ; in the evening of that day he was brought 
 back a lifeless corpse — the hand of the assassin had done its 
 work. The widow lived a few months, and then died of grief, 
 leaving but one child, who bore his father's name. Her eldest 
 brother, John Bird, took upon himself the charge, such as it was, 
 of his sister's son, and sent him to school at Clonakilty, in the 
 county of Cork ; but the father's and the mother's care were 
 gone, and the little boy was left with only one book to acquire 
 knowledge and to prepare for the battle of life. Yet he did 
 acquire knowledge, and retained it wonderfully ; and, as he had 
 no books of his own, he was wont to occupy his time, when 
 other children were at play, in transcribing his lessons from 
 their books on scraps of broken paper. Thus whatever he 
 learned became indelibly imprinted on his memory. In conse- 
 quence of his uncle's death, he was removed from school at the 
 age of ten years. But he had still another uncle, Captain Walter 
 Bird, who was seneschal of several Manorial Courts in the county 
 of Cork, under whom he first acquired that love for legal pur- 
 suits which so marked his future life. At sixteen years of age 
 he was bound to an attorney, and before he was eighteen he 
 had commenced practising in his uncle's court. He soon ma- 
 naged to lay aside £50 a-year, and with his little savings, to- 
 gether with the sum of £150, which he had received for some 
 trifling property bequeathed him by his godfather, and with an 
 annual rental of £25, arising out of some small tenements in 
 the county of Galway, which the parliamentary government 
 had awarded to him, in consideration of his father's services, he 
 had the courage to cross over to England, enter his name at 
 Cray's Inn, and become a law student. 
 
 Friendless in the great city, he applied himself diligently to 
 the study of the law. It so chanced that, one day, a lecturer 
 
102 SIR RICHARD COX. 
 
 of the Inn having heen suddenly taken ill, Cox was called upon 
 to fill his place; which he did, and did so well that he was 
 admitted to the bar on the following Monday, several years in 
 anticipation of the ordinary time. Sir Francis Derwentwater, 
 too, was so captivated by his address, that he invited him to 
 settle near him in the north of England; an offer which, 
 nevertheless, though with much gratitude, he declined, and 
 returned to Ireland in the same year. Soon after,- he proposed 
 for and was accepted by a young lady who was said to be 
 entitled to a considerable fortune. They were married; and 
 he found, when too late, that she was not in possession of one 
 single farthing. In despair, he fled from his profession, took 
 a farm near Clonakilty, and there remained for some years, 
 entirely devoted to agricultural pursuits. At length, roused 
 from his lethargy by an increasing family, he was forced to 
 return to the bar, and was appointed Recorder of Kinsale in 
 1680. Educated from his earliest infancy to abhor the doc- 
 trines and practices of the Catholic faith, he was ever foremost 
 in the Protestant ranks. In 1687, he was compelled by the 
 Catholic reaction of that year to leave this country ; and 
 taking up his abode in Bristol, found his clients there become 
 even more numerous than they had been at home. Never- 
 theless, in the midst of business, he could still find time to 
 write a history of Ireland, which, though incorrect in many 
 respects, and deeply imbued with religious fanaticism, must 
 ever be looked on as a labour of priceless value. 
 
 The Prince of Orange, on his arrival in England, was at 
 once joined by Mr. Cox, whose zeal for the revolution was 
 unsurpassed. He was immediately offered the situation of 
 secretary to the Duke of Schomberg, Commander-in-Chief of 
 the forces of William in Ireland; but not understanding the 
 Erench language, he declined the offer. When the king, 
 however, resolved to go in person to Ireland, he cheerfully 
 accepted the post of secretary to Sir Robert Southwell, prin- 
 cipal Secretary of State, and took upon himself the whole care 
 and burden of that office. 
 
 When the king marched to Dublin, after the battle of the 
 Boyne, the subject of this memoir accompanied him, and drew 
 up the celebrated proclamation known as the " Declaration of 
 Finglas," from the fact that it was issued by William when 
 he was encamped in the village of that name. Pardon 'was 
 thereby extended to all common people who had served in 
 the armies of James II., provided they returned to their 
 dwellings, and gave up their arms, before the 1st day of 
 August, 1690. After the surrender of Waterford, Mr. Cox 
 was immediately made Recorder of that city ; and the king, 
 sensible of his faithful services during the campaign, and 
 
SIR RICHARD COX. 103 
 
 willing to reward him to his satisfaction, commanded the 
 Secretary of State to inquire what employment he would 
 prefer. He, being at that time, on acoount of the great 
 fatigue he had lately undergone, disposed to rest from much 
 labour, and to devote himself to literary pursuits, chose the 
 place of Second Justice of the Common Pleas, and was ac- 
 cordingly sworn into office on the 15th September, 1690. 
 
 On the 5th May, 1691, Cox was appointed governor of 
 the county and city of Cork. One of his first acts was to 
 issue a proclamation "forbidding papists to be out of their 
 dwellings from nine o'clock at night until five in the morning, 
 or to be found two miles from their places of abode, except 
 in a highway or on market days." His many services to the 
 Protestant cause, and his merciless hatred of the Catholics, 
 rendered him the idol of the party of the revolution. 
 
 On the 5th November, 1692, he was knighted with the 
 sword of state, in the Castle of Dublin, by the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant, Lord Sidney, who, during his government, gave him 
 all the marks of favour and esteem in his power, and after- 
 wards, so long as his lordship lived, continued to him his 
 friendship and good offices. 
 
 In the month of February following, he was nominated 
 one of the Commissioners of Forfeitures, at a salary of £400 
 a-year. This appointment had been secured for him, as we 
 have seen, entirely through the interest of the Lord Chancellor, 
 Sir Pichard Porter, and it was owing to their joint influence 
 (for, spite of his bigotry, he was a lover of justice) that the 
 last shred of landed property was preserved to the remnant 
 of the old Catholic aristrocracy. Sir Bichard Cox hitherto, 
 in every act of his life, was influenced by motives of impar- 
 tiality. He had been reared in the hotbed of prejudice — he 
 ica-s prejudiced, but he was just, and he felt that it was but 
 justice that his Catholic fellow-countrymen should receive the 
 fullest protection insured to them by the articles of the treaty 
 of Limerick ; and through good report, and through evil report, 
 he gave judgment to that effect. In the court, acting as a 
 Commissioner of Forfeitures, " he was an incessant stickler for 
 the articles of Limerick and Galway ; and in the case of the 
 Gralway men he made so eloquent a speech, and insisted so 
 strongly on the heinousness of breaking public faith, and on 
 the ingratitude it would carry with it to the great deliverer, 
 as well as to the good general who had granted these condi- 
 tions, that he brought the rest of the Commissioners round to 
 his opinion, and saved the old proprietors- in many cases their 
 estates." 
 
 Though thus strenuous in supporting the rights of Catholio 
 claimants, he was yet opposed to allowing any share in the 
 
104 SIR RICHARD COX. 
 
 government to those who refused to conform to the Church 
 established by law. At length, his enemies, embittered by his 
 upright conduct as Commissioner of Forfeited Estates, succeeded 
 in obtaining his expulsion from the council-board, while the 
 death of his friend Sir Charles Porter was a serious shock to 
 his influence. From that time until 1701 he held no public 
 employment apart from his ordinary business of Judge of the 
 Court of Common Pleas. He accordingly turned his attention 
 to the publication of books of some pretension, the first, on the 
 conversion of the Irish, in which he endeavoured to convince 
 them of the errors of the Roman Church; and the second, 
 entitled, Some Thoughts on a Bill for prohibiting the Exportation 
 of Woollen Manufactures in Ireland to Foreign Parts. Sir Richard 
 beheld with amazement the representatives of the Irish nation 
 prepared to destroy the rising manufacture of woollen fabrics 
 in their own country — a manufacture which had flourished 
 beyond all expectation since the introduction of the great fac- 
 tories in 1685. In Ireland every family spun its own wool, 
 and wove its own cloth, and it was not until the revocation 
 of the edict of Nantes that great public factories sprang into 
 existence in this country. These by degrees undermined the 
 very knowledge of the art in private families, where the un- 
 married females, from their constant employment, had acquired 
 the name of spinsters. The mechanical contrivances introduced 
 by the French refugees were made use of in the great facto- 
 ries ; and the people whom the edict of Louis XIV. had driven 
 from their own country brought into this the appliances which 
 soon raised the linen and woollen manufactures to such a height 
 as to threaten utter destruction to the English workmen, who 
 were undersold in their own country by Irish traders. This 
 was intolerable. Addresses were voted by the English Houses 
 of Lords and Commons to the king, complaining of the oppres- 
 sion which was inflicted upon the industrious people of England 
 by reason of the prosperous condition of the Irish woollen trade, 
 and the king replied, that he " would do all that in him lay to 
 discourage the woollen manufactures of Ireland " — and he kept 
 his word. And now an Act of as base subserviency as could 
 disgrace the annals of any civilised country was passed by the 
 Irish Parliament, imposing on the exportation of their own 
 woollen manufactures such an oppressive tax as utterly to shut 
 them out from the markets of the world ; and it was a commen- 
 tary on this deplorable legislation that Sir Riohard Cox published 
 in 1701. 
 
 The dull monotony of a junior judgeship in the Court of 
 Common Pleas was now, in 1701, about to close, and a brighter 
 career to open on the subject of our memoir. We have already 
 seen how the hardships of the circuits in early times bore heavily 
 
SIR RICHARD COX. 105 
 
 on the bench and on the bar, — Judges lost their lives in those 
 laborious duties ; and now Chief Justice Hely, of the Common 
 Pleas, the going Judge of the Spring Assizes, died on the Mini- 
 ster circuit. The friends of the English connexion in Ireland 
 immediately laid hold of this opportunity for Sir Richard's 
 advancement. The Lord Lieutenant (the Earl of Eochestef), 
 and several other peers, made interest with the king to obtain 
 for him the vacant Chief Justiceship ; and he was accordingly, 
 on the 16th May, sworn into office, and in a few days after was 
 appointed member of the Privy Council. 
 
 At the Spring Assizes of that year Cox was one of the Judges 
 of the Connaught circuit, and found, on reaching Ballinrobe, then 
 an assize-town of the county of Mayo, a summons from Queen 
 Anne to repair forthwith to London, to advise Her Majesty on 
 matters of great importance, especially in reference to the ques- 
 tion whether it would be most for the interest of England to 
 encourage the manufacture of linen or that of woollen fabrics in 
 Ireland. He was most graciously received by the queen, and 
 told her plainly that he considered " the most impolitic step ever 
 taken by England was that lately taken to prohibit the exporta- 
 tion of woollen fabrics from Ireland, where the woollen trade, 
 was then destroyed." His opinion, though shared by many of 
 the cabinet, was not followed, as it was borne down by the 
 public prejudice in England. Nevertheless, the queen pre- 
 sented him with a sum of £500, to defray the expenses of his 
 journey. 
 
 During his stay in England the removal of Lord Chancellor 
 Methuen was first mooted. In 1703, Sir Richard returned to 
 Ireland, and Methuen, having been appointed ambassador at 
 the Court of Lisbon, resigned the Seals. Sir Richard Cox was 
 appointed his successor. He was sworn into office on the 6th 
 August, and on the 10th issued writs for a new parliament. 
 From the time of his return to England, even before his being 
 sworn into office, Her Majesty's ministers corresponded with 
 him about the drafts of bills sent over by the Irish Council, 
 one of which was " A Bill to Recognise Queen Anne's Right 
 and Title to the Crown." The Privy Council in England, 
 nevertheless, in direct opposition to his expostulations, sent the 
 bill back, on the ground that the Irish government would not 
 be permitted to pass an Act either approving or disapproving of 
 the queen's title — inasmuch as to do so would be tantamount 
 to a declaration that Ireland was an independent country. 
 
 No Popery — then the cry in England — was taken up by the 
 Protestants of Ireland ; and the Chancellor, who had hitherto 
 acted with unswerving consistency in supporting the articles of 
 the treaty of Limerick, was now ranged on the side of religious 
 intolerance, and was active and foremost in introducing the bill 
 
106 SIR RICHARD COX. 
 
 to prevent the further growth of the hated religion. The other 
 judges of the Irish bench were not opposed to the fastening of 
 these fetters ; and Sir Gilbert Dolben, one of the judges of the 
 Court of Common Pleas, who was then in London, thus wrote 
 of the proposed bill to the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, on the 
 20th January, 1703 :— 
 
 " My Lord Chancellor — That which hath been most in the 
 thoughts of the ministry in England, on which they have spent 
 more time than all the rest, is the bill to prevent the growth of 
 popery. It lay some time before the council here before it was 
 referred to the Attorney and Solicitor-General. When they 
 had duly considered it, instead of making a report upon it (as 
 they usually do on bills referred to them), they represented to 
 the queen in council that it was a bill of very great moment, too 
 big for them to determine upon, and therefore prayed that it 
 might be referred to a committee of the council, which was 
 ordered accordingly. This committee took a great deal of pains 
 in considering and adjusting it; but when their amendments 
 were reported, the council disliked many of them ; so that it 
 was recommitted to a committee who revised it with great care; 
 and notwithstanding the committee consisted of persons who 
 were of different parties, yet the bill was at length settled with 
 great unanimity, and the amendments were unanimously agreed 
 to, this night, upon a report made of them in full council. But 
 the noblest amendment is, that all persons having any office, civil 
 or military (which includes offices in corporations), shall be 
 obliged to take the oaths and to receive the sacrament according 
 to the usage of the Church of Ireland ; and, in default of so 
 doing, the office to be void. And whosoever shall continue to aot 
 in his respective office, after having neglected thus to qualify 
 himself within the time limited by the bill (as amended), shall 
 incur such penalties and disabilities as are imposed by our Test 
 Act." 
 
 In due time the bill was taken in charge by the Chancellor, 
 and by him was brought through its several stages in the House 
 of Lords, where counsel whose names will be ever memorable 
 in history — Sir Stephen Rice and Messrs. Theobald Butler and 
 Malone — were heard in opposition to that measure. But their 
 appeals were vain : the speakers on behalf of the Crown replied, 
 that "the Roman Catholics had nobody to blame but themselves; 
 that all they had to do was to conform to the State religion." 
 The Chancellor made a report to the government of what was 
 urged by the counsel at the bar ; he then summed up all the 
 arguments, and succeeded in carrying the bill, doing justice to 
 all parties! By the provisions of this enactment (2 Anne, ch. 
 vi.), it was made illegal for Catholic parents to send their 
 children to schools in places beyond the seas, all places for 
 
SIR RICHARD UOX. 107 
 
 Catholic eduoation in Ireland being olosed. Children of Catho- 
 lic parents were encouraged to become Protestants. The eldest 
 son of a Catholio parent, becoming Protestant, might make his 
 father tenant for life of such lands as he possessed. Papists 
 could not be guardians; they were disabled from purchasing 
 fee-simple estates, and their children could be taken from them. 
 But these are only a few of the many enactments of that Act, 
 too long to give in detail, and which it were better had they 
 been long since forgotten. "The bill then passed without a 
 dissentient voice, without the opposition or protest of a single 
 individual" member of that subservient House which had a 
 short ^time before destroyed the woollen trade of their own 
 country — a trade too in which the people employed were almost 
 exclusively of the Protestant faith ! The penal laws were now 
 in full force — laws of which Montesquieu observed, that " they 
 were so rigorous, though not professedly of the sanguinary kind, 
 that they did all the hurt that possibly could be done in cold 
 blood." 
 
 In 1704 the Chancellor was sworn in as one of the Lords 
 Justices. During their government a considerable number of 
 troops were sent, as provided by Sir Paul Methuen's treaty, to 
 Portugal ; in carrying out which proviso the Chancellor was so 
 remarkably active that he received the thanks of the Earl of 
 Gralway, the commander of the auxiliary forces in that kingdom. 
 Sir Bichard presided in the Upper House after the return of the 
 Lord Lieutenant, in November, 1704. As a compensation for 
 the loss of the woollen trade, the Chancellor suggested and ob- 
 tained a law in England permitting the Irish to export their 
 linens directly to the colonies ; and to this enactment may be 
 traced the success of the Irish linen trade during the early por- 
 tion of the eighteenth century. In 1706 he was created a baro- 
 net, in reward for his services to the Crown. 
 
 Sir Richard Cox had now, for several years, enjoyed the royal 
 favour. But "favour is deceitful," and fortune proverbially 
 unsteady : and the known dislike of Sir Bichard to the destruc- 
 tion of the woollen trade had procured for him many enemies 
 at the court of St. James's. The Irish government, too, was 
 openly insulted by the ministry ; a Chief Baron and a Commis- 
 sioner of Revenue in Ireland having been appointed without 
 the authority of the Lord Lieutenant. 
 
 At length the Chancellor, on the 30th June, 1707, was re- 
 moved from office, and Eichard Freeman, a barrister of some 
 merit, was appointed in his stead. Cox's old animosity to 
 popery, as the Catholic faith was then styled, manifested itself in 
 the two works which he wrote in his "hours of idleness;" one 
 entitled An Address to those of the Roman Communion of England ; 
 and the other, An Inquiry into Religion, and the Use of Reason in 
 
108 
 
 SIR RICHARD COX. 
 
 reference to it. In 1710 he was recalled to public life, and ac- 
 cepted, without hesitation, the Chief Justiceship of the Queen's 
 Bench — a situation which, though lower in dignity than the 
 woolsack, the ex-Chancellor perhaps preferred, because it en- 
 tailed upon him less of the cares and turmoils of political strife. 
 Besides, the weight of idleness was insupportable, and he was 
 glad to return to his former associates. During the next four 
 years his time was fully occupied in the Queen's Bench, in the 
 Privy Council, and as a Judge of Assize. 
 
 Queen Anne died on the 1st of August, 1714. Immediately 
 the chief judges were dismissed from the bench and Privy 
 Council, and Sir Richard retired to his seat in the county of 
 Cork, where he hoped, in the evening of his days, to take a* little 
 repose ; but he was deceived ; and on the 12th of November, 
 1715, was summoned from his retreat by the Speaker of the 
 House of Commons, to give an account of some acts done by 
 him as Chief Justice. It was hard to see the old man, then close 
 on threescore years and ten, once loaded with honours, set out 
 from his home, in the depth of winter, to defend himself from 
 charges that had no other foundation than the heated imagina- 
 tion of those who had suspected that he, once the friend of the 
 revolution, was now secretly a follower of the Pretender. To 
 give in detail those several charges concerning matters never of 
 much interest, and, except by the learned, long forgotten, would 
 be entirely out of place here. Suffice it to say that the accu- 
 sation of having inclined to the cause of the Pretender was 
 groundless. Deadly in his hatred to the Catholic faith, he saw 
 with unalloyed admiration the accession of King George ; and 
 the following extract of the charge (the last delivered by him) 
 which he made at the Summer Assizes of 1714 to the grand jury 
 of the county of Kilkenny will exhibit what his views, political 
 and religious, were at the time : — 
 
 " Gentlemen, you ought to observe that this popery, which 
 is so dangerous and spiteful to you, is irreconcilable ; for the 
 pretended infallibility will not suffer papists to reform any error, 
 how gross soever, or make one step towards you ; so that there 
 can be no peace with Pome without following all her supersti- 
 tions and idolatries, and without believing that monstrous doc- 
 trine of transubstantiation, which everybody knows to be false, 
 as certainly as he knows anything in the world to be true. 
 
 " And as for the Pretender, we all know that he has many 
 popish adherents here, and powerful confederates elsewhere. 
 We know that Irish regiments in France are at his devotion, 
 and we see what industry is used to recruit them, and send over 
 more to his service. We know that the consequence of his com- 
 ing to the crown would be the destruction of our most gracious 
 queen (whom God long preserve !) and the ruin of the Protest- 
 
RICHARD FREEMAN. 109 
 
 ants. Our religion, lives, liberties, and estates, -would be a sacri- 
 fice to bis bigotry and revenge ; and tbis island would be, in all 
 probability, tbe most miserable beap of desolation in tbe world ; 
 and, therefore, it is tbe duty of all Protestants in Ireland, of 
 wbatsoever denomination, to unite in affection, and in tbe proper 
 measures to preserve tbe government, tbe Establisbed Church, 
 and themselves, from the common enemy ; and tbe reason is, 
 because all is little enough to compass our safety ; for the pa- 
 pists in this kingdom are more than double the number of the 
 Protestants, and they are supported by a Pretender, and all those 
 that are in his interest or of their religion." 
 
 Principles more opposed to Jacobite leanings than those pro- 
 pounded in this charge can hardly be imagined. In 1716 he 
 returned to his residence near Clonakilty, where he died sud- 
 denly, and was succeeded in his title and estates by his eldest son. 
 
 98. A. D. 1707. — Richard Freeman. This lawyer never 
 reached to any eminence at the bar. He had neither profes- 
 sional friends nor ability, and yet fortune — loiigo post tempore 
 venit — smiled upon him. 1 His family had for many generations 
 held a good social position in Gloucestershire, and at Batterford 
 in that county he was born, in the year 1646. Entering the 
 Middle Temple in his nineteenth year, he was called to the bar 
 before he had completed his three-and-twentieth. Although he 
 was amongst the class so well known as the " briefless," he was 
 yet assiduous in his attendance in court ; and turned his atten- 
 tion to ' the reporting — merely for his own instruction — of 
 those cases which were then at argument. The notes he had 
 taken by day he was wont to transcribe at night into a heavy 
 note-book, which, however, was never published during his life. 
 Legal reporting was then comparatively unknown, or perhaps 
 we should rather say that it had been forgotten ; for in the early 
 years of English jurisprudence — as early as the reign of Ed- 
 ward II. — the reporters were paid by the Crown ; and so they 
 continued their labours down to the reign of Henry VIII., re- 
 cording as they went along the arguments of counsel and the 
 judgments of the courts. These arguments and judgments 
 were delivered at first in Norman-French, and afterwards in 
 Latin, both of which languages were unknown save by the 
 learned. These venerable works are denominated the Year 
 Books ; and it must ever be a subject of regret that so salu- 
 tary a custom was suffered to fall into disuse. James I., in- 
 deed, at the instance of Lord Bacon, appointed two reporters with 
 handsome stipends for this purpose, but the wise institution was 
 soon neglected; and, with this exception, from the reign of 
 Henry VIII. to the present time, the task of reporting the pro- 
 
 1 Collins' Peerage, vol. ix., p. 184, n. 
 
110 RICHARD FREEMAN. 
 
 ceedings of the Courts has been executed by private individuals, 
 who, through haste or want of skill, have published oftentimes 
 very crude and imperfect, and perhaps even contradictory, 
 accounts of the same decision. Following the authorized Year 
 Books come the reports of Judge Croke, ever since cited in a 
 peculiar manner, by the name of those princes in whose reigns 
 the cases reported in his three volumes were determined. Thus, 
 Croke Elizabeth, Croke James, and Croke Charles. These were 
 followed by the reports of Chief Justice Sir Edward Coke, 
 a judge of infinite learning. Legal reporting in England from 
 the death of Charles I. until the Freeman reports appeared had 
 fallen low in public estimation ; while in Ireland the art was 
 unknown until the close of the eighteenth century. Freeman, 
 as a reporter, has been blamed by some and upheld by others ; 
 but his reports, or many of them, have been spoken of in the 
 highest terms by such distinguished lawyers as Lord Mansfield, 1 
 and Lord Redesdale. 3 The inaccuracies — and there are occa- 
 sional inaccuracies — are due, it is said, to the fact that his note- 
 book was stolen by his servant after his death, and was published 
 without the knowledge of his family. In 1707, Freeman was 
 taken from the reporters' bench, and appointed Chief Baron 
 of the Court of Exchequer in Ireland, and the following year 
 was elevated to the dignity of Lord Chancellor of that country. 
 Though a commoner, he presided as Speaker of the House of 
 Lords, having taken the required oaths on the 1st of July, 1707. 
 The animosities of the two great parties into which the 
 empire was divided were then of the most virulent type. "While 
 the whig and tory factions divided the nation, in Ireland the 
 Protestant party were almost exclusively attached to the whigs. 
 The expression " tory " was one of reproach, derived from the 
 Irish word thora, thora, "give, give," equivalent to " stand and 
 deliver," and was first employed in the reign of Charles II. in 
 reference to certain bands of outlaws who professed the Roman 
 Catholic faith, and harassed the English Protestants ; it was 
 afterwards applied to the partisans of James II., and was, in 
 fine, assumed by those who took a high stand in defence of the 
 Established Church and State. The "whigs," on the other 
 hand, the origin of which name is referred by Bishop Burnet to 
 the Scotch Covenanters, called " Whig-gamores," were the sup- 
 porters of the revolution, and the most uncompromising enemies 
 of the Catholic Church. Appointed by the whigs Chief Baron 
 in 1707, and Chancellor in 1708, Freeman continued in office 
 until his death in 1710. It appears from the Journals of the 
 House of Lords, that in the month of April, 1709, the Chancel- 
 lor was openly insulted by a person named Byrne, a man in an 
 
 1 Cooper's Reports {page 15). * III. Vesey Junior's Reports {page 580, n). 
 
SIR CONST ANTINE PHIPPS. Ill 
 
 humble position in life, who was immediately arrested and 
 brought to the bar of the House, where he was forced to apolo- 
 gise, and " humbly kneeling on his knees " to receive public 
 reprimand for his outrageous conduct. 
 
 One of the last of this Chancellor's official acts was to extend 
 the power of the benchers of the King's Inns Society, by mak- 
 ing it compulsory on every barrister and attorney admitted to 
 practise at their professions to give to the treasurer of that 
 society bonds, with sufficient sureties, for the performance and 
 observance of their rules, orders, and directions. His exertions 
 while in office were continually directed to softening the asperity 
 of the law, and ameliorating its spirit. But he was now begin- 
 ning to descend into the vale of years. His intellect was shat- 
 tered before its time, and the mind whose decisions had been 
 marked by clearness and perspicuity was for several months 
 previous to his death lost in an early dotage. He died on the 
 20th November, 1710, having been twice married — first to Eliza- 
 beth, daughter of Sir Anthony Kick, knight, by whom he left 
 an only daughter, Mary, who was married to Walter Edwards, 
 of Hans, in the county of Surrey. Their son, Thomas Edwards, 
 took the name of Freeman, and was grandfather to Elizabeth, 
 wife of the late Sir Thomas Heathcote, the fourth baronet of 
 that name, and uncle of Sir William Heathcote, Bart., J.P. and 
 D.L., of Hurseley Park, near Winchester M.P., for the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford from 1854 to 1868. By his second marriage 
 with Anne, wife of Richard Marshall, Esq., the Chancellor left 
 two children, Richard and Maria, both of whom died unmarried. 
 
 99. A. D. 1710. — Sm Constantine Phipps. James Phipps 
 was one of those whose religious opinions caused them to emi- 
 grate to America in the reign of Charles I. The youngest of 
 his sons was William, who, from his earliest years, displayed 
 great aptitude for the mathematical and physical sciences. Fol- 
 lowing the bent of his tastes, William Phipps went to sea, was 
 rapidly promoted, and in 1685 took the command of a vessel 
 which sailed in that year to the West Indies. He there heard 
 from the Indian many legends of ships that had been lost in those 
 seas, and how a mighty Spanish galleon was caught in a hurricane 
 many years before, and sank with her priceless treasures. Phipps 
 pondered over what he had heard. Could it be that in the spot 
 pointed out to him untold wealth lay concealed ? He was not 
 wealthy, and to descend into the world of waters to whose depths 
 the light of the sun never reached would require appliances far 
 beyond his reach. The diving-bell, just discovered, was expen- 
 sive ; but his resolution was fixed, and he set sail for England, 
 where he laid his plans before James II., and succeeded in ob- 
 taining from that monarch the assistance of a war vessel, " The 
 
112 SIR CONSTANTINE PHIPPS. 
 
 Rose of Algiers," carrying eighteen guns and ninety-five marines. 
 Men of science joined his expedition. After a perilous voyage he 
 arrived at his destination, and proceeded to put his long-matured 
 plan into execution. The lost ship was discovered. Gold and 
 silver and precious stones were raised from its deep bed ; and of 
 silver alone there were eight-and-thirty tons. He then, in daily 
 apprehension of a mutiny on hoard his vessel, set sail for Eng- 
 land, where he arrived in the month of August, 1686, having 
 under his command a cargo taken up from the bottom of the 
 sea, and worth, it was said, over £300,000. The whole nation 
 were loud in his applause, and they marvelled much at an ad- 
 venture which to them appeared as romantic as that of Jonas the 
 prophet. £16,000, besides a golden cup worth £1000, pre- 
 sented to his wife, was his pecuniary reward. He was knighted, 
 too, by James II., and was afterwards appointed by William 
 III. Governor- General of New England. But fortune is fickle. 
 Phipps sought to wrest Canada from the grasp of Louis XIV., and 
 failed. He then returned to England, where he was arrested, 
 at the suit of the Collector-General of Customs, for £20,000 ; 
 and though he was discharged in less than an hour, the proud 
 spirit of one accustomed to rule could not brook the insult. A 
 rapid fever set in, and carried him off on the 18th February, 1694. 
 His remains were consigned to the grave in the church of St. 
 Mary's, Woolnoth, where a mural inscription tells other genera- 
 tions of the achievements of "the founder of the family of 
 Phipps." _ 
 
 Sir William left at his death an only son, Constantine, who, 
 in 1682, had entered his name as a law student on the books of 
 the Middle Temple. It appears that for a short space he left 
 the ranks of the working barristers, and proceeded to America, 
 where he obtained the appointment of agent for Massachusetts 
 Bay. On the death of his father, however, he returned to Eng- 
 land, and devoted his entire time to his professional avocations. 
 Though reared in the stern principles of the Puritans of New 
 England, he appears to have almost entirely associated himself 
 with the tory party. In 1696 he was counsel for a man named 
 Eookwood, who was deeply implicated in a conspiracy to assassi- 
 nate William III. Eookwood was found guilty and executed. 
 
 The case, however, which brought him to the foremost ranks 
 of the tory bar was the trial of Dr. Sachaveril, a priest of the 
 Church of England, intolerant of dissent, and an advocate of the 
 doctrine of non-resistance to the authority of the prince, whom 
 he looked upon as reigning by divine right. Jacobite in all his 
 teachings, his sympathies were enlisted on the side of the Pre- 
 tender, and against that of the revolution of 1688. These, too, 
 it was suspected, were the principles of Queen Anne, who looked 
 with scorn on the son of Princess Sophia (afterwards George I.), 
 
SIR CONSTANTINE PHIPPS. 113 
 
 who had no other title to the throne than that whioh the Whig 
 majoritj- of the houses of parliament had conferred upon him. 
 
 Dr. Sacheveril advocated those doctrines in his sermon 
 preached before the judges at the Derby summer assizes of the 
 year 1708. The majority of the House of Commons voted this 
 sermon scandalous and seditious, and they further directed that 
 he should be impeached for those his high crimes and misde- 
 meanours. Arrested by the Serjeant-at-Arms, the "Whig Go- 
 vernment refused to admit him to bail, and instructed the 
 Solicitor- General, the Recorder of London, and other eminent 
 Whig counsel, to conduct the prosecution. On the other side 
 were arrayed Sir Simon Harcourt, Mr. Constantine Phipps, and 
 the whole strength of the Tory bar. The day for the trial was 
 fixed, and the prisoner was transferred from the custody of the 
 Serjeant-at-Arms, the officer of the House of Commons, to that 
 of the Usher of the Black Rod, the officer of the House of Lords, 
 who at once admitted him to bail. Though Sir Simon Harcourt 
 had nominally conducted the defence, yet the working of it was the 
 labour of Mr. Phipps, whose zeal in the cause of his client soon 
 raised him to the highest place in the affections of the Tories. 
 
 The trial lasted from the 9th February to the 2nd March, 
 1709, when the defendant was found guilty, and sentenced to 
 refrain from preaching for three years ; and his sermons were 
 directed to be burnt by the hangman, in the presence of the 
 Lord Mayor of London, which was accordingly done. Phipps's 
 speech on that occasion enlisted the multitude in favour of the 
 Church ; and it is to Dr. Sacheveril's trial that the fall of the 
 Whig ministry, in 1710, may be traced. 
 
 The Tory administration was then installed in office, and 
 Constantine Phipps appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland. A 
 supporter of "the Church," he found her hemmed in between 
 two contending parties — the Catholics and the Dissenters ; and 
 to persecute both, and to exalt his own faith, was the policy of 
 the new Chancellor. Though a supporter of the Pretender, he 
 feigned to detest the doctrines of the Church of Rome, and vied 
 with the most dismal fanatics in inflicting wrongs on the un- 
 happy members of that proscribed faith. In the year 1712, the 
 Chancellor and Dr. Vesey, Protestant Archbishop of Tuam, 
 were, in the absence of the Lord Lieutenant, constituted Lords 
 Justices. There had long existed in the town of Galway a 
 Franciscan nunnery, which was now closed by the order of the 
 Lord Justice Phipps. The nuns, or many of them, after a long 
 and weary journey, over roads then untraversed by a public con- 
 veyance, found refuge in the city of Dublin, under the care of 
 Dr. Byrne, Catholic Archbishop of that see. They had scarcely 
 arrived when they were arrested in the habits of their order, and 
 committed to prison, and Dr. Byrne was immediately taken into 
 
 I 
 
114 SIR CONSTANTINE PHIPPS. 
 
 custody. Their Excellencies then addressed, through their secre- 
 tary, a communication to the Mayor of Gralway, requiring the 
 suppression of all the nunneries within the town. It may be that 
 those persecuting wrongs were inflicted by the Tory faction to 
 bid for popularity amongst the Dissenters, on whom the sup- 
 porters of the Church looked with greater alarm than on the 
 Catholic Pretender, whose chance of overturning the establish- 
 ment was perfectly hopeless. 
 
 On the 27th of October, 1713, the Chancellor and the Arch- 
 bishop ceased to be Lords Justices. The Irish exeoutive 
 then became Jacobite almost without reserve. A book was pub- 
 lished at this time, entitled The Memoirs of the Chevalier de St. 
 George, in defence of the legitimacy of the Pretender, and of 
 his title to the crown whenever the death of Queen Anne should 
 occur. A bookseller named Lloyd had published advertisements 
 of his intention to reprint the book, " exhorting all good people 
 to subscribe to it." For this he was indicted, and bills were 
 found against him by the grand jury, in Michaelmas Term, 
 1712 ; notwithstanding which he went about at large until 
 July, 1713, when the Chancellor wrote in his favour to the 
 queen, recommending him, at the same time, as a fitting object 
 of the royal clemency. Forthwith the Crown entered a nolle 
 prosequi, and the proceedings terminated. But the Irish House 
 of Commons unanimously resolved — " 1st. That The Memoirs of 
 the Chevalier de St. George was a seditious and treasonable libel ; 
 2nd. That the remiss prosecution of Lloyd was an encourage- 
 ment to the papists and other friends of the Pretender ; 3rd. 
 That Sir Constantino Phipps, in representing Lloyd as an object 
 of mercy, in order to obtain a nolle prosequi, acted contrary to 
 the Protestant interest ; 4th. That an address be presented to the 
 queen to remove Sir Constantine Phipps from the place of Lord 
 High Chancellor, for the peace and safety of Her Majesty's 
 Protestant subjects." 
 
 The Convocation of Bishops, on the other hand, resolved that 
 the Chancellor should not be left to the resentment of the House 
 of Commons, and used their utmost endeavours to get up a con- 
 trary address in the House of Lords, where it was resolved, 
 " That Chancellor Phipps had in his several stations acquitted 
 himself with honour and integrity." 
 
 The death of Queen Anne in 1714, followed by the procla- 
 mation of George I., brought the hopes of a Jacobite succession 
 to an end. Sir Constantine Phipps was removed from the Court 
 of Chancery, and the nation was delivered into the hands of the 
 Whigs. On the 20th of October the king was crowned, and on 
 the same day the University of Oxford paid a marked compli- 
 ment to the Tory party, by conferring the degree of Doctor of 
 Civil Law on Sir Constantine Phipps, with particular marks of 
 
LORD MIDDLETOST. 115 
 
 honour and esteem. He had now returned to practise at the 
 English bar, and was soon recognised as the leader of the Tory 
 party. 
 
 In 1722, Atterbury, Bishop of Eochester, who had been 
 implicated in a conspiracy to bring about the restoration of the 
 Pretender, was seized and committed to the Tower, charged 
 with high treason. After remaining in prison for a fortnight, 
 Sir Constantine Phipps applied to the Court of the Old Bailey 
 for his discharge ; but the motion, after much deliberation, was 
 refused, with costs. Immediately, churchmen throughout the 
 whole kingdom were filled with indignation at the imprisonment 
 of a bishop — an act which was, they said, an outrage on the 
 Church of England. The case, however, came on to be heard 
 before the House of Lords on the 9th of May, 1723. A bill 
 had been brought in for the purpose of depriving him of his 
 episcopal office, and banishing him from the kingdom for ever, 
 and Sir Constantine spoke with great vigour, as he was wont to 
 do, for the accused. The bill, however, passed, and the un- 
 frocked prelate, deprived of his see, was conveyed, by order of 
 the Crown (George I.), to Calais, where, with tears in his eyes, 
 he met his former leader, the great Tory chieftain Lord Boling- 
 broke, on his way back to England. 
 
 This was the last case in which Sir Constantine was en- 
 gaged as counsel. He died on the 9th of October, 1723, 
 having through his active life been the unshaken friend of the 
 House of Stuart, and the Jacobite party long mourned over his 
 untimely end. His memory was in after times aspersed by one 
 of Ireland's patriots, the Bight Hon. John Philpot Curran, who, 
 when professing to admire the principles of the revolution of 
 1688, thus spoke of this Chancellor : — " In the latter part of the 
 reign of Queen Anne, an infernal conspiracy was formed by the 
 then Chancellor, Sir Constantine Phipps, to defeat the happy 
 revolution, which for three generations has shed its influence 
 upon those realms : fortunately it was defeated by the virtue of 
 the people." 
 
 Six Constantine Phipps left at his death one son, William 
 (afterwards married to Lady Catherine, daughter of James, third 
 Earl of Anglesea, infra p. 125). This William was father of 
 Constantine, who was raised to the peerage in 1768 by the title 
 of Earl of Mulgrave. 
 
 100. A. D. 1714. — Lord Middleton (Alan Brodrick). The 
 family of Brodrick emigrated to this country from England at 
 the close of the reign of James I., and is descended from a re- 
 mote ancestor of the House of Hapsburgh. During the Great 
 Eebellion and immediately preceding the death of Charles I., 
 Captain Brodrick allied himself to the Eoyal cause ; and his 
 
 l2 
 
116 LORD MIDDLETON. 
 
 son, Sir John Brodriek, was rewarded, after the Restoration of 
 Charles II., with a grant of Chore Abbey, a stately edifice of great 
 strength in the county of Cork, which, built in the old times 
 by the Knights Templars, and from them passing to the Knights 
 of St. John of Jerusalem, was finally suppressed at the Refor- 
 mation. Sir John was also created Lord of the Manor of 
 Middleton, and was appointed one of the commissioners for the 
 settlement of the affairs of the country prior to the Act of Set- 
 tlement. His son Alan Brodriek, one of the most advanced of 
 the Whig party, was, in the year 1703, elected Speaker of the 
 House of Commons, and in 1704 appointed Solicitor- General 
 for Ireland ; from which office he was soon after removed, on 
 account of opposing the government of the Duke of Ormond in 
 passing certain bills through the Houses of Parliament. In 
 1709 he was Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench ; but that 
 office being then held during pleasure, he was removed by the 
 Tory administration on their coming into power. Opposed to 
 the insulting privileges of the clergy of the Established Church, 
 he claimed for the Dissenters an entire immunity from the com- 
 pulsion of receiving the sacrament as a condition precedent to 
 entering upon places of emolument. 
 
 In the last year of the reign of Queen Anne, the House of 
 Commons, by their election of Brodriek as Speaker, demonstrated 
 that the majority were against the Tory administration of Bo- 
 lingbroke, and in favour of the succession of the House of 
 Hanover. Foremost in the opposition to the claims of the Pre- 
 tender was Brodriek, who, when the time came for George to 
 ascend the throne, was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland, 
 and Member of the Privy Council. 
 
 In 1716, the Chancellor's conduct in reference to the dignity 
 and independence of the Irish House of Lords was such as to 
 render his name odious in both houses of parliament. In that 
 year, the onoe well-known case of Hester Sherlock v. Maurice and 
 John Annesley occurred. It was an action of ejectment on the 
 title, brought in the year' 1709, in the Court of Exchequer, to 
 recover certain lands situate in the county of Kildare ; and a 
 ,yerdict was had for the defendants, who obtained judgment on 
 that finding. From this order the plaintiff appealed to the Irish 
 House of Lords, which reversed the decision of the court below ; 
 and judgment was then entered for the plaintiff. The defen- 
 dants' counsel, however, advised an appeal to the English House 
 of Lords, where the judgment of the Irish peers was reversed, 
 and' that of the Court of Exchequer established. And now the 
 two highest courts in both countries were in actual antagonism. 
 Forthwith a writ was directed to the sheriff of the county of 
 Kildare, by the officer of the Irish House of Lords, command- 
 ing him to put the plaintiff, Mrs. Sherlock, into possession of 
 
SHERLOCK V. ANNESLEY. 117 
 
 the lands. The writ was obeyed, and a return to that effect 
 was made. Thereupon the Chief and the other Barons of the 
 Exchequer issued a counter order, also directed to the same 
 sheriff, requiring him to make restitution of the premises to the 
 defendant ; and further, they imposed a heavy fine upon him 
 for presuming to obey the writ of an inferior Court, when the 
 Court of Ultimate Appeal in England had otherwise decided. 
 
 A statement of facts was then drawn up by the Lords in 
 Dublin, and forwarded to the king, in which they complained at 
 great length of the conduct of the English House of Peers, and 
 having insisted on the constitutional privileges of the Irish Par- 
 liament, relied on their connexion with the Crown of England, 
 and on the prerogative of that Crown, which recognised in times 
 past those rights which it was now sought to invade. We re- 
 gret that space will not permit us to give fully this interesting 
 and lengthened document, which concludes as follows : — " Hav- 
 ing thus with all humility laid before your Majesty your un- 
 doubted power and prerogative within this your kingdom of 
 Ireland, the immediate dependence of the same upon your 
 Majesty's crown : the right. your Majesty has to hold parliament 
 here as in Great Britain, and of finally determining therein all 
 matters that entirely relate to this realm e, together with the 
 great encroachments that have of late been made on your Ma- 
 jesty's prerogative and the rights of this your parliament, and 
 the illegal unprecedented proceedings of the Lord Chief Baron, 
 and others the Barons of your Majesty's Court of Exchequer, 
 whereby they have endeavoured to support those encroaohments, 
 with the evil consequences of such proceedings, in case that a 
 speedy and effectual stop be not thereunto put, we most humbly 
 hope that all these things, being duly considered and weighed, 
 with your Majesty's usual wisdom, will abundantly justify us 
 in the methods we have taken, as well for the supporting of 
 your Majesty's royal prerogative as the preservation of the just 
 rights and liberties of ourselves and our fellow-subjects." 
 
 Can it be believed that from the resolution thus to appeal to 
 the king there were eight dissentients, who preferred sacrificing 
 their own independence at the shrine of English rule ? Their 
 names are headed by that of the Chancellor, who was created a 
 peer in the next year, a. d. 1717. This remarkable case was 
 followed immediately by an Act of the English Parliament, 
 which decreed that — " Whereas attempts have been lately made 
 to shake off the subjection unto and dependence upon the impe- 
 rial Crown of the realm, and whereas the Lords of Ireland, in 
 order thereto, have of late, against law, assumed to themselves a 
 power and a jurisdiction to examine and amend the judgment 
 and decrees of the Courts of Justice in Ireland: therefore, &c, 
 it is declared, and enacted, &c, that the said kingdom of Ire- 
 
118 EICHAKD WEST. 
 
 land has been, is, and of right ought to be, subordinate unto, 
 and dependent upon, the imperial Crown of Great Britain in 
 Parliament assembled, which hath, and of right ought to have, 
 full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient 
 force and validity to bind the people of the kingdom of Ireland. 
 And it is further enacted and declared, that the House of Lords 
 of Ireland has not, nor of right ought to have, any jurisdiction 
 to judge of, affirm or reverse any judgment, &c, made in any 
 Court within the said kingdom," &c. Thus was the Irish par- 
 liament degraded to the rank of a provincial assembly. 
 
 On the 27th of August, 1719, the Lord Chancellor' trans- 
 mitted to the English government for its approval the draft of 
 a bill for the further and more effectual prevention of the growth 
 of Popery. This bill contained a clause of so savage a nature 
 against the Catholio clergy, that the whole brutal measure was 
 suppressed in England, and thus fell to the ground. The Lord 
 Chancellor — as he was an Englishman, the entire disgrace of the 
 proposal does not rest on the shoulders of the Irish members of 
 the Privy Council — urged the mutilation of the priests as the 
 best and most refined of the punishments which the piety and the 
 cruelty of the Irish government could in their ingenuity devise ! 
 The delicacy of the reader, and perhaps of the writer, will per- 
 mit us to draw a veil over his infernal suggestion. 
 
 Though Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1714 to 1725, he 
 continued during those years a member of the House of Com- 
 mons of England. 
 
 His lordship was married, first to Catherine, daughter of 
 Pedmund Barry, Esq., of Pathcormick, in the county of Cork, 
 and by her had one son, St. John Broderick, member of par- 
 liament for the city of Cork. By his second wife, Alice, daughter 
 of Sir Peter Courthorpe, he had two sons, of whom the eldest, 
 Alan, was his successor in the peerage. By his third wife, Anne, 
 daughter of Sir John Trevor, Master of the Polls in England, 
 he had no children. Failing health caused him in 1725 to re- 
 tire from office, and his death took place in England in the 
 following year. "We are informed that " his Court was an en- 
 lightened school, in which a mild and benevolent magistrate, by 
 practice and example, animated the bar to legal skill ;" ' but 
 we must take leave to doubt that benevolence and enlighten- 
 ment are correctly attributed to the man who was a supporter 
 of such measures as we have above described. 
 
 _ 101. A.D. 17S5. — Richard West. Hugh Boulter was at 
 this time Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, and for nearly 
 twenty years had been the confidential agent of the British 
 government in Ireland. By him were appointments suggested 
 
 1 Du Higg, p. 277. 
 
RICHARD WEST. 119 
 
 to the Crown, and through him were they made. There was 
 an exception, however, to this rule in the case of Thomas Carter, 
 Master of the Bolls, who was an Irishman and a member of the 
 Irish bar, and whose appointment, Protestant though he was, 
 filled with indignation the mind of the most reverend Primate, 
 who thus writes on this subject to the Duke of Newcastle, then 
 Secretary of State : — 
 
 April 29th, 1725. 
 
 "My Lord, — I have by this post written to my Lord 
 Townsend (colleague of the Duke of Newcastle), explaining 
 what a blow is given to the English interest here by the ap- 
 pointment of an Irishman as Master of the Polls, and the un- 
 easiness we are under at the report that a native of the place is 
 likely to be Lord Chancellor. I must request of your Grace, as 
 I have of his lordship, that you would both use your interest 
 to have none but an Englishman put into the great places here 
 for the future, that by degrees things may be put into such a 
 way as may be most for His Majesty's service." Pichard West, 
 an English barrister and friend of the Primate's, was then se- 
 lected for the Dish woolsack. His only previous qualification 
 was that he was a pamphleteering partizan. 1 During the short 
 time that he sat on the Irish bench, he appears, nevertheless, to 
 have given much satisfaction. 
 
 On the 7th of September, 1725, parliament was opened with 
 the usual formalities, and the Chancellor took his seat, for the 
 first time, as Speaker of the House of Lords. "Writing to the 
 minister, on the 9th of September following, the Primate says 
 that " there is a perfect agreement between me and the Lord 
 Chancellor, which I daresay will continue, not only on account 
 of our old friendship, but out of the earnest desire we both have 
 of promoting His Majesty's service. I am thoroughly sensible 
 of what assistance he will be to me in so doing, and I shall not 
 be wanting in my endeavours to assist him." 
 
 "West had been but a year and five months in office when he 
 was attacked by a fever of the most malignant type. Hopes 
 were entertained to the last of his recovery ; and on the 2nd of 
 December, 1726, the day before his death, the Primate writes to 
 Lord Cartaret, to say that " the Chancellor was blistered last 
 night, and is now better." He died, however, that day, and 
 was buried in St. Anne's Church. Immediately on his death, 
 the Primate writes to the Lord Lieutenant, deploring his loss : — 
 "The Chancellor," he says, "died to-day, about two in the 
 afternoon. His death is very much lamented by all here, but 
 especially by the lawyers, whose good- will and esteem he had 
 entirely gained, by his patience, civility, and great abilities ; as 
 he was an old friend and acquaintance of mine, I am very much 
 1 Boulter's Letters, 30, 33, 84. 
 
120 LORD WYNDHAM. 
 
 troubled at his loss. I am also heartily concerned for the ter- 
 rible blow to his family. I earnestly wish that his place may 
 be filled by one that may give the same satisfaction that he has 
 given." 
 
 Few of his decisions have come down to our day. Some of 
 them are reported in Howard's Popery Cases, but they are of so 
 uninteresting a nature as to render their repetition here unaccep- 
 table to the reader. In one of them, he was so much pained at 
 the harshness of the proceedings taken under the shadow of 
 those penal laws, that, although compelled to decide with a 
 Protestant plaintiff, in a suit to recover possession of certain 
 premises in Westport, in the county of Mayo, for no other reason 
 than because the unhappy defendant was a papist, he refused 
 to give the plaintiff his costs. The Chancellor was author of 
 several works, entitled respectively, Discourses on Treasons and 
 Bills of Attainder, which passed through two editions; An In- 
 quiry into the Manner of Creating Peers, which also ran through 
 two editions ; and The Hecuoa, a Tragedy. Some of his papers 
 are likewise to be found in the Freethinker, a periodical belong- 
 ing to the early part of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Through the exertions of the Primate, a pension of £250 
 a-year was granted from the State to the Chancellor's widow, 
 who was daughter of the Eight Eev. Dr. Burnett, Bishop of 
 Sarum, in England. 
 
 102. A. D. 1726. — Lord Wyndham. Thomas Wyndham, 
 grandson of Sir William Wyndham, who had been one of the 
 Judges of the Court of Common Pleas in England in the reign 
 of Charles II., was called to the bar in 1690, and appointed 
 Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in July, 1724. Deeply 
 versed in the mysteries of the law, and thoroughly conversant 
 with the state of Irish politics, he was recommended by Primate 
 Boulter to the. king, as the fittest to fill the vacant seat on the 
 woolsack. George II. had now (we speak of 1727) ascended 
 the throne. In his electoral dominions in Germany the Catholic 
 religion was freely tolerated, and was not subject to those 
 penalties which were so acceptable alike to the parliaments of 
 England and of Ireland. The hopes of the Irish Catholics were 
 therefore excited : they expected a similar toleration ; and a 
 congratulatory address was presented by the leading members 
 of that religion to the Lords Justices, of whom the Chancellor 
 was one. The address was read by Lord Delvin, and a reply 
 was expected; but their Excellencies, turning away, left the 
 chamber, without either vouchsafing an answer or bowing in 
 acknowledgment, and the address was never forwarded to the 
 king; nay more, the extraordinary proceedings we have de- 
 scribed were immediately followed by the Act of 1 Geo. II., 
 
NEW PARLIAMENT HOUSE, COLLEGE-GREEN. 121 
 
 ah. ix., sec. 7, which entirely disfranchised the Catholics, and de- 
 prived them of the last vestige of civil rights. But not " Papists " 
 only, but the very converts from popery, were objects of suspi- 
 cion. If one statute prevented a papist becoming a solicitor, 
 another statute excluded from the bar those Protestant converts 
 from popery who had not yet been seven years converted. 
 " "We must be all undone," writes Primate Boulter, " if the 
 profession of the law get into the hands of the converts, where it 
 has already got, and where it every day gets more and more." 
 
 On the 3rd of February, 1728, the Chancellor, surrounded 
 by many peers, then resident in Dublin, proceeded with great 
 pomp to lay the foundation-stone of the new houses of parlia- 
 ment, in College-green. On the 5th of October, 1731, he was 
 raised to the peerage, by the title of Baron Wyndham, of Fin- 
 glas; and on the same day he presided in the Upper House, 
 when the terrors of popery were again brought up to disturb 
 the repose of the legislature. It was complained that, " in 
 spite of the laws in force, popery was on the increase, and that 
 the monasteries were multiplying everywhere." A commission 
 was in consequence issued, directed to the sheriffs of the counties 
 of Gralway and Mayo, for the purpose of instituting an inquiry 
 into the state of the proscribed religion within those counties. 
 The inquisition was made, and the sheriffs presented their re- 
 turns. Both those documents, of remarkable interest, inform us 
 concerning the several monasteries then inhabited, though now 
 in ruins. Those returns were followed by the immediate dis- 
 arming of the whole Catholic population. Lord Wyndham 
 again, in 1734, presided in the Upper House, when enactments, 
 not only against popery, but against converts from popery, 
 were passed. 
 
 In 1739 the new parliament house was completed ; and it is 
 recorded that in the same year the trial of Lord Santry, for the 
 murder, in a drunken brawl, of a poor man at a fair, took place 
 within its walls. The vanity of the writers of that day, by 
 whom the event is recorded, is manifested in the pompous de- 
 scription given of the ceremonial — how the Chancellor pro- 
 ceeded in state from his residence in Stephen' s-green ; how he 
 entered the House of Peers ; and how he was received by their 
 lordships standing as he passed. Lord Santry was found guilty, 
 but was afterwards pardoned. 
 
 In the autumn of the same year, the Chancellor, for reasons 
 now unknown, resigned the seals ; and the last years of his life 
 were spent in England, where he died without issue in 1745, 
 when the title became extinct. 
 
 103. A. D. 1739. — Lord Jocelyn (Eobert Jocelyn). The 
 remote history of this family extends back through a thousand 
 
122 LORD JOCELYN. 
 
 years. Robert Jocelyn was called to the bar in 1706, became 
 Solicitor-General for Ireland in 1727, and Attorney-General in 
 1730. On the retirement of Lord Wyndham from the bench in 
 1739, his professional position, and intimacy with Lord Hard- 
 wicke, secured for him the post of Lord Chancellor of Ireland. 
 Remarkable for historical research, he laboured to disentangle 
 the annals of this country from fable and falsehood ; and in 
 doing so, he became the patron and friend of Harris, the learned 
 editor of Sir James Ware's Antiquities. 
 
 In 1743 the Chancellor was raised to the peerage by the 
 title of Baron Newport. The rumours of an intended French 
 invasion in 1744 gave rise to a fresh ebullition of rage against 
 the Catholics. But in the following year the rebellion broke 
 out in Scotland, and the government, apprehensive that the 
 cause of Prince Charles. Edward would find followers in Ireland, 
 resolved to reverse its previous system, and to calm public feel- 
 ing by a policy of conciliation. With this end in view, the Earl 
 of Chesterfield was sent over as Lord Lieutenant. This popular 
 nobleman restored tranquillity, and the Catholic altars were 
 once more surrounded by unmolested Catholic congregations. 
 But the insurrection in Scotland was crushed at the battle of 
 Culloden; and as there was now no longer need of a sooth- 
 ing policy for Ireland, Lord Chesterfield was recalled, and the 
 government was entrusted, on the 26th of April, 1746, to the 
 Primate and the Chancellor as Lords Justices. 
 
 In 1749 George Stone was Primate, when a bill was intro- 
 duced into the Commons to apply the unappropriated surplus 
 of taxation to the liquidation of the National Debt ; and the 
 subject gave rise to warm and protracted discussions. The Earl 
 of Kildare, in consequence, presented to the king in person a 
 bold address, complaining of the arrogance and illegal and cor- 
 rupt interference in public affairs of Primate Stone and of Lord 
 George Sackville, son of the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Dorset. 
 
 The English ministry were surprised at what they con- 
 sidered the boldness of this proceeding ; and the Earl of Hol- 
 derness thus writes on the subject to the Chancellor : — 
 
 " My good Lord Chancellor, — I am not a little concerned 
 that the Earl of Kildare should take so bold a step ; one that he 
 may repent hereafter. He was but ill-received, and very coolly 
 dismissed by the king, as indeed the presumption well-merited ; 
 for why should His Majesty receive any remonstrances concern- 
 ing his kingdom or government, but from the proper ministers, 
 or through the usual channels, namely, both houses of parlia- 
 ment ? I desire my compliments to the Lord Primate, and wish 
 him success in all laudable endeavours for poor Ireland." 
 
 The address of the Earl of Kildare to the Crown was, never- 
 theless, productive of good, and the alarmed government sent 
 
LORD JOCELYN. 123 
 
 over Lord Hartington as Lord Lieutenant to replace the Duke 
 of Dorset. He had not been long in Ireland, however, when 
 he had to return to England, where, instead of counselling, as 
 usual on such occasions, a union of Protestants against the 
 "common enemy," he recommended harmony amongst "all 
 His Majesty's subjects." Lord Chancellor Newport — by his 
 higher title, lately conferred upon him, of Viscount Jocelyn — 
 and the Earls of Kildare and Besborough, were then appointed 
 Lords Justices. A brighter day was about to dawn ; bigotry was 
 on the wane, and liberal principles began to be appreciated. To 
 this period are to be traced the first aspirations after religious 
 liberty — the first germs of that great Catholic movement which 
 in an approaching generation was to assume such gigantic pro- 
 portions. 
 
 The leisure hours of the Chancellor were spent in antiquarian 
 research, and his lordship, it would appear, succeeded in awaken- 
 ing similar tastes in others. Amongst these were the Earl of 
 Clanricarde ; Robert Lindsay, one of the Justices of the Court 
 of Common Pleas ; John Lodge, author of the Peerage of 1754 ; 
 Harris, the editor of Sir James Ware ; and Mr. Donelan. In 
 1750 we find the Earl of Clanricarde engaged in writing The 
 Letters and Memoirs of XT lick, Marquis of Clanricarde, Lord 
 Lieutenant of Ireland during the Rebellion 0/1641. In compiling 
 this work, which throws so much light on that dismal period, 
 the Earl of Clanricarde applied to the Chancellor for his assist- 
 ance, when he was favoured with the following reply, bearing 
 date the 24th June in that year : — 
 
 " My Lord, — I congratulate you with the public on your 
 lordship's resolution to print the valuable remains of your truly 
 noble and excellent ancestor the Marquis of Clanricarde, whose 
 memory is held in the highest esteem by all who are acquainted 
 with the share he had in the transactions of his time ; for my 
 own part, I have so great a veneration of his character, that I 
 think myself happy in being in any way able to contribute 
 towards making it more universally known and admired. Your 
 lordship may freely command a copy of all the marquis' letters 
 and papers in my possession. ... I have likewise in ma- 
 nuscript a short comparative character of two great Irishmen of 
 that age — the Marquis of Ormond and Marquis of Clanricarde. 
 I inclose it to your lordship, that you may make what use of it 
 you think proper. 
 
 " My Lord, your lordship's most obedient servant, 
 
 " Jocelyn." 
 
 The Lord Chancellor was twice married : first to Charlotte, 
 daughter and co-heiress of a Mr. Anderson, of the county of 
 Worcester ; and secondly, to the widow of Lord Eosse. Dying 
 
124 LORD BOWES. 
 
 on the 25th of October, 1756, he was succeeded in his title and 
 estates by his eldest son Eobert, who was created Earl of Eoden 
 in 1771, and who was great grandfather of the present earl. 
 
 104. A.D. 1756. — Lord Bowes (John Bowes) was called to 
 the English bar on the 29th of June, 1718. Unsuccessful in 
 England, he resolved to try his fortune in the sister country, 
 and was accordingly called to the Irish bar in Michaelmas Term, 
 1725. One of the most accomplished orators of his day, he 
 soon rose to the foremost ranks of the profession in this country. 
 Created Serjeant in 1727, he became Solicitor-General in 1730 ; 
 and in 1739 Attorney-General. He was counsel for the Crown 
 on the trial — of which we have already spoken — of Lord Santry, 
 at the bar of the House of Lords, for wilful murder, and his 
 speech on that occasion drew from Dr. Rendle, Protestant 
 Bishop of Derry, the following remarks, descriptive of his con- 
 duct of that case : — " Bowes, the Solicitor- General, had an oppor- 
 tunity of showing himself to the highest advantage. I always 
 thought him an admirable speaker, but I never imagined him 
 half so great a man as I do at present. He did not use one 
 severe word against the unhappy lord, nor omitted one severe 
 observation that truth could dictate. I never heard nor never 
 read so perfect a piece of eloquence ; its beauty arose from its 
 true simplicity and unaffected ornaments, from the strength 
 and light of his reason, the fairness and candour and good na- 
 ture of his heart, from the order and disposition of what he 
 said, the elegance and fulness of his expressions, the shortness 
 and propriety of his reflections, the music of his voice, and the 
 gracefulness of his elocution. These were all wonderful." Such 
 was the opinion of one well qualified to form a judgment. A 
 vacancy occurring in the Exchequer in the year 1741, he was 
 raised to the dignity of Chief Baron of that Court, which then 
 consisted of the Chief and two puisne Barons only. It was at 
 the bar of this Court, and before the Chief Baron and Barons 
 Mountney and Dawson, that the once celebrated case of James 
 Annesley v. The Earl of Anglesey was tried. Mountney's name 
 has long since passed out of recollection, though Dawson stands 
 in a different position. This latter may have been an able 
 lawyer ; but if his name be now remembered, it is not for ar- 
 guments of surpassing ingenuity, or for decisions of great mo- 
 ment, but for being the author of one of the best songs in the 
 language ; and as long as the strains of " Bumper Squire Jones " 
 are remembered, so long his name will not be forgotten. 
 
 On the morning of the 11th of November, 1743, the trial of 
 Annesley y. The Earl of Anglesey 1 commenced before the judges 
 we have just named, and before a jury composed of men the 
 
 1 Howell's State Trials, vols. 16-17; Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 14; 
 Fitzpatrick's Sham Squire, p. 4 ; Duffy's Ilib. Mag., for i860, p. 177. 
 
AXXESLEY l\ LOUD ANGLESEY. 
 
 125 
 
 majority of whom were justices of the peace. The counsel for 
 the plaintiff were Serjeant Marshall (who in 1754 hecame a 
 Justice of the Court of Common Pleas); Serjeant Tisdall; 
 Greoffry Lill (afterwards a Justice of the Common Pleas) ; and 
 nine other distinguished lawyers. The counsel for the defence 
 were the Attorney-General, St. George Caufield (afterwards 
 Chief Justice) ; the Solicitor- General, Warden Flood (afterwards 
 Chief Justice) ; Easton Stannard, then Recorder of Dublin ; 
 and the Prime Serjeant, Anthony Malone (one of the greatest 
 orators, according to Henry Grrattan, that this country has ever 
 produced). Before proceeding further with this dreadful case, 
 we shall place in tabular form before our readers the pedigree 
 of the family. It will assist them in comprehending the pro- 
 ceedings to which we shall have to refer. 
 
 Sir Francis Annesley 
 
 (ist Viscount Va- 
 lentia in the peerage 
 
 of Ireland), d. 1660. 
 
 Arthur 
 (ist Earl of Angle- 
 sey in the peerage 
 of England), d. 1686. 
 
 Elizabeth Altham. 
 
 James (2nd 
 
 Earl), died, 
 
 i6qo. 
 
 Altham 
 
 {ist Lord Altham) 
 
 d. 1699. 
 
 Richard 
 
 ird Lord Altham), 
 
 d. 1701. 
 
 James 
 (3rd Earn, 
 died 
 without 
 issue 
 male, 
 1701. 
 
 Catherine 
 
 John 
 ( 4 th Earl), 
 d. without 
 
 issue, 
 
 1710. 
 
 = W. Phipps. 
 
 I 
 
 Arthur 
 (5th Earl), 
 d. without 
 issue, 1737. 
 
 James 
 {2nd Lard 
 Altham), 
 d. without 
 
 issue, 
 
 1700. 
 
 I ir 
 Arthur 
 {qih Lord 
 Altham), 
 
 d. 1727. 
 
 1707. 
 
 - Illegit. 
 
 date, of 
 
 Duke of 
 
 Biecking- 
 
 ham. 
 
 James 
 (Claimant, 
 Plaifitiff). 
 
 Richard 
 takes on 
 himself the 
 title of 5 th 
 Lord Al- 
 tham, in 
 1727, and 
 6th Earl of 
 Anglesey, 
 in 1737. 
 Defendant, 
 d. 1760. 
 
 Earls of Mulgrave [supra, 115). 
 
 Serjeant Marshall stated the plaintiff's case. It is reported 
 in the State Trials and in the Gentleman's Magazine; but it is 
 from Duffy's Hibernian Magazine that the following is in great 
 measure extracted : — 
 
 Eichard Annesley, who in 1743 was Earl of Anglesey, had 
 succeeded to that title upon the death, in 1737, of his coiisin 
 Arthur, third Earl of Anglesey, without issue. Previously to this, 
 in the year 1727, he had by the death of his brother Arthur, 
 fourth Lord Altham, also as it was supposed without issue, suc- 
 ceeded to the title of Altham, and to the estates which went with it. 
 
 " The estates of the Anglesey family, whieh thus held the two 
 titles of Anglesey and of Altham, had been the subject of settle- 
 
126 LORD BOWES. 
 
 ments and of devolutions both of which are somewhat compli- 
 cated. To those it is unnecessary to refer further than to state 
 that, in consequence of them, Earl Eichard's right alike to the 
 estates and to the titles of Anglesey and of Altham depended 
 altogether upon the death of his brother Arthur without leaving 
 a son. Arthur, as we have already stated, died in 1727, and if 
 he had left a legitimate son, that son would have at once suc- 
 ceeded to the estates and title of Altham, and would in 1737 have 
 been Earl of Anglesey, to the exclusion in both instances of 
 Eichard. But, as it was erroneously believed, Arthur on his 
 death left no son to succeed him, and Eichard accordingly came 
 successively into possession of the honours and estates which 
 belonged to the Anglesey family. In that possession he re- 
 mained peaceably for some years, when suddenly there appeared 
 a claimant calling himself James Annesley, who not merely 
 challenged Earl Eichard's rights, but accused him of the grossest 
 malpractices in the mode in which he had gained possession of 
 his estates and titles. His statement was, that he was the 
 legitimate son of the late Lord Altham, by his wife, a daughter 
 of the Duke of Buckingham : that Lord and Lady Altham, who 
 had never lived very happily together, had finally (in the year 
 1717) separated, never to meet again ; and that he, their son, 
 had been taken by his father to live with him. Unfortunately, 
 Lord Altham fell into the power of a Miss Gregory, an unprin- 
 cipled and designing woman, who had, for reasons of her own, 
 taken a violent dislike to young James Annesley, and had so 
 influenced Lord Altham, that he shortly began to neglect and 
 even ill-treat his child. This neglect and ill-treatment went so 
 far that the boy was for a long time excluded from his father's 
 house, and suffered to wander homeless and penniless about the 
 streets of Dublin, where he would have starved but for the 
 benevolence of some charitable persons, who, aware of his rank, 
 took him, and gave him that shelter which his father had refused 
 to him. So things had gone on for three years. At last, in 
 1727, Lord Altham died. The boy, who was then about thir- 
 teen years of age, was unable to press his claims. Although he 
 had been, when he resided with his father, first recognised by 
 many as the heir to the title of Altham, he was soon forgotten ; 
 and his uncle Eichard, who had on his brother's death at once 
 assumed his title, was too powerful to be successfully opposed by 
 a mere boy, unsustained, and without money or influence. Never- 
 theless, young, poor, and weak as he was, the boy was a perpe- 
 tual source of fear to Eichard, who was aware of his existence, 
 and of the justice of his title. Having once taken the step of 
 depriving the orphan of his right, Eichard accordingly deter- 
 mined to deprive him likewise of the power of ever asserting it. 
 He sent men to dog the lad and to seize his person. Twice 
 they attempted to kidnap him, and twice they failed. A third 
 
AXXESLEY I'. LORD ANGLESEY. 127 
 
 attempt was more successful. James Annesley, when thirteen 
 years of age, was seized in Ormond Market, in presence of his 
 uncle, who there charged him with theft. The boy was at once 
 hurried off to the quay, placed in a boat, and taken off to Rings- 
 end, where he was put on board a ship which was about to sail 
 for America. Richard Annesley accompanied him to the ship, 
 and left him there. This was in April, 1728. 
 
 " The ship at once proceeded to the river Delaware, in North 
 America, and there the heir of the house of Annesley was sold 
 as a slave. In that wretched position he remained for thirteen 
 years. At the end of that time he made his escape, and found 
 his way to Jamaica. Here his story excited the interest of Ad- 
 miral Vernon, who sent him to England, where he proceeded to 
 take the necessary steps for asserting his alleged rights. But his 
 adventures were not over. He had the misfortune to kill a man 
 near London, and was tried for murder. Richard, the Earl of 
 Anglesey, who knew of his return and of his proceedings, made 
 himself most active in supporting the prosecution; but the 
 prisoner was acquitted. Such was the story of the plaintiff in 
 the great cause of James Annesley v. The Right Honourable 
 Richard, Earl of Anglesey ; and such, in substance, was the 
 case, the truth or falsehood of which came on for trial before 
 the full Court of Exchequer at Dublin, on Friday, the 11th of 
 November, 1743. 
 
 " The only two questions which the jury had to try were 
 simply these : first, whether Lord Altham, deceased, had had a 
 son ; and secondly, whether James Annesley, the plaintiff, the 
 adventurer of whose career an outline has been given, was that 
 son. If this trial took place at the present day, the very first 
 witnesses, in all probability, who would be examined upon either 
 side would be the parties themselves. James Annesley would, 
 upon oath, detail all his adventures, and be subject to cross- 
 examination by the opposite counsel. Lord Anglesey would 
 either have an opportunity of clearing himself from the foul 
 imputations cast upon him, or by his declining to allow himself 
 to be examined would add tenfold strength to the case of his 
 adversary. But in 1743 this was not so. All the old disquali- 
 fications on the ground of interest were then in full force. The 
 wisdom of the law then rendered incapable of giving evidence 
 those very persons whose evidence would have been most valu- 
 able, and would have thrown most light upon the matter in 
 dispute. The Chief Baron and his brethren would have been 
 struck dumb with horror, had it been proposed to call as a 
 witness either the plaintiff or the defendant. 
 
 " The entire of the first day of the trial, and a great part of 
 the second, were taken up with the examination of witnesses 
 who proved the birth of a son by Lady Altham, and various 
 
128 LORD BOWES. 
 
 circumstances connected with that event. It appeared that 
 Lord and Lady Altham, who had been married in the year 
 1706, but had after a while disagreed, became again reconciled 
 in the year 1713, and that at the end of October, or beginning 
 of November of that year, they came to Dublin, where they 
 lodged, first at the house of Captain Briscoe, in Bride-street, 
 and afterwards at the house of Mr. Vice, ' at Temple Bar, near 
 the Slip.' Thence they went at Christmas to Lord Altham's 
 seat at Dunmain, in the county of Wexford, where they re- 
 mained until June or July, 1714, when they returned to 
 Dublin, and again took up their quarters at Temple Bar. 
 Both while at Dunmain, and while on the second visit to 
 Dublin, Lady Altham, according to the evidence, had mis- 
 carriages, which it would also appear were upon both ocoasions 
 caused by the violent habits of her husband, who seems to have 
 been a man of a hasty character, and somewhat given to 
 intemperance. However, they again returned to Dunmain, 
 where they remained together until the year 1717. In the 
 spring of the year 1715, Lady Altham was safely delivered 
 of a son. This was proved by a servant who was with others 
 in the room at the time, and there was an abundance of corro- 
 borative evidence. Thus a Major Richard Fitzgerald proved 
 that in 1715 he was at Dunmain; he had met at Ross Lord 
 Altham, who invited him to dine with him the next day. 
 'Deponent' — we quote from one of the reports of the trial — 
 'desired to be excused, because he was to dine with some 
 officers, but Lord Altham said deponent must dine with him, 
 and come to drink some groaning drink, for that his wife 
 was in labour. Deponent told him that was a reason he 
 ought not to go : but Lord Altham would not take an excuse, 
 and sent the deponent word next day to Ross that his wife 
 was brought to bed of a son, and the deponent went to 
 Dunmain, and dined there, and had some discourse about 
 the child, and Lord Altham swore that the deponent should 
 see his son; and accordingly the nurse brought the child to 
 deponent, and deponent kissed the child and gave half a guinea 
 to the nurse, and some of the company toasted the heir appa- 
 rent to Lord Anglesey at dinner. This was the day after the 
 child was born.' Others gave evidence of the christening of 
 the child, which took place when he was three weeks old, the 
 rite being performed by one Mr. Loyd (Lord Altham's chap- 
 lain). 'That the godfathers were Counsellor Cliff and Mr. Col- 
 clough, and the godmother Madame Pigott.' There was also 
 evidence, 'that there were great rejoicings for the birth, and 
 plenty of wine and other liquors drank on that occasion.' The 
 demeanour of Lord and Lady Altham towards the child was 
 also shown to be that of fond parents. One witness, a Mr. 
 
ANNESLEY V. EARL OP ANGLESEY. 129 
 
 Turner, who was seneschal to the then Lord Anglesey, deposed 
 that 'he saw the boy at Dunmain, a year and a half old; stayed 
 a night in Dunmain, and had the child in his arms ; saw the 
 lady leading the child across the parlour; saw the Lord 
 Altham kiss the child, and he called him Jemmy; saw the 
 child afterwards at Eoss, and at Kinnay in the county of 
 Kildare; saw the child once at Eoss when Lady Altham 
 lodged there at one Butler's.' . . . ' Deponent being asked how 
 the child was treated at Kinnay, says that he was dressed 
 as the son of a nobleman, and the servants called him master ; 
 saw him at Kinnay, as he believes, three or four times; the 
 child could walk at Kinnay, and used to be wheeled about 
 in a little carriage; saw the child afterwards at Oarrickduff, 
 in 1720, and Lord Altham was fond of the child; that my 
 lord and deponent being at a tavern in Dublin in 1722, 
 Lord Altham said he would send for his son, that deponent 
 might see him, and the child accordingly was sent for; that 
 he was then about eight years old, and Lord Altham said to 
 deponent, you were seneschal to Earl Arthur and Earl John, 
 and you may be seneschal to the child.' The same witness, 
 upon cross-examination, deposed to a conversation which he 
 had had at a later period with the defendant. 'Deponent 
 asked him one day what had become of Jemmy? to which 
 the defendant answered that he was dead.' Numerous other 
 witnesses deposed to the birth of the child, his christening, 
 the parental manner in which he was treated by Lord and 
 Lady Altham, and to the fact of his having been sent to be 
 nursed by a woman named Landy, who lived in a house not 
 very far from Dunmain. This last was apparently the most 
 assailable point of the plaintiff's case. It appeared in evidence 
 that Landy herself was a woman of tarnished character. She 
 was married to a man of the name of M'Gormiek, but before 
 her marriage she had had a child, and one of the rumours of 
 the country seems to have been that the father of this child 
 was Lord Altham himself. Of course it appeared most unlikely 
 that Lady Altham should have consented to commit her son 
 to the care of such a woman ; and so, very early in the trial, it 
 struck the Chief Baron. Furthermore, it appeared that the 
 house in which Landy and her father lived was a very poor 
 and mean one ; and although it was attempted to be shown 
 that a large addition had been built to the house, and that it 
 had been greatly improved when the child was sent there, the 
 cross-examination of the witnesses tended to show that the 
 boasted addition and improvements were really of the most 
 trivial character. Before going any further, we may observe 
 as to the mode in which the Irish courts did their business in 
 1743, that the proceedings of the first day of the trial did not 
 
 K 
 
130 LORD BOWES. 
 
 end until eleven o'clock at night. The same diligence was 
 practised on the succeeding days. The Court almost invariahly 
 sat at nine o'clock in the morning, and seldom rose before 
 ten or eleven at night. 
 
 "One of the most important witnesses for the plaintiff was 
 a woman named Joan Lafi'an, who had been in Lord and 
 Lady Altham's service, and who was examined on the second 
 day of the trial. The child, according to her statement, was 
 about three or four months old when she came into Lord 
 Altham's service. A great part of her evidence related to the 
 separation between Lord and Lady Altham. That separation 
 took place very suddenly at Dunmain, and the occasion of it 
 was detailed by this witness upon her cross-examination. It 
 appeared that in the year 1717, a Mr. Thomas Palliser was 
 staying at Dunmain, of whose conduct Lord Altham enter- 
 tained suspicions, which were encouraged by the servants of 
 the house, who, for some petty reasons, had conceived a dislike 
 for Mr. Palliser. The evidence upon this point of the separa- 
 tion discloses such a curious state of society, that it is best to 
 give it as reported. The witness was asked if she knew 
 Colonel Palliser? 'Says she has never seen him but once. 
 Says she wishes his son Tom Palliser never had been at 
 Dunmain, for then the accident of the separation never had 
 happened. Says she remembers that the day his ear was cut 
 off, she had the child in her hand, and the child showed de- 
 ponent some of the blood which had fallen from Palliser's ear 
 on the ground; says he showed it by pointing his finger to 
 the ground, where some drops of blood were. She was asked 
 if Mr. Thomas Palliser saw the child ? Says he did. Says 
 that the occasion of my lord's cutting off Mr. Palliser's ear 
 was that some of the family had made my lord jealous of him, 
 and contrived that morning to get him into my lady's chamber, 
 when she was in bed and asleep, and then they brought my 
 lord, who, being by this stratagem confirmed in his suspicions, 
 ordered Tom Palliser to be dragged out of my lady's bed- 
 chamber by the servants, and with a sword was going to run 
 him through the body ; but the servants interposed, and begged 
 my lord not to take away Ms life, and only to cut off Ms nose or 
 one of Ms ears; and accordingly the huntsman was ordered to cut 
 off his ear, ichich he did. Says the servants kicked him down 
 stairs, and turned him out of the gate, and that this happened 
 upon a Sunday morning ; that my lady left Dunmain the same 
 day, and went to Boss.' The rest of this scene of the domes- 
 tic tragedy was given by the same witness upon her direct 
 examination: 'Says that she was present when my lord and 
 lady parted ; that she saw my lady at the door with the child 
 in her arms ; that my lord came out of the house in a great 
 
ANNESLEY V. EAKL OF ANGLESEY. 131 
 
 rage, and asked where his child was? and upon being told 
 that he was with his mother, he ran up to her and snatched 
 the child out of her arms; that my lady begged very hard 
 she might take the child along with her, but that my lord 
 swore he would not part with his child upon any consideration ; 
 that my lady, finding she could not prevail, burst out a-crying, 
 and begged she might at least give the child a parting kiss ; 
 that my lord with some difficulty consented, and then my lady 
 drove away to Ross. That as soon as my lady was gone, my 
 lord gave the child to deponent, with a strict charge to depo- 
 nent not to let my lady have any access to him ; but says that 
 notwithstanding these orders, some of the servants found means 
 to carry the child privately to Ross to see my lady, which, 
 when my lord was told of, he flew into a very great passion. 
 Says that the child was carried to Ross without deponent's 
 privity, for that sometimes deponent used to go to Waterford 
 to see a brother of hers who lived there, and some other 
 friends; and in her absence some of my lord's servants, for 
 the lucre (as she believes) of getting a piece of money from 
 my Lady Altham, took those opportunities to carry the child 
 to New Ross. Says that the Christmas Eve after the separa- 
 tion, the present Earl of Anglesey, who was then Captain 
 Annesley, was at Dunmain House, and not seeing the child, 
 said to deponent, Where is Jemmy ? or, where is my brother's 
 child? ffo>r did his mother behave at parting ivith him? To 
 which deponent answered that my lady had begged of my lord 
 very hard to have the child with her, whereupon the present 
 Earl made use of an extraordinary oath, and said that he 
 wished his brother had kept none of the breed, and that when he 
 turned away the mother he should have packed off the child, and 
 sent them both to the devil.' 1 All this was of great importance 
 as showing that the child must have been that of Lady Altham, 
 and that both Lord and Lady Altham evinced a care and ten- 
 derness for it, which was only explicable upon that ground, and 
 upon the ground of its being the heir of the house ; and accord- 
 ingly counsel for the defendant did his best to break down 
 Laffan's credit. The line of cross-examination was intended 
 to show, in fact, that Laffan had got into the hands of an 
 agent of the plaintiff, and that her whole story had been con- 
 cocted. In this attempt, however, counsel was baffled, and 
 though if certainly did appear that Laffan had had communi- 
 cations with the agent, still she persisted in asserting the truth 
 of her evidence. 
 
 " The next class of witnesses that were examined were brought 
 up to depose to the period from 1721 to Lord Altham's death. 
 Witnesses were produced who proved that they had known 
 
 k 2 
 
132 LORD BOWES. 
 
 Lord Altham during his successive stays at Kinnay in the 
 county of Kildare, Carrickduff in the county of Carlow — or as it 
 is invariably called in the old report of the trial, Catherlough — 
 and Dublin. All these witnesses deposed to the fact of Lord 
 Altham having had constantly with him a boy whom he 
 treated as his legitimate son, and of whom he frequently spoke 
 as being the heir to the title of Anglesey. One of these 
 mentioned that Lord Altham while at Carrickduff, 'used to 
 take the child with him to hurlings, and bought a little horse 
 for him to ride upon, and that the child was dressed very gay.' 
 During this time also Lord Altham provided for the child's 
 education, at some periods sending him to school, while at 
 another time he employed a tutor for him. One of the witnes- 
 ses, a Mr. Misset, had been at school with the boy in the county 
 of Kildare. We will quote a portion of his evidence, which 
 throws a curious light upon the history of the times. ' Says,' 
 so runs the report, ' he knew Lord Altham, when he lived at 
 Kinnay, in the county of Kildare, about two miles and a-half 
 from the place where deponent lives : says deponent, when 
 about seventeen or eighteen years old, went to school to a 
 place called Dowdingstown, and that there was a boy there 
 whom the scholars called Lord Altham's son. Deponent thinks 
 the child could not be less than six years old, and says he con- 
 tinued about a month there ; says the schoolmaster's name was 
 Bryan Connor ; that being a papist, he was persecuted by a 
 Protestant schoolmaster in the neighbourhood, who wanted to 
 banish him from those parts; that some of the neighbours, 
 being concerned that the poor man wbo had lived so long 
 amongst them should be banished or disturbed, requested my 
 lord to take him under his protection ; and deponent says, that 
 having had the honour to hunt some times with my lord, he 
 took the opportunity to speak to his lordship about it, to which 
 my lord answered that he had been spoken to on Connor's be- 
 half, and intended to send his son to school to him, which he 
 believed would hinder the other schoolmaster from disturbing 
 him; that, accordingly, at the request of the neighbouring 
 farmers, my lord sent his son to Connor's school.' 
 
 " We now come to that part of the case which treats of the 
 declining fortunes of young James Annesley. Lord Altham 
 came to Dublin with him in the year 1722 or 1723. To the 
 modern reader, the names of the places where this nobleman 
 successively took up his abode will seem very strange. Lord 
 Altham's first residence was in Cross-lane, his next in Frapper- 
 lane. At the present day, these are scarcely the places at 
 which one would expect to find a member of the peerage living: 
 but in the first place, Lord Altham's fortunes at the time appear 
 
ANNESLEY P. EARL OF ANGLESEY. 133 
 
 to have been far from flourishing; and in the next place, the 
 great changes which the last fifty or sixty years have wrought 
 in our city must not be forgotten. 
 
 "While living at Cross-lane or Frapper-lane, Lord Altham, ac- 
 cording to the evidence, sent his son to the school of one Carty, in 
 the latter place. His lordship, however, fell under the control of 
 Miss Gregory, whose name we have mentioned, and after awhile 
 quitted Dublin for Inchicore, leaving young James Annesley 
 in the care of a dancing-master named Cavenagh, who put the 
 boy out to board at a house in Ship-street. Here the child 
 seems to have been badly treated, for he applied for relief to an 
 old playfellow of his named Byrne, who was examined upon the 
 trial. Mr. Byrne's evidence was, that James Annesley had 
 come to him complaining of the treatment he had met in Ship- 
 street, and of Cavenagh's heartless conduct towards him. Byrne 
 advised him to go to Inchicore to his father, but this the boy 
 refused to do, on the ground of his fears of Miss Gregory. 
 Thereupon Byrne invited him to stay with him, and actually 
 supported him for six weeks, James Annesley sometimes sleep- 
 ing in the same bed with him, and sometimes in the hay- 
 loft attached to Byrne's father's house. Byrne further, at 
 the trial, identified the plaintiff as being the same person 
 whom he had years before known as James Annesley, and 
 whom he had supported in the manner which he had deposed 
 to. At this period, the fortunes of Lord Altham's son came to 
 almost their lowest ebb. Witness after witness was examined, 
 who had seen him, knowing who he was, wandering about the 
 streets of Dublin, starving, and glad to earn a few pence by 
 chance jobs. One gentleman, a Mr. Amos Bush, deposed that, 
 when in Trinity College, he had for some time employed him as 
 a sort of servant, and had discharged him on discovering his 
 rank. This witness also identified him upon the trial. Another 
 witness, Mr. Dominic Farrell, deposed that he had known Lord 
 Altham and also the boy at Dunmain, and was well acquainted 
 with him when he was in disgrace with his father, for he used 
 to come to visit deponent, and deponent often relieved and sup- 
 ported him, and recommended him afterwards to one Purcell, a 
 butcher, because deponent's wife grudged the child's being in 
 the house, and kept at deponent's expense, who was a sufferer 
 by his father for £56 : that finding the child was abandoned and 
 neglected, deponent went to my lord to Inchicore, and applied 
 to him, and told him the cruel and scandalous way his son was 
 in, and begged his lordship not to let the poor child continue as 
 a vagabond about the streets ; that my lord said he was in low 
 circumstances, and could not pay for his board, nor could he 
 take him into his own house because of Miss Gregory, for he 
 should have no peace if he offered to do it ; but my lord desired 
 
134 LORD BOWES. 
 
 deponent to support him, and he would not only pay deponent 
 the money he owed him, but thankfully repay what deponent 
 should supply his son with, whenever it was in his power. 
 Purcell, whom Farrell had mentioned, was also examined. He 
 related how the latter had recommended the hoy to him ' as an 
 object of pity.' Thereupon he took the lad home with him, and 
 presented him to his wife, who seems to have had much more of 
 the milk of human kindness in her than Mrs. Farrell, for she at 
 once proceeded to take the greatest care of the boy, and nursed 
 him through an attack of small-pox which he shortly afterwards 
 got. Soon after his recovery, the defendant, then Mr. Annes- 
 ley, came to see him, and the boy, though evidently in great 
 terror at his visit, spoke to him as his uncle. Very shortly after 
 this visit Lord Altham died, and, says the report of Purcell's 
 evidence, the child was told of the death of his father, and that 
 he was to be buried at Christ Church ; and the child went there 
 and saw the funeral, and afterwards came back all in tears. 
 Being asked when Lord Altham died, says in November, 1727. 
 That in about three weeks after my lord's death, Mr. Richard 
 Annesley (who was then called Lord Altham) came into the 
 market (where or near which Purcell lived), and sent a man, 
 who belonged to one Jones, a butcher, to deponent's house, to 
 desire that the child might come to the said Jones' house in the 
 market ; that thereupon the child came, and told deponent that his 
 mistress (meaning deponent's wife) wanted to speak with depo- 
 nent ; that deponent accordingly went home, and was told by 
 his wife that the child had been sent for to Jones' house, but 
 that she was afraid it was some trick of his uncle's to use him ill, 
 and that she did not care to let the child go to Jones' without 
 deponent. Deponent thereupon bid the man return and tell 
 them the child was coming, and then deponent took a cudgel in 
 one hand and the child in the other, and went to the said Jones' 
 house, where deponent saw the present Earl of Anglesey (who 
 was then in mourning), with a constable and two or three odd- 
 looking fellows attending about the door. There were hot 
 words between Purcell and the boy's uncle. The latter called 
 the boy a thief, and Purcell answered: 'My lord, he is no 
 thief ; you shall not take him from me ; and whoever offers to 
 take him from me, I will knock out his brains.' In the end, 
 Purcell and his cudgel prevailed over his lordship and his 
 myrmidons, and the boy was brought safely back to Purcell's. 
 house, where, however, he did not remain long ; for without 
 Purcell's knowledge he went away, being frightened at the 
 number of people whom he saw about the house, and fearing 
 lest he should be carried off by some of them." 
 
 "We shall not go further into the details of the scene which 
 followed. 
 
ANNESLEY t\ EAKL OF ANGLESEY. 135 
 
 In an unguarded moment, however, James Annesley was 
 caught. He was hurried on hoard a vessel lying in the Liffey, 
 which at once sailed for America, where the unhappy hoy was 
 sold as a slave to a planter. For thirteen years was the youthful 
 Earl of Anglesey, scorched hy the summer sun of America, 
 suhjected to the slave-driver's lash, and condemned to herd with 
 the black men of the line, and was often stabbed in his fruitless 
 efforts to escape from his tormentors. 
 
 Annesley, in his captivity, found more sympathisers than 
 one — he was loved by his master s daughter and by a slave of 
 the Irokese nation. 1 The warm blood of the Indian girl could 
 not brook the rivalry of the daughter of her slave-master. She 
 accused her of an attachment to Annesley, and then rushed at 
 her, and would have killed her on the spot, had they not been 
 separated by some persons passing at the moment. Seeing the 
 dreadful consequence of so rash an act, the slave girl rushed to 
 the brow of a precipice that overhung an adjacent torrent, and, 
 plunging herself in, ended at once her love and her life. Sold 
 to another master, the noble slave escaped at last, and found his 
 way to Jamaica, where he volunteered as a sailor on board a 
 man-of-war. There he made himself known to Admiral Vernon, 
 who then commanded the West Indian fleet. His exalted rank 
 was at once recognised, and the account of his case was written 
 home to the Prime Minister. He was discharged. His dis- 
 charge soon came to the knowledge of the Lord Anglesey, 
 and the false Earl prepared to defend his usurped title and pos- 
 sessions. The most eminent lawyers at the English and Irish 
 bars were retained to defend an action which had not even yet 
 been threatened. Annesley at length arrived, and Lord Angle- 
 sey felt that the hour of retributfcn had come ; he therefore re- 
 solved to give up the estate and retire to France, if he could 
 obtain from the plaintiff a certain sum of money. A circum- 
 stance, however, occurred that altered his resolution. Young 
 Annesley had been spending some time with a relative of his 
 near London ; it was on an afternoon early in May, 1742, he 
 accompanied a labourer named Egglestone on a poaching ex- 
 cursion, when the gun accidentally went off, and the unfortunate 
 Egglestone was shot dead. An opportunity now presented 
 itself to Lord Anglesey of getting his nephew hanged. He 
 was at once indicted for wilful murder at the Sessions House in 
 the Old Bailey, and no stone was left unturned by the Earl to 
 secure a conviction. The case occupied a considerable time, but, 
 after a patient hearing, and without leaving the box, the jury 
 brought in a verdict of not guilty. Eeturning to Ireland, 
 Annesley was recognised by many, who, on the trial, swore, as 
 we have said, to his identity. 
 
 1 State Trials, vol. xvii., p. 1450. 
 
136 LORD BOWES. 
 
 The case for the defendant amounted to a denial of the 
 truth of that of the plaintiff. It consisted of two parts : first, that 
 Lord and Lady Altham never had a child, and that all the evi- 
 dence upon this point given hy the plaintiff's witnesses was so 
 much perjury; — secondly, that the plaintiff, who called him- 
 self James Annesley, was no other than Joan Landy's son, who 
 had been adopted by Lord Altham after his separation from his 
 lady, and afterwards discarded by his lordship for his incorrigi- 
 ble idleness and bad habits. To sustain these two points a 
 number of witnesses were called, and certainly their evidence 
 afforded a startling contradiction to that of which we have at- 
 tempted to give a summary. People who, at the time of the sup- 
 posed birth, were living in the neighbourhood of Dunmain, came 
 forward to state that they had never heard of the event. Persons 
 who, according to their own statements at least, were frequent 
 and familiar guests at Dunmain while Lord and Lady Altham 
 lived there, swore that at none of their visits had they ever seen 
 the boy whom the plaintiff's witnesses had described. In vain 
 were the conflicting witnesses confronted with each other ; and 
 two, three, and even four of them placed upon the table together. 
 Each party abode unflinchingly by his or her original statement, 
 the plaintiff's witnesses recapitulating all that they had before 
 sworn to ; the defendant's witnesses repeating their negative tes- 
 timony, and stating besides declarations of Lady Altham herself, 
 showing that she was childless. In the course of the plaintiff's 
 case, several witnesses had deposed to the reputation of the 
 country about Dunmain being that an heir had been born to the 
 house of Annesley. Now the defendant's witnesses were as 
 ready on the other hand to swear that the reputation of the coun- 
 try was that Lady Altham never had a child. In fact, the con- 
 tradiction was as flat and as complete as it possibly could be. 
 But in addition to thus simply contradicting the plaintiff's case, 
 the defendant went further. It will be remembered that the evi- 
 dence had been that Lady Altham's alleged confinement had 
 taken place in March or April of the year 1715. This was about 
 the time at which the spring assizes of that year for the county 
 Wexford had been held, and at those assizes a rather remarkable 
 trial had taken place. Two gentlemen, Mr. Masterson and Mr . 
 Walsh, had been indicted for the offence of enlisting men for the 
 Pretender, the son of the dethroned James II. The year 1715, as 
 the reader will recollect, was that in which took place the Earl 
 of Mar's desperate attempt to restore the House of Stuart. The 
 two gentlemen who were thus indicted at Wexford were 
 acquitted, the Judge who tried them " not liking the evidence 
 against them," to use the expression of one of the witnesses in 
 the present case, The trial naturally excited a great deal of 
 attention in the county of Wexford, and of course during it the 
 
ANNESLEY V. EARL OF ANGLESEY. 137 
 
 court-house was thronged with spectators. Amongst these spec- 
 tators, according to the evidence for the defendant in the present 
 case, was Lady Altham, who, if the plaintiff's witnesses were to 
 be believed, was not at that time in a fit condition to leave her 
 house, or even her room. One of the defendant's witnesses even 
 went so far as to state her recollection of the manner in which 
 Lady Altham had gone to the court-house, and swore that 
 Lord Altham and Mr. Csesar Golclough had gone into Court 
 with her. Here, however, the evidence for the defendant utterly 
 failed. Not only did Mr. Kerr, the clerk, or as we should now- 
 a-days say, the Registrar, of the Judge of assize, state that he 
 had no recollection of having seen any ladies in Court during 
 the trial, but Mr. Caesar Colclough himself, who was examined 
 on a rebutting case gone into by the plaintiff, positively swore 
 that he did not " remember to have seen Lady Altham at that 
 assizes ; and that she could not attend that trial and sit near 
 him, but he must have seen her ; and believed, if she attended 
 that trial he should have known it." 
 
 " The examination of witnesses took up no less than ten days. 
 On the eleventh morning, Prime Serjeant Malone rose to address 
 the Court for the defendant. He did his duty in a manner fully 
 equal to his great reputation. His speech was a most masterly 
 review of the evidence in the case, and left no material point 
 untouched. It took four hours and a-half in the delivery, 
 having been begun at a quarter before nine, and having ended 
 at a quarter past one. He was followed by the other counsel 
 upon both sides, the general reply being of course left to the 
 plaintiff. 
 
 " On the twelfth day of the trial the Judges delivered their 
 charges ; that of the Chief Baron was cautious, dignified, and 
 impartial. Barons Mountney and Dawson took opposite views, 
 the former giving what was almost a direction to the jury to 
 find for the plaintiff, while the latter leant strongly in favour of 
 the defendant. At length the jury retired. They were absent 
 for two hours, and at the end of that time returned with a 
 verdict for the plaintiff." 
 
 In the following Hilary Term a new trial was moved for and 
 granted ; but before it came on to be heard, James Annesley 
 was released from all earthly anxieties, and found, let us hope, 
 in another world that happiness which, from the cradle to the 
 grave, was denied him in this. Eichard Earl of Anglesey 
 was now therefore in undisputed possession of the titles and 
 estates. 
 
 But his conduct to his wife was quite as atrocious as his 
 conduct to his nephew, and was on several occasions brought 
 under the notice of the Lord Chancellor. Years previous to 
 the death of his brother, the 4th Lord Altham, Richard Annesley 
 
138 LORD BOWES. 
 
 had married a lady named Anne Simpson, young — she was then 
 in her sixteenth year — extremely beautiful, and possessed of a 
 fortune of £40,000. She bestowed this fortune absolutely on 
 her husband. For eleven years they lived happily together; 
 she was recognised in society as his wife, and that recogni- 
 tion is to this hour a matter of record on the files of the Courts. 
 He had been engaged either as plaintiff or defendant in several 
 suits ; and in the progress of those causes it became necessary 
 for both to swear joint affidavits, in all of which she was recog- 
 nised as his wife, while his children — three daughters — he kept 
 at an expensive school in England. 
 
 Not far, however, from his mansion in the county of Wex- 
 ford lived a man named Donovan, the keeper of an unlicensed 
 ale-house, whose daughter captivated the affections of the Earl, 
 and they eloped together. In 1741 the Countess instituted a 
 suit against her husband in the Ecclesiastical Court, for cruelty 
 and adultery, and obtained, together with a decree for costs, an 
 order for alimony at £4 a-week until final sentence should 
 be duly pronounced. The Earl, having been served with a 
 monition, declined to obey the order of the Ecclesiastical Court, 
 and sentence of excommunication was therefore in due form pro- 
 nounced against him ; and an application was forthwith made 
 to the Chancellor, Lord Jocelyn, for a writ de excommuni- 
 cato capiendo for his arrest. This the counsel for Lord Anglesey 
 resisted, on the ground that being a peer he was privileged from 
 arrest, and the motion was in consequence refused. The Countess, 
 therefore, left penniless, gained nothing by the suit. Thence- 
 forward she received from the charity of the government a pen- 
 sion of £200 a-year charged upon the Irish establishment. The 
 Earl next resolved to break this marriage, on the ground that at 
 the time it was contracted he was already a married man, and 
 that the name of his real wife, by whom he had no children, was 
 Anne Pest, an English lady who had died in 1729, three years 
 after his marriage with Anne Simpson. In 1752 he married 
 his mistress Julia Donovan, and by her left at his death in 1761 
 a son Arthur, who had been born in 1753. A question arose on 
 the death of Earl Richard as to whether this Arthur was the 
 legitimate son of his father, and excited great public interest 
 during the four years in which it was pending in the Irish House 
 of Lords. That assembly came to a decision establishing the 
 marriage of Julia Donovan and the legitimacy of her son, who 
 accordingly, in 1765, took his seat as Viscount Valentia, Baron 
 Mountnorris, and Baron Altham. He then made a similar ap- 
 plication to the English House of Peers, to establish his claim 
 to the English Earldom of Anglesey ; but that House declined 
 to acknowledge his legitimacy, and so the anomaly arose that 
 while he was admissible as a peer in the peerage of Ireland, he 
 
LORD BOWES. 139 
 
 was, on the same evidence, refused admission amongst the peers 
 of England. 
 
 On the death of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Jocelyn, in 1756, 
 Chief Baron Bowes was promoted to the Chancellorship, and on 
 the 17th of August, 175S, was raised to the peerage with the 
 title of Baron Bowes of Clonlyan. That the mind of this Chan- 
 cellor, adorned as it was with many virtues, was yet darkened 
 by the dismal prejudices of the times, is too well remembered 
 to require proof. He laid it down as a legal maxim that every 
 person in the realm of Ireland belonged to the established 
 church ; and so expressed himself in a case that occurred in 
 1759, when a wealthy Catholic named Lawrence Saul was 
 indicted for having harboured a young lady who had sought 
 refuge in his house, to avoid being compelled by her friends to 
 conform to the established church. Lord Bowes is reported to 
 have said that "the laws did not presume that a papist had 
 existence in this country, nor could they breathe without the 
 connivance of the government." 
 
 In 1759, the city of Dublin was agitated by violent tumults, 
 in consequence of a proposal for a union between England and 
 Ireland. An enraged Protestant mob, rilling every avenue that 
 led to the houses of parliament, insulted the peers, and dragged 
 the Chancellor from his carriage, and obliged him to swear on 
 the spot that he would oppose with all his might every attempt 
 to promote a union between the two kingdoms. Conceiving 
 that an oath taken before themselves would not be binding on 
 the Chancellor's conscience, they stopped the Chief Justice, and 
 compelled him to administer the oath to Lord Bowes. 
 
 With the accession of George III., in 1760, a new era was 
 ushered in. The bight of liberty was then breaking on the long 
 night of religious intolerance, and in 1762 a bill was passed in 
 the Irish parliament, enabling Catholics to lend their money on 
 the security of real property. In the following year the Chan- 
 cellor, though his health was now beginning to give way under 
 the increasing load of years, spent much time in forwarding the 
 preparation for the press of a work with which every lawyer is 
 familiar, entitled The Irish Statutes. 
 
 In 1766, the House of Lords, acknowledging his long and 
 valuable services, resolved : — " That an humble address be pre- 
 sented to his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, requesting that 
 his Excellency will lay before His Majesty the request of this 
 House, that His Majesty will be graciously pleased to grant the 
 Lord Chancellor £1000 in addition to his customary allowance 
 as Speaker of this House, in approbation of his lordship's parti- 
 cular merit and faithful services in that high station." 
 
 Lord Bowes lived to an old age, and his death is thus recorded 
 on a mural slab in Christ Church cathedral : — " Sacred to the 
 
140 LORD LIFFORD. 
 
 memory of John Lord Bowes, late Lord Chancellor of Ire- 
 land, who died in the seventy-sixth year of his age, 22 July, 
 1767. This monument is erected hy his affectionate brother, 
 B/umsey Bowes, Esq." 
 
 The public character of Lord Bowes is drawn in flattering 
 terms by Mr. Francis Vesey, the learned editor of the Irish 
 Statutes. In his dedication of that great though imperfect 
 work to the Chancellor, he states that the laws " have been ex- 
 plained, enforced, and carried into execution by him for five- 
 and-twenty years, in the Courts of Exchequer and Chancery, 
 where his decisions have given authority to law." ..." Rare 
 and various were the talents," he continues, " with which his lord- 
 ship was blessed, and which made the High Court of Chancery 
 a terror to fraud, and a protection and comfort to every honest 
 man." With the death of Lord Bowes, the title, which was 
 limited " to him and the heirs of his body," expired. 
 
 105. A. D. 1767. — Lord Lifford, James Hewett. The 
 Hewetts appear to have been settled in the county of Cumber- 
 land early in the last century. William Hewett in 1744 was 
 mayor of Coventry in the county of Warwick, a city histori- 
 cally hostile to lawyers ; for it was there that that parliament 
 was held, in the reign of Henry IV., which was called the Parti- 
 amentum indoctum, or the unlearned parliament, because lawyers 
 were excluded from it. Nevertheless, James Hewett, who was 
 afterwards a distinguished lawyer, was born in that city in the 
 early part of the eighteenth century. His father seeing his 
 partiality for the law sent him to the bar, to which he was 
 called from the Middle Temple in 1742. He immediately 
 joined his circuit, upon which he soon took a leading place. 
 Nothing beyond the ordinary circuit business occurred until 
 1753, when the country was disturbed by many riotous assem- 
 blages unworthy of remembrance were it not for their cause. 
 That cause was the aversion felt by the lower orders of the 
 English people to the adoption of the Gregorian or popish 
 Kalendar, which was to them a dark and deadly sin ! The 
 people, whose theological and astronomical opinions differed 
 from those of their rulers, were resolved that the change should 
 not take place ; for they felt that, whatever that change was, it 
 must be for the worse, seeing that the Pope of Rome, to them 
 " the man of sin and son of iniquity " as they were wont to stigma- 
 tise Gregory XIII., was the person who first removed the Easter 
 festival so many days backward. The matter was discussed; 
 and, come what may, the churches must not be desecrated by 
 the observance of Easter on " the wrong day"! Furious riots 
 occurred, and the rioters arrested were cast into prison, there to 
 await punishment, if Mr. Hewett, on his own circuit at least, 
 
LORD LIFFORD. 141 
 
 could not successfully defend them. The assizes came on ; some 
 were acquitted, some found guilty ; and the bar on the circuits 
 had no reason to deplore the adoption of the reformed Kalendar ! 
 
 In 17-Jo Hewett became Serjeant, and in 1761 was elected 
 member of parliament for Coventry. He immediately joined 
 the ranks of the Opposition, then headed by William Pitt, the 
 able antagonist of that ministry whose policy in the end de- 
 prived England of her North American colonies. He frequent- 
 ly spoke in debate ; but his powers as a debater appear not to 
 have been of the first order. The Parliamentary Reports for 1765 
 contain a lengthened debate on the practice of the Attorney- 
 General proceeding by information rather than by the ordinary 
 process of indictment. Serjeant Hewett spoke in support of a 
 motion condemnatory of the practice, " but," the reporter sar- 
 castically adds, " in so cold a manner that the motion may be 
 said to have received no material support from his speech." 
 
 In 1766 William Pitt, who had been created Earl of Chatham, 
 was again in the ministry as Lord Privy Seal. In the same 
 year, Hewett was appointed to a Judgeship of the Court of 
 King's Bench in England, and some months after, through the 
 powerful interest of the Earl was created, on the death of Lord 
 Bowes, Lord High Chancellor of Ireland, with a peerage. The 
 Duke of Grafton, then Prime Minister, in speaking of this ap- 
 pointment, says : — " Lord Lifford accepts the seals with very 
 good disposition to discharge properly the great trust put into 
 his hands. His learning as a lawyer sanctioned our expecta- 
 tions. He was a true Whig, and bore a character to which all 
 parties gave their assent of respect ; and though his speeches in 
 parliament were long, and without eloquence, they were replete 
 with excellent matter and learning in the law." 
 
 The new Lord Chancellor was about to enter on the duties of 
 office at a time when the Roman Catholics of this country were 
 struggling with increased energies against the penal code, which, 
 long enacted, was now bringing to maturity its poisonous fruit. 
 Priests were still indicted "for that they, not having the 
 fear of God before their eyes, but moved by the instigation of 
 the devil, said Mass, and did other functions of a popish priest, 
 against the peace of our lord the king (George III.), and con- 
 trary to the statutes in that case made and provided." But 
 the Catholic people were as yet without leaders; and though 
 they did struggle, their voices were not united. A Catholic 
 Committee indeed was formed, and Lord Taaffe, one of their 
 body, accompanied by Dr. Carpenter, afterwards Catholic Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin, proceeded to London and waited on Lord 
 Lifford, for the purpose of enlisting, before he should have 
 crossed over to Ireland, his sympathies in their behalf. He had 
 long been hostile to the oppressive policy adopted by England 
 
142 LORD LIFFORD. 
 
 towards her North American colonies, and it was believed that 
 he was equally opposed to the penal code. On the 19th of 
 December, 1767, Dr. Carpenter thus writes to the Catholic 
 Committee in Dublin : — 
 
 "I have the express command from his lordship (Lord 
 Taaffe), to communicate the steps he has taken since the 12th, 
 the day of his arrival in London. The next day he waited on 
 your new Chancellor, Lord Liff ord, with whom he conversed for 
 a considerable time on the affairs of Ireland. He (Lord Taaffe) 
 assured him with his usual plainness and sincerity, that he had 
 quitted his family and his friends, and undertaken, at this ad- 
 vanced time of his life, a long and toilsome journey, with no 
 other view than to obtain some relief for his poor distressed 
 countrymen. He spoke very freely, as well as feelingly, to the 
 Chancellor of the rigour of the penal laws, and concluded with 
 an earnest request that he (the Chancellor) would use every 
 possible means of informing himself of the true state of the 
 country (Ireland). 
 
 " The substance of what the Chancellor said during the long 
 conversation was, that he was fully determined to open his ears 
 to any information necessary for the impartial administration 
 of justice ; that the refusal of granting any other security to 
 Catholics for money lent than a personal and precarious one was 
 both unreasonable and cruel, and that the government had re- 
 solved on a mitigation of the penal code." 
 
 Lord LifEord left, in a few days after this interview, for Dub- 
 lin; and yet so dismal was the feeling of prejudice that nothing 
 was done until 1771, when an Act was passed (11 & 12 Geo. III., 
 chap, xxi., sees. 1-5) enabling a Catholic to take a long lease of 
 fifty acres of bog, " and one-half an acre of arable land as a site 
 for a house, or for the purpose of delving for gravel or limestone, 
 for manure, next adjoining to such bog, and to hold the same at 
 such rent as shall be agreed upon between him and the owner of 
 such bog, for any term of years not exceeding sixty-one years, 
 the law made to prevent the further growth of popery notwith- 
 standing (sect. 5) : Provided always . . . that this Act shall 
 not extend to any bog lying within one mile of a town." 
 
 In the latter half of the nineteenth century it is difficult to 
 realize the severity of the penal code ; but, however difficult, 
 we shall yet be able to form some idea of that severity when we 
 reflect that such an Act was necessary, and that its concessions, 
 however trifling, were welcomed as a boon. 
 
 In 1773 the Chancellor presided in the Upper House, when 
 a bill was brought into parliament for the purpose of levying a 
 tax of two shillings in the pound on the income of Irish absentee 
 landlords, who should not reside in Ireland at least six months 
 in each year. The measure was exceedingly popular, and the 
 
LORD LIFFORD. 143 
 
 government, supporting it as an open question, rose greatly in 
 public favour ; but tbe violent opposition of the great landowners, 
 many of whom lived altogether in England, prevailed, and the 
 bill was rejected. 
 
 In 1777 the Chancellor was in his place in the House of 
 Lords when the Lord Lieutenant announced that an alliance 
 had just been formed between the rebellious American colonies 
 aud the French government ; and made an appeal for support to 
 His Majesty's faithful people of Ireland. In the month of 
 January, 1778, American independence was acknowledged by 
 France, and this acknowledgment was immediately followed by 
 a relaxation of the penal laws, and by the raising of an army of 
 "Volunteers." These, enrolled for the first time in Belfast, and 
 next throughout the whole of Ireland, amounted to over 40,000 
 men, unpaid, self-clothed, self-organised, and instructed in mili- 
 tary discipline by their own countrymen who had returned from 
 the American war. 
 
 The Yolunteers deserved well of the nation — their acts were 
 heroic, and the thanks of both houses of parliament were voted 
 to them. Amidst much that is dreary, amongst many of whom 
 we may well feel ashamed, their patriotism, their liberality, and 
 their moderation, shine forth conspicuously, and history points 
 to few bodies of men who equal, and to none who surpass, the Vo- 
 lunteers of Ireland ! Lord Lifford, however, was English in 
 his ideas, and was therefore unfavourable to the full develop- 
 ment of Irish nationality as advocated by them ; and his opinion 
 given to the Viceroy in 1779 was, that "for the present evils no 
 remedy can be found till the people of both kingdoms shall be 
 as one people under one king, one constitution, and with one 
 religion." 
 
 The Irish House of Commons had not as yet become free ; 
 and on the 17th of April, 1780, they negatived by a large ma- 
 jority the motion of Henry Grattan for a declaration of their 
 own rights. Two years of agitation followed, and it was during 
 these years that the American war had shaken the power of 
 England to its centre. 
 
 But we are departing from the history of the Chancellor to 
 the history of a great revolution. We shall merely observe that 
 on the 27th of May, 1782, the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of 
 Portland, proceeded in state from the Castle to the entrance to 
 the House of Lords, along streets which were lined on both 
 sides by regular troops in treble file, while the Volunteers with 
 their artillery, under the leadership of Napper Tandy, were sta- 
 tioned along the quays and commanded all the bridges. 1 His 
 Grace was accompanied in his state coach by the Earl of Charle- 
 
 1 General Evening Post, for 28 May, 1782. Library, T.C.D. 
 
144 XOKD LIFFORD. 
 
 mont, and Lord Westmeath ; the ceremonial we are told by Sir 
 Jonah. Barrington was gorgeous. His Grace having taken his 
 seat on the throne, the Lord Chancellor, standing on his right 
 hand, commanded the Usher of the Black Eod " to repair to the 
 Commons and acquaint them that it was His Grace the Lord 
 Lieutenant's pleasure that they attend him immediately in the 
 House of Peers." The Commons having come, they with their 
 Speaker were conducted to the bar with the usual ceremonies, 
 when His Grace announced the unconditional concessions made 
 to Ireland by the Parliament of Great Britain. The Lord 
 Lieutenant then withdrew, and the Lord Chancellor, " reported 
 His Grace's Speech, and the same being read it was ordered to 
 be printed." It was late when the House rose, and Lord Liff ord 
 as Speaker remained in his place to the last ; his feelings could 
 not be restrained, and he is recorded as the only individual who 
 in that moment of national exultation dared to raise his voice 
 against the rights of Ireland. "He seemed to apprehend that 
 the total abandonment of the old rules of Irish promotion was 
 unavoidable, and to foresee the invasion even of his own office, 
 the fortress of the English interest, by ambitious Irishmen." 1 
 
 Prom 1782 to 1788, the Lord Chancellor's name is uncon- 
 nected with any question of national importance. In the House 
 of Lords, indeed, and in Court, he is reported to have been assi- 
 duous in his attendance; but we do not find that he took a 
 leading part in any movement until the regency question of the 
 last-named memorable year. On that measure occurred the first 
 great divergence between the legislatures of England and Ireland, 
 a divergence which threatened for a moment to rend the Empire 
 in twain. The facts are these : — George III. in that year was 
 afflicted with an attack of insanity which unfitted him for the 
 transaction of affairs of state ; and to appoint a Regent became 
 therefore a duty incumbent on the parliaments of the two count- 
 ries. The parliament of England offered the regency, though 
 hampered with many restrictions, to His Royal Highness the 
 Prince of Wales ; but the Irish parliament, taking a different 
 course, created him Regent without any such restrictions. Reso- 
 lutions to this effect were carried in the Lords and Commons, 
 the Lord Chancellor with fourteen other peers dissenting ; and 
 on the 14th of February, his lordship, accompanied by a number 
 of peers, by the Speaker and many members of the House of 
 Commons, proceeded in state to the Castle, there to place the 
 Address in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant to be forwarded to 
 the Prince of Wales. But his Excellency declined either to 
 forward or even receive the document, on the ground that it was 
 unconstitutional and illegal. The Chancellor, who must have 
 
 1 Memoranda of Irish Matters (ed,. 1844), p. 34. 
 
LORD LIFFORD. 145 
 
 "been aware of the course about to be adopted, returned to the 
 House of Lords and there informed the peers how the address 
 had been rejected. 
 
 Lord Lifford had now in 1788 held the Seals for a space of 
 over twenty years, old age was creeping upon him, and it was 
 said that with the last day of the sittings after Trinity Term his 
 lordship would retire from the office he had so long and so ably 
 filled. On the 8th of July, when he had disposed of the last 
 case on the list, Prime Serjeant Fitzgerald rose, and is reported 
 to have addressed his lordship : — 1 
 
 " My Lord Chancellor, — In obedience to the unanimous 
 desire of the gentlemen of the bar, I beg leave to trespass for a 
 few moments on your leisure, and I cannot but hope to be par- 
 doned for the interruption. 
 
 " Convinced that your administration of justice has raised a 
 monument to your name and character which must call forth 
 the public gratitude and reverence while the laws of this country 
 shall remain an object of study and practice, we who have been 
 cherished, protected, and brought forward by your lordship, 
 who have been for more twenty years admiring observers of 
 great and conspicuous talents, wish to give some proof to pos- 
 terity that we were not insensible of our good fortune. We 
 have long wished for a portrait of your lordship ; permit us 
 then to entreat that you will comply with that desire in some 
 interval of leisure during your absence, and let it remain an evi- 
 dence with our successors how much we have been honoured 
 with your good opinion and regard ; for we are conscious that it 
 cannot be a tribute adequate to your virtues, or an attestation 
 necessary to your fame. No, we feel that the memorial worthy 
 of a wise and great magistrate must be written in characters far 
 more permanent and expressive : it must be written in his la- 
 bours — in the love of liberty — in the morals of a people — in the 
 blessings of equal law : that memorial it has, my lord, been 
 your peculiar felicity to acquire and to deserve ; may it be ours 
 that you long continue to adorn and to enjoy it." 
 
 The Lord Chancellor replied : — 
 
 " Mr. Prime Serjeant, — It hath ever been my ambition to 
 deserve and acquire the approbation and esteem of honourable, 
 able, and worthy men. I receive, therefore, the highest gratifi- 
 cation in this testimony which you afford me of my possessing 
 the good opinion and esteem of this intelligent and very respect- 
 able bar. I will endeavour to fulfil the request with which you 
 have honoured me in the best manner I can. It will add an 
 additional pleasure to the visit which His Majesty hath been 
 most graciously pleased to permit me to make to England ; and 
 
 1 Dublin Chronicle for 1788, July 5, p. 240. 
 L 
 
146 LORD LIFFORD. 
 
 in acceding to it, I have not only the gratification of complying 
 with your wishes, but also the hope that the portrait which, in 
 a manner so flattering to me, you desire, may remain beyond 
 my personal existence a memorial of the regard expressed by 
 the bar towards me, and of my warm affection and sense of 
 obligation towards them." 
 
 The Chancellor then left for England, and returned to his 
 Court in the following Michaelmas Term. During the succeed- 
 ing winter his health was much improved. 
 
 On the 20th of April, 1789, he entertained many guests at 
 a sumptuous banquet, at his residence in Upper Sackville-street. 
 His manner was light and airy, and on that evening he forgot, 
 amongst his friends, the cares and weariness of old age. The 
 next day he spoke in defence of the Lord Lieutenant in the 
 House of Lords, and then, returning to his home, was seized by 
 his death-sickness, a malignant sore-throat, which baffled all the 
 skill of his physicians. On the ,28th April, surrounded by his 
 family, he expired. The following paragraph, which appeared in 
 Walker's Hibernian Magazine, will' be read with interest : — 
 
 "April 28. At his lordship's house in Sackville-street, in 
 the 74th year of his age, the Eight Honourable James Hewitt, 
 Lord Viscount and Baron Lifford, of Lifford, in the county of 
 Donegal, Lord High Chancellor of Ireland, and one of his Ma- 
 jesty's Most Honourable Privy Council. His lordship was ap- 
 pointed Lord Chancellor in 1767, created Baron Lifford on the 
 9th of January, 1768, and was further advanced to that of Vis- 
 count on the 4th of January, 1781. His lordship was deemed 
 a lawyer of great professional knowledge. On the death of 
 Lord Bowes he was made Chancellor, which station he filled for 
 upwards of twenty-one years, and discharged its duties with un- 
 impeachable and unsuspected integrity." 
 
 His remains were laid in in the crypt of Christ Church 
 Cathedral, near those of his immediate predecessor. A monu- 
 ment was erected to his memory, soon after his interment, a 
 tablet of white marble on a variegated ground, ornamented with 
 the insignia of justice, above which is a medallion containing 
 his lordship's likeness in basso relievo. On the tablet is this 
 inscription: — "Near this place are interred the remains of James 
 Viscount Lifford, late Lord Chancellor of Ireland. The unani- 
 mous sense of a grateful nation is the best testimony of the un- 
 blemished integrity with which for the space of twenty-two years 
 he filled his high and important station; adhering to the maxim 
 he had originally assumed as a guide of his judicial decisions, 
 'be just and fear not.' What he was as a father, a husband, and 
 a Christian, is deeply engraven in the memory of his surviving 
 family and friends, and will avail long after this frail memorial 
 shall perish and be forgotten — a memorial which is rather in- 
 
LORD CLARE. 147 
 
 tended as a grateful and dutiful offering of conjugal affection 
 and filial piety than a record of his virtues to posterity — died 
 1789, aged 73 years." 
 
 It should not be omitted that Lord Lifford's scrupulous ho- 
 nesty was unquestioned ; and although his salary had been 
 largely increased by successive grants from the House of Com- 
 mons, yet he left behind him a very moderate fortune. He was 
 indeed more careful to support the dignity of his situation than 
 to realise a fortune, and exercised a constant hospitality, which 
 he conceived became his elevated position. He had the re- 
 putation of being a good Equity lawyer. The eases decided 
 by him were collected by his contemporary, Mr. Wallace, by 
 whose son they were published fifty years after his lordship's 
 death. 
 
 106. A. D. 1789. — Lord Clare. The ancestors of John Fitz- 
 gibbon Earl of Clare were illiterate peasants. His grandfather's 
 name was Thummoish O'Gribbaun (in English Thomas Fitz- 
 gibbon). He was married to a woman of extraordinary abilities, 
 whose acts and deeds were once the theme of universal admiration 
 in her native county of Limerick ; and even now, after a lapse of 
 so many years, her sayings are as household words amongst the 
 peasantry of the south of Ireland. Her name was Owenney 
 (in English Norah) Quain, and neither she nor her husband 
 ever spoke the English language. They had three sons — Ion 
 the eldest, John (the father of Lord Clare) the second, and 
 Thomas the third. John, inheriting the talents of his mother, 
 went to St. Omers' far-famed ecclesiastical seminary in France, 
 and there became, according to some, a Catholic priest, and ac- 
 cording to others entered upon the theological course, but was 
 never ordained. Be that as it may, he left the college and re- 
 turned to Ireland, and meeting his younger brother Thomas in 
 Cork, about to proceed to the same place and for a like purpose, 
 persuaded him to abandon that intention, and to become a Pro- 
 testant and study for the legal profession. Both returned to their 
 father's house and announced the resolution they had formed, 
 which so displeased the old man that he refused to receive them, 
 never became reconciled to them, and left to them at his death 
 no part of his very considerable property. The country people 
 shunned them as they would the plague, and thenceforward they 
 became marked people in the country. Hhymes were composed 
 on them in Irish, both cutting and sarcastic, one of which is still 
 remembered, and which, when translated into English, runs as 
 follows : — " There is no wrath that does not subside, but the 
 wrath of Grod against the children of Gibbon." 
 
 John was called to the bar in 1732, and Thomas in 1743. 
 The former, previous to his call, published a volume of Beports 
 
 l2 
 
148 LORD CLARE. 
 
 of cases argued and decided in the King's Bench, Exchequer, 
 and Exchequer Chamber in England — a work which augured 
 badly for the future career of the reporter. Thus Lord Hard- 
 wieke placed no reliance upon it, " although some of the cases 
 were," he said, " well reported there." His admission to the 
 bar was violently though unsuccessfully opposed by the ultra 
 Protestant section of the Benchers of the King's Inns Society, 
 inasmuch as he was known to be warmly attached to the faith he 
 had abandoned. In 1738 he was married, as appears by the 
 books of St. Peter's Church, to a Miss Eleanor Grove, but 
 neither are the places of residence nor the names of the parents- 
 of either party therein mentioned. 
 
 In 1748 his son John Fitzgibbon, the subject of this me- 
 moir, was born. At fifteen years of age he entered the Univer- 
 sity of Dublin, and with him — it was on the 6th of June, 1763 — : 
 entered Henry Grrattan — both destined to play in after years 
 important but widely different parts in their country's history. 
 Young Fitzgibbon was heir to a fortune of £5000 a-year, which 
 his father had realised ; but otium cum dignitate had no charm 
 for that young man whose ambition and abilities, whether for 
 his country's weal or his country's woe, subsequently raised him 
 to the lofty position he held in the State. In 1772 he was 
 called to the bar, and was in extensive practice in 1774, when 
 his father died ; but it was not until 1777 that he arrived at the 
 threshold of political life. In that year, John Hely Hutchinson, 
 Provost of Trinity College, and lately Prime Serjeant, one of 
 the most distinguished of the patriots, and who had unswervingly 
 supported the Catholic cause, was returned for the University of 
 Dublin. Few of the Provosts were more popular than he, even 
 though he had entertained the absurd idea of establishing- 
 dancing and riding masters on the staff of the university. This 
 project, however, happily fell through, owing to the general 
 ridicule with which it was received. A petition was presented 
 against Hutchinson's return, and Mr. Fitzgibbon was employed 
 as counsel for the petitioners, and conducted himself so much to- 
 the satisfaction of the constituency, that he was, on the unseat- 
 ing of Hutchinson, put in nomination and elected as their re- 
 presentative. 
 
 From the day on which he took his seat in the House of 
 Commons until the overthrow of the Irish Parliament he was 
 the unalterable enemy of his country and of her creed. The 
 word Catholic he expunged from his vocabulary — Catholics were 
 to him "papists," the Catholic clergy were "popish priests," 
 and Catholic churches "popish mass-houses!" The grandson 
 of Norah Quain affected to forget that his ancestors had been 
 more Irish than the Irish themselves. A great change was 
 now at hand ; the flag of England was then trailed along the 
 
THE VOLUNTEERS. 149 
 
 ground in America ; French ships swept through St. George's 
 Channel ; and the bewildered government committed the defence 
 of the Irish shores to the Irish Yolunteers. Sixteen thousand 
 stand of arms were presented to that national guard, and on the 
 9th of October, 1781, the thanks of the House of Commons was, 
 with one dissentient voice — that of John Fitzgibbon — voted to 
 the Yolunteers. But the cup of the wine of the wrath of God 
 was not yet drunk to the dregs by the humbled Crown of Eng- 
 land. On the 19th of the same month of October, Lord 
 Cornwallis surrendered with his army at Yorktown in America ; 
 disaster followed disaster in quick succession ; and it was now 
 plain that England could no longer trifle with her Catholic sub- 
 jects. A measure was therefore brought into parliament for their 
 relief ; but Fitzgibbon was opposed to its passing, and declared 
 that if that Act passed, the Act of Settlement was undone, and 
 the confiscated property of the nation would be thrown into 
 ■confusion. Alarm was at first created by this opinion, which, 
 however, on examination was found to be groundless. In com- 
 mittee, nevertheless, on the 21st of February, 1782, Fitzgibbon 
 supported the measure, with an insulting support, stating 
 that " whilst it would be improper to allow papists to become 
 proprietors of boroughs, there was no reason why they should 
 not possess estates in counties, nor why Protestant tenants hold- 
 ing under them should not enjoy the right of voting for Mem- 
 bers of Parliament." He gave a hollow support to Grattan's 
 motion for the Declaration of Rights, although on a former oc- 
 casion, in 1780, he had opposed a similar motion. 
 
 On the 20th of December, 1783, Mr. Fitzgibbon was ap- 
 pointed Attorney- General for Ireland, and immediately on his 
 appointment opposed a motion brought forward by Flood and 
 supported by Grattan, for leave to bring in a bill to rectify de- 
 fects in the parliamentary representation, which motion was 
 lost by a great majority. That the measure could meet with 
 aught but defeat can hardly be imagined, when it is remembered 
 that two-thirds of the House of Commons were the nominees of 
 the owners of pocket boroughs, the mere chattels of the great 
 Cromwellian and Williamite families. Exasperated by this 
 failure, an outrageous mob broke into the House, where they 
 created a great tumult, which was at length repressed, and the 
 Serjeant-at-Arms arrested two of the ringleaders, whom the 
 Attorney-General was directed to prosecute. Mr. Flood retired 
 in disgust to England ; and on his return, the following year, 
 introduced another Reform Bill, to be once again defeated. 
 An attempt was now made by Flood, Napper Tandy, and 
 others, to get up a national congress, by addressing circulars to 
 the high sheriffs, inviting them to convene meetings of their 
 several bailiwicks, for the purpose of electing delegates who 
 
150 LORD CLAEE. 
 
 should meet in Dublin ; but those functionaries were threatened 
 by the Crown with the penalties of the law if they should attempt 
 to do an act which was in direct violation of their duty. Few 
 of them had the hardihood to hold the required meetings. 
 Some delegates indeed were returned, and in October, 1784, met 
 in Dublin. Flood attended their sittings; but unfortunately 
 his deep-seated hostility to the Catholics caused many to secede 
 from the convention, which was soon dissolved. To make an 
 example for others, the sheriff of the county of Dublin was pro- 
 secuted in that year for complying with this writ of sedition (as 
 it was called) . He was summoned to show cause why an at- 
 tachment should not issue against him in the Court of King's 
 Bench. The matter was debated at great length, when, without 
 the aid of a jury, he was fined and imprisoned. Lord Charlemont, 
 though disapproving of Fitzgibbon's politics, pays what would 
 appear an unmerited tribute " to the spirit, and even the wis- 
 dom, with which he acted in his capacity of Attorney- General 
 on that occasion." The proceedings, however, against the 
 sheriff were animadverted upon in the House of Commons, and 
 a motion was made on the 24th of February to the effect that 
 " the proceedings of the Court of King's Bench, in attaching 
 the sheriff and punishing him, by sentencing him to be fined 
 five marks and imprisoned for a week, as for a contempt, was 
 contrary to the principles of the constitution, as depriving him 
 of his trial by jury, and was a precedent of a dangerous ten- 
 dency." 
 
 Mr. Curran, to whom Fitzgibbon was personally hostile, 
 rose to speak in support of the resolution, and perceiving that, 
 while he was speaking, the Attorney- General had fallen, or pre- 
 tended to have fallen, asleep on his seat, he thus proceeded : — 
 " I hope I may say a few words on this great subject without 
 disturbing the sleep of any right honourable member ; and yet 
 perhaps I ought rather to envy than blame the tranquillity of 
 the right honourable gentleman. I do not feel myself so hap- 
 pily-tempered as to be lulled to repose by the storms that shake 
 the land. If they invite rest to any, this rest ought not to be 
 lavished on the guilty spirit." 
 
 The Attorney-General replied with much warmth, and ac- 
 cused Mr. Curran of being a " puny babbler." The motion 
 was lost, and the ministry succeeded in defending the conduct of 
 their law officer in Ireland. 
 
 The Volunteers had been, in 1785, deserted by their aristo- 
 cratic leaders, and were daily falling, into disrepute. From the 
 first Mr. Fitzgibbon was opposed to that body, though he ap- 
 prehended, he said, no danger so long as they followed the 
 counsel of Mr. Grattan ; but he never would consent to arms 
 being put into the hands of the papists. "He (the Attorney- 
 
DUEL BETWEEN FITZGIBBON AXD Ct'ERAX. 151 
 
 General) was not a bigot, but be stated tbat tbe Irisb Protestant 
 who would admit Catholics to the use of arms was a dangerous 
 enemy to bis country." 
 
 Other questions agitated the public mind in 1785. Irish 
 vessels had long traded round the world. Now, however, the 
 British minister, Mr. Pitt, sought, by means of an Act of the 
 British Parliament to make it illegal for Irish ships to pass 
 eastward of the Cape of Good Hope or westward of Cape Horn. 
 This Act, which would have cut off Ireland from all the trade 
 of India, China, and other countries in the East, was denounced 
 by Mr. Grattan in one of the most powerful of his speeches; 
 and a bill was brought into the Irish Parliament to the same 
 effect, but was finally withdrawn. Mr. Flood then moved this 
 resolution : — " Resolved, That we hold ourselves bound not to 
 enter into any engagement to give up the sole and exclusive right 
 of the parbament of Ireland to legislate for Ireland in all cases 
 whatsoever, as well externally, as commercially and internally." 
 This motion was supported by the patriots, but opposed by the 
 Attorney-General (Fitzgibbon) , who stated that the resolution 
 of Mr. Flood was an insult to the parliament of Great Britain. 
 " If Ireland," he said, " seeks to quarrel with Great Britain, she 
 is a besotted nation. Great Britain is not easily roused, nor 
 easily appeased." Mr. Curran, whilst he spoke in favour of Mr. 
 Flood's resolution, passed some sarcastic observations on the line 
 of conduct adopted by the Attorney-General, and then followed 
 one of the scenes of eloquent recriminations to which the House 
 was so well accustomed. Mr. Curran's " declamation," observed 
 the Attorney-General, " in pouring forth his witticisms of fancy 
 was calculated rather for the stage of Sadlers "Wells than the 
 floor of the House of Commons. A mountebank, with but one- 
 half of the honourable gentleman's talent for rant, would un- 
 doubtedly make his fortune. However, I am somewhat surprised 
 he should entertain such a particular asperity against me, as I 
 never did him a favour. But, perhaps, the honourable gentle- 
 man imagines he may talk himself into consequence ; if so, I 
 should be sorry to obstruct his promotion : he is heartily wel- 
 come to attack me. Of one thing I only will assure him — that 
 I hold him in so small a degree of estimation, either as a man or 
 as a lawyer, and that I shall never hereafter deign to make him 
 any answer." Mr. Curran, in reply, said, amongst other things, 
 that he " would never be in a position to retort on the Attornej- 
 General that he gave expressions to witticisms of fancy." The 
 disputants adjourned from the House to Donnybrook-green, 
 there to settle their dispute after the fashion of that day, and, 
 though shots were exchanged, both parties returned " without a 
 scratch," as the reporter of the combat writes. Mr. Flood 
 meanwhile had withdrawn bis motion. 
 
152 I.OKD CLARE. 
 
 All this time the breach between the two countries conti- 
 nued to widen. The government had the power of pensioning 
 its supporters, and exercised that power, loading the pension- 
 list, for the benefit of the most worthless of the community, at a 
 time that the revenue of the country was unequal to its burdens. 
 A motion for liberty to bring in a bill to restrain the govern- 
 ment in the granting of pensions was accordingly brought 
 forward by Mr. Forbes, Member for Drogheda, but the At- 
 torney-General " opposed the motion, on the ground that it was 
 a direct and indecent invasion of the royal prerogative; that 
 the principle of the bill went to the most dangerous extent of 
 any bill that had ever come before parliament ; it went to rob 
 the Crown of its responsibility in the disposal of the public 
 money, and to convey it to that House, and even to the House of 
 Peers." Mr. Curran denounced the pension-list and the pen- 
 sioners, " for they toiled not, neither did they spin, and yet they 
 were arrayed like Solomon in all his glory." 
 
 In 1786 the Dublin Police bill was carried through parliament 
 by the Attorney-General, and gave an immense amount of patron- 
 age to the government. Alarming disturbances took place in the 
 same year in the south of Ireland, provoked, it was said, by the 
 oppression of the Protestant clergy and by the landlords. The 
 Attorney-General, in his place in parliament, blamed the latter 
 as the chief cause of the disturbances, and said, " he knew that 
 the unhappy country-people were ground to powder by relentless 
 landlords ; he knew that, far from being able to give the clergy 
 their just dues, they had neither food nor raiment for them- 
 selves ; the landlord grasped the whole, and sorry was he to add 
 that, not satisfied with the present extortion, some landlords had 
 been so base as to instigate the insurgents to rob the clergy of 
 their tithes — not to alleviate the distress of the tenantry, but that 
 they might add the clergy's share to the cruel rack-rents already 
 paid." Mr. Fitzgibbon then broughtin a bill " for the effectual 
 punishment of persons guilty of outrage, riot, and of illegal 
 combination, and of administering and taking unlawful oaths, 
 and for empowering magistrates to demolish Roman Catholic 
 mass-houses, whenever they were used for tumultuous assem- 
 blages." This clause, on the remonstrance of Mr. Grattan, 
 was withdrawn ; but the Attorney -General, however, "was free 
 to confess that wherever popish meeting-houses were made places 
 for combination, they ought to be prostrated." 
 
 Civilization in the last quarter of the last century was at an 
 ebb so low in Ireland, that it was without a parallel in Europe ; 
 and the trial of George Robert Fitzgerald, at the summer 
 assizes for the county of Mayo, in 1766, reveals a barbarism to 
 us almost incredible. The Attorney-General (Mr. Fitzgibbon), 
 
GEORGE ROBERT FITZGERALD. 153 
 
 having resolved to put down at once and for ever this lawless 
 state of the country, proceeded to Castlebar, there to conduct in 
 person the prosecution. The facts of this memorahle case, to 
 which we shall add a few particulars of George Bobert Fitz- 
 gerald's career, are briefly as follows : — 
 
 His father, George Fitzgerald, who was in the Austrian ser- 
 vice, was married to Lady Mary Harvey, daughter of the Earl 
 of Bristol. This family of the Fitzgeralds was famous for pro- 
 ducing characters that left the world in doubt whether they were 
 madmen or men of genius. And those who know anything of 
 the history of the Connaught circuit, during the last century, 
 must know what a singular man the uncle of George Robert 
 Fitzgerald was, whose wife was brought to trial for bigamy 
 as Elizabeth Duchess of Kingston. 1 George Fitzgerald was 
 the father of two sons, George Robert and Charles Lionel. 
 Their mother, Lady Mary, did not long live with her husband ; 
 she was too eccentric, and returned to her friends in England ; 
 and he, during the remainder of his life, lived with another 
 woman. George Robert, the eldest son and heir, was sent to 
 Eton, where he acquired the reputation of being " deeply read 
 and passionately fond of the classical authors." 
 
 He went, soon after leaving College, to reside with his father 
 at Turlough, and devoted himself while there to the manly sports 
 ■of the field. After a visit to Paris, he returned to Dublin, and 
 carried off the sister of Mr. Conolly, of Castletown, in the 
 county of Kildare, and married her. She was possessed of a 
 fortune of £10,000. 
 
 In Dublin he must have been the pest of society : besides 
 fighting a duel with John Toler (afterwards Lord Norbury, 
 Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas), he fired a pistol 
 at the Right Hon. Denis Browne, brother of Lord Altamont, 
 in the open day, in Sackville-street ; and on another occasion, 
 in the castle of Dublin, spat at John Fitzgibbon (then the 
 Attorney-General). Fitzgerald, in 1780, took part with those 
 who asserted the legislative independence of Ireland; and he 
 had joined the connexions of his wife and mother in bringing 
 about the great Volunteer movement. Still he was a most ex- 
 clusive Protestant, and it never entered into his calculations that 
 Ireland extended beyond the pale of his own religion ; for he 
 considered that the Roman Catholics had no more right to par- 
 ticipate in the independence he asserted for the country than 
 the Helots had to participate in the citizenship of Lacedsemon. 
 
 In 1783 his levities, quarrels, and wild doings, shattered the 
 nervous frame of his wife, and she sank in the bloom of youth 
 and beauty into an untimely grave. Her remains, followed by 
 
 1 State Trials. 
 
154 LOKD CLARE. 
 
 her frantic husband, were conveyed with much pomp and in the 
 depth of winter from Castlebar to Celbridge, in the county of 
 Kildare. Eeturning to Mayo, he insulted the leader of the 
 Connaught circuit, Serjeant Browne, and challenged his brother, 
 the Eight Honourable Denis Browne, to a duel in Westport. 
 When arranging the preliminaries, George Eobert fired at his 
 adversary, and missed him. Browne retreated into his house — 
 properly insisting that he would have nothing further to do 
 with an assassin. In the next year, 1784, he married the only 
 child and heiress of Mr. Yaughan, of Carrowmore, in the county 
 of Mayo. 
 
 Subsequent to George Eobert's marriage with Miss Oonolly, 
 a settlement was made by which, in consideration of a sum of 
 £8000 paid to his father, the latter assigned him a rentcharge 
 of £1000 per annum, and settled his whole estate on George 
 Eobert and on his issue male, and in default of such issue re- 
 mainder to his father absolutely. 
 
 Now it so happened that George Eobert had but one daughter 
 by his first wife, and there was no likelihood of issue by his second. 
 This state of things threw great power into the hands of the 
 father, and gave grounds for hope to his younger son, Charles 
 Lionel ; hence a jealousy between the two brothers, and a desire 
 on the part of both to secure a personal influence and control over 
 their weak and disreputable parent. Living beyond his income, 
 that parent failed to pay George Eobert his annuity of £1000 
 settled upon him, and an arfear of £12,000 in time accrued. 
 It appears from George Eobert's statement, which has not been 
 denied, that an amicable application was made to the Court of 
 Exchequer, that he, as having a prior claim to the other credi- 
 tors, should become eustodee of the estate until the debt was 
 paid, his father being allowed a certain sum for maintenance. 
 It also appears that subsequently the old man, instigated by her 
 with whom he lived, did his best to evade this arrangement, and 
 that in spite of the receiver, who was brought from Dublin to 
 collect the rents, the woman had the wit and management to 
 step in and anticipate the stranger with the tenants, and receive 
 all the proceeds of the estate herself. The father was assisted 
 by his second son, Charles Lionel, and by a Mr. Caesar French, 
 a county of Galway gentleman, and by Mr. Patrick Eandal 
 M'Donnell, who was a solicitor, and colonel of the Mayo Yo- 
 lunteers. 
 
 George Eobert had made his father a gift of a house near 
 Turlough, and fifty acres of land; nevertheless, the old man 
 threw himself into the power and under the influence of his 
 younger son, and executed long leases, and at low rents, to him 
 and to Caesar French. Hostile proceedings now became more 
 violent than ever, and conflicting notices were served, as to the 
 
GEORGE ROBERT FITZGERALD. 155 
 
 payment of rent, on the tenantry. Meanwhile Mr. French, 
 having got his lease, and being appointed receiver over the whole 
 property, sent a herd of cattle from the county of Galway to 
 stock his new farms. George Bobert seized the cattle. Csesar 
 French thereupon assembled a faction of his family, friends, and 
 followers in the county of Galway, some of them men of rank 
 and f orhme, to the number of 400, all well armed and equipped, 
 and proceeded to Turlough, where he encamped, determined, to 
 seize his own cattle, or take away an equivalent ; but the enemy 
 was not to be taken unawares, for George Bobert had removed 
 his stock, and had so well secured himself and his property, 
 that all the Galway forces could do him no injury. Csesar 
 French and his forces, having remained some time unmolested 
 and idle, found it necessary, in consequence, to retreat, when 
 George Bobert sallied forth, hung on their rear, and succeeded 
 in cutting off the baggage, while the main body of the Galway- 
 geans was a mile ahead. Meanwhile a scout came up and in- 
 formed French of the attack, who at once collecting the elite of 
 his mounted troops rushed back to the rescue, and found Fitz- 
 gerald dragging off his booty. A battle ensued, and George 
 Bobert, after a short encounter, finding that he and his people 
 were getting the worst of it, abandoned his prey and his prison- 
 ers of war, and retreated in good order to Turlough. 
 
 The father, having thus thrown himself into the hands of the 
 enemies of his eldest son, found the latter ready and able to re- 
 taliate. George Bobert refused to pay the stipulated mainte- 
 nance, and old Fitzgerald, in consequence, filed a bill against 
 him in the Court of Chancery. But George Bobert, disregard- 
 ing the forms of that high Court, gave himself little trouble 
 about its decrees. A writ was issued, empowering the father to 
 arrest his son until the maintenance was duly secured to him. 
 To attempt taking him at Turlough was madness ; he therefore 
 waited until the Ballinrobe summer assizes of 1783, when, 
 watching his son, and seeing him on the grand jury, he in- 
 structed his counsel to apply to the Judge for liberty to arrest 
 him there, inasmuch as it was impossible to so anywhere else. 
 This the Judge granting, the old man and his younger son, 
 Charles Lionel, proceeded to the grand jury-room to make the 
 arrest, when lo ! he was gone ; for he had had intimation of 
 what was going on in Court, and had slipped out of the room, 
 and made his escape to Turlough as best he could. 
 
 And now George Bobert, having been informed that his 
 father intended leaving for Dublin at the close of the assizes, 
 waylaid him on the road, and carried him by force to Turlough, 
 where he kept him imprisoned in a fort, guarded by a well-armed 
 troop of 200 men, with the view of preventing his making leases 
 at an undervalue of the lands. For this act, the Solicitor- 
 
156 LOKD CLARE. 
 
 General, Hugh Carleton, who went as locum tenens Judge of 
 Assize, spring, 1784, sentenced him to be fined £1000, and im- 
 prisoned for three years. 
 
 George Eobert, soon after liberated through the influence of 
 Mr. Conolly, refused to give up his father, and accordingly his 
 brother, Charles Lionel, brought the matter under the notice of 
 the government, which gave orders for his instant release. To 
 back those orders, a well-organized army, under the command of 
 Major Longfield, received the route from Dublin to Castlebar ; 
 but George Robert spiked all his cannon on the fort, and, taking 
 his father with him, retreated towards Sligo, being pursued by 
 the Mayo Volunteers, under the command of his hated antago- 
 nist, Patrick Randal M'Donnell. He hid himself and his pri- 
 soner in a small island off the bay of Sligo. Here his father, 
 desiring to regain his liberty, proposed to his son that if he 
 would pay £3000 to clear his debts, and give him a small yearly 
 stipend, he would convey to him the reversion in the estate, and 
 exonerate him from all blame as to his forcible detention. To 
 this George Robert assented, and they proceeded by unfre- 
 quented roads to Dublin ; but the father, as soon as he was 
 placed in his old lodgings in Castle-street, absolutely refused to 
 perfect the deeds he had agreed to. 
 
 We have mentioned Patrick Randal M'Donnell. Bitter 
 enmity had sprung up between him and George Robert Fitz- 
 gerald, for whom in their many antagonisms he had shown 
 himself more than an equal match. Accordingly, in self-defence, 
 and to retaliate on a foe from whom he had suffered so many 
 defeats, George Robert looked about for an ally, and not finding 
 any Irishman able and willing to throw in his lot with him, in- 
 vited an English attorney, named Timothy Brecknock, to be his 
 law adviser and companion; and within the compass of the 
 British isles he could not have selected a more extraordinary 
 or more dangerous associate. 
 
 Timothy Brecknock, son of the Protestant Bishop of St. 
 David's, had been a student of Jesus College, Oxford, and of one 
 of the English Inns of Court, for he was destined in early life 
 for the bar. He had changed his mind, however, and finally 
 became an attorney : a profession to which he was a disgrace, 
 for he gloried in tricks, in falsehoods, and in evasions unworthy 
 of either of the great branches into which the profession of the 
 law is divided. _ And yet Brecknock was a man of ability, and 
 of great dexterity in the defence of prisoners ; and as his mis- 
 guided abilities were the cause of the ruin of George Robert 
 Fitzgerald, and of his own, we think it may be well to turn 
 back for a moment, and relate an anecdote of his earlier 
 life. 
 
 A man had been committed to the Old Bailey for highway 
 
GEORGE ROBERT FITZGERALD. 
 
 robbery, and there was every reason to believe, from the credi- 
 bility of the witnesses, that the prisoner was indeed a knight of 
 the road. Brecknock waited upon him in prison, and stated 
 that he was ready to become bis counsel, but required that he 
 should, in the first place, confess to him honestly, whether or not 
 he had committed the crime imputed to him. This the fellow 
 at once did. He stated that he had stopped a gentleman, tra- 
 velling in his chariot, at half-past eleven o'clock at night ; that he 
 had robbed him of thirty-seven guineas, but not of his watch, as it 
 was not his practice to meddle with such discoverable things ; 
 that, as it was a bright moonlight night, he had taken the pre- 
 caution of wearing a crape mask, but that it unfortunately fell 
 off when he was in the act of forcing open the chariot door, and 
 that he was therefore apprehensive lest one or both of the gen- 
 tleman's servants had remarked his features ; that after he had 
 effected the robbery he rode away on his own charger, but finding 
 that the coachman had mounted one of the carriage horses, and 
 was stoutly pursuing him down a lane, he leaped over a paling 
 which was at the end of it, but which the draft horse was unable 
 to clear, and that in this way he had got into a gentleman's de- 
 mesne, and thence, leaving his horse after him, escaped on foot 
 to London. The horse, knowing the road, returned to his own 
 stable. In the course of five weeks afterwards he was riding the 
 same animal through Whitechapel, when he was recognised by 
 the footmen of the gentleman whom he had robbed, was ar- 
 rested, and committed to prison. This was the substance of his 
 confession. 
 
 The day of trial came on, and Brecknock appeared for the 
 prisoner, having received one hundred guineas to defend him. 
 The witnesses for the prosecution unhesitatingly swore to the 
 identity of the prisoner. But Brecknock, above such paltry de- 
 fences as an alibi, et hoc genus omne, had everything for several 
 weeks prepared ; false almanacs were scattered all over the city, 
 in every neighbouring public-house and inn ; he had had the 
 true almanacs removed and replaced by incorrect ones, in which 
 the age of the moon was altered, and by which it appeared that 
 the moon did not rise on that night until three o'clock in the 
 morning, three hours and a-half after the robbery ; while, in 
 fact, as would have appeared by true almanacs, the full moon 
 had risen at seven o'clock on that evening. The jury had placed 
 before them what appeared to be a correct almanac, and, of 
 course, believing that the night was too dark for recognition, 
 acquitted the prisoner. A few days afterwards the imposition 
 was discovered, but the highwayman was again on the road, and 
 of course could not be tried a second time for the same offence, 
 and Brecknock " was not answerable for the misprints in the 
 almanac." 
 
158 LORD CLAKE. 
 
 The escape of this malefactor was the talk of London. 
 Brecknock's ability as " a rogue and an advocate" was in every- 
 body's mouth ; and the most virtuous gave the learned scoun- 
 drel credit for his ingenuity. Brecknock next became known 
 by his writings ; and in the midst of the doubtful notoriety 
 which he had acquired, George Eobert Fitzgerald arrived in 
 London, and pressed him to accompany him to Ireland, there to 
 protect both himself and his property from the machinations of 
 his brother and of Patrick Randal M'Donnell. Brecknock ac- 
 cordingly set out for Ireland, and arrived at George Eobert 
 Fitzgerald's residence in Dublin within a fortnight after he 
 had left London. 
 
 Before proceeding to relate the trial of Fitzgerald, we have 
 to bring on the stage another individual connected with the fate 
 of that wild and wicked man. This was Andrew Craig, or, as 
 he was called in Mayo, Scotch Andrew ; for the Connaught 
 people, not being able to distinguish the dialect of the north- 
 east of Ireland from that of Scotland, assumed that he was 
 Scotch, though in reality he was a native of Carrickfergus. He 
 was an intelligent young fellow, and early in life had been ap- 
 prenticed to a blacksmith ; but, disliking all restraint, ran away 
 from his master, after having acquired a very superficial know- 
 ledge of farriery, of which notwithstanding he availed himself 
 so well, that he was frequently employed in the capacity of 
 stable-boy, groom, and jockey. He had been in the employment 
 of several families in the north of Ireland, and thence passed 
 into the service of George Eobert Fitzgerald, who perceived in 
 him a daring boldness, a savage ferocity, a temper that would 
 lead him to anything, however cruel, and an insatiable thirst for 
 blood. 
 
 Having thus told who the leading characters in Fitzgerald's 
 service were, we shall now proceed with our narrative. 
 
 Shortly before the 21st of February, 1786, Patrick Eandal 
 M'Donnell was passing close to Turlough, from Castlebar to his 
 residence, Chancery Hall, when he was fired at and wounded in 
 the leg. Escaping, however, with his life, he swore informations 
 against a retainer of Fitzgerald's named Murphy, who was ac- 
 cordingly arrested and confined in jail, but who was finally dis- 
 charged without having been brought to trial. And now it 
 came to Fitzgerald's turn to act. Taking Murphy's case in 
 hand, he caused informations to be drawn up and sworn before 
 Mr. O'Malley, a magistrate, against M'Donnell and others, for 
 an assault committed on Murphy, and upon these informations 
 procured warrants to issue for the committal of the parties ac- 
 cused ; but these warrants could not be executed for some time, 
 owing to M'Donnell's taking the precaution of confining himself 
 to his house in Castlebar. At length he ventured to Chancery 
 
TRIAL OF GEORGE ROBERT FITZGERALD. 159 
 
 Hall, and on his return the same evening he was seized by Fitz- 
 gerald's men, and brought, together with his followers, Hipson 
 and Gallagher, prisoners to Turlough House, where he was kept 
 until the following morning, when the three were sent forward 
 towards the jail of Castlebar under a strong escort, of whom 
 Scotch Andrew was the leader. M'Donnell was mounted, and 
 a man led his horse, while Gallagher and Hipson were tied 
 together. Not far from Turlough, and while passing along the 
 park, shots were fired from the other side of a wall at a place 
 called Gurth-ne-fullah. The cry of a rescue was at once raised 
 by Fitzgerald's party, and then, by the orders of Andrew 
 Craig, the prisoners were fired upon. Hipson fell dead on the 
 spot, and M'Donnell was wounded in the arm. Scotch Andrew 
 then came up, and M'Donnell, in piercing tones,' implored of 
 him to spare his life, and promised him in return one hundred 
 acres of the greenest land on his estate. " Eemember, Andrew," 
 said he, " lif e is all I ask — life — life — and you will recollect this 
 blessed act when you yourself are dying." 
 
 " If you were my mother," replied the fiend, " you shall have 
 the contents of this," at the same instant discharging both bar- 
 rels, the muzzles of which all but touched the body of the un- 
 happy man. In a moment M'Donnell lay dead at his feet. 
 Gallagher, the other prisoner, was slightly wounded, and was 
 afterwards taken to Turlough House. Now all this, it was 
 said, was done by the advice of Brecknock, who foresaw that 
 M'Donnell's friends would come out from the town, which was 
 but three miles off, and rescue him out of their hands; and 
 he, from some confused notion of the law, advised that if the 
 prisoners were in custody of the guard, the guard were jus- 
 tified in shooting them in case of an attempted rescue ; and he 
 Tead to Fitzgerald, in support of this proposition, an extract 
 out of some book on criminal law. 
 
 On the 10th of June, 1786, the trial for this murder com- 
 menced before Chief Baron Yelverton and Baron Power. The 
 Attorney-General, with Messrs. James O'Hara, Francis Patter- 
 son, Uliek Burke, and St. George Daly, appeared as counsel for 
 the prosecution; while Messrs. Stanley, Colbeck, Blossett, 
 George Joseph Browne, Owen, and James Darcy defended the 
 prisoner. 
 
 Fitzgerald was arraigned, " for that he, with another, not 
 having the fear of God before their eyes, but, being moved by 
 the instigation of the devil, did, on the 21st of February, 1786, 
 of his malice prepense, wilfully, traitorously, and feloniously 
 provoke, stir up, and procure one Andrew Creagh, otherwise 
 Craig, and a number of others (some of them at present un- 
 known), to slay and murder one Patrick Eandal M'Donnell, 
 and one Charles Hipson, then and there subjects of the king, 
 
160 LOKD CLARE. 
 
 and who, by the aforesaid provocation, stirring up, and procure- 
 ment, were assaulted at Gurtnefullagh, with certain guns of the 
 value of five shillings, each and every of the said guns being 
 charged with gunpowder and leaden bullets, and several mortal 
 wounds inflicted on them, of the depth of four inches, and the 
 breadth of half an inch, contrary to the peace of our said lord 
 the king, his crown, and dignity, and against the form of the 
 statute in that case made and provided, of which mortal wounds 
 they then and there instantly died," &c. 
 
 Mr. Stanley objected to the prisoner at the bar being tried 
 for provoking and stirring up others to commit murder, until 
 these were first tried and found guilty of the murder. Mr. 
 Fitzgerald was about being tried as an accessory before the 
 fact, and that before the conviction of the principal. Even in 
 cases of high treason, where accessories are principals, the 
 principal must be tried before the accessory, and, as soon as the 
 principal is convicted, then the accessory is tried as a principal. 
 
 The Chief Baron confessed that he felt some difficulty on the 
 question, whether Mr. Fitzgerald's offence as laid in the indict- 
 ment was an accessorial offence, or a distinct and substantive one. 
 If the latter, there was no objection to the trial's proceeding ; but 
 if his offence were only accessorial, then he ought not to be put 
 on his trial until the principals were convicted, and therefore, he 
 entreated the Attorney-General, lest any room should be left 
 for doubt, to consent to discharge the jury in this case, and to 
 try one of the principals first. 
 
 The Attorney-General said that the offence for which the 
 prisoner was indicted was made a distinct substantive offence. 
 The Act of Henry YII. goes so far as to make the procuring 
 of the death of a subject tantamount to procuring the death of 
 the king. So that the accessory becomes, as it were, a principal 
 in the same way as he would in high treason. 
 
 The Act does not declare the crime of murder to be high 
 treason, but attaches the penalties of high treason upon the 
 persons of those who shall be convicted of the offence. Suppose 
 the party committing the murder to be an idiot or lunatic, or 
 suppose him not amenable — suppose that he is killed in the 
 affray, will it be contended that the man that incited the com- 
 mittal of the murder is not. to be tried at all ? But now the 
 prisoner has been given in charge to the jury, and he must be 
 either convicted or acquitted, and he should have made this ob- 
 jection before he was given in charge, and by permitting himself 
 to be given in charge he has waived the objection. 
 
 The Court then ruled with the Attorney- General, and the 
 case proceeded. 
 
 Mr. St. George Daly opened the indictment, and the Attor- 
 ney-General stated the case. The two important witnesses- 
 
TRIAL OF GEORGE ROBERT FITZGERALD. 161 
 
 against Fitzgerald and Brecknock were Andrew Gallagher, 
 one of M'Donnell's party who had escaped, and Scotch Andrew. 
 Gallagher deposed that, on the night on which he (along with 
 M'Donnell and Hipson) was brought to Turlough, and confined 
 in a room over the stairs, he overheard, through a broken pane, 
 Fitzgerald and Brecknock conversing and giving directions to 
 the men, and that one of the directions was, " that if they saw 
 any rescue, or chance of a rescue, to be sure to shoot the prison- 
 ers and take care of them ;" that when these orders were given, 
 Fitzgerald said to Brecknock, " Ha ! then we shall soon get 
 rid of them now ;" and Brecknock replied, " Oh ! then we shall 
 be easy indeed;" and that after the guard was arranged, Fitz- 
 gerald called out to Scotch Andrew, " Andrew Craig, be sure 
 you kill them, do not let one of the villains escape," 
 
 Scotch Andrew next ascended the witness-table, and when 
 this cold-blooded murderer made his appearance as an approver, 
 a shudder seemed to pervade the entire crowd. Nothing daunted, 
 however, he gave his testimony with the coolest effrontery. He 
 not only corroborated Gallagher's evidence, but also swore to the 
 private directions given by the prisoner Fitzgerald, as the party 
 was moving away from Turlough House. He then swore that 
 the plan chalked out for his victims' destruction was this : to 
 charge a gun with snipe shot, and then to send on a man with 
 it, who should fire from the park wall, making no distinction 
 between friend or foe, as the shot would smarten them up to 
 their business, and could do little harm to their party, whilst 
 some of them might think it a real rescue. This plan, he stated, 
 was accordingly acted upon. He next admitted, without a 
 shadow of remorse for the terrible deed, that he himself shot 
 M'Donnell through the head, as he lay maimed and defenceless 
 on the bridge of K-ilnecarra. 
 
 His statement was strengthened by the evidence of another 
 of the accomplices, as well as by. that of the magistrates who 
 had taken his voluntary confession, immediately after his trans- 
 mittal from Dublin ; and this closed the evidence for the pro- 
 secution. 
 
 For the defence three warrants, signed by Mr. Bollingbroke 
 and Mr. O'Malley, against M'Donnell, Hipson, and others, and 
 directed to "William Fulton specially, were put in evidence, with 
 a view to show that the murdered men had been legally in the 
 custody of Fulton. 
 
 The Eev. Mr. Henry, the Presbyterian minister of Turlough, 
 now came forward to prove what he was pleased to designate 
 the insolence of Gallagher and Hipson on their being arrested 
 and conveyed to Turlough. He also swore that accommodation 
 and refreshments were offered to them ; and that although he 
 
 II 
 
1G2 LORD CLARE. 
 
 was up early on the morning of what he termed the accident, he 
 had heard no directions given to the guard. 
 
 He was followed by a man named Love, whose testimony 
 was that he saw about twelve armed followers of M'Donnell in- 
 side a wall adjoining Gurtnefullagh, early on the fatal morning, 
 and that he heard them state, as he lay hidden behind a thorn- 
 bush, that if M'Donnell came they would soon free him by 
 shooting Fitzgerald. 
 
 The defence closed, and the Chief Baron charged the jury 
 with much ability. He was followed by Baron Power, whose 
 great information as a criminal lawyer gave weight to every re- 
 mark that fell from him in his lengthened charge. SufSce it 
 here to say, that the bench conducted the trial with dignity and 
 temper. But Mr. Fitzgibbon surpassed himself in acerbity and 
 flippancy. On one occasion he so far forgot himself, or rather 
 his station, as to call Mr. Stanley (the leading counsel for Fitz- 
 gerald) Mr. Tautology Puzzlepate. Stanley retorted, and the 
 law lost much of its dignity when two such men — two leaders in 
 the profession — were allowed thus to exercise their wit in the 
 presence of the representatives of justice, at that awful moment 
 when the grave was opening beneath the feet even of a guilty 
 fellow-creature. The jury convicted the prisoner, and he was 
 at once executed. 
 
 Brecknock was next put on his trial, the Attorney- General 
 prosecuting. The case against him was, that it was he who had 
 advised George Eobert Fitzgerald to entrap M'Donnell and 
 Hipson into his power by means of the warrants granted for 
 their arrest, and that it was he who had planned the mock 
 rescue, and had advised that M'Donnell and his party should be 
 shot if a rescue were attempted. The jury found him guilty, 
 and he was hanged on the next day. 
 
 The blood-stained Assizes at Castlebar having terminated, 
 Fitzgibbon resumed the cares of government. In the month 
 of August, 1786, he spoke in the House of Commons on the 
 tithe question, admitting the evils that arose from absentee rec- 
 tors, pluralist parsons, and merciless tithe proctors. He deplored 
 the system, and regretted that " the clergy " had caused one hun- 
 dred and twenty processes to be issued against the Catholic pea- 
 santry of the county in Limerick alone. In the regency question 
 of 1789 Fitzgibbon took a leading part against those who shared 
 in the opinion that the Prince of Wales should as Regent be in- 
 vested with the plenitude of royal power. We have already 
 told how the Viceroy declined to forward the almost unanimous 
 address of both Houses. Fortunately the threatened disruption 
 of the two kingdoms came to an end by the recovery of the king: 
 " for in those days the king lifted up his eyes to heaven and his 
 
RECOVERY OF GEORGE III. 163 
 
 senses were restored to him, and he blessed the Most High, and 
 he praised and glorified Him that liveth for ever and ever ;" 
 *" and his nobles and his magistrates sought for him, and he was 
 restored to his kingdom, and greater majesty was," as in the 
 -days of Nebuchadnezzar, " added even unto him." His Majesty 
 went in state, surrounded by his court and his ministers, to St. 
 Paul's, " to magnify and glorify the king of heaven, because 
 those that walk in pride he is able to abase." 
 
 But the recovery of the king might be followed at any mo- 
 ment by a relapse, and now was the opportunity for preventing 
 a recurrence of the regency address and of any similar disputes. 
 Mr. Fitzgibbon was resolved to break down all opposition in 
 the House of Commons, and to do this squandered £500,000 
 of government money in bribery — open, shameless, and bare- 
 faced. Under his advice, boroughs and parts of boroughs, 
 votes, titles, and peerages were disposed of at a regular 
 tariff in the open market, while the proscription of enemies 
 and the loss of place and preferment was to go hand-in-hand 
 with the reward of service. The Duke of Leinster was then 
 Master of the Polls, and His Grace affixed his name to a solemn 
 declaration (signed by twenty peers and thirty-seven common- 
 ers, who had joined in the address to the Prince of Wales), 
 binding themselves to make government impossible should the 
 viceroy venture to punish any of them for their late vote, by loss 
 of office or place. Fitzgibbon was, however, not to be intimidated. 
 The Duke of Leinster was at once dismissed from the Polls; 
 William Ponsonby, brother of George Ponsonby (afterwards Lord 
 Chancellor) was also dismissed from an office which he held, and 
 a dozen other high officials were treated in like manner. The 
 pension list at the same time was swelled to £80,000 a-year. 
 
 Fitzgibbon, in the universal desire for place, was not un- 
 mindful of himself. The increasing years of Lord Lifford, his 
 debility, and rumoured resignation, were not unheeded by the 
 Attorney-General, who accordingly, when in London, called on 
 Mr. Pitt and on the Lord Chancellor of England in reference 
 to the matter. This appears from the following extract, taken 
 from Mr. Fitzgibbon's letter to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 
 the Marquis of Buckingham, on the subject : — 
 
 " No. 5, Arlington-street, London, 
 " 6th Oct., 1788. 
 
 " My dear Lord, — Immediately after my arrival in England 
 I saw Mr. Pitt, and mentioned to him that I had your Excel- 
 lency's authority to say that Lord Lifford had, a very few days 
 before he left Ireland, intimated a wish to resign the Great Seal. 
 Under the impression of the opinion you were so good to give 
 
 M 2 
 
164 LOKD CLAKE. 
 
 me, I did not go further than to request of Mr. Pitt that he- 
 would apprize me of any -vacancy which might happen, in the 
 first instance, that I might have a fair opportunity of stating my 
 claims, which I considered to be pretty strong, on the king's 
 government, not to be passed by in any promotion that might 
 take place in the line of my profession. This he has promised 
 to do, but I have not heard from him since. However, I waited 
 upon the Lord Chancellor of England a few days since, and he- 
 told me that Lord Lifford had, when he was in town, intimated 
 his wishes to Mr. Pitt, as he had done to your Excellency, not 
 to return to Ireland. I am confident, however, that nothing is 
 finally arranged, either with respect to accepting Lord Lifford's 
 resignation or appointing a successor to him, or I should have 
 heard from Mr. Pitt. The Chancellor's reception of me was 
 very flattering, as he was pleased unequivocally to declare his 
 good opinion of me as a public and a professional man ; and 
 from what fell from him, I have reason to suppose that, with 
 your Excellency's support and Mr. Pitt's approbation, I shall 
 not meet any opposition from him. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, my Lord, 
 " Tour humble Servant, 
 
 " John Fitzgibbon." ' 
 
 Although the death of Lord Lifford occurred on the 28th of 
 April, 1789, Mr. Fitzgibbon was not appointed Chancellor 
 until the 13th of June following. He was immediately raised 
 to the peerage, as Baron Fitzgibbon, of Conelloe, while the 
 higher titles of Viscount Fitzgibbon and Earl of Clare were 
 subsequently conferred on him in the years 1793 and 1795, re- 
 spectively. Entering on his office with a splendour far exceed- 
 ing all precedent, his establishment was gorgeous, his entertain- 
 ments magnificent. His family connexions absorbed the patronage 
 of the State, and he became the most absolute subject that 
 modern times had seen in the British islands. Fastidious, 
 disdainful, and overbearing in his manner, this reviler of his 
 country, and enemy of the race from which he had sprung, car- 
 ried with him to the bench that arrogance and sarcasm which 
 had rendered him the most unpopular man that ever filled the 
 office of Attorney-General for Ireland. Anecdotes unnum- 
 bered are told of his haughty demeanour on the bench. He 
 detested Curran, and did all in his power to drive him from 
 practice in his Court, but Curran was an over-match for him. 
 It is related that one day when it was known that he was to 
 make an elaborate argument in Chancery,' Lord Clare brought 
 
 ' . Dnte °* Buckingham's Memoirs of the Court and Camp of George III... 
 vol. i., p. 424. l J J ' 
 
CURRAX AND LORD CLARE. 165 
 
 a large Newfoundland dog upon the bench, and during the 
 progress of the argument lent his attention much more to the 
 •dog than to the speaker. At length the Chancellor lost all re- 
 gard for decency, and turned himself quite aside in the most 
 .material part of the case, and began to fondle the animal. 
 'Curran stopped at once. " Go on, go on, Mr. Curran," said 
 Lord Clare. " Oh ! I beg a thousand pardons, my lord ; I 
 really took it for granted that your lordship was engaged in a 
 consultation. ," On another occasion, when pleading the cause of 
 his client before the Chancellor, Mr. Curran happened frequently 
 to make use of the words "also" and "likewise," drawing a 
 distinction between them. Lord Clare interrupted by saying, 
 *'Mr. Curran, it appears to me that you draw a fanciful dis- 
 tinction between the words that to me always appeared synony- 
 mous?" _ "No fanciful distinction, my lord," replied Curran, 
 *' as I think I shall show your lordship in a moment. My 
 lord, the great and good Lord Lifford for many years pre- 
 sided over this Court, which he adorned ; you also preside over 
 it, but not likewise." 
 
 The new Chancellor immediately took his place in the House 
 of Lords, and as Speaker of that House bore down all opposi- 
 tion. The peers, bewildered by his astounding rhapsody, ter- 
 rified by his unrestrained invective, and prostrate by his con- 
 temptuous irony, were as puppets in his hands. But he had 
 learned as statesman a lesson from a neighbouring country. On 
 the 21st day of January, 1793, Louis XVI. perished on the 
 scaffold, and in the same year Lord Clare supported a measure 
 for the relief of " His Majesty's popish or Roman Catholic sub- 
 jects of Ireland." On the other hand, Lord Charlemont, the 
 chieftain of the Volunteers, voted against any concession what- 
 ever to the Catholics ! Lord Clare's speech on that occasion, 
 powerf 0.1 and insulting, is reported in the Irish Parliamentary 
 Debates. 
 
 The same year in which the Roman Catholic Relief Act 
 passed, Lord Clare introduced another bill into the House of 
 Lords (known as Lord Clare's Convention Act), for the purpose 
 of preventing "unlawful" assemblies under the pretence of 
 preparing or presenting public petitions or other addresses to 
 His Majesty or to parliament. And this Act it was that after- 
 wards prevented O'Connell from calling together the council of 
 " Three Hundred." 
 
 As Belfast had been the cradle of the Volunteers, so also 
 was it the birthplace of the society of the United Irishmen, whose 
 object was to bring about parliamentary reform. This great 
 and formidable movement was at first shared in by the Catholics 
 over the whole country, and by the Presbyterians of the North, 
 
166 LOUD CLA11E. 
 
 whose clergy openly displayed their hostility to England by 
 praying for the success of the French arms. 
 
 Amongst the prosecutions that followed each other with un- 
 exampled rapidity, in the year 1794, not the least exciting was that 
 of Archibald Hamilton Eowan, for an address to the Volunteers 
 adopted at a meeting of the United Irishmen, of which he was- 
 ■secretary, and which was held nearly two years before. He had 
 gone on the business of the society to Scotland, and was 
 there arrested on a warrant sent after him by Lord Clare.. 
 Though ably defended by Ourran, who made one of his most 
 brilliant speeches on that occasion, he was convicted of seditious 
 libel, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and to pay a 
 fine of £500. These proceedings increased the popular ferment, 
 and an address from the Society of United Irishmen was pre- 
 sented to Mr. Eowan in prison ; but on the 1st of May he ma- 
 naged to escape ; and although £1000 were offered for his appre- 
 hension, he succeeded in making his way to France, and thence 
 to America. 
 
 Whilst undergoing imprisonment for this misdemeanour, a 
 charge of high treason had been preferred against him. If 
 found guilty, his estates would escheat to the Crown, and his 
 wife and children would be reduced to beggary. Lord Clare 
 was moved to compassion towards her, and wrote to her that,, 
 though her husband's trial must proceed, still all his (Lord 
 Clare's) interest at the Castle would be exerted to preserve the 
 estates for his family ; and it is a matter of history, that after 
 the escape from prison, the Chancellor gave Mrs. Eowan letters 
 that facilitated her journey to join her husband. Further, it 
 was through his interest, writes Lord Castlereagh, that Eowan 
 was secured a refuge in Denmark — that he subsequently obtained 
 his pardon, and a reversal of his attainder, and the restoration 
 of his estates of between seven and eight thousand a-year. 
 
 Whilst the horrors of the French Eevolution alarmed the 
 nations of the world, during the last decade of the last century, 
 the British ministry felt uncertain what policy to adopt in Ireland- 
 At length, in January, 1795, Lord Fitzwilliam was sent over as 
 Lord Lieutenant, with the avowed policy of Catholic emancipa- 
 tion, in the most unrestricted meaning of the term, and he in- 
 formed the Chancellor that it was his intention to give Mr. 
 Grrattan his fullest support. The Chancellor expressed his alarm 
 at this new policy of Mr. Pitt's. 
 
 Mr. Grrattan then introduced his Catholic Eelief bill, which 
 was supported by multitiides of Catholic petitions, and unopposed 
 by one Protestant petition, and the hour for emancipation, it 
 was universally believed, had at length arrived. Expectations 
 were raised to the highest pitch ; but lo ! Lord Fitzwilliam. 
 
A. D. 1795 — LORD FITZWILLIAM. 167 
 
 was suddenly, and before he had been two months in Ireland, 
 recalled, and no more was heard of Catholic emancipation as a 
 government measure for nearly flve-and-thirty years. To this 
 recall of Lord Fitzwilliam may be traced much of the anarchy 
 through which the country was doomed subsequently to pass. 
 Fitzgibbon and the Speaker of the House of Commons — the 
 two most vigorous opponents of emancipation — were named 
 Lords Justices. The former, the object of popular execration, 
 was attacked in Dame-street; heavy paving-stones, one of 
 which struck the Chancellor on the forehead, were flung through 
 the carriage window, as his coachman drove furiously through 
 au angry and well-dressed crowd ; the military were called out, 
 two men were shot dead, and many were wounded. Rebellious 
 publications were then scattered broadcast through the country, 
 aud secret societies arose in all the great towns, and found their 
 way even into Trinity College. The Board meanwhile took 
 active measures to crush this spirit of revolution within their 
 jurisdiction, but revolutionary manifestos were nevertheless 
 dropped into the students' letter-boxes, and one was even sent 
 to Lord Clare, who was then the Vice-Chancellor of the univer- 
 sity. It was as follows : — 
 
 " To the Independent Scholars and Students of Trinity College. 
 
 " Whereas we have learned with the utmost concern that the 
 system of terror and coercion, so pregnant with calamity and 
 so unfortunately pursued through the kingdom, has been adopted 
 within the walls of our university, and the severest collegiate 
 penalties inflicted on supposed offences, which, even on their 
 full conviction, would be wholly disproportioned ; and that the 
 fundamental principles of justice are violated by deciding on 
 secret testimony, and refusing to confront the accuser with the 
 accused, — now we, the independent scholars aud students, feel- 
 ing just indignation that the liberty of opinion which we even 
 yet might claim as members of any other civil society should 
 be totally annihilated— that to breathe a sigh for the sufferings 
 of our country, or a censure on those flagitious measures which 
 have caused them, and which our conscience must condemn, is 
 followed by expulsion ; and feeling most poignantly, as we do, 
 that state of subordination to which the severity of academic 
 discipline has reduced us, precluding all possibility of redress, 
 or even the right of the oppressed to complain, we yet do resolve 
 that no intimidation shall alter our principles ; that we will par- 
 ticipate in pursuing, with undeviating aim, that redress which 
 the miseries of our bleeding country demand." 
 
 The document then closed with a denunciation of spies and 
 informers. 
 
168 LORD CLAKE. 
 
 A visitation to inquire into the state of the university was 
 therefore determined on, and was fixed to take place on Thurs- 
 day, the 19th of April, 1798, in the Dining-hall of Trinity 
 College. After the usual and empty ceremonials attendant on 
 visitations, Lord Clare thus spoke : — 
 
 " The prevalent reports respecting the state of the univer- 
 sity have induced the visitors to inquire whether the disaffection 
 imputed to the College was founded in reality, or was a rumour 
 or surmise. Appointed to the high office of superintending the 
 conduct and promoting the welfare of that College, he should 
 neglect an important duty if he were to suffer it to continue 
 stained with the infamous imputation of disaffection and rebel- 
 lion, if unfounded, or permit any guilty member thereof to 
 poison and destroy the prospects of the uninfected. His duty, 
 therefore, to what he considered the happiness of the students, 
 without referring to the more general consequences to society, 
 from the lettered portion of the rising generation cherishing 
 and acting on these devastating principles which had destroyed 
 the peace and almost annihilated the morals of Europe, indis- 
 pensably required of him to investigate and suppress any serious 
 disorders. He found great probability had been given to the 
 report in circulation by a rebellious publication, purporting to 
 be a resolution of the independent scholars and students of the 
 University, and it behoved all who heard him to acquit them- 
 selves of any concern therein. Such members as acted with 
 want of candour, and refused to exonerate themselves from the 
 treasonable charges made against the University, and which the 
 abominable paper he held in his hand so much warranted, he 
 was determined to remove from the University, and adopt the 
 necessary measures to prevent them from contaminating the 
 youth in England and Scotland, by representing to the gover- 
 nors of their Universities their dangerous principles, and so ex- 
 cluding them from admission. In one of those secret societies, 
 the formation of which he knew of in College, a system of assassi- 
 nation had been recommended, and a proposal made to collect 
 arms. The first proposal was considered, but adjourned to the 
 next meeting, when it was negatived by a small majority. The 
 second was carried, and acted upon." 
 
 His lordship then concluded by a declaration of his " inten- 
 tion to punish with severity the encouragers and abettors of 
 sedition and treason, and more especially the miscreant authors 
 of that wicked paper, whom he was determined to detect and 
 punish. It had not only been thrown into every letter-box in 
 College, but audaciously flung at his own head in his house, by 
 way of menace and defiance." 
 
 The visitation lasted for three days ; searching inquiries 
 were made into the political acts of every member of the Uni- 
 
EXPULSIONS FROM T. C. D. IN 1793. 169 
 
 versify ; and the result was, that while many — amongst whom 
 "was Tom Moore — were acquitted, no less than nineteen young- 
 men were, on Lord Clare's recommendation, expelled, and one 
 of the Fellows was suspended from his fellowship for three years. 
 
 In the conduct of the visitation, Lord Clare's demeanour 
 "was characterised by his usual arrogance. When a student he- 
 sitated to answer or be sworn, he frequently asked him " if he 
 were a fool or a madman ? " and if, in his examination, he in- 
 dulged in the expression of any democratic or popular sentiment, 
 the Vice-Chancellor's observation was, '' the young gentleman 
 seems to have his reason affected." 
 
 In 1797 Mr. George Ponsonby, afterwards Lord Chancellor, 
 brought forward his motion for the reform of parliament, but 
 the influence of the Lord Clare was too strong, and the 
 motion was rejected ; and Mr. Grattan and other leading men 
 of the opposition seceded in consequence from the House of 
 Commons. The government had now (1798) in their service 
 multitudes of spies, many of them sworn members of the society 
 of " the United Irishmen." Amongst them was one Thomas 
 Reynolds, a Dublin trader, who had purchased Kilkea Castle, 
 in the county of Ealdare, and who, from the fortune he had 
 acquired, commanded considerable influence with " the society." 
 Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Oliver Bond were, as is well 
 known, amongst the leaders of that body. Through Reynolds 
 the government were apprised of the then intended insurrection, 
 and a warrant was accordingly granted for the apprehension of 
 Lord Edward Fitzgerald. That Lord Clare was capable of 
 merciful acts is put beyond all doubt by his merciful and humane 
 bearing towards that unfortunate nobleman. 
 
 Apprised, as the government was, of all his plans and dan- 
 gerous propositions, the Chancellor forewarned his friends, 
 offering admonition and almost amnesty if he even then de- 
 sisted. " Will nobody," he wrote, " reason with that rash 
 young man ? Will nobody, even now, persuade him to leave 
 the kingdom ? I pledge myself every port shall be left open to 
 him." But the offer came too late, and to retrace his steps ap- 
 peared to him then impossible. " It is now out of the ques- 
 tion," he said ; "lam too deeply pledged to withdraw." 
 
 The government did actually afford every facility to Lord 
 Edward to leave the country. A search was made on the 12th 
 •of March at the Leinster House, Merrion-square, but he had 
 escaped, leaving behind him a paper advising the insurgents how 
 to act in the city towards troops advancing through the streets. 
 
 On the arrival of the officer who had been in search of Lord 
 Edward, bringing with him the papers found at Leinster House, a 
 meeting of the Privy Council was immediately convened, and the 
 Chancellor was summoned from the Courts to attend it. Fling- 
 
170 LORD CLARK. 
 
 ing off his robes, he dashed out in a violent hurry, and was 
 hooted and abused by the mob as he passed along. He cursed 
 at them in return, pulled out his pistols, and with a ferocity and 
 intrepidity of character for which he was remarkable tore through 
 the crowd, swearing like a madman. 1 
 
 On the 18th of May following, Lord Edward was arrested at 
 No. 153, Thomas-street in the city of Dublin. Severely wounded 
 in the struggle, he was removed to Newgate, where none of his 
 friends were permitted to see him until a few hours before his 
 death. The following is a copy of a letter written by Lord 
 Clare to Lord Henry Fitzgerald, in reply to an application 
 that he might be permitted to see his unfortunate brother : — 
 
 "10, Ely-place, 3rd June, 1798. 
 " My dear Lord, 
 
 " Be assured it is not in my power to procure admission for you 
 to Lord Edward. The extent and enormity of the treason which 
 has occasioned so many arrests make it essentially necessary for 
 the preservation of the State that access should be denied to tho 
 friends of all the persons now in confinement for treason. I 
 have just heard that Lord Edward's life is in danger. Perhaps- 
 if he should get into such a state as will justify it, your request 
 may be complied with ; and believe me it will give me singular 
 satisfaction if you can be gratified. You may rest assured that 
 his wound is as well attended to as it can be. 
 
 " Tours always truly, my dear lord, 
 
 " Clare." 
 
 His aunt Lady Louisa Conolly indeed was enabled to visit 
 him, owing to the kindness of Lord Clare, to whom she made 
 application after having been refused permission to see him by 
 the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Camden. She drove from the Castle- 
 direct to Lord Clare's house. He was at dinner when she 
 called ; but hearing who the lady was who wished to speak with 
 him, he rose from table, went out and stood bare-headed at her 
 carriage-door. She asked for an order to see Lord Edward, 
 which he expressed his inability to give, as there was a special 
 rule of the Privy Council to the contrary ; " But I know," said 
 he, "of no decision which prohibits my accompanying you." 
 He did accompany her, and remained patiently for three hours- 
 in an outer apartment of the prison, while she wept and prayed 
 beside her nephew's bed. Before taking his departure, the 
 Chancellor approached where Lord Edward lay, and stretched 
 out his hand to him. Poor Lord Edward's hands and arms 
 were bruised and wounded, and he said, while a humourous- 
 smile lit up his countenance, "I cannot shake hands with you, 
 
 1 Journal of Lady Sarah JV 
 
 apmr. 
 
LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD — THE SHEAREs'. 171 
 
 Lord Clare, as mine are bruised and wounded, so that I must 
 only shake a toe." 
 
 Soon after this interview his mind began to wander, and he 
 spoke of his wife and children, and raved about men and arms, 
 and at two o'clock on the morning of the 4th of June he was a 
 corpse ! It is pleasant — if there be any pleasure in the history 
 of those dreary times — to have to record this act of courtesy and 
 charity on the part of the Earl of Clare. " That he had a 
 kind heart," writes Sir Jonah Barrington, " is certain :" look 
 at his conduct in the Sheares' case — look at his conduct in Ha- 
 milton Rowan's case. 
 
 John and Henry Sheares lived at a house in Lower Baggot- 
 street (No. 12S). They were brothers — both members of the 
 bar, and both, it was said, deeply imbued with the atheism of 
 that day. On board the packet between Calais and Dover, they 
 were crossing — it was on the 21st of January, 1793 — when a 
 young man, returning from the College of Douay, and wearing 
 a tricolour in his hat, heard them relate to their fellow-pas- 
 sengers how they had just come from Paris, where they had seen 
 Louis XVI. perish on the scaffold. On being asked, " in God's 
 name, how could they stand by at such a scene ?" they replied, 
 " love of the cause." The young man at once tore this tri- 
 colour from his hat, and stamping it under foot, threw it into 
 the sea — his name was Daniel O'Connell. The Sheares' were 
 deeply implicated in the rebellion of '98. On their table was 
 found an address to be issued immediately after the capture 
 of Dublin Castle, by which it appears that the Privy Council, 
 especially Lord Clare, who was the chief object of the hatred 
 and fear of the United Irishmen, were to be killed or taken pri- 
 soners. Both the brothers were tried on the 12th of July for 
 high treason, were found guilty, and sentenced to death. Henr y 
 Sheares after his sentence wrote to Sir Jonah Barrington, im- 
 ploring of him to save his life. " Tell the Chancellor," he said, 
 " that I will pray for him for ever, aDd that the government 
 shall ever find me what they wish. Oh, my family ! my wife ! 
 my children ! my mother ! go to them. Let them throw them- 
 selves at the Chancellor's feet. I have been duped, misled, 
 deceived, but with all the intention of doing good." Sir Jonah 
 waited on Lord Clare, who read the letter, and was deeply 
 moved. He read it attentively and exclaimed, " What a coward 
 he is ! what can we do ? — John Sheares cannot be spared. Do 
 you think Henry can say anything or make any discovery that 
 can authorize the viceroy in making a distinction ? If so, Henry 
 may be reprieved. Go to the prison." Sir Jonah hastened to 
 Newgate, but both the brothers had then been executed. 
 
 Turning from this sickening scene of political strife, we find 
 enrolled in the Eolls office, under date of the 16th of May, 1798, 
 
172 LORD CLARE. 
 
 the patent appointing the Lord Chancellor to be " Lord High 
 Steward for Ireland, for the trial of Eobert Earl_ of Kingston, 
 to perform, occupy, and exercise that office for this Term only, 
 with all things belonging and appertaining to the said office in 
 this behalf." The Court of the Lord High Steward is a Court, 
 as our readers or many of them are aware, instituted for the 
 trial of peers indicted for felony. In ancient times this office 
 was hereditary, but for many centuries past it has been granted 
 pro hac vice for "this case only." The trial, which was for 
 wilful murder, took place on the 18th of May, 1798, when the 
 Lords' chamber being too confined, the House of Commons was 
 selected as the most fitting place for the court. The procession 
 to the House was marshalled by Ulster King-of-Arms ; the 
 usual formalities were gone through ; the noble prisoner was 
 brought to the bar ; and when, in accordance with ancient usage, 
 he knelt before his Judges, he was at once directed by Lord 
 Clare to rise. His lordship thus addressed the prisoner : — 
 
 " Eobert, Earl of Kingston, you are brought here to answer 
 one of the most serious charges that can be made against any 
 man — the murder of a fellow-subject. The solemnity and 
 awful appearance of this judicature must naturally discompose 
 and embarrass your lordship. It may, therefore, not be im- 
 proper for me to remind your lordship that you are to be tried 
 by the laws of a free country, framed for the protection of in- 
 nocence and the punishment of guilt alone ; and it must be a 
 great consolation to you to reflect that you are to receive a trial 
 before the supreme judicature of the nation — that you are to be 
 tried by your peers, upon whose unbiassed judgment and candour 
 you can have the firmest reliance, more particularly as they are 
 to pass judgment upon you under the solemn and inviolable 
 obligation of their honours. It will also be a consolation to you 
 to know, that the benignity of our law has distinguished the 
 crime of homicide into different classes. If it arise from acci- 
 dent, from inevitable necessity, or without malice, it does not fall 
 within the crime of murder ; and if these distinctions be war- 
 ranted by evidence, you will be at liberty to take advantage of 
 them. Before I conclude, I am commanded by the House to 
 inform your lordship, and all others who may have occasion to 
 address the Court during the trial, that the address must be to 
 the Lords in general, and not to any lord in particular." 
 
 Eobert Earl of Kingston was born in 1754, and was married 
 when Lord Kingsborough, at fifteen years of age, to Caroline, 
 sole daughter and heiress of Eichard Fitzgerald, of Mount 
 Ophaly, in the county of Kildare. The lady was younger still, 
 and was possessed of great mental and personal attractions. She 
 had a brother, to whom she was greatly attached, who had died 
 without any lawful issue, but who had left a natural sod, 
 Henry Gerald Fitzgerald. Pitying his forlorn condition, Lady 
 
TKIAL OF THE EARL OF KINGSTON T?0R MURDER. 173 
 
 Kingsborough had him reared with as much care as if he had 
 been her own son ; she saw to his wants, which she invariably 
 supplied, and did all in her power to make him forget the un- 
 happy situation in which he was placed ; in a word, she brought 
 him up with her own children. She obtained a commission for 
 him in the line, and he soon attained, by reason not alone of his 
 great interest, but his great talents, the position of colonel of 
 his regiment. Amongst the children of Lord and Lady Kings- 
 borough, with whom he was unfortunately too intimate, was 
 Mary, the third daughter, remarkable for her graceful figure, 
 for the soft and pleasing expression of her countenance, and for 
 the beauty of her hair, which grew in such luxuriance as to at- 
 tract the notice of all who saw her. 
 
 Colonel Fitzgerald was a married man, and the marriage 
 he had contracted was one of prudence rather than of love. His 
 domestic life was unhappy, and the society of the Honourable 
 Mary King had become more agreeable to him than the society 
 of his wife. In 1797 the young lady suddenly disappeared from 
 her father's house near London, and a note left on her dressing- 
 table informed her family of her resolution to drown herself in 
 the Thames. Her bonnet and cloak were found on the bank, 
 and the river was dragged for miles on both sides of the spot 
 which seemed thus to be indicated as the scene of her self- 
 destruction. But the search was in vain. No adequate motive 
 could be assigned by those who knew her best for such an act ; 
 and the absence of motive, coupled with a fruitless search, en- 
 gendered the suspicion, that perhaps, after all, she had never 
 done the act which she threatened to do. The suspicion was 
 soon intensified by the statement of a post-boy, that about the 
 time of her disappearance he was driving a gentleman, whom 
 he had not previously known, on the road to London, not far 
 from Lord Kingsborough's residence ; that they met a lady who 
 was walking alone, and whom the gentleman (directing the car- 
 riage to stop) invited to take a seat beside him ; that she did so ; 
 that both appeared to act by a preconcerted arrangement ; that 
 her appearance corresponded to the description given of his 
 lordship's daughter ; and that he drove them to London, where 
 they parted from him in each other's company ; but whither they 
 went he was entirely unable to say. This information led Lord 
 Kingsborough to believe that his daughter had eloped with some 
 one, but with whom he could form no idea. He therefore ad- 
 vertised in every newspaper, offering large rewards for any in- 
 formation that would lead to her discovery. She was faithfully 
 described, particular attention being directed to the profusion of 
 her long and flowing hair, for which she was remarkable. The 
 friends of the family were assiduous in their attentions, and they 
 failed not to state their convictions that the lady had eloped 
 
174 LORD CLARE. 
 
 with Colonel Fitzgerald. Indignant at the charge, the Colonel 
 joined in the search, and when all proved fruitless, no one was 
 louder in lamentations than he. " He could not rest," he said, 
 " till she was found, for in no other way could his innocence of 
 the deed be sufficiently established." The apparent sincerity of 
 his protestations, his ceaseless endeavours to find her, his nume- 
 rous calls at the house, his unwearied attentions, and agonised 
 protestations, disarmed the most suspicious. He was admitted 
 to the family councils, proposed plans, and acted the part of a 
 loving and grateful relative so admirably, that none could for 
 one instant suppose that the lady was at that very moment in 
 his own safe keeping. 
 
 The hour of retribution, however, was at length come. A 
 girl, who stated that she was a servant at a lodging-house in 
 Clayton-street, Kensington, called to inform Lady Kingsborough 
 that she had heard of the advertisements in the London papers, 
 and that a young lady, in every way answering to that descrip- 
 tion, had the apartments in the house where she was servant, and 
 was constantly visited by a gentleman of prepossessing appear- 
 ance and of a military air. Some days since she — the servant — 
 was astonished to see the lady cutting off her hair with a pair of 
 scissors, her eyes at the time suffused with tears. The servant 
 felt at once convinced that the stranger was no other than the 
 lady of the advertisement. She was then proceeding to describe 
 ths appearance of the gentleman, when suddenly the door was 
 opened, and Colonel Fitzgerald entered the room ! " That is 
 he ! " exclaimed the girl. " That is the gentleman who visits 
 the strange lady ; he it is who brought her to our house." 
 Astounded at the unexpected exclamation, Colonel Fitzgerald 
 was so taken by surprise, that he dashed from the room without 
 uttering a single word of contradiction or explanation : his 
 whole demeanour confessed the truth. Lord Kingsborough's 
 second son (Colonel King, afterwards Lord Lorton) demanded 
 instant satisfaction, and Colonel Fitzgerald accepted the chal- 
 lenge, observing at the same time that his character was so 
 blasted by the last affair, that he had no chance of getting a se- 
 cond, but that he was sure to be on the ground. 
 
 On the 1st of October, 1797, the duellists met. Colonel 
 Fitzgerald was, as he stated, unable to find a second, and he 
 fought without one. Four shots were exchanged, and then Fitz- 
 gerald made an effort to address Colonel King, who exclaimed, 
 " You are a damned villain ; I won't hear a word you have to 
 offer." Colonel King's ammunition was by this time exhausted ; 
 but so deadly was the animosity on both sides, that they had 
 arranged to meet again on the following morning : before, how- 
 ever, the appointed time, both parties were put under arrest by 
 the police. 
 
TRIAL OF THE EARL OF KINGSTON FOR MURDER. 173 
 
 The young lady was now recovered by her father from her 
 seducer, and was conveyed to Mitchelstown Castle, in the south 
 of Ireland, far, as it was hoped, from the influence of Colonel 
 Fitzgerald. But he bribed one of the maid-servants who had 
 accompanied her to Ireland, and through her obtained informa- 
 tion of the place of the lady's retreat. Disguising himself as 
 best he could, he had the effrontery to set up at the inn at 
 Mitchelstown, for the purpose of again carrying off his unhappy 
 victim. The innkeeper, suspecting that all was not as it ought 
 to be, lost no time in acquainting Lord Kingsborough of the 
 stranger's presence, and of the danger his daughter was in. 
 His lordship hastened to the hotel, and finding that on that 
 morning the stranger had taken his departure for Kil worth, he 
 followed him thither, accompanied by Colonel King. Learning 
 on his arrival that a stranger had come there only a few hours 
 before, he at once sent the waiter to his room, with a message 
 that a gentleman wished to see him on urgent business. The 
 door was locked, and the stranger roughly replied from within 
 that he did not wish to be disturbed. What must have been 
 the indignation of the father and brother on hearing the well- 
 known voice of Colonel Fitzgerald himself ? They never for 
 one moment believed that he could have had the audacity him- 
 self to come to their own town at Mitchelstown, though they 
 were inclined to believe that the stranger was some emissary 
 connected with him. In a moment the door was smashed open. 
 Colonel King rushed at him as he was seizing his pistols, and a 
 violent struggle ensued. Lord Kingsborough, who saw his 
 son's danger, raised his pistol and shot Fitzgerald dead on the 
 spot. It was for this act that the Earl of Kingston (for such had 
 Lord Kingsborough by the death of his father recently become) 
 was now tried. He was acquitted, and the commission was 
 dissolved. 
 
 This unhappy trial ended, Lord Clare again turned to po- 
 litical lif e. The rebellion had commenced ; but it would be 
 outside our province to write the history of that rising, which 
 was partial, premature, and opposed to the teachings of the spi- 
 ritual teachers of the people. It was indeed far from being 
 supported by the Catholic clergy, though some few amongst 
 them did join the movement. Of the one hundred and sixty-two 
 leading members of the United Irishmen who planned the insur- 
 rection, 106 were Protestants and 56 Catholics. Perhaps it 
 would be nearer the truth to say that this one hundred and sixty- 
 two had no religion at all, imbued as they were with the athe- 
 istical doctrines of the French revolution. Against Dr. Troy, 
 Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, a conspiracy was formed, be- 
 cause he had denounced the principles of that party. 
 
 In the province of Connaught, Dr. Dillon, Catholic Bishop 
 
176 LORD CLARE. 
 
 of Kilmacduagh, thus wrote : — " The wrath of heaven could 
 scarcely visit us with a more dreadful scourge than that of a 
 French invasion — witness the atrocities that have marked their 
 steps in every country into which they have intruded themselves — 
 our churches pillaged, our holy religion proscrihed, our holy father 
 stripped of that property which enabled him to display a gene- 
 rosity and benevolence worthy of his high position, and to pro- 
 pagate the Grospel of Christ amongst the most distant nations of 
 the globe : such are the blessings which, under the name of 
 liberty, have been bestowed upon many neighbouring countries 
 by the rulers of the Trench people." 
 
 This pastoral appeared in the month of May. A vacancy 
 occurred in the See of Tuam in the autumn of the same year, 
 and the priests of that archdiocese marked their approbation of 
 Dr. Dillon's conduct by electing him to sit in the chair of St. 
 Jarlath, an election that was approved of by the Pope. The 
 23rd of May, the day fixed for the revolt, at length arrived, and 
 it was understood that the signal should be, the stoppage of the- 
 night mails going out of Dublin to the provinces. The northern 
 mail was stopped at Santry by a line of cars drawn across the 
 road, and the like event happened to the Athlone mail, between 
 Lucan and Leixlip. 
 
 An attack was then hourly expected on the city of Dublin. 
 Lord Clare appeared the most busy and active. But his activity 
 was confined to the Council Chamber, and the upper court of the- 
 Castle. The yeomanry were massed in a compact but undis- 
 ciplined body in Smithfield; so were the lawyers' corps, who 
 showed great zeal on that occasion, and amongst whom was one 
 destined to celebrity in after years — Daniel 0' Connell. These 
 were commanded by Saurin, and from their position were likely 
 to sustain the first onset of the pikemen. They were, however,, 
 relieved on the morning of the 24th from all apprehensions, by 
 the comforting intelligence that the Santry insurgents had been 
 defeated during the night by Lord Hoden's cavalry. 
 
 Immediately following the outbreak, the Catholic prelates 
 and the principal members of the Catholic laity, opposed on 
 principle to the teachings of the rebel leaders, and alive to the 
 hopelessness of the struggle, and preferring perhaps to bear 
 those ills they had borne under the crown of England, than fly 
 to others that they knew not of, under another government, pub- 
 lished a document which was circulated broadcast over the coun- 
 try. It was addressed : — " To such of the deluded people now in 
 rebellion against His Majesty's government as profess the Eoman 
 Catholic religion. They apprehend, with horror and concern, 
 that deluded men, in addition to the crime committed against 
 the allegiance which they owe to His Majesty, have, in some 
 instances, attempted to give their designs a colour of the religion 
 
A. D. 1798. 177 
 
 which they profess. _ The undersigned profess equally with 
 them the Catholic religion ; some of them are bishops of that 
 persuasion, others are the heads of the leading families who 
 profess that religion, and others are members of the same per- 
 suasion, who, by an honourable industry, have, under the constitu- 
 tion now sought to be subverted, raised themselves to a situation 
 which affords them, in the most extensive sense, all the comforts 
 of life." The address, which then proceeds to show the ruin 
 that awaited them that take up arms against the government, 
 suggests that the revolt would also " throw on the religion which 
 they [the rebels] profess to advocate the most indelible stain." 
 It submits for their consideration whether their bishops were 
 not more likely to consider the true honour and interests of their 
 religion than " a set of desperate and profligate men, who had 
 availed themselves of the ignorance of the people to work their 
 own bad ends." 
 
 This address was signed by thirty-two dignitaries, and by 
 the Earl of Frugal, and many others of the Catholic aristocracy ; 
 but the peasantry in many parts of Ireland were unfortunately 
 too much the dupes of the teachers of French ideas to lend an 
 ear to the voice of wisdom, and they rushed to their own destruc- 
 tion. They fought gallantly, and achieved some brilliant though 
 transient successes ; but the end of such an attempt was never 
 doubtful from the first ; and at last, the gibbet, and tortures 
 which it is horrible to contemplate, signalised the conclusion of 
 the revolt. The infliction of these tortures, Lord Clare, who 
 was the most powerful and active member of the government, 
 attempted to justify! At the Privy Council he was a con- 
 stant attendant ; and his overbearing manner there, as in the 
 House of Lords, carried everything before him. 
 
 Now, when his hands were free from the work of putting 
 down the rebellion, he turned his attention to the abolition of 
 the statutes enforcing celibacy on the Fellows of the University 
 of Dublin. Many of those rev. celibates were privately married, 
 but their wives invariably preserved their maiden names, in 
 order to avoid the penalty incurred by married Fellows of losing 
 their Fellowships. Thus an invitation would run, " The Reve- 
 rend Dr. A , Fellow of Trinity College, and Miss B , 
 
 request the pleasure of," &c. ! The doubtful position in which 
 a Fellow's wife was thus placed, and the dread of the stigma of 
 illegitimacy attaching to his children, prevented many young 
 men of talent from standing for Fellowships. This evil did not 
 fail to attract the attention of Lord Clare, Vice-Chancellor of 
 the University. He resolved to repeal the statute, but in this 
 was violently opposed by the Secretary of State for the Home 
 Department, the Duke of Portland, and was therefore unable to 
 
178 LOUD CLARE. 
 
 effect the change. The law enforcing celibacy continued the 
 law of the University until the reign of the present queen. 
 
 While Trinity College was the object of the Chancellor's 
 peculiar veneration and esteem, the College of Maynooth was 
 equally the object of his aversion ; an aversion which seriously 
 embarrassed the government by reason of his opposition, which 
 threw out the Maynooth bill, of which Lord Comwallis thus 
 writes to the Duke of Portland : — 
 
 " Dublin Castle, April 10th, 1799. 
 
 " When the order of the day for going into committee on 
 the bill for supporting the Roman Catholic seminary at May- 
 nooth was read on Tuesday in the House of Lords, after Lord 
 Earnham had made some objections to the particular items of 
 their expenditure, the Chancellor rose, and entered at some 
 length into a discussion of the propriety of continuing the 
 Roman Catholic College of Maynooth on its present foundation 
 and plan. 
 
 " His lordship stated that it appeared by the accounts of the 
 trustees of that seminary, that it was their object to have at 
 least 200 students educated for the priesthood, at the expense to 
 the public of £25 a-year for each student. The principle of 
 this plan was to make their whole education gratuitous, by 
 which it would follow that the persons educated at Maynooth, 
 not being obliged to advance anything for their education, would 
 be chosen from the lowest classes of society, and the priesthood 
 of Ireland would continue to be taken from the dregs of the 
 people. 1 He was therefore against the principle of the insti- 
 tution in its present state." 
 
 The last year of the last century was remarkable for being 
 the last year of the Irish Parliament — a parliament composed of 
 Lords and Commons so corrupt that its equal is not to be found 
 in the annals of the world — a parliament whose memory has 
 been held up to ridicule, hatred, and contempt, by every writer, 
 friend or foe of this country, that has ever written. " The 
 Irish Parliament," writes Lord Macaulay, " was the most ty- 
 rannical and the most corrupt that had ever sat in Europe." " I 
 have seen the Irish Parliament," says Theobald Wolfe Tone, 
 I have seen the Parliament of England, the Congress of the 
 United States of America, the Corps Legislatif of France, and 
 the Convention of Batavia ; so that I have seen, in the way of 
 deliberative bodies, as many, I believe, as most men ; and of all 
 those I have mentioned, beyond all comparison the most shame- 
 lessly profligate and abandoned by all sense of virtue, principle, 
 
 1 Cormcallis Correspondence, by Ross, vol. iii., p. 90. 
 
THE UNION. 179 
 
 or even common decency, was the legislature of my own unfor- 
 tunate country — the scoundrels ! " 
 
 John Mitchell's opinions of the Irish Parliament are thus 
 summed up : — "It must be confessed that the previous history 
 of the Irish Parliament was not calculated to make the country 
 «xpect any exhibition of stern patriotism." 
 
 Sir Jonah Barrington says : — " The Irish Parliament was 
 politically vicious and intolerably corrupt." 
 
 Martin Haverty: — "The most nefarious corruption was 
 openly practised — votes were publicly bought and sold." 
 
 Robert Holmes, one of Ireland's best patriots, despised the 
 Irish Parliament. " Give to Ireland," he says, " her own par- 
 liament, not the parliament of '82; that was a meteor light 
 which flashed across the welkin, the deceptive vapour vanished 
 quickly." 
 
 In the Irish House of Commons were many barristers ; and 
 in the general corruption that prevailed, the bar was not incor- 
 ruptible. Lord Clare doubled the number of Bankrupt Commis- 
 sioners ; revived some offices and created others ; and, under 
 pretence of furnishing each county with a local judge, in two 
 months established thirty-two new offices, each producing six or 
 seven hundred pounds a-year. Bribery, open and undisguised, 
 prevailed in both Houses. Never in the history of any country 
 was there recorded anything like to, or at all approaching, the 
 corruption that prevailed in that most corrupt of all corrupt as- 
 semblies ; of which Lord Cornwallis thus writes to his friend, 
 General Ross : — 
 
 " 8th June, 1799. 
 
 " I trust I shall live to get out of this most cursed of all 
 situations. How I long to kick those whom my public duty 
 obliges me to court. My occupation is now of the most unplea- 
 sant nature — negociating and jobbing with the most corrupt 
 people under heaven. I despise and hate myself every hour for 
 engaging in such dirty work, and am supported only by the re- 
 flection that without a Union the British empire must be dis- 
 solved." 
 
 But the end was now at hand, and on the 29th of July, 
 1800, the corrupt Irish Parliament ceased to encumber the soil. 
 Had that parliament been the elected of a free people; had 
 Catholic emancipation, which Lord Clare had struggled against, 
 been passed ; had the policy of Henry Grattan and of Lord Fitz- 
 william been followed ; had public opinion a proper influence on 
 elections ; or even, without vote by ballot, had the relations of 
 electors and elected been similar to what existed in England ; 
 had an appeal been made to the country, as according to the 
 constitution ought to have been done on so important a question — 
 
 N2 
 
180 LOKD CLARE. 
 
 had all those things been so, no earthly power could have eradi- 
 cated the Irish legislature from the Irish soil. The Irish Par- 
 liament would be then likened unto the house which the wise man 
 had built upon a rock ; and when " the rains fell and the floods 
 came and the winds blew, it fell not, for it was founded upon a 
 rock." But it was likened rather unto the "house that the 
 foolish man had built upon the sands, and when the rains fell 
 and the floods came and the winds blew, and they beat upon 
 that house, it fell, and great was the fall thereof." 
 
 The Union was now an accomplished fact, and on the 2nd 
 of February, 1801, Lord Clare took his seat in the United Par- 
 liament. In the Irish House he had been omnipotent. In the 
 English House he was nothing. His very first speech met with 
 interruption and rebuffs. He abused the Catholics, and put 
 himself at the head of the opponents of their claims. He ridi- 
 culed his country, was called to order by Lord Suffolk, was re- 
 buked by the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain ; resumed, was 
 again called to order, lost his temper, and stigmatised the oppo- 
 sition as "Jacobins and levellers." "What!" exclaimed the 
 Duke of Bedford ; "we would not bear this insult from an equal ! 
 Shall we endure it at the hands of this mushroom nobility ?"' 
 That rebuke Lord Clare never recovered. Over and over again 
 he was reminded that he was not now predominating over an 
 assembly of Irish peers. He was not even consulted in the ar- 
 rangement for the no-popery administration of Mr. Addington 
 in 1802, though he remained in London in order to negotiate 
 for some more efficient influence in the British cabinet than the 
 Great Seal of Ireland was ever likely to give him. But Mr. 
 Pitt, who well knew his insatiable ambition, cautioned Mr. Ad- 
 dington against admitting him to a situation in the ministry. 
 
 Lord Clare returned to Ireland, where he found a number of 
 hungry place-hunters awaiting his arrival. But his influence 
 was gone. 
 
 "Ah!" said he, "I, who had once had all Ireland at my 
 disposal, cannot now give away the appointment of a gauger." 
 
 In Grattan's memoirs it is stated, on the authority of Lord 
 Clare's nephew, that Lord Clare bitterly deplored having taken 
 any part in effecting the Union. 
 
 He presided in his Court during the Michaelmas Term of 
 1801. It was his custom after Court hours every day to take a 
 ride in the Phoenix Park ; and on an afternoon, immediately be- 
 fore the Christmas holidays, his horse started, when opposite the 
 Yiceregal Lodge, and threw his rider. From the effects of that 
 fall he never recovered. Lingering on, he had ample time to 
 recapitulate the acts he had done; and, unmoumed, he expired at 
 his house, No. 10, Ely-place, in the city of Dublin, in the latter 
 end of the month of January, 1802. On the morning of th& 
 
DEATH OF LORD CLARE. 181 
 
 funeral an infuriated mob assembled around bis bouse, and tbeir 
 unseemly conduct was with difficulty restrained by Lord Clon- 
 curry, who was obliged to address tbem from one of tbe balconies 
 of tbe deceased nobleman's residence. Tbe remains were re- 
 moved at lengtb to tbe bearse, wbicb was pelted, as it passed 
 through tbe streets, witb dead cats, in allusion perbaps to a 
 speech debvered by bim, " tbat be would make tbe Catbobcs as 
 tame as cats." 
 
 His funeral is tbus noticed in Walker's Hibernian Magazine : — 
 * l Sunday morning, tbe 28tb of January, tbe remains of tbe Lord 
 Chancellor were interred in St. Peter's churchyard. The gen- 
 tlemen of the law, to the number of at least 600, attended the 
 funeral ; twenty-four servants with scarfs, and twelve mourners, 
 the Lords Ely, Shannon, Ell warden, and Tyrawley, bearing the 
 pall. His lordship's family coach was followed by seventy-four 
 of the nobility and gentry. The procession went through Hume- 
 street, Stephen' s-green, and York-street. 
 
 " The late earl has bequeathed his wife £1200 a-year, and 
 bis estate at Mount Shannon during the minority of his eldest 
 son ; to her also he has confided the education of his children, 
 with an allowance of £1600 a-year for that purpose. 
 
 " To his eldest son his paternal and acquired property, about 
 £7000 a-year ; to his second son, and to his only daughter, a 
 moiety each of £40,000, and in case of failure of his own issue, 
 be devised his property to his nephews, the sons of Archbishop 
 Beresford (of Tuam)." 
 
 Close to the north transept of St. Peter's church is a grave- 
 stone of mean appearance, more fitted to point to the resting- 
 place of a felon than to tbat of a peer. Upon it is inscribed this 
 inscription — " Here heth the body of the Eight Honourable John 
 Fitzgibbon, Earl of Clare, Lord High Chancellor of Ireland, who 
 departed this life on the 28th of January, 1802, aged 54 years." 
 
 107. A. D. 1802. — Lord Bedesdale. Amongst tbe few 
 families of the north of England who trace their remote origin 
 io times long before the Conquest are the Mitfords of Jfitford 
 Castle, in tbe county of Northumberland. Descended from a 
 junior branch of this ancient race was John Mitford, barrister-at- 
 law, who hved at Gilbury House, in tbe county of Hants. He 
 bad two sons, of whom the elder, William, was born on the 10th 
 of February, 1744, and he having in due time become a student 
 of Queen's College, Oxford, was called to the bar. On the 
 death of bis father, in 1761, be succeeded to his paternal estates, 
 retired from the profession, and joined the mibtia of bis native 
 county, of which Edward Gibbon, the author of the Decline and 
 Fall of the Roman Empire, was then a major. The conversation, 
 perhaps tbe advice, of Gibbon confirmed, if they did not prompt, 
 
182 LOKD REDESDALE. 
 
 his resolution to undertake a history of Greece from the earliest 
 times to the time of Alexander. His younger brother, John,, 
 was born in 1748, the year of the birth of the Earl of Clare. 
 He became a student of the Middle Temple, where he acquired 
 an early reputation. His practice at the bar was almost exclu- 
 sively confined to Courts of Equity, of which he soon became 
 a leader, and the influence of his friend Sir John Scott, after- 
 wards Lord Eldon, procured for him in due time a silk gown 
 and a Welsh Judgeship. In 1788 he entered the English 
 House of Commons as member for Beeralston, in the county 
 Devon. Immediatdly on his entrance into parliament, h& 
 turned his attention to one great object, the repeal of those laws 
 which the spirit of former times caused to be enacted against 
 those " who had formed," as Sir "William Blackstone saith, " an 
 unhappy attachment to the Roman church." He and the- 
 party with whom he laboured had the gratification, in 1791, of 
 seeing the penal code so far relaxed that no member of the Ca- 
 ' tholic communion who had taken certain oaths prescribed by the 
 statute of that year should thenceforth be liable to prosecution 
 for being papists. 
 
 His character as a lawyer was now high, and a work that he 
 had then lately written on Pleading in Equity Causes brought him 
 to the foremost rank of the equity bar. In the last-named year he 
 received the honour of knighthood, and was appointed Solicitor- 
 General for England, an office which, owing to the longevity of 
 the bench, he filled for the eight ensuing years. In 1799 he 
 became Attorney-General, and so continued until the resignation 
 of Mr. Pitt in 1801, when he was elected Speaker of the House 
 of Commons. This election greatly pleased the king, who thus 
 wrote : — " There could not be a stronger proof of our joint en- 
 deavours to save this dear country than the choice of Sir John 
 Mitford as Speaker of the House of Commons, just notified to me 
 by Mr. Addington. I desire the commission may be instantly 
 prepared for approving the choice the House of Commons has 
 made, and that the Chancellor (Lord Eldon) will have it sent 
 as soon as ready for my signature. — George It." 
 
 After Sir John Mitford had held this great office almost a 
 year, he resigned it in the February of 1802, on his appointment 
 to the high post of Lord Chancellor of Ireland, a post which he 
 acquired through the influence of Mr. Abbott, Chief Secretary 
 for Ireland, who in his turn succeeded him in the Speakership 
 of the House. The new Chancellor was at the same time raised 
 to the peerage with the title of Baron Redesdale, of Redesdale, 
 in the county of Northumberland. 
 
 Sir William Grant, Master of the Rolls, when proposing 
 Mr. Abbott for the Speakership, took occasion thus to notice the 
 abilities and learning of Sir John : — " Before he would proceed 
 
LORD REDESDALE. 183 
 
 to enumerate the talents and the qualities which characterised Mr. 
 Abbott, whom he intended to propose for the office of Speaker, 
 he could not pass over in silence those supereminent endowments 
 which so peculiarly distinguished the learned gentleman, Sir 
 John Mitford, who was now retiring from this high station. To 
 give adequate praise to such endowments was no light attempt, 
 for during the short period during which his learned friend had 
 filled the chair, was it possible to have evinced a knowledge more 
 varied, and at the same time so profound ; an information more 
 extensive, and at the same time more accurate ; a more ardent 
 and enlightened love of the constitution, and at the same time so 
 punctilious a regard to all the forms of the House, and all the 
 rules of its proceedings ? And if now the House was to expe- 
 rience the loss of the services of these great and manifold 
 talents, the pain caused by that loss would be somewhat alle- 
 viated by the reflection that another portion of the empire was 
 to enjoy the benefit of them — and that in a sphere in which he 
 might expand the whole compass of his capacious mind — a mind 
 that equally embraced the minutest rules of forensic practice, and 
 the most large and liberal principles of general jurisprudence." 
 
 Sir John Mitford's patent of appointment as Chancellor 
 bears date the 16th of March, 1802. He proceeded with all 
 convenient speed to Dublin, and on his arrival at his house in 
 Ely-place was immediately waited on by all the Judges and the 
 bar. Amongst the members of the latter who were brought 
 under his notice was Mr. Lefroy, a young man of great abilities, 
 who fifty years later became Chief Justice of the King's Bench. 
 Mr. Lefroy, in conjunction with Mr. Schoales, undertook the 
 reporting of cases decided by his lordship. To speak in praise 
 of those reports, known to the bar as " Schoales and Lefroy," 
 would be superfluous, for their fame is coextensive with the 
 English law. 
 
 Shortly after his arrival in Ireland, the new Chancellor 
 went to reside near Stillorgan : a letter which he wrote about 
 this time to Judge Burton, informing him that he had taken a 
 farm of sixty acres within four miles of the city — out of its 
 smoke and its stew, is not without interest, descriptive as it is 
 of the relative scales of comfort and expense of living in London 
 and in Dublin respectively, seventy-six years ago : — 
 
 " Expenses here are very great, especially to a stranger. A 
 few articles are cheaper than in England, but an Englishman 
 cannot live like an Englishman at nearly so cheap a rate in 
 Dublin as in London. If he can adopt the habits of the country, 
 and be content without a thousand comforts which he has been 
 used to in England, and live in the true Irish style, he may 
 perhaps make something of external show rather cheaper than 
 
184 LOKB REDESDALE. 
 
 he would do in London ; tut every real luxury and almost every 
 convenience is cheaper in London, and everything is infinitely 
 hetter. The paper I write on, and the pen I write with, remind 
 me how execrably bad almost every article of manufacture is, 
 and how abominably dear it is at the same time. 
 
 " I must endeavour to make my farm a comfortable residence, 
 for I cannot submit to live all the year in the stew and dust of 
 Dublin." 
 
 He then laments that the people in England are for the most 
 part ignorant of Ireland and its inhabitants, and concludes by 
 saying, that "purity of government is the great thing to be 
 looked to." The antecedents of the Chancellor, and his long 
 exertions for removal of the penal laws, were remembered with 
 gratitude by the Catholics of this country. The new Lord 
 Lieutenant, Lord Hardwicke, was also extremely popular, and 
 all the newspapers of the kingdom were loud in praises of both. 
 Nevertheless, both were members of the Addington administra- 
 tion, which denied all hope of Catholic emancipation ! 
 
 It was in the following year that Robert Emmet and a 
 number of political enthusiasts, of whom he was the prime 
 mover, entered on the mad attempt to shake off, without any ade- 
 quate means, the power of England. Emmet was young, of pro- 
 mising abilities and brilliant imagination, but he wanted those 
 qualities with which the future leader of the people, Mr. O'Con- 
 nell, was so amply endowed. He and his partisans had formed the 
 design of establishing an independent Irish republic, and hoped 
 to accomplish it by striking a decisive blow in the capital. An 
 armed mob collected for this purpose on the evening of the 23rd 
 of July, 1803, marching through the principal streets of Dublin, 
 on their way to the castle ; but they soon lost all respect for 
 their leaders, murdered the amiable and learned Lord Kilwarden, 
 Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and after the space of an 
 hour or two were dispersed by a column of soldiers numbering 
 one hundred and twenty, and the insurrection which had com- 
 menced at sunset was extinguished at midnight ! So unexpected 
 was the insurrection, that the Lord Lieutenant was actually en- 
 tertaining on that evening the Lord Chancellor and several 
 others at the Viceregal Lodge, a place entirely without protec- 
 tion. Speaking of that unplanned rebellion, Mr. O'Connell 
 says : — " I ask you whether a madder scheme was ever devised 
 by a bedlamite ? Here was Eobert Emmet, having got to- 
 gether about £1200 and seventy-four men, makes war upon 
 George III. with 150,000 of the best troops in Europe, and the 
 wealth of three kingdoms at his command. Why, poor Emmet's 
 scheme was as wild as anything in romance." l 
 
 1 O' Flanagan's life of O'Connell, vol. i., p. 83. 
 
EMMET S REBELLION, 1803. 185 
 
 The rebellion having been suppressed, the leading Catholics 
 in Dublin and the neighbourhood immediately came forward 
 with professions of loyalty, and of abhorrence at the late attempt. 
 A measure was next introduced for the suspension of the 
 Habeas Corpus Act. During the debate the Irish government 
 ■was eulogised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who added : — 
 " Of Lord Eedesdale he would say nothing, as there could be 
 but one opinion as to his merit ; he would only observe that 
 Lord Hardwicke having the advice of that distinguished lawyer 
 afforded an additional pledge that in such hands the great 
 powers he proposed to give must be safe." But the panegyric 
 came too soon — Lord Eedesdale's entire nature was now changed. 
 It may be that he thought, and thought rightly, that the 
 capture of the chiefs of the government on that fatal night 
 could have been accomplished with ease. It may be that he 
 looked back with the horror of one who has escaped from a con- 
 flagration, on his escape from the Viceregal Lodge on that me- 
 morable night. However that may be, certain it is that Lord 
 Eedesdale no longer raised his voice on behalf of the oppressed 
 people, but, on the contrary, insulted the Catholic body, clergy 
 and laity alike, and lent bis bewildered mind to the tales of the 
 most insignificant babbler. A young man named Holton inti- 
 mated that he had some information to give, and was at once 
 admitted to the Privy Council, who were then sitting at the 
 Castle under" the presidency of Lord Eedesdale. This young 
 spy had the assurance to inform the Council that there was a 
 fleet of smugglers and rebels hovering about Belfast, and that 
 their intention was to come down from the North, surprise the 
 Pigeon House, and thence proceed to the Castle. He gained 
 further credence by his statement of what he himself could 
 achieve. The result was, that they agreed to equip him instantly 
 with a cocked hat and feathers, and sent him down to Belfast, 
 to tempt, to deceive, and to betray. Holton affected great mo- 
 desty and moderation before the Council, and stated that one 
 hundred guineas would answer his first and immediate object. 
 Lord Eedesdale sympathised with the zeal of this spy, and 
 pressed five hundred guineas upon him in the first instance, ob- 
 serving that he could do nothing with a hundred, and gave him 
 an assurance that thousands would not be wanting if he found 
 occasion for them. At the same time instructions were to be sent 
 to Sir Charles Eoss, who then commanded at Belfast, to apprise 
 him that the rebel general was a confidential servant of the 
 Castle, and was not to be interrupted in his progress of tempta- 
 tion and seduction, but was rather to be aided and assisted, as 
 he should desire and suggest. The express was forwarded by 
 an ordinary dragoon, but Holton, conceiving that he could not 
 
186 LOKD EEDESDALE. 
 
 travel too fast, hired a coach and four, and arrived in Belfast a 
 considerable time before the dragoon with the advice of his 
 advent. The miscreant was therefore, when in the act of spout- 
 ing treason, and endeavouring to entrap the unwary multitude,, 
 arrested and sent back under a strong guard to Dublin. The 
 matter soon came to light, and much damage was done to the- 
 government by the discovery. 
 
 A motion in the House of Commons for an inquiry into the- 
 conduct of His Majesty's government in Ireland was brought 
 on by Sir John Wrottesley, in relation to the insurrection of the 
 23rd of July. This motion was for the purpose of preparing 
 the way to bring back Mr. Pitt to office, by exposing the imbe- 
 cility and remissness of the administration of Mr. Addington. 
 It was on that occasion that Mr. Canning introduced to the con- 
 sideration of the House the weak and inflammatory letters of 
 Lord Eedesdale to the Earl of Fingal. He observed that 
 " Lord Eedesdale, after the contemptible number and means of 
 the late insurrection had been fully disclosed to the Irish go- 
 vernment, had most unwarrantably asserted that it was an in- 
 surrection of whole classes of Catholics, thereby making an 
 imputation against three-fourths of the people of Ireland, who- 
 had furnished from the whole country but eighty rebels, of which 
 number, according to the ministerial statement, it consisted." 
 He then read, with shame and indignation, the correspondence 
 between the Chancellor and the noble earl. 
 
 The letters which caused so much excitement were four in 
 number. It appeared that after the insurrection had been sup- 
 pressed, Lord Fingal had solicited the commission of the peace 
 for the county of Meath ; the Chancellor sent him the warrant 
 for his appointment, and accompanied it with a letter, the first 
 part of which was an instruction upon the duties of active loyalty ; 
 while in the second part he stated, that so long as the Catholic- 
 clergy taught their flocks that unity was an essential requisite in 
 the Church of Christ, so long would they inculcate hatred and 
 treason to their legitimate sovereign, should he not submit to- 
 the Church of Rome. 
 
 In his second letter, the Chancellor attributed the late insur- 
 rection " to the difference in religious opinions of the bulk of 
 the people, who, heedless themselves about their constitutional 
 rights, were taught and encouraged by their clergy to demand 
 an equal participation of them with Protestants, whom they re- 
 fusd to consider brethren in Christ." The Chancellor then went 
 on to arraign a pastoral of Dr. Troy, published in the year 1793 r 
 On the Duties of a Christian Citizen, a work which, it was said, 
 savoured strongly of republicanism, but which was written to- 
 prove that the Church of Rome had not in times past been in- 
 
LORD REDESDALE's LETTERS TO LORD FINGAL. 187 
 
 variably in favour of arbitrary governments. The Chancellor 
 then concluded by asserting that loyalty could not prevail in 
 the Catholic body until their clergy should cease to preach the 
 doctrine of exclusive salvation. 
 
 In his third letter, Lord Redesdale urged the temporal de- 
 gradation of the Bishop of Eome by the French tyrant as a 
 reason for the Irish clergy's disclaiming the doctrine of exclusive 
 salvation, so destructive of the repose of mankind. That it was 
 mockery and folly for priests to pretend to exhort their flocks 
 to loyalty whilst they tell them that all who refuse to obey the 
 Church are rebels to God. He then charged, that Catholics 
 who were under the instruction of their priests came from all 
 parts of Ireland to effect the horrid purposes manifested on the 
 23rd of July. 
 
 In the fourth and last letter, he insisted, " that the whole 
 tenor of the conduct of the lower orders of Catholics showed 
 that the duties of loyalty were not effectually taught to them, 
 and that many of the higher orders, both clergy and laity, are 
 not impressed with them." He concluded by stating that " the 
 priests of the Romish persuasion had never taken, and never 
 would take, honest and constitutional means to make their con- 
 gregations loyal subjects of the Protestant government of this 
 country." 
 
 To those insulting communications Lord Fingal replied with 
 dignified forbearance. He disclaimed controversy, and vindi- 
 cated his own loyalty and the loyalty of his brethren in the 
 faith. 
 
 Mr. Canning, having concluded reading the correspondence 
 for the House, denounced the Chancellor, and added, " that 
 where such a spirit ruled, and where such opinions were che- 
 rished, the government influenced by them could not be a con- 
 ciliatory one. It was an imprudent government, and very ill 
 adapted for the safety of the public." 
 
 Mr. Fox spoke of Lord Redesdale's " ill-timed letters " with 
 indignation. 
 
 Lord Redesdale's conduct, in connexion with the government 
 of Leland, was again made the subject of comment in the debate 
 in parliament on the Irish Militia bills, in 1803, which were 
 brought in for the purpose of empowering His Majesty to ac- 
 cept of the offers of such of the militia corps in Ireland as had 
 volunteered to extend their services to Great Britain. Mr. 
 Hutchinson approved of the bill, notwithstanding every effort 
 made by His Majesty's ministers to repress it. " It evinced," 
 he said, " their loyalty to the king, reeking as they were with 
 blood, covered with abuse, and degraded by the vilest insults 
 that could possibly be offered. He supported the measure be- 
 cause it was a parliamentary refutation of the production of the 
 
188 LORD REDESDALE. 
 
 Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who arrogated to himself the pri- 
 vilege of harrowing up the feelings of millions of his fellow- 
 subjects, by imputing to them principles which they abhorred, 
 -and motives by which they were not actuated." Other speakers 
 followed, many of whom insisted that it was impossible to ex- 
 pect any improvement whilst the present Lord Chancellor in- 
 spired the government of the country. 
 
 In Lord Redesdale's opinion, the disappointed Catholics 
 were gravitating towards France in the war that was then com- 
 mencing, and he maintained that there ought to be kept up in 
 Ireland a standing army of 20,000 men, every man of whom 
 should be a Protestant. That the Catholics had been cajoled 
 into a support of the Union by Mr. Pitt on the promise of 
 Catholic emancipation was too true ; but that the priests would 
 beckon to the government of France, yet reeking with the blood 
 of the Catholic clergy, to lend them their infidel support, ap- 
 pears to have been an incredible proposition. It is indeed a 
 matter of history that an Irish legion was formed in France, 
 ready, at the command of the First Consul, to cross over the 
 seas into the Irish ports ; but it is equally a matter of history 
 that the leaders of that legion were for the most part Protes- 
 tants and Presbyterians, and that their banners were unblest 
 by the Catholic Church. On the 14th of May, 1804, Mr. 
 Addington ceased to be Prime Minister, and Mr. Pitt returned 
 to guide the destinies of the nation. Lord Hardwicke, how- 
 ever, remained at his post as Lord Lieutenant, with Lord 
 Eedesdale as Chancellor of Ireland. The Catholics, on the re- 
 turn of Mr. Pitt to power, believed that their day of emanci- 
 pation was come ; but it was still distant ; and Mr. O'Connell, 
 who was carrying his bag in the hall of the Four Courts, had 
 not yet received his brief to plead the cause of six millions of 
 his countrymen. He was not yet a leader amongst the Ca- 
 tholics, though he was fast rising at his profession. A peti- 
 tion was presented in 1804 to both houses of parliament by 
 those favourable to emancipation ; but Lord Eldon objected 
 even to the formal motion that the petition should be printed, 
 and Lord Redesdale made a very violent speech against it, say- 
 ing, " that to pass such a measure would be to take the titles 
 and lands from the Protestant hierarchy, and give them to the 
 Catholic bishops ! " and added, that " if the Catholic hierarchy 
 were abolished, something might be done to conciliate the Ca- 
 tholic body ; and to the generality of that body he was confident 
 the abolition of the hierarchy would be extremely grateful." The 
 motion was negatived in the Upper House, and in the House 
 of Commons it was lost by the overwhelming majority of 212. 
 
 Quickly following the abandonment of the Catholic measure 
 came the case of Mr. William Cobbett. An anonymous writer 
 
3[K. C0BBETT S LIBEL. 189 
 
 had, at the close of 1803, published a number of letters in 
 Cobbett's Political Register, commenting with severity on the 
 government of Lord Hardwicke, and of the Chancellor, Lord 
 Redesdale. The most stinging of those letters, which it was in- 
 sisted were libels, was one commencing with Eqiio ne credite 
 Teucri. The writer, having taken this classical quotation as 
 his text, thus proceeds : — " This was the advice in a dangerous 
 moment given by Laocoon to the Trojans. It will .be remem- 
 bered that the equus which this sagacious adviser cautioned his 
 countrymen against was a wooden one. His countrymen did 
 not regard Laocoon ; but they received the wooden representa- 
 tive of wisdom. They approached it as if it possessed authority 
 and power. Its wooden head towered above their houses, but 
 the machine itself was of harmless wood. The credulous Trojans 
 found that its hollow head and sides were nothing less than re- 
 ceptacles for greedy speculators and bloodthirsty assassins. The 
 ingenious author of the story did not mean to confine the lessons 
 it indicates to the taking of Troy alone. He meant to take ad- 
 vantage of that easy metaphorical expression which, by common 
 assent of mankind, has moulded itself into many languages, and 
 by which a certain species of head, which the moderns, by various 
 moral experiments, have explained to be a non-conductor of 
 ideas, has been denominated a wooden head. He meant to 
 caution future nations not to put their trust in any such wooden 
 instrument, and not to suffer themselves to exalt it into conse- 
 sequence, or to pay it any respect. He meant to tell them that 
 any people who submitted to he governed by a wooden head 
 would not find their security in its supposed innoxiousness, as its 
 hollowness would soon be occupied with instruments of mischief. 
 Let me not be understood to say literally that the head of my 
 Lord Hardwicke was absolutely made of timber. My applica- 
 tion, like that of the original author, is only metaphorical, yet 
 it cannot be doubted that if the head of his excellency were sub- 
 mitted to the analysis of any such investigator as Lavoisier, it 
 would be found to contain a superabundant portion of particles 
 of a very ligneous tendency. Lord Hardwicke is celebrated as 
 being one of the most successful sheep-fatteners in Cambridge- 
 shire. Mr. Addington has, however, taken care that this emi- 
 nent sheep-feeder shall be assisted in his counsels by a very 
 strong Chancery pleader from Lincoln's Inn." 
 
 Mr. Cobbett, the offence having occurred in London, was 
 indicted at the Old Bailey, for " wickedly, seditiously, and mali- 
 ciously writing and publishing, and causing and procuring to be 
 written and published," these " false, wicked, malicious, scan- 
 dalous, and seditious libels, of and concerning His Majesty's 
 government." The grand jury having found true bills, he was 
 put on his trial on the 24th of May, 1804. For the defendant 
 
190 LORD REDESDALE. 
 
 it was urged — 1st, that he did not write the alleged libel ; 
 2ndly, that the publication of it was not libellous ; and 3rdly, 
 that he was justified in publishing it. Lord Ellenborough, the 
 Chief Justice, who tried the case, in his address to the jury ob- 
 served, "that the traverser was charged with publishing a 
 libel upon the administration of the Irish government, and 
 upon the public conduct and character of the Lord Lieutenant 
 and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. It is no new doctrine," he 
 said, " that if a publication be calculated to alienate the affec- 
 tions of the people by bringing the government into disesteem, 
 whether the expedient be by ridicule or obloquy, the person so 
 conducting himself is exposed to the inflictions of the law. 1 
 The jury convicted the traverser, who was sentenced to be im- 
 prisoned and to pay a fine of £500. 
 
 The intimate relations between the Lord Lieutenant and the 
 Chancellor appear to have been rudely shocked by a correspond- 
 ence that took place in the year 1805 in relation to the admis- 
 sion of Lord Cloncurry to the commission of the peace. His 
 lordship had been arrested under the Habeas Corpus Suspension 
 Act, and committed to prison on the 8th of May, 1799, and was 
 not discharged until March, 1801. Four years later he applied 
 to be admitted to the commission of the peace. But the Chan- 
 cellor declined, and the matter coming before Lord Hardwicke, 
 he ordered, in unmistakeable language, that his lordship's name 
 should be forthwith placed on the roll of the magistrates for the 
 counties of Meath and Kildare. 2 Lord Eedesdale was thus 
 constrained to obey, and had to undergo the humiliation of 
 writing to Lord Cloncurry to inform him that the commission 
 of the peace would immediately be made out for him. Lord 
 Cloncurry, however, replied that he would receive no favour at 
 the hands of Lord Eedesdale, and so the matter dropped. This 
 was nearly the last official act of the Chancellor. 
 
 With the accession of Mr. Fox to the coalition ministry in 
 1806 terminated the viceroyalty of Lord Hardwicke. He was 
 succeeded by the Duke of Bedford, whose very first act was the 
 removal of Lord Eedesdale from his situation, even before his 
 successor had arrived in Ireland. 3 
 
 On the 4th of March the Chancellor sat for the last time in 
 Court. When the business of the day was over, he addressed 
 the bar. He told them that " when he came over to Ireland, he 
 thought he should probably spend the remainder of his life there. 
 He proudly hoped to have lived and died amongst them, but 
 that had not been permitted." 
 
 Here his lordship (writes Plowden) was much agitated, and 
 
 1 Russel On Crimes, vol. i., p. 325. 
 
 2 Personal Recollections of Lord Cloncurry. 
 
 3 Plowden's History of Ireland, vol. ii., p. 280. 
 
RETIREMENT OF LORD REDESDALE, 1806. 191 
 
 shed tears profusely ; after a pause, he continued : " It would have 
 been my wish to have continued to sit until the gentleman who 
 has been named to succeed me should have arrived. I believe 
 it was his wish also. I have every reason to think so, and from 
 him I have received every degree of politeness and attention. I 
 am sorry that other persons have thought me unworthy to be 
 trusted with the Seal during that interval. What can occasion 
 ■this (which I cannot but consider as a personal insult) I am un- 
 able to guess. But I have been informed that a peremptory 
 order has come to the Lord Lieutenant not to suffer the Great 
 Seal to remain a moment longer in my hands. I know not 
 whence this jealousy of me has arisen, or how my continuing 
 to sit in the Court of Chancery (for I could make no other use 
 of the Great Seal but under the warrant of his Excellency) could 
 interfere with any views of His Majesty's ministers. I am 
 proudly conscious of having discharged the duties of my station 
 with honesty and integrity to the utmost of my abilities. 
 
 " For the office I care not, except so far as it afforded me the 
 opportunity of discharging conscientiously an important public 
 duty. It was unsought for by me. I came here much against 
 my will. I came from a high situation in England, where I was 
 living amongst old friends and in the midst of my family. But 
 I was told I owed it to public duty and to private friendship to 
 accept the offer, so I yielded. I yielded to the solicitations of 
 some of those who have concurred in my removal. This, I own, 
 J did not expect, and this I was not prepared to bear." 
 
 After his lordship had concluded, the Attorney-General 
 (Standish O'Grady), on the part of the bar, rose and addressed 
 "the retiring Chancellor, without making any allusion to the 
 above scene : — 
 
 " Mv Lord, — Having an opportunity of conferring with a 
 great majority of the gentlemen of the bar who have practised 
 in the Court of Chancery during the time that your lordship has 
 presided, I feel myself authorised to express their sentiments on 
 this occasion. We have a great sense, my lord, of those endow- 
 ments which have so eminently qualified you to preside in a Court 
 of Equity. Whilst your impartial attention has secured to the 
 honest suitor the full investigation of his claims, your sagacity 
 and patience have taken away from fraud all hope of impunity 
 and all pretext for complaint. We return your lordship thanks 
 for the instruction we have received in attending to the series of 
 decisions by which, during a period of four years, you have ad- 
 vanced the science which we profess. But most peculiarly, and 
 from our hearts, we beg leave to make our grateful acknowledg- 
 ments for the uniform courtesy and kindness which we have ex- 
 perienced from you in the discharge of our duty at your lordship's 
 
192 LOUD EEDESDALE. 
 
 bar. Under these circumstances we take our leave of your lord- 
 ship ; the consciousness of having thus well discharged the du- 
 ties of an elevated and important situation must render you 
 independent of our praise. We trust, however, that this sincere 
 tribute of esteem and gratitude which is now offered to your 
 lordship will not be deemed unacceptable." 
 
 Lord Eedesdale then descended from the bench, to which he 
 was never restored. Many years after he had left Ireland, the 
 question was mooted as to the expediency of withdrawing the 
 viceroy from this country. In his letter to Lord Eldon on the 
 subject he thus expresses himself : — 
 
 " Batsford, 13th April, 1821. 
 " My Lord, — It is rumoured that Lord Talbot is to be the 
 last Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. I do not think that Ireland 
 is ripe for such a change. If the court of the Lord Lieutenant 
 were removed, few of the Irish gentlemen who remain in Ire- 
 land would continue there. The court in Dublin also contri- 
 butes to the civilization of Ireland by introducing good manners 
 amongst them that frequent it." 
 
 Lord Eedesdale rendered important services to his country 
 by his unwearied attention to cases of appeal, and in the com- 
 mittees of the House of Lords. His exertions in carrying a bill 
 for the relief of insolvent debtors through parliament are a last- 
 ing monument of his philanthropy. His lordship was married 
 on the 6th of June, 1803, to Lady Frances Perceval, daughter 
 of John, second Earl of Egmorit, by whom he had issue John 
 Thomas, his successor, and one daughter, Frances Eilzabeth. 
 Lord Eedesdale assumed, by royal permission, in 1809, the 
 surname and arms of Freeman, in addition to those of his pa- 
 ternal family. He died on the 16th of January, 1830, being 
 then in his 82nd year. 
 
 Few of the Chancellors (Lord Jocelyn excepted) have taken 
 a deeper interest than Lord Eedesdale did in endeavouring to 
 rescue the records of this country from destruction. Those valu- 
 able documents, which were then in a state of confusion — almost 
 inextricable confusion — lay buried in sepulchral vaults and 
 chambers in the Law Courts, the Custom-house, the Tower, and 
 Castle. The mouldering obscurity in which the most precious 
 archives of the kingdom had so long reposed was unfavourable 
 to their preservation ; many of those documents decayed and 
 perished in the catacombs in which they were entombed. This 
 melancholy state of disorder and confusion is fully detailed in 
 Lord Eedesdale's report upon the subject to the Earl of Hard- 
 wicke, and since his time in the reports of the English sub-com- 
 missioners who visited Ireland in 1808 and 1812. 
 
GEORGE PONSONBY. 193 
 
 108. A. D. 1806. — G-eokge Ponsonby. The ancestors of the 
 Ponsonbys, Earls of Bessborough, came to England from Nor- 
 mandy with William the Conqueror, at a time when the proudest 
 nobles were ready to accept offices which would now be consi- 
 dered menial, about the royal person. They are said to have 
 been appointed barbers to the king, to which their coat-of-arms, 
 a chevron between three combs, is supposed to bear allusion. 
 They were settled for many centuries at the manorial castle of 
 Ponsonby, in the county of Cumberland, whence they take their 
 name, and accompanying Cromwell to Ireland they soon ac- 
 quired power in the new country, and enhanced with a peerage 
 the ancient nobility of their race. The title of the Earl of 
 Bessborough is borne by the representative of the eldest branch 
 of the house, some of the cadets of which have added to its dig- 
 nity by peerages of subsequent creation. In the last century, 
 John, younger brother of the Earl of Bessborough, was Speaker 
 of the House of Commons, and was six times one of the Lords 
 Justices of Ireland. He and his brother the earl were married 
 to two sisters, the daughters of the Duke of Devonshire, Lord 
 Lieutenant of Ireland. The Speaker had two sons, William, 
 Postmaster-General, who was elevated to the peerage by the 
 title of Baron Ponsonby of Lowkelly, and George, of whom we 
 write. The latter was born on the 5th of March, 1755. Having 
 graduated with much distinction in the University of Cambridge, 
 he was called to the Irish bar in 1780, but felt at first much re- 
 pugnance to the dry study of the law. Such, however, was his 
 influential position, that he was appointed by the Chancellor of 
 that day, Lord Lifford, one of His Majesty's counsel, before he 
 had yet completed his second year's standing at the bar. He 
 was in the same year returned to parliament as member for the 
 borough of Innistogue, in the county of Kilkenny. From his 
 first entrance into the House of Com m ons he belonged, as did his 
 brother William, to the patriotic party. Both were in parlia- 
 ment, and both were active in offering the regency to the Prince 
 of Wales, William, indeed, having actually been one of the de- 
 putation on that occasion to his Royal Highness. In parliament 
 George Ponsonby spoke and voted in favour of Catholic eman- 
 cipation, and of the extension of the franchise. He was not 
 offered place until 1795, in which year Lord Eitzwilliam, recog- 
 nising a compact that had been made between Ponsonby and 
 Curran, offered to the former the Attorney-Generalship, and to 
 the latter the Solicitor-Generalship for Ireland. _ The sudden 
 recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, however, left in their places those 
 who had long been in enjoyment of them. Against the pro- 
 posed Union with Great Britain George Ponsonby spoke vehe- 
 mently, and derided as visionary its preferred advantages. 
 
 On the accession of the whig ministry in 1806, Ponsonby 
 
 o 
 
194 GEORGE PONSONBY. 
 
 was created Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and was immediately 
 presented with an address by the Munster circuit, of which he 
 had been a member. Nearly the entire patronage of the govern- 
 ment was then in his hands, and yet Mr. Curran was not ap- 
 pointed Attorney- General, pursuant to the compact of which 
 we have spoken. That office indeed was then, and had been 
 since the accession of Mr. Pitt in 1804, filled by another orator 
 and patriot, William Conyngham Plunket, to remove whom 
 would, have caused an outcry, and consequently Mr. Curran was 
 left five months unprovided for. Sir Michael Smith was then 
 Master of the Rolls, and overtures were made to him on the part 
 of the government to resign, on the express terms of being se- 
 cured pensions for himself and for four of the officers of his 
 Court. Those terms having been acceeded to, Sir Michael 
 Smith retired, and Mr. Curran became Master of the Rolls. No 
 other place indeed was vacant at the time ; but it was one un- 
 suited to the tastes and to the professional knowledge of Mr. 
 Curran, whose life had been spent in the practice of the common 
 law, and who felt deeply aggrieved that he had not been 
 given the Attorney-Generalship, as had been arranged long pre- 
 viously. Nevertheless, had he been appointed Attorney-General, 
 he would have been out of office on the breaking up of the mi- 
 nistry in 1807, while by the arrangement with Sir Michael 
 Smith he became Master of the Rolls, a place which he held 
 until he chose to retire in,1814, with a pension of £2700 a-year. 
 
 The coalition ministry, having lasted but ten months, gave 
 place to a "no-popery" administration, with the Duke of Rich- 
 mond at the head of the Irish government and Lord Manners 
 Lord Chancellor. 
 
 On the 28th of April, 1807, Mr. Ponsonby gave judgment 
 in a case in his Court of much importance. After he had con- 
 cluded, the Attorney- General (Plunket) rose, and asked his 
 lordship whether he meant to sit on the following day ; the 
 Chancellor replied in the negative. The Attorney- General then 
 addressed him as follows : — " My lord, having by the desire of 
 the bar had the honour to present you with their unanimous 
 congratulations on your appointment to the Seals, they cannot 
 be silent on the present occasion, and through me are anxious to 
 repeat to you the sentiments which they then expressed. It 
 must, my lord, be permitted me to convey to you the high 
 sense which is entertained by the bar of the diligence, the zeal, 
 the talents, and integrity with which you have discharged the 
 duties of your office, and the deep regret they at this moment 
 feel at your separation from them. I must also be allowed to 
 express their grateful acknowledgments of the uniform courtesy 
 and impartial attention which you always manifested towards 
 every member of the profession." 
 
THE " VETO. 195 
 
 The Chancellor replied nearly in the following words : " I 
 
 ieel most sensibly this approbation of the bar, which you have 
 so kindly communicated ; at the same time I must be permitted 
 to ascribe it as much to their partiality as any merit of mine. 
 When the king was pleased to appoint me to the high office 
 which I had the honour to hold, it was my firm intention con- 
 scientiously to discharge the duties which belong to it to the 
 utmost of my ability ; I am inclined to think I have not been 
 unsuccessful, having obtained the commendation of a body so 
 capable of forming a correct judgment as the Irish bar. I feel 
 great satisfaction, from the character of the nobleman who has 
 been appointed my successor, that the duties of the situation 
 will be discharged by him in a manner far beyond that to which 
 my humble talents could pretend." 
 
 On the next day Lord Manners arrived in Dublin, and the 
 Great Seal was put into his hands. Mr. Ponsonby, having ceased 
 to be Chancellor, once more resumed his place and duties in the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 The accession of the no-popery administration to power in 
 1807 strengthened rather than diminished the exertions of the 
 Irish Catholics in the cause of emancipation. Lord Fingal, 
 acting on the advice of Dr. Milner, an English apostolic vicar, 
 and author of a learned work on controversy, laboured without 
 intermission in the Catholic cause ; and as Dr. Milner was a 
 kind of agent in England for the Irish bishops, both those lords, 
 spiritual and temporal, took it upon themselves to authorise Mr. 
 Ponsonby and Mr. Grrattan to reinforce the prayer of the Catholic 
 petition, by offering to the Crown in return the mischievous 
 power of objecting to the appointment of bishops and priests 
 obnoxious to the government. This power was known as the 
 veto. It was supported by Mr. Grrattan, and Mr. Ponsonby was 
 of opinion that the measure would have been a salutary one. It 
 was, however, rejected by a majority of 153. 
 
 In the session of 1810 the veto was again brought under the 
 consideration of parliament. Mr. Ponsonby supported the mea- 
 sure : — "But veto or no veto, it appeared to him that govern- 
 ment were inclined to do nothing for Ireland. Force would 
 never secure Ireland. The resident landlords were fewer than 
 formerly, on account of the Union ; they therefore had better try 
 their hand at a repeal of that measure. Ireland had never received 
 from Great Britain any considerable advantage but at the mo- 
 ment of British embarrassment. If Grreat Britain went on re- 
 fusing everything to Ireland, the House might depend upon it 
 that the Irish would think the "Union had made their situation 
 worse than ever, and that what they might have had the power 
 of obtaining from their own parliament, they would have no 
 chance of procuring from that of the empire. They would look 
 
 o2 
 
196 GEORGE PONSONBY. 
 
 to other and less legitimate friends, and the activity of the- 
 Emperor of France would not long leave them without the- 
 means of availing themselves of them, should they he induced 
 to resort to such a desperate extremity. It was the duty of 
 ministers, and if they neglected that duty it hecame the duty of 
 parliament, to tell His Majesty how he might avoid losing Ire- 
 land. He would stake his reputation, if the present system 
 continued, that either during the life of His Majesty, or that of 
 his immediate successor, such a convulsion would he experienced 
 in Ireland as would shake it to the centre, or separate it alto- 
 gether from Great Britain." 
 
 Great was the indignation awakened in Ireland hy the pro- 
 position of the veto. O'Connell from the first opposed it. A 
 Protestant sovereign nominating Catholic hishops is thus spoken 
 of by Edmund Burke, in his letter to a peer : — " Never were the 
 members of one religious sect fit to appoint pastors to another. 
 Those who have no regard for their welfare, reputation, or in- 
 ternal quiet, will not appoint such as are proper. The Seraglio 
 of Constantinople is as equitable as we are, whether Catholic or 
 Protestant ; and, where their own sect is concerned, full as reli- 
 gious ; but the sport which they make of the miserable dignitaries 
 of the Greek Church, the faction of the Harem, to which they 
 make themselves subservient, the continual sale to which they 
 expose and re-expose the same dignity, and by which they 
 squeeze all the inferior orders of the clergy, is nearly equal to 
 all the other oppressions together, exercised by Mussulmen over 
 the unhappy members of the Oriental Church. It is a great 
 deal to suppose that the Castle would nominate bishops for the 
 Poman Church of Ireland with a religious regard for its wel- 
 fare. Perhaps they cannot, perhaps dare not, do it." And 
 in another letter to Dr. Hussey, the Catholic Bishop of Wa- 
 terford, he writes : — " If you (the Catholic bishops) have not 
 wisdom enough to make common cause, they will cut you off 
 one by one. I am sure that the Constant meddling of your 
 bishops and clergy with the Castle, and the Castle with them, 
 will inevitably set them ill with their own body." This project 
 of the veto was defeated, but was brought forward again and 
 again during the struggle for emancipation. It was never suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 The earthly career of George Ponsonby was brought to a 
 close in 1817. Assiduous in his parliamentary duties, he was 
 struck down by a paralytic stroke in the House of Commons. 
 Lingering on, he had the satisfaction, before his reason left him, 
 of being reconciled to his early friend John Philpot Curran. 
 His only child, Elizabeth, wife of the Hon. Francis A. Prittie, 
 watched by his death-bed, and saw him breathe his last on the 
 18th of July, 1817. His remains were interred in the graveyard 
 
LORD MANNERS. 197 
 
 attached to Kensington church, where a simple stone marks 
 their resting-place. Lord Howick, in his place in the House of 
 -Commons, on the 3rd of July, 1808, thus spoke of the merits of 
 George Ponsonby : — "Never presided in Ireland a more upright 
 and efficient judge, or one who had rendered such universal sa- 
 tisfaction." 
 
 109. A. D. 1807. — Lord Manners (Thomas Manners 
 Srrrox). Sir Robert Manners, in the reign of Henry YI., won 
 the heart and the hand and the estates of the Baroness de Roos, 
 one of the greatest heiresses in England. Following in his 
 footsteps, his son Sir George Manners married the niece of 
 Edward IY., King of England. Her name was Anne St. 
 Leger, and from those illustrious ancestors was descended John 
 Manners, fourth Duke of Rutland; and he also married an heir- 
 ess, the daughter of John Sutton, Lord of Lexington. They 
 had several children, but it was to George, the fourth son, that 
 the Lexington estates were devised, and therefore he assumed 
 the name of Sutton in addition to that of Manners ; and he, too, 
 left many children, the fourth of whom was Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, and the fifth, of whom we write, was Lord High Chan- 
 cellor of Ireland. He was born on the 24th of February, 1756, 
 and was sent after his early education to Emanuel College, 
 Cambridge, where in 1777 he was placed fifth amongst the 
 wranglers. In 1780 he was called from Lincoln's Inn to the 
 bar. Twenty years after his call he received a silk gown from 
 the tory Chancellor, Lord Thurlow, together with the Solicitor- 
 Generalship to the Prince of Wales. Mr. Addington appointed 
 him Solicitor-General for England and gave him a knighthood. 
 In 1805 he was raised to the bench as a puisne Baron of the 
 Exchequer, and in 1807 was sent over to Ireland as Lord Chan- 
 cellor of that country. The Catholics who had been appointed 
 to the commission of the peace by Lord Chancellor Ponsonby he 
 superseded, while the Orangemen were everywhere set up in 
 their stead. Emancipationists, be they Protestant or Catholic, 
 were the objects of the Chancellor's pious detestation, and they 
 were accordingly subjected to countless annoyances. This may 
 be exemplified by Lady Cloncurry's case. Her ladyship had been 
 married to Lord Russborough, eldest son of the Earl of Milltown. 
 This young man died during his father's lifetime, never having 
 inherited the earldom, consequently, when his eldest son succeeded 
 to the earldom and estates on Lord Milltown's death, his younger 
 children were not entitled to the rank of " earl's younger sons," 
 and took rank amongst the " gentlemen, a rank which be," 
 according to Sir William Blackstone, " right cheap in this coun- 
 try." The Crown usually in such cases grants to the younger 
 •children "of the eldest son of a nobleman the same privileges that 
 
198 LORD MANNERS. 
 
 they would have enjoyed had their father been an earl. Soon 
 after the death of Lord Bussborough, his widow married Lord 
 Cloncurry, and she then made the usual application to the 
 Lord Chancellor on behalf of her infant children . He was at first 
 of opinion that the ordinary rule should be followed, but on re- 
 considering the question, he arrived at a different conclusion,, 
 and declared that Lady Cloncurry could not have the relief 
 she prayed for on behalf of her children, on the grounds that her 
 second husband was a supporter of Catholic emancipation, an 
 enemy of Protestant ascendancy, and a violent opponent of the 
 government. Mrs. Douglas, mother of Lady Cloncurry, then 
 waited on Lord Manners, and unsuccessfully urged the claims 
 of her grandchildren. His lordship informed her that " Lord 
 Cloncurry was hostile to the government, and that when a woman 
 marries to injure her children's prospects in life, she must submit 
 to the consequences." 
 
 This conversation Mrs. Douglas took the very questionable 
 course of embodying in an affidavit, which she swore before a 
 magistrate, that magistrate being Lord Cloncurry, who, indig- 
 nant at the liberty thus taken with his name, immediately ad- 
 dressed the following letter to the Chancellor : — 
 
 " Dublin, June 25, 1817. 
 
 " My Lord, — . . . Your lordship, in a recent interview 
 with Mrs. Douglas, had the offensive and indiscreet candour to 
 declare that, however favourably you were disposed towards 
 Lord Milltown, yet that he being under my protection, the re- 
 quest could not be granted, nor would you do anything in the 
 business because I was an ' emancipator, an enemy to the Pro- 
 testant ascendancy, and a violent opposer of the government.' 
 And in relation to Lady Cloncurry you added, ' that when a 
 woman marries to injure her children, she must submit to the 
 consequences.' Now, my lord, I forbear to dwell upon the in- 
 delicacy of mixing up political prejudices with the duties of 
 your high station, and I also forbear to enter into any justifica- 
 tion of my principles ; but permit me to ask your lordship, 
 where is the justice or equity of making them the ground for 
 counteracting the humble wishes of a young nobleman, who, as 
 a ward of your Court, is peculiarly under your guardianship and 
 protection ? and why should you use my name in a manner calcu- 
 lated to excite his prejudices, and the prejudices of his family 
 against me, by attributing to me the disappointment of his 
 hopes ? 
 
 " I am never ashamed to avow my political principles, and 
 do not think them less respectable for differing from .those of 
 your lordship. I am deeply interested in the prosperity and 
 
QUEEN CAROLINE. 199 
 
 happiness of my native country, and detest that narrow-minded 
 bigotry which destroys both. If you think you ought to punish 
 me for this, you shoidd confine that punishment to myself, and 
 not visit it on unoffending persons." 
 
 The Chancellor in reply stated that he conceived Lord Clon- 
 curry's letter extremely offensive, and a gross misrepresentation 
 of facts as far as Lord Milltown was concerned. 
 
 Lord Cloncurry then forwarded a copy of Mrs. Douglas' 
 affidavit to the Chancellor, who denied that he had ever used 
 the words attributed to him, and complained that " she should 
 have made the supposed substance of a conversation, which was 
 pressed upon him in his study, the subject of an affidavit." In 
 1817 Lord Talbot succeeded to the viceroyalty, and one of his 
 first acts was to obtain from the Prince Regent the grant to the 
 Leeson family of the privileges so long withheld. 
 
 The monotonous fife of the Chancellor, from his acceptance 
 of the Seals in 1807 to the trial of Queen Caroline in 1820, was 
 unbroken by many incidents worthy of remembrance. In that 
 year he was in his place in the House of Lords when revelations 
 bringing scandal on the English court were made. The Prince 
 of Wales had been married, on the 8th of April, 1795, to his 
 first cousin, Caroline, daughter of the Duke of Brunswick. She 
 had bestowed upon him an enormous fortune ; but that mar- 
 riage was an unhappy one. Hatred and disdain held the place 
 of love and affection ; and she finally left her husband after the 
 birth of their child in 1796. Her Boyal Highness, unaccompanied 
 by the Prince of Wales, left England and proceeded on a tour 
 through the south of Europe. In the north of Italy she had 
 introduced into her household a domestic servant, whose name 
 was Bergami, and for the short space of three weeks he held the 
 place assigned to him amongst his fellow-servants. Thence- 
 forward he ceased to be the attendant and became the companion 
 of his royal mistress. He accompanied her to Palestine, and, 
 indifferent to public opinion, she appeared with him in places of 
 public resort, and the satirical journalists of that day did not 
 blush to describe her appearance and dress as the " genius of 
 history," when she was forced by the authorities to retire from 
 a masked ball given in Naples. Her acts and deeds, shameless, 
 open, and barefaced, were the topic of conversation all over the 
 civilized world. In 1819 a commission was sent to Italy for the 
 purpose of collecting evidence as to her guilt. They found little 
 difficulty in doing so, and then returned, bringing with them 
 irrefragable testimony of her profligacy. The death in 1820 of 
 George III. brought the Prince Regent to the throne. His 
 wife thereupon became queen, and entitled to have her name in- 
 serted in the liturgy for the prayers of the faithful, immediately 
 
200 LOKD MANNERS. 
 
 after the prayer for the king ; but her name was omitted, and 
 it was to avenge that affront that she returned to England 
 in 1820. The king, however, had other views ; he was resolved 
 not alone to keep her name from the Prayer-hook, but to obtain 
 a divorce a vinculo matrimonii. A bill was accordingly brought 
 in for that purpose, and it became requisite and necessary to 
 establish the several accusations made in the preamble ; and the 
 measure then assumed the appearance, and, in common parlance, 
 the name of " the trial of Queen Caroline." Lord Manners 
 took an active part against the accused. His speech on that 
 memorable trial reposes in decent obscurity amongst the parlia- 
 mentary debates. His lordship, having analysed the evidence, 
 said : — " That proofs so circumstantial as those which had been 
 advanced in the case could not be doubted. He was of opinion 
 that the evidence had substantiated the allegations in the bill. 
 There was no man who could regret more than he did that such 
 a bill should become necessary ; but as it was necessary, their 
 lordships were bound to do their duty. It was impossible to 
 allow this woman to ascend the throne after the establishment of 
 the case against her. The arguments in support of the bill he 
 considered to be irresistible. He was perfectly satisfied in his 
 mind that the preamble had been proved, and therefore he would 
 give his consent to the second reading of the bill;" 1 
 
 Lord Manners was followed by other speakers. The ministry 
 had expected a large majority in the Upper House ; but some 
 of their lordships wavered at the last hour, and on a division 
 the third reading was carried by so small a majority — only nine 
 votes — that all hope of success in the Commons was at an end. 
 The bill was accordingly withdrawn. Henry, afterwards Lord 
 Brougham, was counsel for the wronged but erring queen ; un- 
 sparing in invective and merciless in sarcasm, he awakened the 
 passions of the people in favour of his client. 
 
 In the summer of the following year, 12th of August, 1821, 
 the king, then in mourning for his queen, landed at Howth, 
 and he was received with much enthusiasm by his Irish subjects. 
 Then, for the first time since the Union, were the distinctions of 
 Catholic and Protestant forgotten, and all parties vied in giving 
 a hearty welcome to the first English king who had come on a 
 peaceful mission to the Irish shores. The dislike engrafted in 
 his nature to the Catholic faith prevented Lord Manners from 
 coming much into contact with the Catholics, and he accordingly 
 absented himself as much as possible from court during the 
 king's visit to Dublin. The change of ministry in 1827 caused 
 his resignation, and he took his seat for the last time in the 
 Court of Chancery on the 27th of July in that year. The busi- 
 
 1 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. 
 
RETIREMENT OF LORD MANNERS. 201 
 
 ness of the day having closed, the Attorney- General (Mr. Joy) 
 rose, and thus addressed the retiring Chancellor : — 
 
 " My _ lord, as your lordship is about to retire from that 
 high station which you have filled in this country, and as we 
 see you now for the last time in this Court, where you have 
 presided more than twenty years, we cannot suffer the occasion 
 to pass without endeavouring to express, though in very inade- 
 quate terms, some of those feelings with which we view your 
 departure from amongst us. My brethren have done me the 
 honour of selecting me as their organ to express our common 
 feelings upon the occasion which has assembled us before you. 
 When, my lord, we consider that during your continuance in 
 office no fewer than 4469 causes have been decided by you, and 
 of these only fourteen have been reversed and seven varied — 
 when we revert to your lordship's inflexible rule never to close 
 your sittings whilst a single cause remained undisposed of, we 
 cannot but admire that distinguished ability, that strict impar- 
 tiality, and that unremitting assiduity with which you have 
 discharged the duties of your office. The anxiety which you 
 have always evinced to elevate our profession, and to cherish in 
 its members that purity of conduct for which they ought to be 
 ever distinguished, has entitled you to our warmest regards ; 
 "whilst the dignified urbanity and uniform courtesy which have 
 always marked your intercourse with every individual of the 
 bar, whether in public or private,' have so identified you with our 
 most gratifying recollections, that in losing you we feel we are 
 deprived not only of the judge whom we respect, but the friend 
 whom we love. It would be foreign to the character in which 
 we address you to advert to those amiable qualities which dis- 
 tinguish you in private life, to enlarge on that charity which 
 knows no bounds, or to describe the feelings of the widow and 
 the orphan at your departure ; but I may express the sincere 
 sentiments of my brethren who surround me, and assure you 
 that your memory will long remain associated with our kindest 
 feelings, and that your retirement from office cannot and will 
 not efface that affectionate attachment with which you are re- 
 garded by us, and which must always make us deeply interested 
 in your future happiness and welfare." 
 
 The Chancellor having replied in the usual terms of grati- 
 tude to the bar, thanked them for the assistance they had afforded 
 him, and then withdrew. He was subsequently honoured with 
 a parting address by the Lord Mayor and Corporation of Dublin. 
 Lord Manners returned immediately to England, and lived 
 thenceforward near Bury St. Edmunds. His lordship appears 
 to have seldom taken part in the parliamentary debates. His 
 hatred, however, of the Church of Borne called him to his place 
 in the House of Lords in 1829, when the question of Catholic 
 
202 LORD MANNERS. 
 
 emancipation was brought forward by the Duke of Wellington 
 in the House of Lords. 
 
 Lord Manners was strongly opposed to the passing of this 
 measure, against which he spoke and voted. He said 1 "that 
 he had to complain of the Catholic Association, and its ten- 
 dency to exasperate the public mind. He deprecated the spirit 
 which had prevailed in all the proceedings of that angry asso- 
 ciation. It was impossible," he said, " to grant the Catholics 
 the concessions they sought, and afford any protection to the 
 Established Church in the (then) present temper of the Irish 
 nation. The Catholic Association, which might be considered 
 as displaying the spirit and disposition of their brethren, had 
 hitherto done their utmost — in many instances but too success- 
 fully — to separate the tenant from his landlord, to produce dis- 
 cord and anarchy throughout the country, and to estrange the 
 loyalty and allegiance of all their fellow-subjects over whom 
 they could exert any influence. It had been said that conces- 
 sions to the Catholics were demanded by policy and justice, but 
 he could not perceive the applicability of either. With every 
 disposition to grant emancipation, if such a measure could be 
 conceded consistently with safety to the Establishment, he could 
 not consent, under existing circumstances, to acknowledge claims 
 which were essentially pernicious to the Protestant religion." 
 
 His opposition was in vain, and the measure was carried 
 through the House of Lords by a majority of 104. The passing 
 of the Catholic Belief bill was followed by the bill for disfran- 
 chising the forty-shilling freeholders, and for raising the county 
 qualification to £10 a-year — five times greater than the qualifi- 
 cation required in England. Only seventeen members of the 
 House of Commons voted against this grievous injustice. It 
 was introduced by Sir Robert Peel on the ostensible ground that 
 there was too great a disposition on the part of Irish landlords 
 to divide their land into minute portions. Lord Manners, in 
 support of the measure, said that — 
 
 " Judging from the practical effects of the bill of 1793, he 
 could not conceive any measure more calculated to improve the 
 general state of Ireland, and improve the poorer classes of its inha- 
 bitants, than the proposed bill. It would renew and strengthen 
 those ties between landlord and tenant so beneficial to both, but 
 which had been broken in upon by the Catholic Eelief Act of 
 1793. He looked on the bill as an act of justice, and one which 
 would confer considerable benefit upon a great portion of the 
 forty-shilling freeholders themselves. ... He supported the 
 bill before their lordships from a moral conviction that it would 
 improve the morals of the people and add to the public peace of 
 
 1 Hansard, vol. ix., N. S., 10. 
 
DEATH OF LORD MAXXERS. 203 
 
 Ireland. But as this bill was so intimately connected with, an- 
 other measure (Catholic emancipation), still within their lord- 
 ships' House, he hoped he might he allowed to say a few words 
 upon it. He had voted against that other measure, hut he had 
 done so with pain, as it must ever give him pain to vote against 
 the noble duke (Wellington), for whom he entertained the 
 highest respect. But he assured the noble duke and his col- 
 leagues, that in having changed their opinions on this great ques- 
 tion, they had not diminished but increased his confidence in 
 them. When he saw the noble duke and his friends supported 
 by so many noblemen whose wisdom, talent, and integrity, were 
 unquestioned — men whose only interest was in the prosperitv 
 and tranquillity of the country — so far from distrusting the 
 noble duke, he could not help fearing that his own opinion was 
 not right. 
 
 "He (Lord Manners) hoped that he should find that his 
 opinion was wrong ; and when the Catholic emancipation bill 
 was passed into a law, he trusted it would have the effect of 
 tranquillising Ireland, of uniting Protestant and Catholic, or at 
 least of depriving the latter of all cause of complaint ; that it 
 would strengthen the hands of government, and give the country 
 at large a more general confidence in the protection of the legis- 
 lature." 
 
 Amongst those who opposed this measure were Lord Dun- 
 gannon, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Huskinson. Their argument 
 was : — " If the forty-shilling freeholders had been corrupt, their 
 disfrachisement might be defended ; but the only offence of the 
 persons against whom the bill was directed had been, that they 
 exercised their privilege honestly and independently, and ac- 
 cording to their conscience." This bill also passed, and thus 
 the government of the day desired to hold back with one hand 
 what they had been obliged to give with the other. This de- 
 bate was the last in which Lord Manners took an active part. 
 Old age, with its infirmities, was closing fast around him. He 
 then retired from public life, and spent the remainder of his 
 days in the society of his wife and child. He had been twice 
 married, first to a daughter of Sir John Copley, Bart., and se- 
 condly, to the sister of Lord Grlengall. By his second marriage 
 he had an only son, who was born in 1818, and who became, on 
 the death of Lord Manners, in 1842, second baron. 
 
 The decisions of the Chancellor carry little weight. Many 
 of them are to be found in Ball 8f Beatti/'s Reports. " He was 
 a bad lawyer," said O'Connell ; " but he was the most sensible- 
 looking man talking nonsense he ever saw." Lady Morgan 
 relates that his lordship had given to that lively writer her first 
 lesson in salad making ; but when he discovered the emancipat- 
 ing tendency of her novel of O'JDonnell, he ordered the book to 
 
204 SIP ANTHONY HART. 
 
 be burnt in his servants' hall, and vented his spleen by saying 
 to his wife, " I- wish I had not given her the secret of my 
 
 110. A. D. 1827. — Sir Anthony Hart, Knt. — Sir Anthony 
 Hart, the son of a Unitarian minister, was born in the year 
 1759, in the island of St. Christopher. At an early age he was 
 sent to England for education, and placed at Tunbridge School. 
 In the year 1776 he was admitted a student of the Middle 
 Temple, and called to the bar in 1781. He practised first in 
 the West Indies, and afterwards at the Chancery bar in England. 
 In 1807 he was appointed one of His Majesty's counsel, and in 
 the same year elected a bencher of the Middle Temple. In 1813 
 he was selected to fill the office of Solicitor-General to Her Ma- 
 jesty Queen Charlotte. On the 20th of May, 1827, he was ap- 
 pointed successor to Sir J. Leach, as Vice-Chancellor of England; 
 he also received the honour of knighthood, and was sworn in as 
 one of His Majesty's Privy Council. In the autumn of the 
 same year, on the retirement of Lord Manners, he was raised to 
 the Chancellorship of Ireland. His appointment is thus noticed 
 in the Law Recorder : — 
 
 " Lord Manners is succeeded by Sir Anthony Hart, and the 
 claims of the latter to the Chancellorship of Ireland supersede 
 those of Lord Plunket, now Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. 
 We congratulate Sir Anthony Hart on the good fortune which 
 placed him in the line of promotion next after Lord Manners 
 and before Lord Plunket, because, although he has abundant 
 ability to succeed Lord Manners, it would be difficult for his 
 country, or any country, to find an adequate successor to Lord 
 Plunket. It would be a considerable difficulty, even for a great 
 English lawyer, to succeed Lord Plunket as Chancellor, and no 
 great difficulty for any lawyer to succeed Lord Manners. There- 
 fore, again we congratulate Sir Anthony Hart on the felicity 
 and facility of his position, and feel no doubt that we may con- 
 gratulate the suitors in Chancery on the difference between Sir 
 Anthony Hart and his predecessor. 
 
 " The present Chancellor of Ireland seems to be under sixty 
 years of age, with all the appearance of a hale constitution, and 
 a placidity of temper which doubtless has been cherished by his 
 long absence from all political strife or altercation. His pre- 
 vious professional life, with the exception of the short period 
 during which he sat on the bench as Vice-Chancellor, has been 
 that of a barrister of studious habits and extensive business. 
 His eye — somewhat of the Curran description — is piercing yet 
 kindly ; his features are strong but not harsh ; and his counte- 
 nance is marked with the mingled traits of deep thought and 
 good-humour. He seems to possess in an eminent degree those 
 1 Memoirs, ii. 495. 
 
AXD THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS. 205 
 
 two great qualities for a judge in which so many of our Irish 
 judges have been so lamentably deficient — we mean temper and 
 patience. In other respects he may be distinguished from those 
 judicial characters last referred to — of the lofty arrogance, of 
 the imperious superciliousness that so often accompanies autho- 
 rity, of the insolence of office, of the proud man's contumely, he 
 has none. His conduct to the bar is communicative, conversa- 
 tional, accommodating, friendly, and not more friendly to one 
 man than to another. We distinguish more of the brother bar- 
 rister in him than in most judges whom we observe. His 
 manner of doing business is of a man perfectly accustomed to it ; 
 the subjects seem quite familiar to him, with the exception of 
 the peculiarities of Irish practice ; and he discloses the fruits of 
 his own professional experience in a mild and easy manner, in a 
 ready flow of plain yet lucid language, and in low yet loud 
 undertones, the most stimulating we ever heard ; no single word 
 is lost to any man in the Court." 
 
 Six Anthony Hart had been a short time in office when a 
 circumstance occurred which threatened to bring the entire bu- 
 siness of the Court to a dead lock. Sir William Mac Mahon, 
 then Master of the Rolls, appointed Mr. Frederick Shaw as his 
 secretary, with whom all petititions "addressed" to his Honor, 
 and movable in the Rolls Court, should be lodged. The Chan- 
 cellor denied that the Master of the Rolls had power to appoint 
 a secretary ; and he directed, after the question had been brought 
 before him by Mr. Shaw, that in future all petitions in the 
 Court of Chancery should be directed to the Chancellor and 
 lodged with his secretary, and he added that there was no power 
 to enforce an order made on a petition directed personally to 
 the Master of the Rolls. There was no analogy whatever be- 
 tween the offices of Master of the Rolls in England and Ireland. 
 In England that functionary has a secretary, and petitions ad- 
 dressed to his Honor are lodged with him. But the one is a 
 judicial officer by prescription, and the other is not ; the Masters 
 of the Rolls in England appoint their secretaries, and have 
 done so from the reign of Richard I., while in Ireland no such 
 case can be made. That office has had its function, of which 
 it was deprived in the early part of the eighteenth century, only 
 restored to it in the year 1801, by the Act of 41st George III. 
 
 A question of great importance was brought before the Chan- 
 cellor in relation to an order made by certain justices of the 
 peace in the south of Ireland, whereby professional men were 
 entirely excluded from practising in these courts. 
 
 That the magistrates of the last and of the early part of this 
 century had an innate horror of attorneys is a matter too well 
 known to dispute. The cause of such dislike is self-evident. 
 When the humble and oppressed people had not the assistance 
 
206 SIR ANTHONY HART. 
 
 of those men, the rich and the powerful might treat them, as 
 they too often did, as serfs ; but when the attorney, the real 
 protector of the liberties of the people, "was at hand," the 
 country gentleman knew, perhaps to his cost, that he must adopt 
 a different course with his humbler neighbours. The following 
 advertisement, quaint and amusing, will convey to the mind an 
 idea of the dread the Irish country gentleman had of attorneys 
 a hundred years ago : — 
 
 " To be let, from the 1st of November, 1779, the house and 
 
 demesne of , situated near the town of H d, in the Co. 
 
 Galway. There is a rookery on the lands, good sportinge, and 
 not an attorney within 12 miles on any side. — Apply to," &c. 
 
 Later on, even in the present century, the county magistrates 
 were unfavourable to professional men practising in their courts, 
 and rules were not unfrequently made to exclude them ; and it 
 was a rule of this nature, made by the magistrates at the Bruff 
 Petty Sessions, county of Limerick, that was now brought 
 under the consideration of the Lord Chancellor. 
 
 It appears that on the 26th of August, 1829, the presiding 
 justices were Messrs. Darby O'Grady and Michael Beavan ; on 
 that occasion a civil case of much importance was in the list for 
 hearing, being a summons to recover penalties under the 57th 
 Geo. III., chap. 108. Mr. Croke, a member of the bar, said he 
 appeared as counsel in the case, but their worships having regard 
 to the rule of their court, refused to hear him ; he persisted, and 
 was forthwith put into the dock. Returning to Dublin, he 
 brought the matter under the notice of the bar, who were unani- 
 mous in their condemnation of the conduct of the magistrates, 
 which they conceived to be an insult to their profession. A 
 meeting of the whole bar was convened, and the result was that 
 they adopted a memorial, which was presented to the Lord 
 Chancellor, calling upon him to remove those gentlemen from 
 the commission of the peace. His lordship then communicated 
 with Mr. O'Grady, the senior magistrate, as follows : — 
 
 "Dublin, llth December, 1829. 
 " Sir, — The memorial I transmit with this letter was sent to 
 me by the assembled bar of Ireland. The proceedings at the 
 sessions to which it refers surprised me when I heard of them. 
 As the head of that body to whom His Majesty confided the 
 dispensation of justice to his subjects in this country, it is my 
 duty to inform you that it is the privilege of those subjects to be 
 heard by counsel in all his courts, for supporting and defending 
 their civil rights ; and the rule last laid down in the court where 
 you preside precluding that privilege is illegal, and must be re- 
 scinded. " I am, &c, 
 
 " Anthony Hast, C. 
 <' Darby O'Grady, Esq." 
 
EXCLUSION OF COUNSEL AT PETTY SESSIONS. 207 
 
 Mr. O'Grrady instantly acknowledged the Chancellor's letter, 
 and informed his lordship that he would lay his communication 
 and the memorial before the magistrates at the nest Petty Ses- 
 sions at Bruff. On the 16th of December he made the following 
 statement, in which, it will be observed, he admits that by a rule 
 of his court neither counsel nor any other professional person 
 could be heard : — 
 
 " My Loud, — At a Petty Sessions held at Bruff on the 26th 
 of August last the undersigned were the presiding magistrates, 
 and the court was unusually crowded. A case against the toll- 
 keeper of the fair of Drummin was called on. A person ad- 
 dressed the bench from the midst of the crowd, under the gallery, 
 and at the back of the court. The magistrates desired him, if 
 he had anything to say to the case before the court, to come 
 forward and say it. This person then, without moving from his 
 place in the crowd, which was pressing on, said he was engaged 
 in this case. The magistrates replied that it was the rule of the 
 court not to Jiear professional persons. This person then said that 
 the rule ought to be departed from, and was, he thought, un- 
 constitutional. The magistrates replied it was the rule of the 
 court, and that what he thought of it could not induce them to 
 depart from it. He then added, that what he thought of it was 
 of as much consequence as what they thought of it. He then 
 became silent, and the case before the court was proceeding, 
 when the business of the court was interrupted by a very general 
 riot and disturbance, occasioned by the mob forcing its way into 
 the court, and this person at its head, advancing in a riotous, 
 menacing manner, using abusive language and insulting expres- 
 sions to the magistrates, and holding up his clenched fists towards 
 them in a threatening attitude. The magistrates instantly de- 
 sired the police to put this person in the dock, and he was put 
 in accordingly. He so remained in the dock fifteen or twenty 
 minutes, when, on making an absolute apology for his miscon- 
 duct, he was discharged. Here it may be necessary to remark 
 that this person heard the bench refuse to hear a professional 
 gentleman (stating that the rule forbade it), and also that he 
 saw a man committed to the dock for insulting one of the ma- 
 gistrates, and that both those occurrences took place immediately 
 previous to his first addressing the court. He therefore knew 
 the rule of the court. 
 
 " The magistrates had never seen this person before, but 
 after he was some time in the dock they were told his name was 
 Croke, and that he was a barrister. This the magistrates think 
 it right to state, that neither the rank or profession .of any person 
 could have shielded him in a court where they presided from 
 the punishment due to such gross misconduct. 
 
208 SIR ANTHONY HAKT, 
 
 " From the unusually thronged state of the court, from the- 
 noise proceeding from the crowd, and from the part in the centre 
 of it taken by Mr. Croke, who appeared as leader, there was 
 nothing in Mr. Croke's appearance or manner to alter the un- 
 favourable impression; his face was partly disguised, as if to- 
 prevent his being recognised, and from his dress and deportment,, 
 and the whole tenor of his conduct, the magistrates never sus- 
 pected he was a gentleman, and had considerable doubts as to- 
 whether he was sober. The very unfavourable impressions on. 
 the minds of the magistrates have received strong confirmation 
 from information which has since reached them, and they beg- 
 to call your lordship's attention to the following facts : — When 
 Mr. Croke entered the Bruff Petty Sessions-house, which is also- 
 the Quarter Sessions Court-house, he addressed the crowd col- 
 lected in the hall in a loud and distinct voice, and told them 
 he was come there to humble the magistrates ; that he would be- 
 assistant-barrister for that day, and several other such-like ob- 
 servations. The clerk of the court, seeing Mr. Croke was a 
 stranger, and hearing he was a barrister, offered to conduct him 
 to the seat set apart for professional persons, which offer Mr. 
 Croke declined, and kept his station in the midst of the crowd 
 at the back of the court. This place Mr. Croke occupied during- 
 his conversation with the magistrates, nor did he leave it until 
 he began the riot for which he was committed ; and he was not 
 arrested in his scandalous career until he had reached the bench,, 
 and was proceeding to scramble into it. 
 
 " The magistrates beg, in conclusion, to assure your lord shp 
 that from their own observation, backed by the information they 
 have received from others, they are convinced that Mr. Croke 
 came to the Petty Sessions of Bruff on the 28th of August last 
 with the intention of creating a riot ; that he did afterwards 
 create a riot ; and that, consistently with the duty they owe to» 
 their country, to the administration of the laws entrusted to 
 them, and their own characters as magistrates and gentlemen, 
 the most lenient course they could have bestowed towards Mr. 
 Croke was that which they adopted. 
 
 " With respect to reparation, the magistrates think, from 
 the perusal of this statement, your lordship will perceive it would 
 be due to them, had not that person already atoned for his mis- 
 conduct by a very full and satisfactory apology. 
 
 " The magistrates feel great delicacy in making any allusion: 
 to the memorial presented by the assembled bar of Ireland, and 
 which your lordship has transmitted to them. The magistrates 
 hold the bar collectively in high esteem ; to many members of 
 that respectable profession they are bound by ties the nearest 
 and dearest ; with great reluctance therefore they feel obliged 
 to offer an observation on that extraordinary document. 
 
RESCISSION OF RULE EXCLUDING COUNSEL. 209 
 
 " It maybe doubted that any body whatever (and the bar are 
 110 exception) should be allowed to decide on their own privi- 
 leges ; but when in the assertion of those privileges foul impu- 
 tations are to be cast on others, there is no doubt that the greatest 
 caution should mark their proceedings. In the resolutions of 
 the bar the magistrates do not see that extreme caution which 
 they should have expected from so august an assembly. The bar 
 began by taking for granted a statement the truth of which they 
 do not pretend to have investigated, but on the faith of which 
 they do not hesitate to adjudicate ; and accordingly they pro- 
 nounce sentence on magistrates over whom they cannot presume 
 to have any control ; and, finally, they call on your lordship to 
 carry into execution this ill-digested condemnation. 
 
 " It seems awkward that when lawyers are employed legally 
 and constitutionally to protect and enforce the rights of others, 
 time and money are squandered in lavish profusion before any 
 conclusion can be arrived at; but when they undertake their 
 own cause, with a hop, step, and a jump, they can clear away 
 every obstacle, pronounce their sentence, and leaving law, jus- 
 tice, and jury far behind, with an unpardonable temerity, call 
 on your lordship to become their executioner. 
 
 " We have the honour to be, &c, 
 
 " Darby O'Grady. 
 " Michael Bevan." 
 
 To this communication the Chancellor replied that he would 
 submit their statement to the adjourned meeting of the bar ; 
 and should their differences prove irreconcileable, he apprehended 
 that the subject-matter in dispute should be referred to some 
 other tribunal. Mr. Oroke then brought an action against the 
 magistrates for a libel, which he insisted was contained in their 
 letter to the Lord Chancellor. The case was tried before Lord 
 Plunket, and resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff, £500 da- 
 mages, and 6d. costs. 
 
 The bar, in thus bringing this insult to their body under the 
 notice of the Chancellor, had conferred a boon on the public at 
 large ; for almost immediately the rule preventing suitors having 
 the assistance of counsel was rescinded in every court where it 
 prevailed throughout the country. 
 
 Sir Anthony Hart's term of office did not extend beyond 
 three years, and during those years his time was exclusively em- 
 ployed in the business of his court. Political leanings he had 
 none ; neither dispensing nor partaking of hospitalities, he lived a 
 recluse. When the Duke of Wellington was asked why he 
 sent such a specimen of a tory lawyer as Chancellor to Ireland, 
 his reply was that he sent a sound lawyer, who cared not a straw 
 for the society of one party or of the other, and one who had not a 
 
 P 
 
210 LORD PLUNKET. 
 
 spark of religious or political feeling. 1 " He is a good lawyer," 
 said the witty Lord Norbury ; " and the difference between him 
 and his predecessor, Lord Manners, is that one is law without 
 manners and the other Manners without law." It is a fact 
 without precedent that not a single decision of his was ever 
 varied or reversed. He lived a celibate ; but into his life of 
 celibacy it is needless to pry. He died at his residence, Port- 
 man-square, on the 13th of December, 1831, in the seventy-second 
 year of his age. 
 
 111. A. D. 1830. — Loud Plunket, "William Conyngham 
 Plunket. The family of Plunket is of the remotest antiquity. 
 They are said to have first set foot on the Irish shore with the 
 Danes, in the ninth century, and to have been settled in Meath 
 long before the arrival of the Norman host. In the peerage there 
 are still existing several families of this name — the Earls of Fin- 
 gal, the Lords of Dunsany, and the Lords of Louth. In past 
 centuries many Plunkets sat both on the episcopal and on the 
 judicial benches. Oliver Plunket, who died a martyr for his faith 
 in London on the 1st of July, 1681, was Catholic Archbishop of 
 Armagh, and another Plunket was Catholic Bishop of Ardagh. 
 Richard Plunket was Chief Justice of the King's Bench; he 
 died on Christmas Day, 1388, and, according to the annalist, 
 " left behinde him a name so largely honoured, that the likes of 
 him was never heard of." Sir Thomas Plunket was at once 
 Chief Justice and a warrior, and was forced to resign his seat 
 on the bench after he had fought for the impostor Simnel at the 
 battle of Stoke, in 1487. Sir Alexander Plunket, of whom we 
 have already spoken, was Lord Chancellor in 1492, and John 
 Plunket was Chief Justice in 1559. Nor should the name of 
 Christopher Plunket, Earl of Fingal, be forgotten by any that 
 reverence the memory of those who perished for their religion 
 in 1649. 
 
 In the reign of Henry VIII. there lived a Sir Patrick 
 Plunket, knight, of the house of Louth, who married a grand- 
 daughter of Sir "William Wells, the fifty-ninth Lord Chancellor 
 of Ireland: he was ancestor of the martyred archbishop of 
 whom we have just spoken, and of Patrick Plunket, of Glenan, 
 in the county of Monaghan, whose branch of the family had be- 
 come Protestant. This Patrick Plunket was aTJnitarian minister 
 in Enniskillen, and his son Thomas, born in 1725, followed his 
 father's profession. His wife's name was Conyngham, and in 
 1750 there was born to him a son, Patrick, 'who became as 
 eminent in physic as his second son, "William Conyngham 
 Plunket, was in politics and law. This last was born in 1764, 
 and became, as he advanced in life, the ornament of the TJni- 
 
 1 Life of Lord Melbourne, vol. i,, p. 75. 
 
TRAVELLING CIRCUIT IN THE OLD TIMES. 211 
 
 versity, the senate, the har, and the bench. In 1768 Thomas 
 Plunket was appointed minister of Strand-street meeting-house, 
 in Dublin, and, being possessed of some powers of eloquence, 
 drew a considerable congregation around his pulpit. His son, 
 the subject of this memoir, entered Trinity College as a pen- 
 sioner, and is said to have given no token of his future eminence 
 during most of his undergraduate course. But when he joined 
 the Historical Society, then indeed his light shone forth in 
 almost its fullest splendour. His early associates in the Uni- 
 versity were Theobald Wolfe Tone, who was called to the bar 
 in 1780, and was long the paid secretary of the Catholic Com- 
 mittee — his life was lost in the troubles of 1798 ; Charles 
 Kendal Bushe, afterwards Chief Justice, who, according to the 
 playful fancy of Grattan, "spoke with the lips of an angel ;" 
 Peter Burrowes, Whitley Stokes, and Thomas Addis Emmett — 
 all of them men of genius; all of them labouring in their 
 country's cause ; all of them Protestants ; but all of them banded 
 together — and this is a fact which should never be forgotten by 
 the Catholics — to loosen the bonds that bound their Catholic 
 fellow-countrymen. 
 
 At what time William Conyngham Plunket joined the 
 Church of England we have no exact means of knowing. In 
 his third year in the University he became a Scholar of the 
 house, and joined the Historical Society. He was twice its 
 president, was rewarded with gold medals in oratory, in compo- 
 sition, and in history, and won a prize essay on " a Defence of 
 the Age." 
 
 Immediately after his call to the bar, in 1784, he joined the 
 north-east circuit. Although there were in that year three 
 coaches running, some of them twice a-week, from Dublin to 
 Xewry, there was yet not a single other public, conveyance all 
 over the province of Ulster ; nor was it looked on as professional 
 for a barrister on circuit to travel by public coach even to Newry. 
 Consequently the bar rode from assize town to assize town on 
 horseback, each barrister with his mounted servant in attendance 
 upon him. The judges were in the saddle early on travelling- 
 days, and not unfrequently their wives rode on pillions behind 
 them. At the appointed hour the bugle sounded; the high 
 sheriff, with a score of halberdmen in livery, waited outside the 
 judge's lodgings. The bar was collected, each barrister having 
 his circuit library and clothes stowed away in the saddle-bags on 
 his servant's horse, while a couple of huge leathern bottles, well 
 filled with claret, dangled at his horse's flanks. His flowing 
 cloak, which in winter covered the horse and the rider, was in 
 summer rolled in military style at the crupper of the saddle ; 
 while at the saddle-bow were the horse pistols, ready at any 
 moment to protect his life if attacked by the gentlemen of the 
 
 P2 
 
212 LOKD PLUNKET. 
 
 road, or his honour if wounded by real or imaginary insults- 
 The sub-sheriff followed the bar at a short distance, and the- 
 whole of this moving mass dashed on at a brisk trot, while a 
 squadron of dragoons brought up the rear. 
 
 Accident brought Mr. Plunket under the notice of John 
 M'Causland, who was then the great northern attorney; a 
 brief, with the accustomed fee, was sent from his office to- 
 Mr. Plunket's lodgings. Immediate attention was required,, 
 and was bestowed, and he gave so much satisfaction that case- 
 after case was entrusted to him, and he soon became the 
 advising counsel of that house. Professional acquaintance 
 ripened into friendship, and he married, after a time, the 
 daughter of his friend. 
 
 Although Mr. Plunket cultivated the intimacy of the patri- 
 otic section of the bar, he yet appears to have been thrown less- 
 in the way of Wolfe Tone than he had formerly been. Tone 
 was at length forced to fly to America, and on the eve of his- 
 exile Plunket wrote to him as follows : — 
 
 " Dear Tone, — I embrace with great pleasure the idea and 
 opportunity of renewing our old habits of intimacy and friend- 
 ship. Long as they have been interrupted, I can assure you 
 that no hostile sentiment towards you ever found admittance- 
 into my mind. Pegret, allow me the expression, on your 
 account, apprehension for the public, and great pain at being 
 deprived of the social, happy, and unrestrained intercourse- 
 which had for so many years subsisted between us, were the sum 
 of my feelings. Some of them, perhaps, were mistaken, but 
 there can be no use now in any retrospect of that kind. It is 
 not without a degree of melancholy I reflect that your present 
 destination makes it probable that we may never meet again, 
 and talk and laugh together as we used to do, though it is 
 difficult to determine whether these jumbling times might not 
 again bring us together. In all events, I shall be most happy 
 to hear from you, and write to you, often and fully, and to hear 
 of your well-being, wherever you may be. If I had known 
 your departure was to have been so very immediate, I would 
 not have suffered you to slip away without a personal meeting. 
 I shall hope to hear from you as soon as you get to America. I 
 formerly had friends there. The unfortunate death of my 
 brother you have probably heard of ; perhaps, however, I may 
 still have some there who might be useful to you. Let me 
 know where and in what line you think of settling, and, if any 
 of my connexions can be of use, I will write to them warmly. 
 
 " I beg you will give my best regards to Mrs. Tone, and 
 " Believe me, dear Tone, 
 
 " With great truth, your friend, 
 "May Will, 1795." "W. Plunket. 
 
THEOBALD WOLFE TOXE. 213 
 
 Tone sailed to America, thence to France, and within the 
 next three years had engaged the French and Dutch govern- 
 ments to direct three expeditions to the shores of Ireland ; had 
 served with the Frenoh army as adjutant-general ; was acting 
 in confidential council with floche, Bonaparte, Carnot, and was 
 as well known and accredited in the bureaux of the Directory 
 -and at the Hague as the official of any regular legation. Three 
 ;years of miraculous work ! — while Bushe lamented in the 
 House of Commons that he should be " wasting on the desert 
 air of an American plantation the brightest talents that he ever 
 knew a man to be gifted with." 
 
 We have spoken of the trial of the Sheares' in another place 
 (supra, p. 171). Curran conducted their defence, and with 
 him Plunket was associated. He had been in 1797 appointed 
 oue his Majesty's counsel, but we do not find that he appeared 
 for the Crown in any of the prosecutions for high treason that 
 followed the rebellion of the succeeding year. In the House of 
 Commons, which he entered in 1798, as member for the borough 
 of Charlemont, he opposed the Union ; and, as a constitutional 
 lawyer, denied the competency of parliament to vote away its 
 existence — " as well," he said, " might the frantic suicide hope 
 that the act which destroys his miserable body should extinguish 
 his immortal soul." 
 
 In another place he says, "Who will say that when the 
 Imperial Parliament shall have got an uncontrolled power 
 over Ireland, that they will not make local laws for the govern- 
 ment of this country ? Who will answer that when the Habeas 
 corpus shall be suspended in Ireland, it shall be also suspended 
 in Great Britain ? Who will say that the miserable inhabitants 
 of this remote and barbarous province shall not be smarting 
 under the fetter and the whip, while the British Parliament, in 
 its imperial dignity, shall sit unconcerned at our sufferings, and 
 out of the reach of our cries?" The last words of anguish 
 spoken in the Irish Parliament were spoken by Plunket ! 
 
 To advocate their client's cause is the well-known duty of 
 the lawyer. He is bound to accept a brief ; it may be to prose- 
 cute the subject, or it may be to defend, and therefore it is that 
 one reads, without feelings of astonishment, that Mr. Plunket 
 appears at one time as the defender of John and Henry Sheares 
 from a charge of high treason, and at another time assists the 
 Crown in prosecuting Robert Emmet on a similar charge. Mr. 
 Plunket has been assailed for having acted in this last case, but 
 it is impossible to forget that if he were to practise at his profes- 
 sion at all, he was bound not to refuse a brief from those 
 who retained his services. 
 
 The trial of Emmet for high treason took place at a commis- 
 
214 LORD PLUNKET. 
 
 sion presided over by Lord Norbury, on the 19th of September,. 
 1803. Standish O'Grady, Attorney- General ; M'CleUand, Soli- 
 citor-General, and Plunket, were counsel for the Crown ; Peter 
 Burrowes and Leonard MacNally, for the prisoner. 
 
 Evidence was duly given of Emmet's acts of rebellion, of 
 his preparations at Thomas-street, of his appearing in green uni- 
 form with his lieutenants, Michael Quigley , Dowdall, and Stafford, 
 of the speedy termination of the insurrection, his subsequent flight 
 to the mountains, and arrest. The proclamations and other do- 
 cumentary evidence were then given in, and the case closed on 
 the part of the Crown. The scene which follows is from the- 
 report : — 
 
 "Mr. MacNally. — My lord, Mr. Emmet says he does not 
 intend to call any witness, or to take up the time of the court by 
 his counsel stating any case, or observations upon the evidence ;; 
 and therefore I presume the trial is now closed on both sides. 
 
 "Mr. Plunket. — It is with extreme reluctance that, under 
 such circumstances, and in a case like this, I do not feel myself 
 at liberty to follow the example which has been set me by the 
 counsel for the prisoner. 
 
 "Mr. MacNally. — I beg pardon ; I am, then, to call on the 
 Court to decide a matter of practice. No doubt the Crown is 
 entitled to <the last word — that is, a reply ; but if I understand 
 anything of the arrangement of criminal trials, it is this : the 
 counsel for the prosecution states the case ; after the evidence 
 given in support of it, the prisoner is called upon to state his 
 case ; and if he does, the counsel for the prosecution has a right 
 to reply ; but I conceive that the word reply, according to its 
 true meaning, is this : — observing upon that which has been 
 urged in answer to the charge ; but if there has been no answer, 
 there can be no reply. I believe the case is new ; at least since- 
 the proceedings in treason were regulated by statute, there is no 
 instance where there had not been a defence made by the 
 prisoner's counsel, and an answer given to the evidence against 
 him ; therefore, I say, it is a new case. However, we do not 
 intend to press the objection further, unless my learned friend 
 with whom I have the honour to act should think proper to add 
 anything in support of it. 
 
 " Chief Justice. — Were it a matter of any doubt, it would be 
 our duty to have it spoken to ; but as there can be no doubt that 
 the counsel for the Crown have a right to speak to a great body 
 of evidence, and that the counsel for the prisoner cannot by 
 their silence preclude the Crown from that right — we cannot 
 prevent the reply ; if we did we should introduce a novel 
 practice, which never prevailed in any of the State trials, into- 
 many of which for some time past I have looked. 
 
TRIAL OF ROBERT EMMET. 215 
 
 " The Attorney-General — It is at my particular desire that 
 Mr. Plunket rises to address the jury upon this occasion." 
 
 Mr. Plunket then addressed the jury. It has been said that 
 he -wantonly insulted that dying and defenceless man. The 
 answer was, that it was false — absolutely false. I have read 
 many, if not all, the reports of that painful trial, and am unable 
 to find a trace of the fact. It was not, then, true that Mr. 
 Pluiiket insulted that unhappy man ; but it was true that the 
 Attorney-General of the day requested Mr. Plunket, when 
 Emmet offered no evidence and would not suffer his counsel to 
 address the court, to make that speech in order that he might 
 deliver a practical exhortation to the rest of His Majesty's sub- 
 jects, to warn them from pursuing the same course as the mis- 
 guided but brilliant young man who stood there, with no fearing 
 heart, in the dock. The memory of Lord Plunket, then, was 
 clear of the heavy stain which was attempted to be cast on it. 
 
 Lord Norbury's charge then followed, and the jury, without 
 turning in the box, found the prisoner guilty. 
 
 Mr. Emmet, through his counsel, asked that the judgment 
 of the Court might be postponed until the next morning. This 
 request was not granted. The Clerk of the Crown then asked, 
 " What have you now to say why judgment of death and exe- 
 cution should not be awarded against you according to law?" 
 Pobert Emmet, upon the instant, made reply in a speech pro- 
 nounced to be one of the most splendid and powerful effusions 
 of impassioned eloquence which ever fell impromptu from the 
 lips of man. 
 
 Of that speech there exist many editions. Thomas Moore, 
 in his diary, February 15th, 1831, mentions Mr. Burrowes hav- 
 ing remarked to him: — "The passage in a printed speech of 
 Emmet, where he is made to call Plunket ' that viper,' &c, was 
 never spoken by Emmet." The prisoner was executed on the 
 day next following the trial. 
 
 On the 22nd of October, 1803, Mr. Plunket was sworn in as 
 Solicitor- General under the government of Mr. Addington. 
 That ministry was short-lived, and Mr. Pitt returned to power 
 on the 15th of May, 1804. Nominally he had been in the op- 
 position since his retirement on the 17th of March, 1801, but on 
 his return to power he made no change amongst the law officers 
 of the Crown in Ireland. Lord Eedesdale was continued as 
 Chancellor; 0' Grady remained Attorney- and William Conyng- 
 ham Plunket Solicitor-General. 
 
 Mr. Plunk et's conduct in the case of Emmet was the object 
 of much comment in the papers of that day. Juverna, in Cob- 
 bett's Weekly Register, attacked him in envenomed language, and 
 he accordingly brought an action for libel against Mr. Cobbett, 
 laying his damages at £10,000. The manuscript was produced, 
 
216 LOKD PLUNKET. 
 
 and witnesses were found to swear that it was in the hand- 
 writing of Judge Johnson. The government therefore resolved 
 to prosecute this latter for libel, and to bring him oyer from 
 Ireland to Middlesex for trial, as the libel had been written and 
 published in London. But there was a difficulty in the way. 
 No law was then in existence giving power to remove offenders 
 from Ireland to England or vice versa for trial. An ex post 
 facto Act was immediately enacted to supply this defect. The 
 Judge was brought to London and tried before Lord Ellenbo- 
 rough, and was found guilty ; but the Attorney- General never 
 applied for judgment ! 
 
 On the 11th of February, 1806, the whigs came into office, 
 Lord Grenville being Prime Minister. Plunket, who had been 
 appointed Attorney- General by Mr. Pitt in the month of 
 October, 1805, was continued in office by his successor, though 
 the Lord Chancellor, Lord Eedesdale, as we have already re- 
 lated, lost the Seals. 
 
 The Grenville ministry having lived for little more than one 
 year, the tories returned to office on the 31st of March, 1807, 
 the anti-Catholic Lord Eldon being Lord Chancellor of Great 
 Britain, and Lord Manners Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Mr. 
 Plunket was of course dismissed, and fifteen years elapsed be- 
 fore he was again appointed Attorney-General. He was mean- 
 while honoured by the Crown with a right of pre-audience and 
 precedence "in all places and upon all occasions as well in 
 the Courts as elsewhere." In 1813, he spoke in his place in 
 parliament on the Catholic claims and in favour of emancipa- 
 tion.. He was then member for the University of Dublin, 
 which he continued to represent until his elevation to the 
 peerage. 
 
 On the death of Mr. Grattan, on 7th of June, 1820, the 
 conduct of the Catholic cause in parliament came into the hands 
 of Mr. Plunket. In the month of February following he in- 
 troduced a bill for Catholic emancipation ; but that bill was 
 unacceptable to the great majority of the Catholic party, inas- 
 much as it sought to legislate on the election of bishops, and 
 purported to give a power to the Protestant sovereign of Great 
 Britain to interfere in the appointment of the Catholic episcopacy. 
 
 "He proposed to regulate and legalise within the proper 
 limits the intercourse with the See at Eome, so as to satisfy the 
 State that the communication for spiritual purposes shall not be 
 perverted to become an instrument of political intrigue. 
 
 " Next he proposed to regulate the appointment of the Eoman 
 Catholic bishops, so as to assure the government of the country, 
 that they, and through them all the Eoman Catholic clergy, 
 shall be well affeoted to the State. 
 
 " But his next proposition, and that to which all others must 
 
PLUNKET S CATHOLIC RELIEF BILLS. 217 
 
 "be secondary and subordinate, is to incorporate the Roman Catho- 
 lics with the State — so to bind them to the present order of things 
 that their interest shall be our security. To give to the well- 
 affected the reward of his loyalty, and take away from the re- 
 volutionist the pretext and the instrument of his treason. To 
 rivet the honest Roman Catholic to the State by every good 
 affection of his nature, by every motive that can affect his heart, 
 and every argument that can convince his reason, by every 
 obligation that can bind his conscience ; not adding the weight of 
 a feather to his power, but by relieving his feelings from every- 
 thing that is contumelious, insolent, and personal, by abolish- 
 ing every odious distinction, every affrontful suspicion, every 
 -degrading exclusion. What is the remedy of honourable gen- 
 tlemen ? To leave them as they are. Gracious heaven ! To 
 leave the great body of the Irish people bound by the law of 
 their nature to plot the subversion of the State ! I say of the 
 JState, because I trust that every man who hears me will say, 
 that to subvert the Protestant establishment is to subvert the 
 State." 
 
 This speech sorely offended the Catholics, and Mr. O'Connell 
 was unsparing in his denunciation of those measures, " which 
 contained," he said, " more penal clauses than had been enacted 
 in any Act of Parliament from the reign of Queen Anne to that 
 time." The very oath which the candidates for holy orders 
 should swear was an oath of abjuration of his faith. That oath 
 was to be as follows : — 
 
 " I, A. B., do swear that I will never concur in or consent 
 to the appointment or consecration of any Roman Catholic 
 bishop or dean, or vicar- apostolic, in the Roman Catholic church 
 in the United Kingdom, but such as I shall conscientiously 
 deem to be of unimpeachable loyalty and peaceable conduct ; 
 and I do swear that I have not and will not have any corre- 
 spondence or communication with the Pojie or See of Rome, or with 
 any court or tribunal established or to be established by the 
 Pope or See of Rome, or by the authority of the same, or with 
 any person or persons authorised or pretending to be authorised 
 by the Pope or See of Rome, tending directly or indirectly 
 to overthrow or disturb the Protestant government or the Pro- 
 testant Church of Great Britain and Ireland, or the Protestant 
 Ohurch of Scotland, as by law established ; and that I will not 
 correspond or communicate with the Pope or See of Rome, or 
 with any tribunal established or to be established by the Pope 
 or See of Rome, or by the authority of the same, or with any 
 person or persons authorised or pretending to be authorised by 
 the Pope or See of Rome, or with any other foreign ecclesiastical 
 authority, on any matter or thing which may interfere with or 
 
218 LORD PLUNKET. 
 
 affect the civil duty and allegiance which is due to His Majesty,. 
 his heirs, and successors, from all his subjects." 
 
 Mr. Plunket's measures passed the Lower House, hut were 
 fortunately rejected in the Upper on the second reading. 
 Great division and angry discussion had arisen amongst the 
 Catholics with relation to them; but the majority of the coun- 
 try, headed by the prelates, repudiated them altogether, and 
 hailed their defeat with undisguised satisfaction. On the 20th 
 of March, 1821, Daniel O'Connell expressed his opinion of Mr. 
 Plunket's bills in the following letter : — l 
 
 " To the Catholics of Ireland. 
 
 "Limerick {on Circuit), 
 " YJth March, 1821. 
 
 " Fellow-Countrymen, — Mr. Plunket's two bills are at 
 length before you. The first Act is really an Emancipation or 
 Belief bill. . . . The second Act gives no relief, and is simply a 
 penal and restrictive law of the worst description. It is called 
 an Act 'to regulate the intercourse between persons in holy 
 orders professing the Roman Catholic religion with the See of 
 Rome.' This title is not only broken English and bad gram- 
 mar, but it is infinitely worse. It has all the characteristics, 
 of complete falsehood — the suppressio veri, the suggestio falsi. 
 Truth is suppressed, because the principal object of the bill 
 does not relate to such intercourse at all, but is to give the- 
 Secretary of the Lord Lieutenant the absolute appointment of 
 all the bishops and all the deans of the Catholic Church in Ire- 
 land. Falsehood is suggested, because this is not a bill to regu- 
 late the intercourse (for regulate means ' to order by rule'), but it 
 is a bill to control according to caprice that intercourse, and to 
 control it according to the caprice of a Protestant Secretary of 
 State. It is in this respect a bill to suppress the necessary inter- 
 course upon matters of faith and discipline between that part of 
 the Catholic or Universal Church of Christ which is in Ireland, 
 and the Pope, or visible head upon earth of that Church. 
 
 " From the falsehood of the title, I proceed to the mischiefs- 
 of the proposed enactments. 
 
 "The Act contains two recitals and twenty-two sections. 
 Any person desirous of obtaining with accuracy the minutest 
 details of this important Act would do well to procure a copy 
 of it. 
 
 " The first recital is in substance this — ' Whereas, it is expe- 
 dient that such precautions be taken with respect to persons to- 
 be appointed to exercise the functions of bishop or dean in the- 
 Catholio Church of Ireland, as that no person shall assume any 
 
 1 Life and Times of O' Connett. By his Son. Vol. ii., p. 318. 
 
PLUNKET S BILLS DENOUNCED BY o'cONNELL. 219 
 
 part of such functions whose loyalty and peaceable conduct shall 
 not have been previously ascertained to the satisfaction of His 
 Majesty, his heirs and successors.' 1 The second recital, a thing 
 very unusual, repeats the first, as above, with the addition of 
 saying, ' That it is fit, as well as expedient, to ascertain the 
 loyalty and peaceable conduct of our bishops as well as deans.' 
 I defy a single one to be named as even suspected of disloyalty, 
 either now or in times passed, and you may take the dead as 
 well as the living. 
 
 " There certainly was one Irish Catholic bishop tried and 
 executed for treason, and he bore the unauspicious name of 
 Plunket. But his case forms no exception. He was certainly 
 innocent. The accusation against him was ridiculous. His 
 trial and his death only reflect disgrace on the more infamous 
 judges and juries of his day. His fate casts no shade on the 
 loyalty of the Catholic bishops. 
 
 " The next thing to be ascertained after the loyalty is ' the 
 peaceable conduct.' Sacred God! the peaceable conduct of 
 our deans and bishops ! There are upwards of 3000 priests in 
 Ireland, and whoever hears, or has heard, of any of them engag- 
 ing in riots or fights, or showing anything but peaceable con- 
 duct ? 
 
 "Come forward, Mr. Plunket — you who presume, with your 
 double recital, to impute to at least some, if not to all, the 
 priests of Ireland a tendency to break the peace — come forward 
 and state whether you ever knew, or ever heard, of any other 
 thafi peaceable conduct. You cannot allege that you have, and 
 therefore allow me, in the sorrow of my heart, to ask you how 
 you could have the heart to put upon perpetual record those 
 horrid imputations on a priesthood who never offended you ? It 
 was scarcely decent of you, the apparent advocate of Catholics, 
 to inflict ridicule, and even ribaldry, on our doctrine of the real 
 presence, more especially when you appear not to understand 
 the doctrine." 
 
 [The portion of Mr. Plunket's speech which O'Connell thus 
 denounced is as follows] : — 
 
 " We all declare solemnly that we consider the sacrifice of 
 the mass as superstitious and idolatrous. Now, I entreat each 
 member of this House to suppose that I am asking him indi- 
 vidually, and as a private gentleman, does he know what is said, 
 or meant, or done in the sacrifice of the mass ; or how it differs 
 from our own mode of celebrating the communion, so as to ren- 
 der it superstitious and idolatrous ? If I could count upon the 
 vote of every member, who must answer me that upon his 
 
 1 Ibid., p. 315, line 1. 
 
220 LORD PLUNKET. 
 
 honour lie does not know, I should he sure of carrying, by an 
 overwhelming majority, this or any other question I might 
 think it proper to propose. "Were I now to enter on a discussion 
 of the nature of these doctrines, every memher would complain 
 that I was occupying the time of the statesmen with subjects 
 utterly unconnected with the business of the House or the 
 policy of the country. Can there be a more decisive proof of 
 its unsuitableness as a test ? 
 
 "Still, even at the hazard of being censured for my irrele- 
 vancy, I must venture one or two observations on the point 
 denounced. It is important that I should do so, because the 
 truth is that at the Reformation the difference between the two 
 Churches on this point was considered so slight and so capable 
 of adjustment, that it was purposely left open. Our commu- 
 nion service was so framed as to admit the Roman Catholics, 
 and they, accordingly, for the first twelve years of Elizabeth's 
 reign, partook of our communion, and there is nothing to pre- 
 vent a conscientious Roman Catholic doing so at this day. The 
 sacrament of the Lord's Supper is, by all Christians, held to be 
 a solemn rite of the Church, ordained by its Divine Founder as 
 a commemoration of His sacrifice, and most efficacious to those 
 who worthily receive it, with proper sentiments of gratitude and 
 contrition ; so far, all Christians agree, and we are on the 
 grounds of Scripture and of common sense ; but beyond this, 
 the Roman Catholic is said to assert that the body of our Lord 
 is actually present in the sacrifice. Now this, in the only sense 
 in which I can affix a meaning to it, I must disbelieve. It is 
 contrary to the evidence of my senses and to the first principles 
 of my reason. But the Roman Catholic states that he does not 
 believe the body of our Lord to be present in the Eucharist in 
 the same sense in which it is said to be in heaven ; for he admits 
 that the same body cannot be in two places at the same time, 
 but it is present in a sense ; the Council of Lateran says sacra- 
 mentally present. Now, what this sense is, I own, baffles my 
 faculties. The proposition which states it I can neither affirm 
 nor deny, because I cannot understand it any more than if it 
 was laid down as a dogma that it was. of a blue colour, or six 
 feet high. I feel satisfied, as a sincere Christian, resting on 
 Scripture and reason, that it is not necessary for me to involve 
 myself in those mysteries ; and of this I am sure, that I would 
 act a very un-Christian part if I were to join in giving foul 
 names to the prof essors of this, to me, incomprehensible dogma." 
 
 [Mr. O'Connell, in reference to the foregoing, thus pro- 
 ceeds] : — 
 
 " Now, Catholics of Ireland, who, in spite of the ribaldry of 
 Mr. Plunket, believe in the real presence, in that tenet of the 
 
PLTTXKET DENOUNCED BY o'cONNELL. 221 
 
 sweetest and tenderest charity, in that consolatory tenet which, 
 thank God, is sanctioned, not only hy the most clear and unequi- 
 vocal tests, and repeated passages of the written Word, as well 
 as by the authority of that Church, which, being founded on a 
 rock, defies force as well as fraud, Mr. Plunket." 
 
 [Speaking of the new oath which Mr. Plunket introduced 
 into his bill, Mr. O'Connell says] : — 
 
 " The priest must hold perpetual intercourse with persons 
 acting under the authority of the See of Eome. If he takes this 
 oath he must disclaim all communications with that see, and he 
 will thereby cease to belong to the religion which has been clung 
 to with affectionate tenacity through many an age of darkness 
 and storm by the people of Ireland. Their priests never de- 
 serted the people, and the people will never forsake their priest- 
 hood. The present attempt will be as abortive as all the former 
 assaults, and Mr. Plunket's new-fangled oath will be treated 
 with quiet contempt by a patient, long-suffering, and insulted 
 people. 
 
 [He then denounced both Mr. Plunket and his bill] : — 
 " I have long known that Mr. Plunket was a man of great 
 and powerful ingenuity, but I did not think he had acuteness 
 enough to frame so complete a snare for the Catholic religion. 
 I still cannot give Mr. Plunket credit for the extreme fitness of 
 his infernal machine, as the French would call it. 
 
 [Mr. O'Connell then analyses the several sections of the bill, 
 which he says, on the authority of Cardinal Litta, would be re- 
 jected by the See of Eome. A Court of Control, composed of 
 Catholics and Protestants, it was provided by the sixth section, 
 should be constituted, whose duties were " to crush the Catholic 
 Church in all its branches "] : — 
 
 " I therefore say, the Catholic clergy cannot possibly submit 
 to the proposed board. Mr. Plunket, it is true, may make 
 martyrs of them, but let him rest assured he will not be able to 
 make traitors of them to their religion and to their God. 
 
 " There remains much of this abominable bill still to be 
 considered. There remain all its details of the new veto. "We 
 never before heard, or had any, the slightest, information of a 
 design to extend the veto to our deans. The merit of this ex- 
 tension is the exclusive property of Mr. Plunket. This out- 
 heroding of Herod belongs to Mr. Plunket. Let him have the 
 sole and exclusive honour of it, especially as he has invented it 
 in his capacity of our advocate. 
 
 " Fellow-countrymen, I place great confidence in the since- 
 ritv of your attachment to the faith of the uninterrupted Church 
 of "Christ; but my great and most firm reliance is upon that 
 
222 LORD PLUNKET. 
 
 God who protected our fathers amidst the flames of persecution, 
 and may He, in His mercy, guard their children from the true 
 pestilence of pretended friendship. 
 
 " I am, my beloved countrymen, 
 " Your ever faithful and devoted Servant, 
 
 "Daniel O'Connell." 
 
 The defeat of the " Catholic bills " was well received all over 
 England, and for other and widely different reasons was also 
 well received in Ireland. The struggle then ceased for a season ; 
 for when it became known that the king was about to visit' 
 Ireland, it was resolved that all animosities should be laid 
 aside, and that Catholics should not obtrude their grievances on 
 their sovereign. A national festivity took place in Dublin, and 
 from the vehement protestations on both sides, it was believed 
 by many that a lasting reconciliation had been effected. Master 
 Ellis, whose hatred of popery was of the deepest dye, and 
 O'Connell, almost embraced each other. The king arrived, and 
 was hailed with tumultuous applause wherever he passed, and 
 in return for the enthusiastic reception which he had found, he 
 directed Lord Sidmouth to write a letter, recommending it " to 
 the people to he united." He shortly afterwards set sail, with 
 tears in his eyes, from Kingstown. For a little while the Ca- 
 tholics continued under the miserable deception under which 
 they had laboured during the royal sojourn ; but when they 
 found that no intention existed to introduce a change of system 
 into Ireland — that the king's visit seemed an artifice, and Lord 
 Sidmouth's epistle meant nothing — they began to perceive that 
 some course more effective than a loyal solicitude not to disturb 
 the repose of His Majesty should be adopted. 
 
 At the close of the year 1821 the Marquis of Wellesley was 
 sent over to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, and Mr. Plunket im- 
 mediately resumed his office of Attorney-General. His elevation 
 was far from diminishing his zeal in the Catholic cause. Mr. 
 O'Connell had a lengthened interview with him on this subject 
 on the 16th of January, 1822. 
 
 " I waited," O'Connell writes, " on Mr. Plunket to submit 
 to him my ideas on the subject of Catholic emancipation. He 
 received me with great kindiiess, and with the most perfect at- 
 tention. I cannot speak too highly of the temper and disposi- 
 tion which Mr. Plunket evinced in the interviews I had with 
 him." 
 
 " He has convinced me that he is desirous of carrying our 
 emancipation, making as little sacrifices to English prejudices 
 as he possibly can. I wish to be the more distinct in expressing 
 my opinion of Mr. Plunket's candour, that it may serve as a 
 
o'cONNELL FRIENDLY TO PLTJXKET. 223 
 
 refutation of the sentiments which I formerly entertained and 
 published on this topic. 
 
 " A communication has been opened between Mr. Plunket 
 and the Catholic bishops. He is ready, I believe, to receive 
 their sentiments with deference, and I am sure that he will 
 respect their conscientious scruples. He perceives that their 
 objections to the veto had nothing of faction in them, and that 
 they are purely conscientious." 
 
 The irritation of the Catholic party throughout the United 
 Kingdom subsided with the defeat of the bills in the House of 
 Lords. That irritation was far from prejudicing the mind of 
 Mr. Plunket, who still remained the advocate of the Catholics 
 within the walls of the House of Commons, to which Mr. O'Con- 
 nell was, of course, as yet inadmissible. 
 
 Early in the session of 1822 Mr. Canning introduced a bill 
 for the admission of Catholic peers into the Upper House, and 
 Mr. Plunket, then Attorney- General, supported that measure. 
 He said, " that the cause of the exclusion of Catholic peers was 
 not because they were dangerous counsellors, but because the 
 House of Commons, in the reign of Charles II., suspected the 
 king of being a Catholic, a fact which, though unknown at the 
 time, was afterwards ascertained to be the case. The House 
 dreaded a Catholic successor to the throne, but that cause had 
 passed away, and the exclusion was now intolerable. The bill 
 for their admission should have his warm, cordial, and unaltera- 
 ble support." 
 
 The failure of the harvest of 1821 caused deep distress 
 in the following summer in Ireland. The Protestant clergy 
 and the tithe proctors, who like locusts swarmed over the 
 land, were denounced by the tithe payers. The tithes in this 
 year of distress became an insupportable grievance, for while 
 the Catholic tiller of the soil should pay the tenth part of the 
 fruit of his husbandry towards the maintenance of a hostile 
 Church, the Protestant grazier paid no tithes at all for his 
 grass lands. Petitions, in consequence, poured in from all sides 
 against such a state of things, and the people were resolved 
 to resist the payment of an impost which was at once a drain 
 on their pockets and an insult to their feelings. Mr. Plunket 
 defended the Protestant Church and their clergy, who, by the 
 opposition of the people, were reduced to the lowest ebb of dis- 
 tress. He respected their rights and privileges, and " no autho- 
 rity, not even their own, would induce him to compromise the 
 rights of the Church." 
 
 Great powers, meanwhile, were entrusted to the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant, the Marquis of Wellesley, by the Coercion Acts of this 
 year (1822), but that nobleman has never been charged with 
 unmercifully exercising those great powers. The dignitaries of 
 
224 LORD PLUNKET. 
 
 the Catholic Church were treated by his Excellency with marked 
 respect ; and the appointment of the Protestant champion of 
 Catholic liberty to the high office of Attorney-General gave a 
 lasting offence to the Orange ascendancy party, who were ap- 
 prehensive that they should see extended in their day the bene- 
 fits of a free and equal toleration to all the inhabitants of the- 
 empire. 
 
 This party were not slow in displaying the excess of their 
 loyalty (?) by many an overt act. They had had the mortifica- 
 tion of seeing omitted, by the command of the king, when he 
 was entertained by the Corporation of Dublin in the preceding- 
 year, the insulting toast of the " glorious, pious, and immortal 
 memory," and Lord Wellesley had aggrieved their poetic fan- 
 cies by forcibly preventing the repetition, in 1822, of the 
 offensive mummery of dressing King William's statue in 
 College-green on the 12th of July. The Lord Lieutenant at- 
 tended the theatre in state, such state visits being known to 
 theatrical people by the name of " command nights." On this 
 occasion an organised party of Orangemen, numbering nearly a 
 hundred, packed the pit and upper gallery of the theatre, and 
 having caused much interruption and disturbance throughout a 
 portion of the performance, and having used the most offensive 
 language — such as, " Down with the popish government," " A 
 groan for the popish Lord Lieutenant " — they even went so far 
 as to throw at his Excellency, who sat in the royal box, several 
 heavy missiles, one of which, striking the cushion, rebounded to 
 the stage. A heavy whiskey bottle was aimed in the same di- 
 rection, and narrowly missed its object, from which circumstanco 
 this most disgraceful affair is still remembered in Dublin by the 
 name of the Bottle riot. About a dozen of the ringleaders- 
 were apprehended, and several of them admitted their part in 
 the transaction, and seemed to glory in their complicity. A 
 very strong case was made out by the Crown against the ac- 
 cused, but the grand jury ignored all the bills, and Mr. Plunket 
 felt himself compelled to file ex officio informations against 
 James Forbes, W. Graham, G. Graham, M. Handbidge, H. 
 Handbidge, and W. Brownlow, for a conspiracy to create a riot,, 
 and assault the Lord Lieutenant in the Theatre Eoyal ; and a 
 day was appointed for a trial at bar. 
 
 The case came on in the King's Bench on the 3rd of Feb- 
 ruary, 1823, before the full Court, Charles Kendal Bushe 
 Chief Justice, and his brethren Justices Jebb, Burton, and 
 Vandeleur. The counsel for the Crown were the Attorney- 
 General (Plunket), the Orange Solicitor-General (Joy), Serjeant 
 Lefroy, Serjeant Torrens, Mr. Townsend, and Mr. Greene. 
 The traversers were defended by an equally powerful and dis- 
 tinguished bar, amongst whom were — Mr. Blaekburne (after- 
 wards Lord Chancellor of Ireland), and Mr. Perrin (afterwards 
 
THE BOTTLE-KIOT CASE. 225 
 
 one of the Judges of the Queen's Bench). The jury were then 
 sworn : it was an unpacked jury ; for Plunket had never, 
 during the time he filled the office of Attorney-General, been 
 known, whether proseouting the Orangeman or the Catholic, to 
 pack a jury. The information having been opened by Mr. 
 Greene, Mr. Plunket stated the case with great courage and 
 skill to a jury who would under no circumstances convict the 
 accused. He opened his address by an explanation to the Court 
 of how he exercised his discretion in filing an information 
 against the traversers after the bills had been thrown out by the 
 grand jury. He supplied them with a case in point, which was 
 one in which a former Chancellor, Sir Constantino Phipps (99th 
 Chancellor), was concerned. 
 
 " In the latter end of the reign of Queen Anne, in the year 
 1713, on King William's birthday, the play of Tamerlane was 
 to be represented. King William, as your lordships are aware, 
 was compared to Tamerlane. A prologue to the play, written 
 by Dr. Garth, was very generally repeated at the time. The 
 doctor, it seems, was more happy as a poet than as a courtier ; 
 and his reverence for King William led him to compliment 
 that monarch in terms not sufficiently guarded, and so as to 
 give offence to Queen Anne. The government, in consequence, 
 thought it right that the prologue should not be repeated. 
 When the play, therefore, came on for representation, the actor 
 omitted to repeat it, and by so doing gave great offence to the 
 audience. They were full of respect for the memory of Wil- 
 liam, and did not wish that attention to Queen Anne should 
 break in on the wonted practice. Mr. Dudley Moore, a zealous 
 Protestant, who was in the house, leaped upon the stage, and 
 repeated the prologue. This gave rise to something like a riot, 
 for which the government indicted Mr. Moore. The bills were 
 sent up to a grand jury, who returned a true bill, and were 
 then discharged. In about half-an-hour after, the foreman 
 came into Court, and made an affidavit that billa vera was a 
 mistake, and that they meant to return ignoramus. The 
 Court refused to receive his affidavit ; but then came in the 
 three-and-twenty, and swore to the same fact to which their 
 foreman had deposed. The party was, notwithstanding this, in 
 my opinion very unwisely, put to plead to the indictment. But 
 the Attorney- General, thinking it would be hard to compel him 
 to plead when the bill had been in fact ignored, moved to quash 
 the indictment, which was done. Do I overstate the matter when 
 I say, that things were then in the same situation as if the bill 
 had been ignored by the grand jury ? And yet, under these 
 circumstances, the Attorney- General thought himself at liberty 
 to file an ex-officio information against the same person for the 
 same offence. Sir Constantine Phipps, who was then Lord Chan- 
 
 Q 
 
226 LORD PLUNKET. 
 
 cellor, and one of the Lords Justices, was considered by many 
 as a great tory and Jacobite, and as an enemy to the Protest- 
 ant interest. History has done more justice to him in that 
 respect than in the heat of party he received from his contem- 
 poraries. He interfered with the prosecution ; he sent for the 
 Lord Mayor, and lectured him as to the mode in which he was 
 to conduct himself. He was even supposed to have interfered 
 with the return of the jury. The whole matter was brought 
 before the House of Commons, who addressed the throne to 
 remove Sir Constantine Phipps for intermeddling in the trial. 
 No fault was found with the information, though directly before 
 them, but the trial was treated as legally depending, and a 
 petition was presented against the Chancellor for interfering with 
 that trial. Do I not here show a case in which an ex-officio 
 information was filed after a bill had been thrown out, and 
 where the zeal of party generated an anxiety to lay hold of 
 anything that could warrant an imputation on the proceeding, 
 as the information filed was never questioned, but the Chan- 
 cellor and chief governor petitioned against for interfering with 
 the proceeding?" 
 
 The Attorney-General, having passed a high eulogium on 
 the character of William III., stated in effect that, although the 
 religious feelings of the people of England entirely harmonised 
 with those of that prince, and afterwards of the house of Bruns- 
 wick, it was not until after a century that the hopes of those 
 who still cling with affectionate remembrance to the descen- 
 dants of their ancient line of sovereigns " were finally subdued. 
 But in unhappy Ireland the exiled king was the professor and 
 patron of the religion to which they were enthusiastically 
 devoted. He must be a preposterous critic who will impute as a 
 crime to that unhappy people that they did not rebel against 
 their lawful king, because he was of their own religion, even if 
 they had been so fully admitted to the blessings of the British 
 constitution as to render them equally alive to the value of 
 freedom. They seem, therefore, by the nature of things, to be 
 almost necessarily thrown into a state of resistance ; nothing 
 could have saved them from it but so strong a love of abstract 
 freedom as might subdue the principles of loyalty and the 
 feelings of religion. No candid man can lay so heavily on poor 
 human nature, nor fairly say, that he thinks worse of the 
 Eoman Catholic for having on that day abided by his lawful 
 sovereign and his ancient faith. "What was the result ? They 
 were conquered — conquered into freedom and happiness — a 
 freedom and happiness to which the successful result of their ill- 
 fated struggles would have been destructive." 
 
 Mr. Plunket then went into a statement of the riot ; wit- 
 nesses were produced; the facts above-mentioned were esta- 
 
THE BOTTLE-RIOT CASE. 227 
 
 blished beyond all doubt ; and yet, after six days consumed in 
 useless debate, tbe jury were discharged without coming to any 
 agreement. 
 
 Great umbrage was taken by the Orange party at the high- 
 handed manner in which the Attorney- General had proceeded 
 against the bottle-rioters. The matter was brought before the 
 House of Commons by Mr. Brownlow, afterwards Lord Lurgan, 
 and Plunket's defence of his conduct is thus commended by 
 Lord Grenville : — 
 
 " Dropmore, April 17th, 1823. 
 
 " My dear Sir, — I cannot resist the desire I feel of ex- 
 pressing to you, in these few lines, the sincere and heartfelt 
 pleasure I derive from your complete and decisive triumph, and 
 not less from the sense how much you are indebted for it to your 
 own brilliant exertions, and to the manly tone and temper of 
 your speech. 
 
 " I still fear that the irritation of this subject is not at an 
 end, either here or in Ireland, but a better beginning could not 
 have been made than by the impression you have produced on 
 the House. 
 
 " Ever, my dear Sir, 
 
 " Most truly and faithfully yours, 
 
 " GRENVILLE." 
 
 Mr. Plunket, on being asked in this inquiry " whether he 
 thought that a man's being an Orangeman would have been a 
 sufficient objection to his serving on the panel," replied : " In my 
 mind, it would have been an objection. I should have thought 
 that a return of a jury of Orangemen would have been a gross 
 violation of propriety, and would have excluded any reasonable 
 chance of justice being properly administered." 
 
 The declaration of the Attorney-General was a subject of 
 great disappointment to the Orange party, while it redoubled 
 the confidence of the Catholics, who found that William 
 Conyngham Plunket practised, when in office, the doctrines 
 which he had previously enunciated. The Most Reverend Dr. 
 Doyle, the once well-known Catholic Bishop of Kildare and 
 Leighlin, presented, in 1823, an address to Mr. Plunket, signed 
 by the Catholics of his lordship's diocese, expressing their and 
 his admiration of their long-tried advocate, who, on the 30th 
 of November, thus replied : — 
 
 " Most Reverend Sir. — I have had the honour of receiving 
 your letter of the 21st, and the address of the people enclosed in 
 it. I have read the address with the attention to which your name 
 entitled it, and I cannot use terms too strong in expressing the 
 
 Q2 
 
228 LOKD PLUXKET. 
 
 gratification which it has afforded me. The sentiments and 
 style would do honour to a Fenelon or a Paley, and present a 
 model worthy of heing studied by all those who are desirous of 
 uniting with a sincere devotion to their own religion that spirit 
 of Christian^ charity, and good- will to others, without which 
 religion is an idle name. I am very anxious that it should have 
 an extensive circulation, not only in this country, hut in Great 
 Britain. It is valuable, not merely with reference to the salu- 
 tary effect it must have on the minds of the wretched people 
 who are involved in the lawless associations now subsisting, and 
 hitherto spreading in Ireland, but, perhaps, still more as a 
 means of making the public acquainted with the strain of 
 liberal and enlightened piety which belongs to a prelate of the 
 Roman Catholic Church. I trust, and indeed I have no doubt, 
 that correspondent feelings are entertained by the great body of 
 the Protestants of these countries, clergy and laity. With such 
 aid, under God's providence, I look forward to the allaying, and 
 at no distant period ending, the dissension by which this un- 
 fortunate country is disturbed, so far, at least, as religious- 
 animosities (most irreligious) have had any share in them. 
 
 " I beg you to accept my thanks for your kind expression 
 with respect to the testimony which I have always publicly 
 borne to the excellent conduct of the Roman Catholic clergy ; I 
 could not have withheld it without a violation of truth *and 
 duty. 
 
 "I have the honour, &c, 
 
 "W. C. Plunket." 
 
 The government of Lord Liverpool, of which Mr. Plunket 
 was now a member, was nominally' of the high tory and anti- 
 Catholic complexion. Lord Eldon held the Church of Rome in 
 abhorrence ; so did Lord Manners ; and yet, with the un- 
 conquerable bigotry of those statesmen was associated the libe- 
 ral zeal of Plunket and of Castlereagh. Never did a house 
 divided against itself stand so long as that of the Earl of Liver- 
 pool. The Attorney-General Plunket speaks in favour of 
 Catholic emancipation, while the Secretary of the Home De- 
 partment speaks against it. The Foreign Secretary comes down 
 to the House on crutches, to declare his solemn belief that Eng- 
 land must do justice to her Catholic subjects; and the Irish 
 Chief Secretary stamps these same Catholics as a rebellious horde. 
 
 The Catholic Association, founded in the same year, applied 
 itself to the providing of separate Catholic denominational 
 schools for the young. Mr. Plunket was opposed to the scheme, 
 which, in his opinion, he writes to Doctor Doyle, on the 22nd 
 
CATHOLIC CEMETERIES. 229 
 
 March, 1821—" tended to disunion and the perpetuation of hos- 
 tile feelings, which every good man must wish to see aholished." 
 On the evening of the day that Mr. Plunket wrote this 
 letter, he was in his place in the House of Commons, and took 
 part in the debate on another question — the " Burials bill — 
 Ireland." About this time a series of insults which were con- 
 sidered to be offered to the Catholic dead reached a climax, 
 by the interruption offered by a Protestant clergyman to a Ca- 
 tholic priest, in St. Kevin's churchyard, when in the act of 
 uttering a short prayer over the grave of Mr. Darcy, an opulent 
 brewer, of Dublin. Dr. Magee, Protestant Archbishop of Dub- 
 lin, had before this time issued a mandate, directed to his 
 clergy, commanding them not to permit any popish priest to offer 
 up a prayer over the grave of the dead. Catholic cemeteries 
 had no existence at that time in the city of Dublin, and it was to 
 remedy this evil that a bill was brought into parliament. Mr. 
 Plunket supported the measure in a speech of great ability. He 
 commenced with an exposition of the Act of Wilham III., 
 which forbad even the interment of the dead within the pre- 
 cincts of the ruined abbeys or the monasteries of the country. 
 " These venerable places," he said, " were looked upon with 
 considerable respect, if not reverence, by all classes of people in 
 Ireland. They had been founded from motives of piety, and 
 though sometimes tenanted by superstition and bigotry, yet it 
 could not be denied that they were often the abodes of genuine 
 religion and pure charity. From them, in former times, the 
 blessings of hospitality had been disseminated amongst the poor 
 and the needy. Those places had long been taken out of the 
 possession of the ecclesiastical proprietors, and vested in several 
 members of the State. But they were still viewed by the peo- 
 ple with feelings of respect and veneration. Though no longer 
 used as places of religious worship, they were much resorted to 
 as places of burial, not merely for the Poman Catholics of the 
 country, but very frequently for the Protestants, and he felt that 
 the remains of those ancient edifices were not the least interest- 
 ing objects of contemplation to those persons who visited Ire- 
 land." He then proceeded to show that in those sacred places 
 persons of different ranks and persuasions were buried in com- 
 mon, that " however they might have differed in life, in death 
 they were suffered to repose together, and the place of their 
 interment was not made a scene for the display of acrimonious 
 feeling and unseemly asperity." As to separate grounds for 
 Protestants and Catholics, he was entirely opposed to such a 
 scheme. " The allotment of separate burial places would not 
 only, like the giving separate places of education, tend to 
 strengthen the line of demarcation already subsisting between 
 the two religions, and to preclude for ever all hope of that union 
 
230 LOKD PLUNKET. 
 
 in heart and political opinion which every sincere lover of Ire- 
 land must hope for, but it would go to outrage the most sacred 
 feelings of humanity. It would have the effect, in many cases, 
 of separating families as to their places of burial. A husband 
 could not be buried with his wife, a brother near his brother, a 
 father by the side of his son." The proposed Act was for the 
 purpose of enabling the Catholic clergyman to perform the ser- 
 vice over a member of his own flock in the Protestant churchyard. 
 
 The popularity which Mr. Plunket had long enjoyed was 
 now somewhat dimmed : for he had supported the government 
 in passing the Irish Insurrection Act, in 1823, and he was found,, 
 in 1824, to direct a prosecution against Mr. O'Connell, for deli- 
 vering a seditious and inflammatory speech (known as the Boli- 
 var speech) at the Catholic Association, where he extolled the 
 valour of the Greeks, then struggling to shake off a foreign yoke, 
 and thus eulogised Bolivar, the great liberator of the South Ame- 
 rican States: — "Countries have been driven mad by oppression. 
 He hoped that Ireland would never be driven to the system pur- 
 sued by the Greeks. He trusted in God they would never be so 
 driven. He hoped Ireland would be restored to her rights ; but 
 if that day should arrive, if she should be driven mad by perse- 
 cution, he wished that a new Bolivar might arise, and that the 
 spirit of the Greeks and of the South Americans might animate 
 the people of Ireland." 
 
 Bills were sent up to the grand jury of the city of Dublin, 
 but the evidence being insufficient to support the indictment 
 they were thrown out, and the prosecution fell to the ground. 
 The conduct of the Attorney- General on that occasion excited 
 the anger of Eichard Lalor Sheil, who thus in terms of indigna- 
 tion exclaimed: "Good God! what motive could have suggested 
 that extravagant proceeding? When Mr. Plunket read the 
 words attributed to Mr. O'Connell, did he ask himself, ' What is 
 the provocation given to this man ? Who is he, and what am I ? 
 Who is His Majesty's Attorney- General, the Eight Honourable 
 William Conyngham Plunket ? ' I know not whether he admi- 
 nistered that personal interrogatory to himself ; but if he did, 
 this should have been his answer ; . . . ' I am Attorney- General 
 for Ireland. I possess great wealth, great powers, great dignity, 
 and great patronage. If I had been a Eoman Catholic, instead 
 of being an enfranchised Presbyterian, what should I have 
 been?' I can tell him. He would have carried up and down 
 a discontented and repining spirit; he would have felt like a 
 man with large limbs who could not stand erect; his vast facul- 
 ties would have been cribbed and cabined. And how would he 
 have borne his political degradation? Look at him, and say 
 would that lofty forehead have borne the brand of popery? 
 How would that high demeanour have worn the stoop of the* 
 
THE CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION. 231 
 
 slave ? "Would he have been tame, and abject, and servile, and 
 sycophantic ? No ! he would have been the chief demagogue — 
 the most angry, tumultuous, and virulent tribune of the people. 
 He would have superadded the most honest gall of his own 
 nature to the bitterness of political resentment. He would have 
 given utterance to ardent feelings in burning words, and in all 
 the forms of passion. He would have gnawed the chain he 
 could not break. And is this the man who prosecutes for words ? 
 If (to use a vulgar phrase) the tables were turned — if Mr. 
 O'Connell were Attorney-General, and Mr. Plunket leader of 
 the people, how would the public mind have been inflamed, what 
 exciting matter would have been flung among the people — what 
 lava poured out ! The very stones would rise in mutiny— would 
 to Heaven that not only Mr. Plunket, but every other Protestant 
 who deplores our imprudence, in the spirit of a fastidious patron- 
 age, would adopt the simple test of nature, and make our case 
 his own; "William C. Plunket, if similarly situated, would 
 give vent to his emotions in phrases as exasperated, and partici- 
 pate in the feelings which agitate the great and disenfranchised 
 community to which it was his misfortune to belong. There is 
 no man of ordinary candour who would not rather intimate his 
 wonder at the moderation, than his surprise at the imputed vio- 
 lence of O'Connell. With fortune, rank, and abilities of the 
 first class, enjoying preeminence in his profession, and the confi- 
 dence of the country, he is shut out from honours accessible to 
 persons whom nature intended to place infinitely behind, and 
 whom their religion has advanced before him." 
 
 The Bolivar case was followed by another, which tended still 
 further to lower the popularity of the Attorney-General. An 
 Act was introduced into parliament by Mr. Goulburn, Chief 
 Secretary for Ireland, for the suppression of the Catholic Asso- 
 ciation, and Plunket was found amongst its supporters, though 
 he still continued to advocate with unshaken fervour the cause 
 of Catholic emancipation, which it was now determined to grant, 
 but accompanied by another Act, which was to disfranchise the 
 forty- shilling freeholders. "Whilst he denounced the intempe- 
 rate language of the Association, he admitted that he was a sin- 
 cere and zealous friend of the Catholics ; he would advise them 
 to leave off the high tone which they had long used. It was 
 said that the Association spoke the sentiments of the Irish peo- 
 ple. So they did — so did he (Mr. Plunket), and so would every 
 man who advocated the cause of emancipation. But, beyond 
 that, the Association did not represent the feelings of the country; 
 and he most positively denied that the people of Ireland would 
 think of resenting the abolition of that Association. The clergy 
 and the country gentlemen were beginning to get tired of seeing 
 
232 LORD PLUNKBT. 
 
 their just influence with the people taken from them by this 
 body, and must naturally be favourable to any measure by 
 ■which it would be restored. Even the members of the Associa- 
 tion itself would acquiesce quietly in the law which would put 
 an end to their power. Very many of them were sensible and 
 clever men, and must be aware of the inutility of opposition to 
 the will of the legislature. The gentleman who was the most 
 prominent member of that body — Mr. O'Connell — would him- 
 self be of this opinion. Mr. O'Connell was a man of great 
 talents and acquirements. He filled the highest rank at the bar 
 which the laws permit a gentleman of his religion to occupy ; 
 and was deservedly considered as a man of eminence in his pro- 
 fession. He only knew him professionally ; but he had reason 
 to believe him to be most amiable in all the relations of private 
 life. In his political sentiments, he looked upon him as wild 
 and extravagant ; but, nevertheless, he was persuaded that if 
 this bill passed, neither he, nor Lord Fingal, nor Lord Gorinans- 
 town, nor any other gentleman connected with the Association, 
 would ever descend to any pettyfogging tricks to evade its ope- 
 ration. He believed that the great body of the people of the 
 country would gladly seize the passing of the propsed bill as a 
 favourable opportunity for getting rid of the influence of that 
 body." 
 
 The debate was one of the ablest that had taken place upon 
 the Catholic question, and was particularly distinguished by a 
 masterly statement by Mr. Canning as to his own policy, and that 
 of the various Cabinets in which he had acted, towards the Catho- 
 lics. Brougham, who followed him, contrasted the language 
 of Plunket's anti-Union speeches with the violent debates of 
 the Association — a home-thrust which the latter did not attempt 
 to parry. Leave was given to introduce the bill, by a majority 
 of 155, and it passed in the course of the month, unaccompanied, 
 however, by any measures of rebef, at which great indignation 
 was felt in Ireland, until O'Connell " drove a coach and six" 
 through the Act, and formed the new Catholic Association, 
 " for purposes of public and private charity, and such other 
 purposes as are not prohibited by the statute." When the 
 Attorney- General returned to Ireland, he found his popularity 
 blighted, and the Association there before him, quite impreg- 
 nable to indictment, and, if possible, more powerful than 
 before. 
 
 And Mr. O'Connell had, to use his own expression, " driven 
 a coach and six" through Mr. Goulburn's bill for the sup- 
 pression of the Catholic Association. A new Association was 
 formed, the programme of which, sketched by Richard Lalor 
 Sheil, was, in .effect, that a census of the Catholics of Ireland 
 should be taken, that aggregate meetings should be held in all 
 
THE CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION. 233 
 
 the parish, chapels of the kingdom, and a ceaseless agitation 
 kept up until the emancipation should become the law of the 
 land. 
 
 The Association continued its operations and extended its 
 organisation with even greater vigour and success than before. 
 Its machinery extended not only into every county, but into 
 every parish. Its funds were given to employ lawyers to 
 protect the people in cases of extreme oppression, and in such 
 cases as the wrecking of a chapel, or an Orange riot in the 
 north. The magistrates were sometimes thunderstruck by the 
 apparition of able barristers from Dublin, who were attended by 
 newspaper reporters, sure to publish abroad any too outrageous 
 instance of magisterial partisanship. 
 
 On the day after the third reading of the bill for the sup- 
 pression of the Catholic Association, Sir F; Burdett presented 
 the petition for emancipation. The government were divided 
 in the debate — Canning for, Peel and the English Solicitor- 
 Greneral against the motion, while the Irish Attorney-General 
 delivered a speech pronounced by Lord Brougham as the 
 greatest of all his efforts at which he had been present. " It 
 contains," writes his grandson, "a luminous and complete 
 historic summary of the Established Church, in its relations to 
 the other religious bodies of the three kingdoms." Plunket 
 had long been the leader of the Catholic cause in the House of 
 Commons; that leadership had now passed into other hands. 
 " But it was yet his decided and unalterable conviction that this 
 measure could not be too speedily carried. No time was too 
 early for its adoption. The opponents of the Catholic claims 
 were amongst the best friends of the Established Church. But 
 he solemnly assured the House that though the measure was as 
 dear to him as it could be to any man, if he thought it could 
 risk in any degree the security of the Church of Ireland, instead 
 of being its advocate he should be found among the foremost 
 ranks of its warmest opponents." ..." The claim of the Roman 
 Catholics was a claim to be admitted members of a free repre- 
 sentative government and to be admitted to institutions the 
 advantages of which belonged to every subject of that govern- 
 ment. He did not say that the right would admit of no 
 exception or control. There was nothing in the social fabric 
 concerning which he would venture to make that assertion. 
 Even the enjoyment of natural right must be qualified in a 
 state of society with conditions. He directed the attention of 
 the House to the circumstances under which our ancestors had 
 thought it necessary to limit those rights, in a very peculiar 
 manner, with respect to Roman Catholics. At the Reformation 
 it was found necessary to deal with those rights which were 
 fully permitted before that period. The main object then was 
 
234 LORD PLUNKET. 
 
 to protect the rights of the throne against the claims of a foreign 
 power, and against the disaffection of those subjects who might 
 reserve their allegiance for that foreign power, to the detriment 
 of the throne, and of the State in general. This being the 
 object, how did they proceed? They guarded, in the first place, 
 against the evils existing. There were the claims of the Pope 
 to interfere with the interest, not simply of the Roman Catholic 
 religion, which then was the established religion of the State, 
 but he claimed also the right of disposing of benefices, of 
 naming the clergy, of deposing the monarch, and of absolving- 
 the people from their allegiance. The legislature accordingly 
 provided — first, for the absolute and unconditional integrity and 
 inviolability of the Church ; further, for the spiritual preroga- 
 tive of the Crown, forbidding, at the same time, the exercise of 
 any other than the established religion. What were the mis- 
 chiefs dreaded, and what the provisions of the legislature ? To 
 prevent the claims of the Pope, or any other foreign power, to- 
 imterfere with the Church. Did they hear of any claim to that 
 interference, or to the right of deposing kings, or absolving their 
 subjects from their allegiance ? Was that believed or asserted 
 by any man in either kingdom ? Dangers there were still ; but 
 of a different kind. Those enactments were, therefore, gradu- 
 ally done away. The law forbidding the exercise of any other 
 religion was done away by the repeal of the Act against re- 
 cusancy. The only remaining one which could be at all 
 supposed to contain that spirit was the Act of Uniformity; 
 which could not be affected by the proposed measure. The 
 wisdom of our ancestors watched the progress of time, and took 
 their measures accordingly. In the reign of Charles the Second 
 they observed a new danger— a monarch careless about religion, 
 or secretly affected to an unconstitutional one, who was to be 
 followed by a popish successor. Here their providence was as 
 remarkable as before. They provided a remedy, not adapted 
 entirely to the evil, but the one they could obtain ; which was 
 to require certain oaths to be taken by those who were ready to- 
 take seats in parliament. That was found insufficient on the 
 accession of James the Second, who openly maintained the 
 Roman Catholic religion against the constitution and the rights 
 of his people. The legislature, finding this resource fail, then 
 prudently shifted their ground, and had recourse to a measure 
 at once wise, bold, and salutary. They drove the monarch 
 from the throne for violating the constitution, and they re- 
 solved that the sovereign power should be held inviolable aud 
 unalterable in Protestant hands. Did he deny that the throne- 
 must be Protestant? Was he doing anything to weaken its 
 Protestant supremacy ? No such thing. Was there any mode- 
 or device to make that supremacy surer, which the genius of 
 
PLUXKET'S SPEECH IN FAVOUR OF EMANCIPATION. 23'J 
 
 any man could suggest ? He was ready to incorporate it with 
 the proposed bill, or to have it introduced as a separate, yet 
 concomitant measure. What were the dangers which after- 
 wards threatened the Establishment ? The claims of an exiled 
 family driven from the throne, and the plots and agitations of a 
 -disaffected party retained in its interests. He admitted, freely, 
 that the Roman Catholics of that period were suspected justly. 
 What was the course taken by parliament? All the former 
 measures against the papists were continued. They were held 
 to be not good subjects, and were to be trusted neither with 
 honour nor power in the State. They were coerced in their 
 persons and property — they were deprived of their civil rights — 
 they became sunk and degraded into that wretched state from 
 which they were relieved by the benignity of the last reign. 
 This was a natural course of reasoning, though he did not con- 
 ceive it to be a wise one ; but it showed that our ancestors 
 adapted their remedies to the evils then existing, and pressing 
 upon their apprehension. 
 
 " In 1791 a new danger and an entirely new difficulty pre- 
 sented themselves. The Roman Catholics had proved them- 
 selves truly submissive — they had been uniform in their peace- 
 ful conduct. Though rebellion had twice raged in Scotland, 
 no movement was made in Ireland in favour of the exiled 
 family. It had been found that the Catholics, so sunk and 
 degraded, were ineffectual to the protection of the government 
 — that by the depression and privations imposed upon them, the 
 heart's blood of the State was impoverished. 
 
 " It has been said, the Roman Catholics might have their 
 civil rights; they must not, however, expect political power; 
 that the constitution prohibited. Was there nothing of political 
 power in what they possessed ? They had the right of electing 
 members to serve in parliament. Was that no exercise of 
 political power ? They acted as magistrates. Was that no exer- 
 cise of political power ? They served as jurors. Was that not 
 exercising political power ? This country had liberally imparted 
 education to them. Did not that put the means of political 
 power within their reach ? Where was this line of distinction 
 between civil and political power marked in the constitution ? 
 The warmth of discussion apart, he denounced the doctrine as 
 inconsistent with the principles of our free constitution, and 
 only fitted for the meridian of a despotic government. He had 
 once endeavoured to define civil liberty to the House ; he had 
 used the description which he found in the books — 'Civil 
 liberty consists in doing all that which the law allows a man to 
 do.' But he went beyond that. There is a civil liberty the 
 enjoyment of which is given by the laws themselves. Once 
 admit men to enjoy property, personal rights, and their usual 
 
236 LOKD PLUNKET. 
 
 consequences, and on what pretence could they he excluded from 
 the institutions by which the whole of those possessions must 
 be guarded ? 
 
 " It was asked, what have the Roman Catholics to complain 
 of ? they are only excluded from the parliament, the bench, and 
 the high offices of State; which meant that they were only 
 excluded from the making and administering of the laws, from 
 all posts of honour and dignity in the State. These were baga- 
 telles for which, according to the argument, it was not worth 
 while for the Catholics to contend — and, therefore, it was 
 scarcely worth the while of the parliament to refuse. How would 
 the honourable and learned gentlemen who used this argument 
 like to be excluded from their chance of obtaining these trifles ? 
 He begged to ask if these were not the very nothings for which 
 Englishmen would cheerfully lay down their lives ?" 
 
 Mr. Plunket then answered, one by one, the several and 
 well-known objections that had been raised against the admis- 
 sibility of Roman Catholics to parliament. Canning had come 
 down to the House from a sick bed, and on a crutch, to give his 
 support to the motion. The opposition could afford to look on 
 and allow the government to fight the question out, for Peel 
 took upon himself the task of replying to both his illustrious 
 colleagues. Brougham closed the debate, and the motion was 
 carried by a majority of thirteen. Resolutions upon which to 
 base a bill were instantly assented to, and a committee formed 
 to prepare the same. It passed the Commons, but was lost on 
 the second reading in the Lords. 
 
 The Catholic Association had at the general election of 1826 
 its agents in every county in Ireland ; and it was in vain that 
 the Protestant proprietors struggled to maintain their nominees 
 in their former strongholds. Thus the Beresfords were defeated 
 in the south, and Lord Eoden in the north. The new parlia- 
 ment met in February, 1827, and in the same month the tory 
 premier, the Earl of Liverpool, who had held office since the 8th 
 of June, 1812, died. By his death one great obstacle to eman- 
 cipation was removed. On the 10th of April Mr. Canning suc- 
 ceeded to his place, and immediately the anti-Catholic portion 
 of the ministry, the foremost amongst whom was Lord Eldon, 
 resigned. Without holding out to the Catholics any very decided 
 promise of emancipation, Mr. Canning was yet known to enter- 
 tain views favourable to a settlement of their claims. He had 
 himself, a very few years previously, introduced a bill to enable 
 Catholic peers to sit in the House of Lords ; and his devotion to 
 the Catholic cause was the ground upon which he had been 
 deserted by his former colleagues. Mr. Plunket, it was expected, 
 as a matter of course, would have been appointed Lord Chan- 
 cellor of Ireland ; but so strong were the anti-Catholic feelings 
 
PLUNKET RAISED TO THE BENCH. 237 
 
 of his Majesty that he declined to sanction the appointment of 
 one who had so long been the champion of the Roman Catholic 
 party. Lord Manners, therefore, at the urgent request of the 
 king, continued in office until one whose tastes foreign alike 
 from politics and from religion could be found. Sir Anthony 
 Hart was that man, and Mr. Plunket was passed over. He was, 
 however, appointed Master of the Bolls in England; but the 
 English bar signified their determination not to permit any 
 other than a member of their body to occupy a judicial place on 
 the English bench. Lord Norbury then resigned, and the 
 Attorney-General was appointed, in his stead, Chief Justice of 
 the Common Pleas, and at the same time was raised to the peer- 
 age, by the title of Baron Plunket of Newton, in the county of 
 Cork. In a letter dated the 24th of April, 1827, he intimated 
 to the Provost of Trinity College that the long connexion that 
 had " subsisted between him and the University of Dublin was 
 about to be dissolved." 
 
 And now that we have reached the term of his labours at the 
 bar, let us speak of the extraordinary eloquence that he dis- 
 played there. The beautiful imagery of his fancy threw a 
 charm over every case, however dull, in which he was counsel. 
 One would have thought that the right to the presentation of a 
 living involved nothing of poetry, nothing to enlist the feelings, 
 nothing beyond a question of title, of lost deeds, of presumption 
 of grants — but Plunket was in that dull case ! His client, the 
 defendant, and the ancestors of his client, had exercised the 
 right of presentation to a living for two hundred and fifty years. 
 The plaintiff called upon him to prove his title; but the defendant 
 had lost his deed of grant, of which there was no memorial, 
 and Mr. Plunket contended that the court must presume a lost 
 grant. " If this rule of law," he said, "be set aside there would 
 be no security for properties of an ancient tenure. Time is the 
 great destroyer of evidence, but he is also the great protector of 
 titles. If he comes with a scythe in one hand to mow down 
 the muniments of our possessions, he holds an hour-glass in the 
 other, from which he incessantly metes out the portions of dura- 
 tion that are to render those muniments no longer necessary." 
 How exquisitely beautiful is this metaphor ! 
 
 The elevation of Mr. Plunket to the peerage and the bench 
 was well received by the Catholic party of the empire. Eman- 
 cipation was plainly now but a question of time, though it was 
 again postponed by the death of Mr. Canning in the summer of 
 the same year. Lord Goderich, unequal to the task, then assumed 
 the responsibilities of premier, and was displaced on the 26th of 
 January, 1828, by the Duke of Wellington, who had before 
 that time been hostile to Catholic emancipation. But the whole 
 country was now disturbed; the Catholics, led on by O'Connell, 
 
238 LORD PLUNKET. 
 
 met in mighty masses demanding liberty ; and petitions, signed 
 with 800,000 signatures, were presented at the bar of the House 
 of Commons. That emancipation must become the law of the 
 land was admitted by the Duke of Wellington in the House of 
 Lords, and by Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons. It 
 is unnecessary here to enter into details of a history which is 
 familiar to everyone ; for who is ignorant of the intense excite- 
 ment, of the danger of civil war, of the determination of the 
 people, and of the Clare election ? It is sufficient for us to say, 
 that as Mr. Plunket, in the lower House, had been the advocate 
 of the measure, so, now that he was elevated to the peerage 
 and the bench, he maintained the honourable consistency of his 
 character, and showed the world that what he spoke was the 
 outpourings of a heart that knew no falsehood. " The oppo- 
 sition of the Protestants of Ireland," he said, " was not caused 
 by a religious panic or any apprehension for the safety of the 
 Protestant Establishment, as in this country; nor again, from 
 a sordid desire of monopoly, which I do not believe exists to 
 any considerable extent in either country. No, my lords, the 
 feeling which, I frankly own, bursts spontaneously from the 
 hearts of the great body of the lower class of Protestants and 
 Protestant Dissenters, especially in the North of Ireland, is that 
 of resentment at being deprived of the enjoyment of a sense of 
 superiority, which has been bred by the law, and in which they 
 have indulged for more than a century; the right of putting 
 out their hand and pushing back their equals in their progress 
 to an honourable station in society — a privilege from which 
 they derive no substantial benefit, no advantage other than the 
 luxury of insulting and degrading their fellow- citizens. My 
 lords, it is this perpetual consciousness of legal superiority which 
 elevates the brow of the Protestant, and corrodes the heart and 
 breaks down till it rouses to fury the elastic spirit of his Roman 
 Catholic neighbour. My lords, in the higher classes of society, 
 this feeling is corrected by courtesy and by those habits which be- 
 long to rank and to education. In this House (although I think, 
 I have heard the topic of idolatry pushed rather beyond its due 
 limit), the exclusion is justified on principles of State policy. It is 
 said, ' You are very worthy and honourable people, we respect you 
 very much ; but we are sorry that there are political reasons 
 which require the continuance of your exclusion from the State.' 
 But in Ireland, my lords, and amongst the classes which com- 
 pose the great body of the persons who exult in their legal 
 superiority, the language is more offensive than even the exclu- 
 sion. ' You are an idolater — you are not to be believed on your 
 oath— your religion is odious, and corrupt, and un-Christian. 
 What claim can you have to be associated with us in the exer- 
 cise of the privileges of freemen ?' < What! ' says the Protest- 
 
PLTXKET S SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 239 
 
 ant shopkeeper, ' shall I think myself safe, or fairly dealt with, 
 if a Roman Catholic judge has any share in the administration 
 of the laws by which I am to be governed?' What must the- 
 Roman Catholio gentleman feel, on the other hand ? ' Am I 
 fairly dealt with, and am I to feel thankful when the law by 
 which I am to be governed is administered exclusively by Protest- 
 ants ?' It is not that they are not well and fairly administered, 
 but the claim and the principle are founded in folly and inso- 
 lence, and it is not in human nature that this daily and hourly 
 «laim of unmeaning superiority can be patiently endured ..." 
 The Emancipation bill passed, and another generation 
 enjoys the fruits of the toils of those mighty men of old — of 
 O'Connell, of Plunket, of Grattan, of Curran. Their bodies are 
 long since entombed in the sepulchres of mortality, but their 
 names, like their spirits, are immortal ! 
 
 " Their spirits wrap the dusky mountain, 
 Their memory sparkles o'er the fountain, 
 The meanest rill, the mightiest river, 
 Rolls mingling -with their fame for ever." 
 
 Hean while the agitation for a reform in parliament went on 
 with increasing strength, and the ministry of the Duke of 
 Wellington was forced to retire. 
 
 The whigs came into office at the close of the year 1830, 
 under the premiership of Earl Grey, and Lord Plunket was pro- 
 moted to the Irish woolsack. A reform bill was introduced by 
 Lord John Russell in the early session of 1831, and Lord 
 Plunket spoke in its favour, and in doing so dwelt on the 
 unreformed Parliament of Ireland, over which the Irish people 
 had little control. " lluch," he said, " had been done by the 
 Union, but much remained to be done, which the Reform Act 
 alone could accomplish." Lord Plunket then told how great 
 had been his early hostility to the Union of Great Britain and 
 Ireland, but now that that Union was an accomplished fact, he 
 ■" would resist its repeal to the last moment of his existence." 
 Lord Eldon, in his eighty-second year, re-appeared in the 
 House : he told the peers "that he came from the verge of the 
 grave to warn them, and to entreat of them to reject the 
 Reform bill." His voice prevailed ; the measure was rejected 
 in the House of Lords ; but in the following year it became the 
 law of the land. 
 
 The year 1832 was also remarkable in Ireland for the 
 agitation against the payment of tithes to the Protestant 
 Church. The king, in his speech from the throne, recom- 
 mended the attention of parliament to this subject, and a com- 
 mittee of the House of Peers was appointed to investigate and 
 report upon it. On that committee were the Archbishops of 
 
240 LORD PLUNKET. 
 
 Canterbury and Armagh, the Bishops of London and Killaloe, 
 the Duke of Wellington, Lord Plunket, and several other 
 peers. After a searching examination of many witnesses,, 
 amongst whom was Dr. Doyle, the committee (all Protestants) 
 made their report, recommending the commutation of the tithes- 
 to a charge upon the land, but in no way suggesting the aboli- 
 tion of the Establishment. In the debate on the reception of 
 this report, it was stated that the Protestant clergy of the- 
 south of Ireland were reduced to a state of the most abject want. 
 A bill was, in consequence, introduced into parliament, autho- 
 rising an issue from the consolidated fund of a large sum of 
 money, to relieve those who were unable to collect their tithes, 
 in consequence of the opposition of the people. Lord Plunket 
 was in favour of the grant, which, in unmeasured terms, was 
 opposed by O'Connell. Lord Plunket supported the Church ; 
 O'Conhell denounced it. Lord Plunket now supported the- 
 " Union," which O'Connell was labouring to dissolve. But 
 both had been advocates of Catholic emancipation, and both 
 spoke and voted for the reform bill, and both, whether allies or 
 antagonists, were ornaments of their common profession and 
 of their common country. Lord Plunket was not the man to- 
 leave unrecognised the merits of his great fellow-countryman,, 
 and observing that, by the rules of professional precedence, Mr. 
 O'Connell, who continued at the outer bar, was obliged to act 
 as junior to those who, though called within the bar, were yet 
 his juniors in intellect and in reputation, resolved to remedy so 
 great an injustice, and granted, in the same year in which he 
 himself became Chancellor, a patent of precedence to the great 
 tribune of the people. This grant Lord Roden, in the next 
 session of parliament (23rd February, 1832), brought under the- 
 consideration of the Blouse of Lords. That noble lord was at 
 once the leader and the agitator of the Orangemen of the north 
 of Ireland. The Lord Chancellor admitted that he had affixed 
 " the Great Seal to the patent of precedence to Mr. O'Connell. 
 He did not stand up there as his advocate, nor the advocate of 
 the agitators of either side ; but he might observe, that that 
 proceeding was totally unconnected with any question of poli- 
 tics, and that the patent of precedence was given to Mr. 
 O'Connell only on account of his professional eminence. The 
 granting a patent of precedence in Ireland was to enable the 
 man to whom it was granted to rank next after the king's 
 Attorney and Solicitor-General. That, however, had not been 
 done for Mr. O'Connell. He had only been named to take rank 
 above those gentlemen, much his juniors, whom he had seen pro- 
 moted over his head. Whatever he might think of Mr. 
 O'Connell in a political point of view, it was impossible to deny 
 that, in his profession, no individual exhibited higher attain- 
 
o'connell's patent of precedence. 241 
 
 ments, nor was any man more worthy of the distinction he had 
 received. That being the case, the government was bound to 
 accord him the distinction. It was the object of a rational 
 government not to be vindictive, but just, and the gift of the 
 patent of precedence was required by justice. He should have 
 been happy if, by that mark of kindness, not incompatible with 
 their duty, Mr. O'Connell had been induced to betake himself 
 to his profession, in which he was entitled to expect the highest 
 honours, but he could not regret what had been done. The 
 noble earl opposite (Earl Roden) had expressed his disgust at 
 the conduct of agitators. They were to be condemned, un- 
 doubtedly ; but if he was asked, who was the greatest agitator, 
 he should say, that it was the person who collected together 
 large mobs of ignorant persons — who addressed them in a 
 manner calculated to raise their jealousies, and revive their 
 prejudices — who addressed English people, and called on them 
 to form Protestant Associations — telling them that he loved the 
 Catholics as men, but that they were a set of people who wished 
 to put down the Protestants and their religion. Such a person 
 was the true agitator. Such a person, who thus collected these 
 ignorant assemblages together, and scattered among them am- 
 biguous — no, not ambiguous, but unfounded assertions — such a 
 person risked the making of Irish agitation not only formidable, 
 but desperate. To accomplish that fearful object in Ireland all 
 was wanted was — not a war against the State — not a war against 
 the tithes — but a war between the Protestants and Catholics." 
 
 On the 26th of December, 1834, a change of ministry took 
 place, Lord Melbourne retired, and Sir Robert Peel became 
 Prime Minister, with Sir Edward Sugden Lord High Chancellor 
 of Ireland, an appointment thus denounced by Mr. O'Connell : — 
 
 "He admitted that he was an able lawyer and an able 
 advocate, but were there none such to be found at the Irish 
 bar? He (Mr. O'Connell) reviewed the past history of the 
 Irish bar, and described the genius and eloquence of Hussey 
 Burgh, Yelverton, and Curran, and lauded Messrs. Holmes, 
 Perrin, and Pigot, as men of the first abilities and learning of 
 the present day. He deplored the bigotry which prevented 
 men looking to the honour of their country, instead of being 
 influenced by party spleen and bigotry, and treated the ap- 
 pointment of Sir Edward Sugden as an insult and gross 
 injustice to the Irish bar. But this (he said) had ever been the 
 spirit of domination pursued by the tories towards this country, 
 and he instanced the appointments of Lords Redesdale and 
 Manners, and Sir Anthony Hart and Sir Edward Sugden, all 
 appointed by tory administrations. Ponsonby and Lord Plun- 
 ket were Irishmen, and they had been appointed by whigs." 
 
 The tory administration was short-lived. On the 17th of 
 
 R 
 
24:2 LORD PLUNKET. 
 
 March following, Lord John Eussell moved, " That the House 
 do resolve itself into a committee of the whole House, to con- 
 sider the temporalities of the Church of Ireland, with a view of 
 applying any surplus of the revenues not required for the 
 spiritual care of its members to the general education of all 
 classes of the people, without distinction of religious per- 
 suasion." The ministry resisted the motion ; a debate ensued, 
 which was kept up with great vigour for four nights, and was 
 brought to a conclusion on the 7th of April, when a division 
 took place, and there appeared 322 for the motion, and 289 
 against it, leaving ministers in a minority of 33. Sir Robert 
 Peel resigned, and was succeeded by the whig administration 
 of Lord Melbourne. Sir Edward Sugden's term of office was 
 of course equally short, and Lord Plunket resumed his place as 
 Lord Chancellor of Ireland. 
 
 The death, in 1839, of the Honourable and Most Reverend 
 Power Le Poer Trench, last Protestant Archbishop of Tuam, 
 left at the disposal of the Crown one of the richest prizes in the 
 Established Church. Previous to the Church Temporalities 
 Act the gross annual revenue of that archdiocese amounted to 
 £8200 a-year. Shorn, however, by this Act, which abolished the 
 archbishopric, the future bishops were still to enjoy an income 
 of £4600 a-year. This bishopric, with its enormous Church 
 patronage, was conferred by Lord Ebrington, then Lord Lieu- 
 tenant of Ireland, on the Honourable and Reverend Thomas 
 Plunket, eldest son of the Chancellor. To the government of 
 Lord Melbourne his lordship was indebted for the appointment 
 of another son to be Vicar of Bray. He had two sons at the 
 bar, one of whom was an Assistant-barrister, and the other a 
 Commissioner of Bankruptcy. His lordship was therefore under 
 many obligations to the government — obligations of which Lord 
 Melbourne found it convenient and necessary soon to avail 
 himself. Sir John Campbell had been then for five years 
 Attorney-General for England, and was still without any pro- 
 spect of immediate promotion. Lord Melbourne had been under 
 delicate obligations to him, but there seemed every probability 
 that the imminent break-up of the cabinet would leave him 
 unprovided for. In this emergency Lord Melbourne, on the 
 15th of October, 1840, communicated with Lord Ebrington, 
 suggesting that Lord Plunket should be induced to resign the 
 Seals,, for the purpose of appointing Sir John Campbell in his 
 place. A correspondence ensued on the subject, and on the 7th 
 of June, 1841, the Chancellor wrote to Lord Melbourne, " that 
 it would be repugnant to his feelings to resign." Finally, Lord 
 Ebrington, seeing that all persuasion was in vain, begged of 
 him, as a personal favour, to acquiesce. This was sufficient ; 
 and on Saturday, the 22nd of June, he placed his resignation 
 
RETIREMENT OF LORD PLUXKET. 243 
 
 in the hands of the Crown. On the Monday following, his 
 lordship, accompanied by Sir Michael O'Loghlen, Master of the 
 Rolls, entered the Court of Chancery. The list was called over, 
 and when disposed of, Serjeant Greene rose, and amid breath- 
 less silence, in a Court thronged to suffocation, said : — 
 
 " I presume, my lord, it is not your lordship's intention to 
 sit again in this Court ; I therefore rise, as the senior in rank of 
 the members of the bar now present, and with full concurrence 
 of the brethren of my profession (here all the members of the 
 bar present rose simultaneously), to address to your lordship a 
 few words before your retirement from that bench over which 
 your lordship has for many years presided." (Lord Plunket rose 
 from his seat, and advanced to the front of the Bench.) The 
 learned Serjeant proceeded — " My lord, we are anxious to 
 express to your lordship the deep sense we entertain, not only of 
 the ability, the learning, the patience, and the assiduity which 
 have marked your lordship's administration of the high and 
 important functions committed to your lordship's charge, but 
 also, my lord, of the courtesy, kindness, and attention which we 
 have all personally experienced at your lordship's hands, in the 
 discharge of our professional duties in this Court. We grate- 
 fully acknowledge, my lord, the disposition you have ever 
 shown to accommodate us all — a disposition by which, we all 
 admit, your lordship was ever actuated, without regard to per- 
 sonal circumstances, or to our political feelings or predilec- 
 tions ; we trust, my lord, it will be said that this feeling, on 
 our part, will he as general and as universal as the kindness 
 on your part has been uniform and uninterrupted. My 
 lord, it is needless for us to dwell here, for the purpose of 
 commenting, upon the talents and the endowments which 
 have raised your lordship to the high position from which you 
 are now about to retire. They are, my lord, recorded in our 
 history ; and they will long live among the proudest recollec- 
 tions of our countrymen. From a sense of these we offer to you 
 our present tribute of the profoundest admiration and respect ; 
 and, my lord, it is gratifying for us to add, that at no period of 
 your lordship's career have they ever shown in greater lustre 
 than at this moment. My lord, with warmest wishes for your 
 lordship's happiness in that retirement which none is more fitted 
 than your lordship to adorn, we respectfully bid your lordship 
 farewell." 
 
 Mr. Groddard, on the part of the solicitors, then expressed 
 the kindly feelings entertained by the solicitors of the Court 
 towards his lordship. He fully concurred in what had been 
 said by Serjeant Ghreene, and concluded by wishing his lordship 
 long life and happiness. 
 
 K 2 
 
244 LORD PLUJJKET. 
 
 The Lord Chancellor, after a moment's pause, said: "It 
 would be great affectation on my part if I were to say that I do- 
 not feel to a considerable degree pained at the prospect of retir- 
 ing from a profession at which I have, for more than a period 
 of fifty years, been actively engaged — a period during which I 
 have been surrounded by friends, many of them warm ones — 
 many of them are now no more — some of them, nay, many of 
 them, I see at this moment around me. This retirement from 
 the active scenes in which I have been so long engaged, and 
 which have become as it were incorporated with my life, I can- 
 not help feeling, and feeling deeply. It has, however, been 
 alleviated by the prospect of that repose which is probably better 
 suited to this period of my life, and which, perhaps, would have 
 earlier induced me to retire, but for events of a particular de- 
 scription which have latterly occurred. But independent of 
 this, I must say, that any pain I would have felt has been more 
 than alleviated by the kind and affectionate address which has 
 been offered to me by my friend Serjeant Greene, and which has 
 been so cordially assented to by the members of both professions. 
 I am not unconscious that in the discharge of those duties, my 
 ability for which has been so overrated by my friend Serjeant 
 Greene, I have been led into expressions of impatience which 
 had been much better avoided. For any pain that I have given 
 in doing so, or any feelings that I have hurt, I sincerely apolo- 
 gise, and I am grateful to the profession for not having attri- 
 buted to inclination any such observations ; and I must say that, 
 whatever any such observations may have been, they never have 
 influenced me. It is a sentiment that I trust never will influence 
 me ; and I am now able to say, that, in retiring from my profes- 
 sion, I do not carry with me any other sentiment than that of affec- 
 tionate consideration for all and every member of the profession. 
 
 " Now, with respect to the particular circumstances which 
 have occurred, and the particular succession which is to take 
 place in this Court, it will become me to say very little. For 
 the individual who is to occupy the situation I now fill, I en- 
 tertain the highest political and personal respect — no one can 
 feel it more so. But I owe it as a duty to myself, and the mem- 
 bers of the bar, to state, that for the changes which are to take 
 place, I am not in the slightest degree answerable ; I have no 
 share in them ; and have neither directly nor indirectly given 
 them my sanction. In yielding my assent to the proposition 
 which has been made for my retiring, I have been governed 
 solely by its having been requested, as a personal favour, by a 
 person to whom I owe so much, that a feeling of gratitude 
 would have rendered it morally impossible that I could have 
 done otherwise than to resign. When I look at the bar before 
 me, and especially at the number of those who might have sat 
 
DEATH OF LORD PLUNKET. 245 
 
 officially in this judicial place, I am bound to say, that for all 
 those great ingredients which are calculated to enable them to 
 shine as practitioners and members of the bar, or as gentlemen, 
 for candour, for courtesy, knowledge, and ability, I challenge 
 competition — I challenge the very distinguished bars of either 
 England or Scotland, and I do not fear that those I have the 
 honour of addressing would suffer in the comparison. To them, 
 for their repeated kindness, I am deeply indebted. I do assure 
 them, when I retire into quiet life, I will cherish in my heart 
 the affectionate kindness and attention I have experienced at 
 their hands." 
 
 During the delivery of this speech his lordship frequently 
 paused, and appeared deeply affected, and the most still and 
 breathless silence pervaded the entire Court. 
 
 Lord Plunket then left the bench, from which he was thus 
 compelled to retire — compelled, not by his political enemies, but 
 by his political friends, and against the sense of the profession. 
 He was thrust aside in his old age, after he had done the 
 greatest service to that party to the interests of which his 
 talents were devoted. On the nest day he held a farewell levee 
 of the bar at his house, No. 18, Stephen's-green, North. The 
 attendance was numerous, all the barristers wearing wigs, 
 gowns and bands. He then withdrew from public life, and 
 spent much time on the Continent of Europe. At Rome, he 
 found amongst the monuments of five-and-twenty centuries 
 much to amuse a mind rich in classical learning. In 1843 he 
 returned to his place at Old Connaught, in the county of Wick- 
 low ; but there was no occupation for his active mind, and the 
 dotage of old age came slowly but surely upon him. By degrees 
 he sank into his second childhood, and so remained until the 5th 
 of January, 1854, when death came with a merciful release. His 
 resting-place in Mount Jerome cemetery is marked by a heavy 
 granite tomb ; and a life-like statue of this great Irishman has 
 been placed in the hall of the Four Courts, upon a block of 
 polished Sienna marble, with this inscription, " Erected by the 
 bar of Ireland." If Plunket had no other claims on the na- 
 tional gratitude than his inflexible and untiring devotion to the 
 Catholic cause, no monument could be too costly to commemo- 
 rate the value and the extent of his services. O'Connell was 
 wont to declare that Plunket's wonderful reasoning had softened 
 or subdued prejudices which stood proof against all antecedent 
 efforts. But, apart from his devotion to the Catholic cause, the elo- 
 quence, the genius of Plunket, have won for him a place amongst 
 the greatest of the great men of Ireland ; and in the closing hour 
 of his political life he might well have applied to himself, as he 
 looked back on his career, the language of the Roman : — 
 
 " Exegi monumentum aere perennius." 
 
246 LORD ST. LEONARDS 
 
 112. A. D. 1835. — Lord St. Leonards. Edward Burtenshaw 
 Sugden, born in 1781, was the second son of Richard Sugden, 
 who was by trade a barber. From his earliest years he dis- 
 played a genius that endeared his youth to all that knew him. 
 His father loved him and allowed him the best pony that could 
 be purchased at Quatterman's repository, in St. Martin's Lane, 
 London. Little Sugden soon acquired a taste for horses, which 
 even in the turmoil of active life never deserted him. He was 
 perpetually, when a boy, looking after the most tiny animals, 
 which his father willingly purchased for him. Now, it so hap- 
 pened that, frequenting the same repository, and on a like busi- 
 ness, was a Mr. Duval, an eminent conveyancer, well known to 
 the Chancery bar, who, meeting the young lad, was so struck 
 with the brilliancy of his genius, that he readily employed him 
 in his office. 
 
 Each succeeding month convinced Duval, more and more, that 
 the young man was highly gifted, and he was accordingly per- 
 suaded to enter his name as a law student in Lincoln's Inn. By 
 the rules of the Benchers of that Inn, it is incumbent on every 
 student to disclose his antecedents, and to tell, amongst other 
 things, his own employment, and whether he had ever filled the 
 office of clerk to a conveyancer. Now by the rules of the Benchers 
 of all the Inns of Court, no person who has ever filled such an 
 office can be called to the English bar, and he was, as a matter of 
 course, rejected. He succeeded, however, in obtaining a convey- 
 ancer's and equity draughtman's license. Business immediately 
 flowed in upon him. He read with avidity every treatise on real 
 property, followed every case, and soon mastered the intricacies 
 of the law of real property. Now he observed, in his course of 
 study, how advantageous it would be to have a popular work, ac- 
 cessible to all men of property, which would contain information 
 on the subject in a plain and scientific manner. And it was with 
 this end that he wrote his " Law of Vendors and Purchasers of 
 Estates." Having finished his work his courage failed him ; 
 the expense of publication was certain, while its success was 
 uncertain ; and it was not without difficulty that he could be 
 persuaded from committing the manuscript to the flames. The 
 book was, however, printed, and the amount he received for its 
 sale was small ; but never did he experience such satisfaction as 
 when receiving that small amount. 1 
 
 The book was the foundation of his success ; and was pub- 
 lished in 1805. To exclude him longer from the bar would 
 have been, an act of intolerable injustice, and he was accord- 
 ingly "called" in 1807. Next came out his work on " Powers," 
 and his "Letters to a Man of Property on Buying and Selling 
 
 1 Preface to the 13th edition of Sugden's Vendors and Purchasers. 
 
BECOMES A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT. 247 
 
 Estates ;" which was followed hy an edition of " Gilbert's Law 
 of Uses and Trusts," published in 1811. 
 
 Sugden's fame as a real property lawyer was now great. 
 But his strength was unequal to the intolerable press of the 
 business that poured in upon him : the sedentary life he conse- 
 quently led began seriously to affect his health ; and he resolved 
 in consequence thenceforward to confine himself to court prac- 
 tice in the Court of Chancery. His ambition afterwards led Tiim 
 to aspire to senatorial honours, and in 1818 he offered himself 
 as candidate for the county of Sussex, in the tory interest. 
 'Whilst making a speech on the hustings, he was interrupted by 
 a brainless babbler, with a cry of " Soap-lather ;" " Yes," said 
 Sugden, undaunted, " I'm the son of a barber, and had that fel- 
 low who reproaches me with my birth been the son of a barber, 
 he would have been a barber still." He had polled at the end 
 of the second day's polling only a few votes, and in consequence 
 retired. In 1822 he was raised to the dignity of King's Counsel 
 by Lord Eldon. Jealous of the privileges of his profession, he 
 was active in organizing a successful opposition to the appoint- 
 ment of Lord Plunket to the Mastership of the Rolls in Eng- 
 land. In 1826, as the general election was approaching, a 
 vacancy was expected in the representation of Shoreham, and 
 Sugden, being in want of a seat, made overtures to the electors ; 
 and considering that it was useless to prosecute a canvass with- 
 out first conciliating the good-will of the Duke of Norfolk, he 
 applied to his friend the late Mr. Charles Butler, the eminent 
 Catholic barrister, to solicit his grace's interest; according to 
 Mr. Horsfield, the historian of Sussex, Mr. Butler wrote to one 
 of the duke's most influential friends, requesting his support, 
 and stating in his letter that Mr. Sugden was a decided friend 
 of Catholic emancipation, a measure which at the time was of 
 paramount interest. The duke, however, withheld his support, 
 and a relative of his own, Mr. Henry Howard, offered his ser- 
 vices. " On this," adds Horsfield, " Mr. Sugden addressed the 
 electors, stating to them that he sought their support in order to 
 help them to work out their own independence ; and among 
 other things his handbill contained the following paragraph, 'I 
 have pledged myself against the admission of Catholics into par- 
 liament, and that pledge I shall faithfully redeem.' By some 
 means Mr. Butler's letter came to the knowledge of the electors, 
 who, feeling that they had been ill-treated in the matter, de- 
 clined supporting Mr. Sugden, who found himself in consequence 
 at the bottom of the poll. He was returned to parliament, 
 however, for the borough of Weymouth, in the following year, as 
 well as at the general election which took place after the death of 
 King George IV. On the first occasion of Mr. Sugden address- 
 ing the House of Commons, he stood forward as the vigorous 
 
248 LORD ST. LEONARDS 
 
 upholder of the Court of Chancery, in opposition to those who, 
 on motion to inquire into its constitution, denounced it as a 
 " public ourse ;" so strenuous was his defence of that court, that 
 it was a matter of surprise when, after a few weeks, he came for- 
 ward with a bill for the amendment of the law as administered 
 by that very court. Though now opposed on principle to the 
 Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, he still voted for the mea- 
 sure, but insisted on the literal construction of that clause which 
 prevented Roman Catholic members, returned to parliament be- 
 fore the Act, from taking the new oaths. This clause had evi- 
 dently been framed to exclude Mr. O'Connell, who had been 
 returned before the passing of the Act. 
 
 The 18th May, 1829, was the day on which Mr. O'Connell 
 was expected to take his seat after his first election for Clare. 
 Long before the Speaker took the chair, the body of the House 
 was filled with members, and the galleries with strangers. At 
 length Mr. O'Connell was introduced by Lords Ebrington and 
 Duncannon ; and he declined to swear that the sacrifice of the 
 mass was either impious or idolatrous, and claimed the privilege 
 of taking the new oaths, as set forth in the Relief Act. 
 
 The Speaker declared that it was his impression that the new 
 oaths authorised by the Relief Act had only reference to such 
 members as should be returned to serve in parliament after the 
 passing of the bill into law. Mr. O'Connell then proceeded 
 to argue in favour of his admissibility on taking the new oaths. 
 After he had concluded, a debate ensued, and Mr. Sugden was 
 amongst the opponents of O'Connell, " whose talent and temper, 
 however, he eulogised. They were such as entitled him to his 
 approbation ; and although he did not know whether the hon. 
 member for Clare would accept the compliment in the spirit in 
 which it was intended, he trusted that Mr. O'Connell would pay 
 implicit deference to what might, he hoped, be the unbiassed 
 opinion of the House." 
 
 The unbiassed opinion was then taken, when it appeared 
 there were 190 against, and 116 in favour of the admission of 
 Mr. O'Connell ; who was then called to the table, and when he 
 had again declined to take the insulting oath, the seat was de- 
 clared vacant, and a new writ was issued for the county of Clare. 
 
 In the month of June, 1829, Mr. Sugden received the honour 
 of knighthood, and was appointed at the same time Solicitor- 
 General for England, an office which he held until the fall of 
 the tory ministry, in 1830. The parliamentary debates of 
 those years are filled with the speeches of this distinguished 
 lawyer, whose prejudice against the Catholic faith not un- 
 frequently brought him into collision with Mr. O'Connell. On 
 the 22nd February, 1831, he moved for leave to bring in a bill 
 to apply to Ireland the Statute of Mortmain. " By the provi- 
 
OPPOSES THE REFORM BILL. 249 
 
 •sions of that Act, real property and property in the funds must 
 be disposed of before the hand of death was upon the person 
 .giving away his property. The principle of the bill was to 
 prevent any improper influence over parties when in the last 
 stage of existence. It had been found very beneficial to Eng- 
 land, and he wished to extend the law to Ireland." 
 
 Mr. O'Connell opposed the motion ; he said that " the bill 
 ■would deprive the Catholic Church of all charitable bequests ; 
 and the hon. and learned gentleman who thus began a crusade 
 against the laws of Ireland should first ascertain what those 
 laws were, and what was the state of the country." A sharp 
 debate ensued, and Sugden withdrew his motion, admitting, at 
 the same time, " that the object of the bill was to prevent the 
 inconvenient disposition of property to Catholic charities." 
 
 He also spoke with much warmth against the reform bill in 
 the debate on the 21st March, 1832. As to increasing the 
 number of representatives for Ireland, he entirely objected to 
 it. " Let them look at the Act of Union, and he would ask 
 was not that question most fully considered ? Was it not then 
 decided that 100 members was the largest number Ireland was 
 to have in the Imperial Parliament ? " 
 
 Mr. O'Connell said that " the question of the number of re- 
 presentatives was not definitively settled at the time of the Union, 
 and if the hon. and learned gentleman would look into the Act 
 of Union, he would there find an express provision, with a view 
 to some alterations to be thereafter made. They had no right 
 to treat this part of the subject as the hon. and learned gentle- 
 man had done, as if it were an abstract question. Was there 
 not, he asked, an identity of interest between the two coun- 
 tries?" 
 
 Lord Brougham was then Lord Chancellor of England. 
 His laborious and successful exertions in carrying the reform 
 bill through parliament are well known to the world. Nor did 
 that untiring Chancellor, during the tedious progress of the 
 reform bill, ever, even for a day, absent himself from his 
 court. Writing multitudes of letters on the bench, whilst 
 counsel was addressing him, he seemed to be endowed with a 
 capacity for attending to several matters at the same time. 
 Frequently in the course of the morning he would receive 
 letters on the bench, read them, write, seal, and despatch 
 answers, meanwhile asking questions of counsel concerning 
 their arguments. This habit was peculiarly distasteful to Sir 
 Edward Sugden, who tried to correct it, but was unlucky in the 
 occasion he took, and the method he employed, for that purpose. 
 
 As the most marked and effectual intimation of his dis- 
 pleasure, he suddenly stopped in the middle of a sentence while 
 the Chancellor was writing. After a considerable pause, the 
 
250 LOKD ST. LEONARDS. 
 
 Chancellor, without raising his eyes from the paper, said, " Go- 
 on, Sir Edward ; I am listening to you." Sugden. — " I observe 
 your lordship is engaged in writing, and not favouring me with 
 your attention." Chancellor. — " I am signing papers of mere 
 form ; you may as well say I am not to blow my nose or take- 
 snuff while you are speaking." Lord Campbell says, though it 
 is denied by Lord St. Leonards, that Sir Edward sat down in a 
 huff ; he was laughed at, and the Chancellor was applauded. 
 
 The Court of Chancery was in the early part of the present 
 century one of the reproaches of the country. " Once in Chan- 
 cery, always in Chancery," was a maxim ! Of a decision of that 
 court Sir Edward Sugden thus speaks : — " No one can distinctly 
 discover what that decision is, one barrister having one view, 
 and another barrister another ; the registrar is not able to draw 
 it up. Then come hearings and rehearings in the registrar's 
 office, before a person incompetent to decide the matter — to settle 
 what the decree of the court was ; and after enormous expense 
 for attendance, not to mention the loss of two or three months' 
 time perhaps, the parties again come to the court — when judges 
 and barristers have forgotten everything about the cause — to- 
 have decided what the court had decided many months before." 
 
 Lord Brougham, then Chancellor, was at the head of this 
 system, and his knowledge of the general principles of equity 
 was openly questioned by Sir Edward Sugden, who, in his 
 place in the House of Commons, thought proper to inform that 
 House that the "noble and learned lord was entirely unin- 
 formed on the law of equity which he was called on to adminis- 
 ter, and nothing was more likely than that his decisions should 
 be wrong." This from the greatest practitioner in the court, 
 and concerning the judge before whom he must daily plead the 
 cause of his clients, shocked the feelings of the entire country. 
 
 Lord Brougham, nevertheless, applying himself with vigour 
 to ' the cleansing of this great Augean stable, promised, 
 amongst other things, that the Chancery sinecures should be 
 swept away on the first vacancies. Now, two offices — notorious 
 sinecures — fell vacant, and, notwithstanding his promise, they 
 were filled up. On the 25th July, 1832, Sir Edward Sugden 
 asked a question in the House of Commons respecting the sine- 
 cures, whether they had been filled up, and if so, if the appoint- 
 ment was only provisional? The offices had been filled, 
 however, by a brother of the Lord Chancellor. On the next 
 day Sir Edward was speaking in the Court of Chancery, when 
 the Lord Chancellor suddenly rose, and instead of intimating, 
 as usual, that he was obliged to go elsewhere, left Sir Edward 
 standing in the middle of a sentence. On that night his lord- 
 ship made an elaborately prepared speech on Chancery sine- 
 cures, and vindicated his conduct ; and referring to the question 
 
QUARREL BETWEEN BROUGHAM AND SUGDEN. 251 
 
 that Sir Edward had asked in the House of Commons, he made 
 an inexcusable attack on that learned lawyer, in language ill 
 suited to his position and to the place in which he spoke. The 
 required information he was ready to give, and then added : — 
 "Yes, my lords; we have all read that it is the heaven-born 
 thirst for information, and its invariable concomitants, a self- 
 disregarding and candid mind, that most distinguishes man 
 from the lower animals — from the crawling reptile, from the 
 wasp that stings, and from the wasp that fain would, and 
 cannot, sting — distinguishes us, my lords, not only from the 
 insect that crawls and stings, but from that more powerful, 
 because more offensive creature, the bug, which, powerful and 
 offensive as it is, after all is but vermin. Yes, I say, it is this 
 laudable propensity upon which humanity justly prides itself, 
 which, I have no doubt, solely influenced the learned gentleman 
 to whom I allude to seek for information which it would be 
 cruel to stingily gratify." 
 
 That this attack of marked severity was not original is stated 
 by Lord St. Leonards ; and further, he says that the Chancellor 
 was indebted for it to Pope. But we have no hesitation in 
 stating that long before the time of Pope a similar remark was 
 made by Coke — " I am not afraid of gnats, that can prick, and 
 cannot hurt, nor of drones, that keep a-buzzing, and would, but 
 cannot, sting." 1 
 
 The day following this attack Sir Edward was engaged in a 
 case before the Chancellor. The court was crowded by those 
 anxious to witness a quarrel between the judge and the counsel, 
 but the former never raised his eyes from his note-book, and 
 Sugden argued in a tone of independence and dissatisfaction. 
 
 The anger of the learned combatants seems, however, to 
 have been of short duration. In the same year, and within two 
 months from this scene, Lord Brougham (a vacancy having 
 occurred in the Court of Exchequer) offered the vacant seat to 
 Sir Edward Sugden, which, however, the latter declined to ac- 
 cept : and a day or two after, Lord Brougham, on Sir Edward's 
 moving a motion in his room, came towards him with both 
 hands extended, and said, " I think when a man does wrong, the 
 sooner he says so the better." They then clasped each other's 
 hands, and were ever after friends. 
 
 The change of ministry at the close of 1834 brought the 
 tories back to power for a few months. Sir Edward, who a 
 short time previously had successfully protested against Lord 
 Plunket's being Master of the Polls in England, now accepted 
 without hesitation the Seals in Ireland. " What ! " said O'Con- 
 nell ; " will the bar of Ireland tamely submit to this fresh 
 insult flung upon them ? Are there no able men to be found at 
 1 Coke's Eeports, vol. iv., p. vii. 
 
252 LORD ST. LEONARDS. 
 
 the Irish bar, that we must have an English barrister sent 
 amongst us ? "Will the bar submit to this foreigner holding 
 high place amongst them?" 
 
 The Irish bar did submit, and on his arrival at his hotel in 
 Dublin he was immediately waited upon by the most dis- 
 tinguished members of the profession. But his term of office 
 was short. In the following month of April, a hostile vote in 
 the House of Commons on the Irish Church threw out the 
 government of Sir Robert Peel, and Sir Edward retired with 
 the ministry. The court on that day was filled by an elegantly 
 dressed crowd of ladies and gentlemen. At half-past eleven the 
 Chancellor ascended the bench. In a few minutes after, the 
 Lord Lieutenant, Lord Haddington, accompanied by an aide- 
 de-camp, entered the court, and the Attorney-General rose to 
 bid farewell to the retiring foreigner : — 
 
 " My lord, — I should do great injustice to my own feelings, 
 and, I am persuaded, to those of the bar of Ireland, if I 
 allowed your lordship to retire from that seat without attempt- 
 ing, however feebly, to convey to your lordship the impression 
 of the deep sense which we entertain of the eminent ability and 
 dignified demeanour with which you have discharged the im- 
 portant duties of your high office. Short as has been the period 
 of your lordship's elevation, it has afforded ample opportunity 
 for the display of judicial powers of the highest degree of 
 excellence. Had this period been still shorter — had we been 
 limited to the observation of a single day, it would have been 
 sufficient to have impressed us with an indelible conviction of 
 the profound, extensive, and accurate learning — the patience 
 and discrimination — the masterly exposition and application of 
 the authorities and t principles of equity — and, above all, of the 
 ardent love of justice, and elevated tone of moral feeling, which 
 marked and distinguished your judgments. I have only to 
 add our acknowledgments for your uniform urbanity and kind- 
 ness, and to assure your lordship that you bear with you our 
 regret at your retirement, and our most anxious wishes for 
 your happiness and welfare." 
 
 On the 28th of April the Lord Lieutenant held a parting 
 levee, which was attended by Sir Edward Sugden, who took his 
 departure in a few days for England. He was now, for the first 
 time in his professional life, full of leisure, and he immediately 
 commenced to revise the whole of his work on " Vendors and 
 Purchasers," and published an edition — the tenth — with nume- 
 rous additions, in three volumes. In 1837 he was once more 
 returned to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament 
 for Bipon, and thenceforward took an active part in the debates 
 on Irish questions. Her present Majesty had then ascended 
 the throne, and within the first three years of her reign several 
 
AGITATION FOR " REPEAL OF THE UNION." 253 
 
 beneficial measures were passed — the poor law, the tithe law, 
 and the law for municipal reform. On the poor law Sir 
 Edward spoke, in opposition to the humane clause legalising 
 outdoor relief. His reasoning prevailed, and thenceforward, 
 whilst outdoor relief became illegal, with few exceptions, in 
 Ireland, it remained as it had been, legal in England. 
 
 In September, 1841, the Conservatives regained their ascend- 
 ancy, and Sir Edward Sugden was replaced in his former posi- 
 tion, at the head of the High Court of Chancery in Ireland. 
 
 It was during his term of office that the agitation for a 
 repeal of the Union assumed those alarming proportions which 
 threatened a disruption of the empire. This movement had the 
 approval of many of the magistrates throughout the country ; 
 but Six Edward Sugden resolved to weed the magistracy of the 
 repealers, and he accordingly superseded about twenty, includ- 
 ing Lord Efrench and Mr. 0' Conn ell'; while several others, of 
 their own accord, resigned the commission of the peace. 
 
 Monster meetings were held at Tara, in the county of 
 Meath ; at Mullaghmast, in the county of Kildare ; at Clif den, 
 in the county of Gralway ; and last of all, a great metropolitan 
 meeting was to have been held on Sunday, the 8th of October, 
 1843, on the historic shores of Clontarf, and on the spot where 
 Brian Boru had vanquished the Danes, within two miles of the 
 city of Dublin, along the bay. The garrison of Dublin then 
 amounted to 4000 men, besides 1000 police, with abundance of 
 field artillery. 
 
 Late in the afternoon of Saturday, when it was almost dusk, 
 a proclamation was posted on the walls of Dublin, signed by 
 Edward B. Sugden, O, and others of the Privy Council, for- 
 bidding the meeting. 
 
 Many persons did not at first understand the object of the 
 Privy Council in keeping back the proclamation to so late an 
 hour on Saturday, seeing that the meeting had been so many 
 days announced, and that multitudes coming from remote parts 
 of the country would never hear of the proclamation until they 
 should be face to face with the military at Clontarf. But the thing 
 was simple enough. The government intended to take O'Connell 
 by surprise, perhaps to have raked the meeting with cannon- 
 shot, and thus put an end to the repeal agitation for ever. 
 O'Connell, however, issued a counter proclamation, announcing 
 that the meeting was not to take place, and thus saved an 
 unarmed multitude from being massacred in cold blood on the 
 next day. Scores of messengers were despatched to all quarters 
 of the country throughout the whole of that night, for the 
 purpose of turning back the crowds who, unaware of the 
 government proclamation, were pressing onwards to the next 
 morning's meeting. 
 
254 LOKD ST. LEONARDS. 
 
 Within a week O'Connell and eight others were held to 
 hail to take their trial for "conspiracy and other misde- 
 meanours." 
 
 The State trials commenced on the 2nd Novemher, 1843. 
 A revisal of the special jury list had previously taken place 
 before Mr. Shaw, Recorder of Dublin, with a special view to 
 those trials. The names, when passed by the Recorder from 
 day to day, were then sent to the sheriff's office, to be placed on 
 his book. Counsel were employed before the Recorder to 
 oppose by every means the admission of every Catholic gentle- 
 man against whom any colour of objection could be thought of; 
 yet, with all this care, a large number of Catholics were placed 
 on the list. Now, as the names were transferred to the sheriff's 
 office, it so happened that the slip which contained twenty- 
 three Catholic names missed its way, or was mislaid, and the 
 names it contained never appeared on the sheriff's book. This 
 became immediately notorious, and excited what one of the 
 judges called " grave suspicion." 
 
 In striking a special jury at that time in Ireland, forty-eight 
 names were taken by ballot out of the sheriff's book in the 
 Crown Office ; then each party, the Crown and the traverser, 
 had the privilege of striking off twelve — thus leaving twenty- 
 four names ; and, on the day of trial, the first twelve out of the 
 twenty-four who answered their names when called were sworn 
 as jurors. Now, so well did the sheriff carry out the views of 
 the government, and so well did he manage the list, that out of 
 the forty-eight there were just eleven Catholics, and these 
 eleven names were struck off, and a jury whose principles 
 could be relied on was secured. This process of packing the 
 jury having been completed, the trial commenced at the bar of 
 the Queen's Bench, and before the full court, composed of 
 Chief Justice Pennefather, Justices Burton, Crampton, and 
 Perrin. The defendants — Daniel O'Connell, John O'Con- 
 nell, Richard Barrett, Thomas M. Ray, John Gray, Thomas 
 Steele, Charles Gravan Duffy, and Thomas Tierney — were in- 
 dicted for a conspiracy, and convicted. 
 
 An animated debate ensued in parliament on the state of 
 Ireland. _ Lord John Russell felt that the practice of jury-pack- 
 ing was intolerable, and calculated to bring the laws and the 
 administration of the laws into hatred and contempt. " Could 
 the same or similar cases have happened in Yorkshire, Sussex, 
 or Kent ? Are these the fulfilment of the promises entered into 
 at the Union?" and his lordship (forgetful of the Campbell 
 job) concluded by expressing his astonishment at the govern- 
 ment having selected Sir Edward Sugden, an English lawyer, 
 to fill the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Sir Robert 
 Peel retorted by upbraiding the whigs for insulting Lord Plun- 
 
REG. L\ O'COKKELL IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 255 
 
 ket by degrading him from the bench, and thereby insulting 
 the whole Irish nation. "Lord John Russell," he said, "had 
 the good fortune to be connected with a man who had long been 
 the faithful friend of the whig party — the pride of the bar of 
 Ireland — the ornament of the British senate — the friend of 
 Grattan : the noble lord had the happiness of being connected 
 with Lord Plunket, whose name will be handed down to remote 
 posterity as one of the brightest stars in the constellation of 
 Irish eminence. Lord Plunket is the son of a Presbyterian 
 minister, and he raised himself to the office of Lord Chancellor 
 of his own country; the Irish bar rejoiced at his elevation. The 
 noble lord thinks it necessary to consult the prejudices and con- 
 ciliate the feelings of the people of Ireland, and he taunts us 
 with making an English appointment, overlooking the claims of 
 the people of Ireland. He had a Chancellor, the most eminent 
 man the bar of Ireland had produced, and six weeks before he 
 (Lord J. Russell) quitted office — he who is so sensitive on behalf 
 of Ireland, so jealous of offence to that country, so opposed to 
 the preference of Englishmen — having that man, a connexion 
 with whom was the boast and pride of the whig party, in the 
 situation of Lord Chancellor, signified to Lord Plunket — the 
 Irishman — the Lord Chancellor, that it would be expedient for 
 him to retire ; and for what ? So far as the public is apprised, 
 in order that he might gratify the vanity of, certainly, an emi- 
 nent and distinguished lawyer — of one, of whom I wish to 
 speak with the respect I feel for him — in order that he might 
 gratify the vanity of a Scotchman, by a six weeks' tenure of 
 office, and offered — an insult, I will not call it, but — an affront to 
 Ireland ; which, whatever the noble lord may think of my dis- 
 position towards that country, I would not have put upon it 
 and remained in office one hour." 
 
 On the 25th of April following, an application for a new 
 trial was made at the bar of the Queen's Bench, and refused ; 
 and Mr. O'Connell and the other traversers were called up for 
 judgment, and imprisoned in Richmond Penitentiary for the 
 term of twelve calendar months. Meanwhile the judgment 
 of the Queen's Bench was brought, by a writ of error, to the 
 House of Lords, and there, on the 2nd and 4th of September, 
 debated by counsel before the Lord Chancellor, Lord Lyndhurst, 
 Lord Brougham, Lords Cottenham, Campbell, and Denman. 
 These were the only members of the House of Lords that at- 
 tended to the case. Lords Lyndhurst and Brougham severally 
 delivered their judgments, that the judgment of the court below 
 do Etand confirmed; while Lords Cottenham, Campbell, and 
 Denman were for its reversal. "My lords," observed Loid 
 Denman, " if this be trial by jury, trial by jury becomes a 
 
256 LOKD ST. LEONARDS. 
 
 mockery, a delusion, and a snare." The Lord Chancellor then 
 inquired whether it was the pleasure of their lordships that the 
 decision of the court below should be affirmed ? The great 
 majority were in favour of the judgment remaining undisturbed. 
 Lord Wharncliffe, the President of the Council, then addressed 
 their lordships, imploring of those unlearned in the law not to 
 interfere in the matter, " and to leave the case in the hands of 
 the law lords, who, in fact, constitute the Court of Appeal. If 
 noble lords unlearned in the law should interfere to decide such 
 questions by their votes, instead of leaving them to the decision 
 of the law lords, he very much feared that the authority of 
 this House as a Court of Justice shall be greatly impaired." 
 
 Lord Brougham — " Deeply lamenting the decision of the 
 majority of the law lords," concurred with what had fallen 
 from the President of the Council. 
 
 Lord Campbell — " With reference to what has been said of 
 the distinction between law lords and lay lords, and leaving 
 the decision of this case with the law lords, it is unnecessary 
 for me to say more than that the distinction is unknown to the 
 constitution, and that there is no distinct order of law lords 
 in the formation of your lordships' House. But there is a dis- 
 tinction in reason and the fitness of things, between members of 
 a court who have heard a case argued, and members of that 
 court who have not heard it argued ; and those only who have 
 heard the arguments should take part in the decision. I believe 
 that none but those who are called law lords have constantly 
 attended while this case has been debated at your lordships' 
 
 The Lord Chancellor : — " I think those noble lords who have 
 not heard the arguments will decline voting if I put the ques- 
 tion again." 
 
 The Marquis of Clanricarde : — " My lords, I think it right to 
 say, that if any noble lord, not learned in the law, who has not 
 heard the whole argument, votes in addition to the law lords 
 on this question, I shall, as a matter of privilege, think it my 
 duty also to give my vote. In stating that intention, I must 
 also state that I should be very sorry to be reduced to that ne- 
 cessity, for I should look on the course of proceeding which 
 would oblige me so to act to be one of the most calamitous 
 nature to the House and the country. I think it infinitely 
 better that all those noble lords, who are not in the common 
 acceptation of the term, and in the usage of parliament, qualified 
 to decide, should leave the House." 
 
 All the lay lords then withdrew, and the judgment of the 
 Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland was reversed. 
 
 Thus terminated those trials. Daniel O'Connell and his 
 
THE IRISH FAMINE OF 1847. 257 
 
 fellow-prisoners were liberated from custody, and the repeal 
 agitation was carried on with vigour during the remaining term 
 of Sir Edward Sugden's Chancellorship, which terminated with 
 the overthrow of the Conservative government in the summer 
 of 1846. He then returned to England, and during the succeed- 
 ing years took part in the debates on Irish questions. The har- 
 vest of that memorable year was a failure. The potato crop, 
 blasted in one hour, lay rotting iD the fields. The famine of 1847 
 and '48, which followed, changed the whole face of society. The 
 landlords and their tenants — the mortgagors and their mortga- 
 gees — were alike engulphed in ruin. Thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands of the miserable peasantry perished from hunger on the way 
 side. Their landlords, powerless to relieve them, struggled for 
 their own existence. Society was shaken to its inmost depths ; 
 and no institution save the lazar-house and the emigrant ship 
 flourished in this unhappy country. Millions of money, flung 
 into the Irish Maelstrom, disappeared oAe'xovt-o §e Xoot, " but 
 the people still perished." The deeply incumbered estates were 
 unable to pay their incumbrances, and the sorely tried incum- 
 brancers in vain sought to realize their charges. The value of 
 the land was reduced so low that in many instances estates were 
 abandoned, to pay the rates for the support of the poor. 
 
 It was in this state of things that a Court for the Sale of In- 
 cumbered Estates was established. Lord St. Leonards claims to 
 have been the author of that bill, while Lord Romilly gives a flat 
 denial to the truth of that claim, and says that he and a gen- 
 tleman unknown to fame, a Mr. Coulson, were the authors of 
 the scheme. Twenty years after the measure had become law, 
 Lord St. Leonards gives the following account of its early his- 
 tory, and of his connexion with it : — " Just after the Incumbered 
 Estates (Ireland) bill passed, Lord Campbell and I dined as 
 benchers at Lincoln's Inn. Leaving the Inn together — I to 
 reach "Waterloo station, and he to go to Kensington — we walked 
 arm-in-arm down the Strand, which was somewhat out of his 
 way, and had much confidential conversation. He appeared to 
 take a lively interest in my administration of the law in Ireland, 
 and expressed his regret that I had not acoepted the offer of 
 chief judge of the new court. I said that I declined to take a 
 lower position in the court than the one I had occupied ; besides, 
 the place, with all its novelty and difficulty, was not attended 
 -with any income beyond my retiring pension as Chancellor. 
 He expressed the greatest surprise, said it was a mistake ; that 
 £10,000 a-year would not be too much for me, and that the 
 government would immediately obtain an Act of Parliament to 
 authorise the grant. I told him that money alone was not the 
 object ; but if they had intended to grant a large salary, they 
 should have provided for it at once ; and that nothing would 
 
258 LORD ST. LEONARDS. 
 
 induce me to allow an appeal to parliament for a large salary to 
 be granted to me. We then parted. I may here mention, that 
 ■while the bill was passing, the government gave some mysterious 
 hints as to how the chief judgeship was to be filled. As soon as 
 it passed, Lord John Russell sent for me, and made the offer of 
 chief judgeship, which I declined. He said he supposed I knew 
 the nature of the bill. I answered it would be singular if I did 
 not, as I was the author of the measure. He looked incredulous. I 
 explained to him that Sir Robert Peel had a scheme for relieving 
 the incumbered estates in Ireland, and he sent it to me for my 
 opinion. (I have it now before me, a long and elaborate paper.) 
 I wrote to him that I thought his plan would not work ; and I 
 then gave him a sketch of a bill which would work, but I ob- 
 served that I did not say I would pass such a hard measure if I 
 had the power. I considered it, as to property, like the suspen- 
 sion of the Habeas Corpus Act as to person, and, like it, should 
 not be carried beyond the actual necessity of the case. That 
 letter Sir Robert Peel sent to Lord Clarendon in Ireland, and 
 he sent it to the government at home ; and upon that scheme 
 the bill was founded, as, I think, Sir Robert Peel informed me. 
 I understood Lord John Russell to say that he believed some 
 paper was sent." 
 
 Such is the account given by Lord St. Leonards in his " De- 
 fence," published in the month of March, 1869. 1 
 
 Immediately on the appearance of this work, Lord Romilly, 
 then Master of the Rolls in England, addressed the following 
 letter to the London Times: — 
 
 " Sir — I should be much obliged if you would permit me to 
 correct one of Lord St. Leonards' corrections of the misrepre- 
 sentations in Campbell's ' Lives of Lyndhurst and Brougham.' In 
 page 50, Lord St. Leonards claims to have been the author of 
 the measure called the Incumbered Estates (Ireland) bill. Lord 
 St. Leonards states that the scheme was sent by him 'to Sir 
 Robert Peel, who sent it to Lord Clarendon in Ireland, who 
 sent it to the government at home, and upon that scheme the 
 bill was founded, as (Lord St. Leonard thinks) Sir Robert Peel 
 informed him.' 
 
 " I am able to state, in answer to this, that neither Lord St. 
 Leonards nor Sir Robert Peel took any part in the framing of 
 that measure, or in suggesting any of its provisions. There are 
 two Acts of Parliament which were passed relating to the sale of 
 incumbered estates in Ireland. The first passed in 1848, and 
 the second, which is usually called the Incumbered Estates (Ire- 
 
 1 Vid. Misrepresentations in Campbell's "Lives of Lyndhurst and 
 Brougham, corrected by St. Leonards," page 49. 
 
LORD R0\IILLY ON THE IXCUMBERED ESTATES COURT. 259 
 
 land) Act, passed in the year 1849. When I was appointed 
 Solicitor-General, in 1848, 1 found that the former of these hills 
 had heen introduced into the House of Lords by the government 
 of Lord Russell. When this hill came down to the House of 
 Commons I thought it very meagre and imperfect, and, in con- 
 junction with the late Mr. Walter Coulson, I framed a long 
 series of clauses, which completely altered the character and 
 scope of the bill, and which introduced many of the powers and 
 provisions which in the following year were given to the Incum- 
 bered Estates Court. The working of the measure was by this 
 Act entrusted to the Court of Chancery in Ireland. The clauses 
 introduced by me alarmed Lord Cottenham, who was then Lord 
 Chancellor, and, by his desire, they were modified. This Act 
 passed in August, 1848; it is the 11th and 12th Victoria, cap. 
 48, and is entitled ' An Act to Facilitate the Sale of Incumbered 
 Estates in Ireland.' The correctness of this statement may be 
 ascertained at the Library of either Houses of Parliament, by 
 comparing the bill, as it came down from the House of Lords, 
 with the Act as amended and as it passed. 
 
 " In the following year the alterations thus introduced into 
 the Act, by the desire of Lord Cottenham, were found to impede 
 action under it, and Lord Russell instructed me to prepare 
 another Incumbered Estates bill for Ireland. He gave me full 
 liberty to prepare it as I thought desirable, both as to the 
 scheme to be adopted, and as to the provisions to be introduced 
 for working it, permitting, at my request, that the working of 
 the Act should he confided to a new court to be constituted for 
 that purpose. On this I, together with Mr. Coulson, framed the 
 Act of 1849, which is usually called the Incumbered Estates 
 Act, and which is entitled 'An Act Further to Facilitate the Sale 
 and Transfer of Incumbered Estates in Ireland,' 12th and 13th 
 of Victoria, cap. 77. 
 
 " H Sir Robert Peel sent to Lord Clarendon or to the go- 
 vernment at home any plan or any scheme which he had received 
 from Lord St. Leonards or from any other person, it was never 
 submitted to Mr. Coulson or myself ; neither of us ever heard of 
 it ; we had no plan or suggestion from anyone ; we framed our 
 scheme in consultation together, after obtaining such informa- 
 tion as might be derived from the speeches made in parliament, 
 and from works relating to Ireland which had any relation to 
 this subject. No one ever saw the bill, except Mr. Coulson and 
 myself, until after it had been introduced into the House of 
 Commons. After this it was printed, and then we circulated it 
 freely in all places among persons interested in the subject, and 
 requested them to send us any communications and suggestions 
 that occurred to them. That little was derived from this source 
 may be ascertained by comparing the bill as introduced into the 
 
 S 2 
 
260 LOKD ST. LEONARDS. 
 
 House of Commons with the Act of Parliament as it received 
 the royal assent, which also can he done by anyone in the 
 Library of either Houses of Parliament. Sir Eobert Peel was- 
 present in the House of Commons when I introduced and stated 
 the provisions of the bill, which appeared to be quite new to 
 him. On that occasion he was pleased to pay a high compli- 
 ment to me, and he never, then or at any other time, claimed to 
 have any part in the preparation or suggestion of the scheme 
 propounded by that bill, or of the provisions contained in it ; on 
 the contrary, both in public and private, he always spoke of me 
 as the author of the Act. 
 
 " In truth, the merit of it was principally due to Mr. Coul- 
 son, a gentleman whose great knowledge and abilities are still 
 appreciated by his surviving friends; and in the last words I 
 spoke, when the bill finally passed the House, I endeavoured to 
 do some justice to him. I repeat that neither Sir Eobert Peel 
 nor Lord St. Leonards knew anything of it, or had anything to 
 do with it, until it was introduced into parliament. 
 
 " In truth, this is one of the many instances I have observed 
 in the course of my life where the credit of having suggested 
 or framed a successful measure is claimed by, and frequently 
 awarded to, some great man who had nothing to do with it, 
 while the real merit belongs to a person little known, and who 
 leaves no name behind him beyond the time when the last of a 
 few friends shall have followed him to the grave. 
 
 " That these facts are correct, anybody can verify by refe- 
 rence to Hansard and the documents preserved in the Library of 
 the House of Commons. There are also many gentlemen on 
 both sides of the House now alive who were present, and who 
 took a part in these proceedings, who can, and I believe would if 
 appealed to, bear witness to the truth of what I have here 
 stated. — I am, sir, your obedient Servant, 
 
 " EOMILLY. 
 
 " Hyde Park- terrace, March 12, 1869." 
 
 During the four years following his retirement from the 
 Court of Chancery in Ireland, Sir Edward appears to have 
 enjoyed a life of retirement. In 1850, however, he was 
 awakened from his repose by a papal brief direct from 
 Pius IX., mapping out the kingdom of England into dioceses. 
 This was looked on at the time as an aggression as great 
 perhaps as that of Gregory the Great in the sixth century, when 
 he despatched Augustin for the conversion of England, under 
 its Saxon monarch's. Sir Edward denounced the aggression ; 
 and his speech at a public meeting at Epsom was unsurpassed 
 in the force of eloquent indignation. 
 
 On the return of the Conservatives to power, in 1852, 
 
THE FENIANS. 261 
 
 Sugden was appointed Lord Chanoellor of Great Britain, being 
 created at the same time Baron St. Leonards, of Slaugham, in 
 Sussex; Lord Lyndhurst declaring "that no government was 
 ever more fortunate in a Chancellor, and that the present occu- 
 pant of the woolsack, besides being the greatest of lawyers, was 
 distinguished by his placid temper, and his mild and gentle- 
 manly manner." 
 
 The resignation of the ministry in the same year again 
 placed the Seals in the hands of the Crown, and Lord St. 
 Leonards ceased to be Chancellor on the 28th of December, 
 1852. Exceeding at that time the age of three score and ten 
 years, he refused office on the several accessions of the Conser- 
 vatives to power. "But in the House of Lords and in the 
 Judicial Committee of the Privy Council he continued to afford 
 his valuable assistance." 
 
 As a law reformer, Lord St. Leonards did much ; for it is to 
 his learning, genius, and ability, that the country is indebted 
 for the many benefits bestowed upon it by the Trustee Belief 
 Act. Previous to the passing of that measure, the Court of 
 Chancery insisted that all trust moneys should be invested in 
 the public funds, which of late years produced only three per 
 cent, per annum. By reason of this inflexible rule, many 
 families were forced to live on slender incomes, as no landed 
 security, however unexceptionable, would or could be accepted, 
 unless the deed creating the trust contained a clause empower- 
 ing the trustees to invest the trust funds on other securities. 
 
 The name of Lord St. Leonards is conspicuous in the public 
 press in 1867, at a time when the hatred of the Irish towards the 
 English race threatened once again to burst into an unquench- 
 able flame. The unsatisfactory state of the land laws and of 
 the Protestant Church, and of the representation of the people, 
 afforded a pretext for the Fenian movement of that year. In 
 1798, as in 1641, the people were uneducated ; but in 1867 
 they had become educated ; they had been taught to read in the 
 National Schools, and they did read, and did dwell on, the 
 history of past ages — on persecutions unsurpassed, on confisca- 
 tions unavenged, and on cruel evictions ; and, educated as they 
 were, they were forced to fly from their ancestral homes to 
 countries beyond the Atlantic — 
 
 " If os patriae fines et duleia linquimus arva ; 
 Nos patriam fugimus." 
 
 They soon became imbued with American ideas, and those ideas 
 were wafted back by every wind that blew from the Ameri- 
 can to the Irish shores. Secret societies were formed, and they 
 took the name of Fenians from their great predecessor, Fenius, 
 one of the mighty men of old, men of renown. The Fenians 
 
262 LOKD CAMPBELL. 
 
 of our day spread with great rapidity over the United King- 
 dom and America, and Fenianism became a by-word and a 
 terror to every man who had anything to lose — outrages fol- 
 lowed outrages with unexampled rapidity. The cruel hand 
 of the assassin was raised against the cruel landlord who had 
 dared capriciously to eject from their holdings the ancient pro- 
 prietors of the soil. Stands of arms were sent across the At- 
 lantic, gun-shops were entered in the open day and were 
 plundered in the great cities of England and Ireland — bar- 
 racks were attacked — martello towers seized — houses in the- 
 heart of England demolished, and a general rising was ex- 
 pected, the object of which would have been the disruption of 
 the United Kingdom. 
 
 The cry of alarm arose all over England, and every 
 Englishman became a special constable. In the middle of the- 
 wide-spread terror came forward the aged Nestor of the bar, 
 then in his eighty-seventh year, to offer, with the persuasive 
 eloquence of former days, his counsel, through the columns of 
 the public press. 1 He lectured the Fenians, but his lecture was 
 to them as the idle wind, and his sarcasms were to them as the 
 feeble darts of Priam amid the crackling ruins of Troy. 
 
 Lord St. Lonards lived to the advanced age of ninety-four 
 years. He died on the 29th of January, 1875, leaving behind 
 him a name great amongst the judges of England. Unrivalled 
 in the depth and minuteness of his knowledge of the more- 
 abstruse branches of the law ; unequalled for logical power and 
 critical acumen; a writer of the rarest excellence, and of 
 authority second to none, he was great amongst the greatest who 
 have ever adorned the bench. The writer in Holy Writ thus- 
 describes the wise man who lived 2900 years ago; and perhaps, 
 in the description, a parallel may be found to him of whom we 
 write to-day — " And Grod gave to Solomon wisdom and under- 
 standing exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as th& 
 sand that is on the sea shore. And Solomon's wisdom excelled 
 the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the 
 wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men." 
 
 113. A. D. 1841. — Lokd Campbell (John Campbell). Lord 
 Campbell was born at Cupar, the county town of Fifeshire. His 
 family had been for several generations settled in the kingdom 
 of Fife, as it was called, and were a branch of the Campbells of 
 Ajgyle, through George Campbell, who, in the troubles of the 
 Covenanting times, considerably impaired his fortune by adher- 
 ence to his chief (the first Marquis of Argyle), and who, at the 
 close of the reign of Charles II., became proprietor of the estate 
 
 1 Vide letter of Lord St. Leonards to the Times, 27th December, 1867. 
 
FROM EDINBURGH TO LONDON IN 1800. 263 
 
 of Baltulla, in the vicinity of St. Andrews. The great-grand- 
 son of this gentleman was George Campbell, who was for 
 fifty-four years Presbyterian minister at Cupar, and who was 
 married in 1776 to Miss Halyburton, through whom he became 
 connected with several noble families, among which deserves to 
 be especially mentioned the family of Wedderburn. By this 
 lady he became the father of a family of five daughters and two 
 sons. Of the sons, the elder was Sir George Campbell, of 
 Edenwood, who died in 1854. The younger is the subject of 
 the present memoir, and was born at Springfield, near Cupar, 
 on the 15th of September, 1781. He had been intended for the 
 ministry of the Church of Scotland, but, conceiving a dislike for 
 that mode of life, he turned his thoughts to the English bar, 
 the highest distinctions of which had been frequently won by 
 his fellow-countrymen. Early in 1800, Campbell left Edin- 
 burgh for London, a journey which he accomplished in three 
 nights and two days — a space of time too short, as it was then 
 thought, for safety, and he was, in consequence, advised to 
 break the journey at York, as several passengers who had gone 
 through without stopping afterwards died of apoplexy, in- 
 duced, as it was gravely said, by the extreme rapidity of the 
 motion ! 
 
 His earliest associates in London were those Scottish whigs 
 to whom the name of Campbell had a fine Presbyterian flavour. 
 He soon joined a club of the sons of the clergy of the Church 
 of Scotland, of which Serjeant Spankie and Wilkie, the painter, 
 were members. To Serjeant Spankie, then editor of the Morning 
 Chronicle, he was indebted for an appointment on that news- 
 paper, for which he became a reporter and theatrical critic. 
 In November, 1800, he entered himself as a student of Lin- 
 coln's Inn, and began to study the mysteries of special plead- 
 ing, under the guidance of Mr. Tidd. To the very great 
 advantage of having been three years his pupil he chiefly 
 ascribed his success at the bar, to which he was called in 
 Michaelmas Term, 1806. Between 1809 and 1816 he published 
 a series of Eeports at Nisi Prius, extending to four volumes, 
 which are most valuable in themselves, but which were of 
 especial interest to the attorneys who had been engaged in any 
 of the cases recorded, inasmuch as, for the first time in the 
 history of reporting, he had at the end of each decision stated 
 the names of those attorneys who had to do with the trials. 
 This innovation soon brought him into connexion with the 
 leading men of that profession, and he gradually grew into 
 large practice. In this way he plodded on from year to year, 
 attaining to none of the honours of his profession during the 
 long Chancellorship of the great tory Chancellor, Lord Eldon. 
 The Coalition ministry however, with Lord Lyndhurst as 
 
264 LORD CAMPBELL 
 
 Chancellor, came into office in 1827, and John Campbell was 
 immediately appointed King's Counsel. From this time forward 
 the whigs gradually increased in power, and Campbell endea- 
 voured to improve his chances by trying for a seat in parliament. 
 He became Member for Stafford in 1830. In November, 1832, 
 he was appointed Solicitor-General, with a knighthood, and in 
 the following month was returned by Dudley as its representa- 
 tive in that reformed parliament which was, in Lord Eldon's 
 view, to seal the doom of the nation. In February, 1834, Sir 
 John Campbell was appointed Attorney- General, and was 
 unfortunately unseated at Dudley, but was soon after elected 
 Member for Edinburgh, and so continued until his elevation to 
 the peerage in 1841. It was while he was Attorney-General 
 that the great fire occurred in one of the buildings of the 
 Temple, in which all his law books and manuscripts, together 
 with many valuable official documents, were consumed ; but the 
 loss which he most of all lamented was that of a collection of 
 letters written to him by his father, in a continued series, from 
 the time he had left his home for college until 1824, when the 
 aged pastor died. 
 
 The legal reforms effected by Sir John Campbell during the 
 period of his Attorney- Generalship were many and important. 
 The Act known as " Lord Campbell's Act for the Amendment 
 of the Law of Libel as it affects Newspapers" was one of the 
 wisest efforts of modern legislation, permitting, as it does, the 
 proprietor to pay a small sum into court, and escape further 
 damages by proving both that the libel appeared without 
 malice, and that it was followed by the insertion of an apology. 
 Several important cases were tried in his Attorney-Generalship, 
 in some of which, however, he was unsuccessful. Thus in the 
 prosecution of Lord Cardigan before the House of Peers for 
 shooting Captain Tuckett, he failed; for immediately on the 
 closing of the case for the Crown, Sir William Follett, whom no 
 technical lapse could escape, pointed out that the prosecution 
 had neglected to establish an important fact, which was essen- 
 tial to a conviction, namely, that the person engaged with Lord 
 Cardigan in the duel was named Harvey Tuckett, as alleged in 
 the indictment, or that a Captain Harvey Tuckett was at 
 Wimbledon Common at all on the day of the duel. The re- 
 sult was that the case broke down, and Lord Cardigan was 
 pronounced " Not guilty," without being called upon for his 
 defence. Sir John Campbell was not more successful in vindi- 
 cating the privileges of the House of Commons in the celebrated 
 case of Stoekdale v. Hansard, an action brought against the 
 printer of the House of Commons for a libel contained in some 
 papers printed by order of the House ; but the speech delivered 
 
BECOMES LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND. 265 
 
 by him on this occasion may be regarded as a very complete 
 treatise on parliamentary privilege. 
 
 One of the most celebrated of Lord Campbell's speeches was 
 delivered in a case of too delicate a nature, and too close to the 
 time at which we now write, here to repeat. Suffice it here to 
 say, that the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, was defendant 
 in the action, and that, as he was successful in his defence, it 
 might be expected that his counsel, Sir John Campbell, would 
 be rewarded with some of the prizes of the profession. Mr. 
 Pepys, an equity lawyer, was appointed, nevertheless, over his 
 head to the Mastership of the Bolls, and Lord Cottenham was 
 raised to the woolsack. The Attorney-General, however, who 
 was a common law lawyer, gave way, and the cabinet expressed 
 their sense of his generosity by raising his wife, Lady Campbell, 
 to the peerage, with the title of Baroness Stratheden. Lord 
 Melbourne remained in office for six and a-half years, and no 
 vacancy that the Attorney-General could accept occurred during 
 that period. 
 
 Lord Normanby, while Viceroy of Ireland, courted the 
 friendship of O'Connell, and distributed the patronage of the 
 Crown on his recommendation. It was at this period (1839) 
 that the tories accused the government of truckling to O'Con- 
 nell ; and he, in truth, gave them his support, and called on all 
 Ireland to rally round the ministry. Lord Normanby bestowed 
 places on Catholic lawyers, dismissed Orange magistrates, 
 received Catholic notabilities at the Castle, made excursions 
 through the provinces, and liberated from the jails great 
 numbers of prisoners. Lord Brougham, in consequence, moved 
 and carried a vote of censure against Lord Normanby in the 
 House of Lords, and his Excellency, therefore, retired from the 
 viceroyalty, and was succeeded by Lord Ebrington. But the 
 continued assaults to which the whigs were exposed all through 
 the year 1841 warned them that their hour was soon to come ; 
 and it was before it came that Lord Plunket was constrained, 
 as we have already told, to retire from the Irish woolsack, and 
 Sir John Campbell was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland 
 in his stead. He was at the same time raised to the peerage by 
 the title of Baron Campbell. On the 28th of June he arrived 
 at the Bilton Hotel, in Sackville-street, and on the 2nd of July 
 he made his first appearance in the Court of _ Chancery. The 
 reformation of abuses in that Court occupied his early attention, 
 and on his second siting he thus spoke: — 
 
 " As there are no other causes, petitions, or motions to be 
 disposed of, the sittings will now close. And I think it proper 
 to mention to the bar, that I propose forthwith to devote myself 
 
266 LOKD CAMPBELL, 
 
 to the consideration how far the procedure of the court may be 
 facilitated, simplified, and improved. 
 
 " I have the satisfaction to find, that where the Chancery 
 practice is different in England and in Ireland, that established 
 here is, in various instances, to be preferred — as discarding 
 useless forms and speeding the suit to a hearing. The mode of 
 enforcing decrees in mortgage suits is, likewise, much more 
 effectual. 
 
 " In the abolition of the Six-clerks' office, an example has 
 been set, which England will do well to imitate. This change, 
 I have every reason to believe, has proved a great relief to the 
 suitors, and has materially facilitated the conduct of business 
 among the solicitors. 
 
 "But there can be no doubt that, both in England and 
 in Ireland, the administration of justice in courts of equity may 
 be still greatly improved, by increased expedition and dimi- 
 nished expense. 
 
 " While for grievances, redressed by courts of common law, 
 a speedy and comparatively cheap remedy is afforded, it must 
 be admitted that, where demands are of a fiduciary nature, so 
 that they can only be enforced in a court of equity, the delays 
 are often most harassing, and the costs are often so great, in 
 proportion to the sum to be recovered, that the more prudent 
 course is to submit to wrong, and to give a triumph to fraud. 
 
 " One great cause of this evil is, the prolixity of the written 
 pleadings in a suit, which is generally begun by the plaintiff in 
 his bill very tediously, telling his tale three times over. I 
 know it is the opinion of that consummate equity judge, Lord 
 Cottenham, that a single statement of the facts on which the 
 plaintiff asks for equitable relief would be sufficient, and that 
 the other parts of the bill are superfluous. 
 
 " But I believe that in various cases, where property is to 
 be administered by the aid of the court, bills and answers may 
 be entirely dispensed with ; and that upon a short petition such 
 cases may at once be disposed of by a reference to the Master. 
 The time and expense thus saved in creditors' suits and others 
 of the same description it would be difficult to calculate without 
 seeming exaggeration. 
 
 " In these reforms I know that I shall have the warm and 
 generous support of the bar. In the alterations I have been 
 instrumental in introducing into the law of real property, and 
 the law of debtor and creditor, in England, I was zealously 
 seconded by all the branches of the profession there ; and here 
 I may confidently look for equal intelligence, and equal disin- 
 terestedness. 
 
 " My great reliance, however, must be on the advice and co- 
 operation of that accomplished lawyer Sir Michael O'Loghlen, 
 
HIS HIGH OPINION OF SIR MICHAEL o'LOGHLEN, M.K. 267 
 
 the Master of the Rolls, equally distinguished for the soundness 
 of his deoisions on the bench, and the aptitude he has displayed 
 for the improvement of our judicial institutions. 
 
 " I do not forget that, hefore I have completed this impor- 
 tant undertaking, I may he reduced to a private station ; hut 
 this can he no sufficient reason why I should not zealously enter 
 upon it. I shall he prepared, at any time, to leave the high 
 office which I have now the honour to hold, with the conscious- 
 ness that, while I held it, I intended well." 
 
 Before Lord Camphell could proceed in the work of reform, 
 he was reduced to a private station, and returned to England 
 on the breaking up of the Melbourne administration, in the 
 month of August, 1841. But never — and surely this is worthy 
 of record — never, though entitled to his retiring pension of 
 £4000 a- year, did he apply for or receive one farthing on foot 
 of same ! He had now leisure to follow those literary pursuits 
 to which in his earlier years he had been devoted. The subject 
 he chose was the History of the Lives of the Lord Chancellors 
 of England — a work of marvellous research, deep learning, 
 and great beauty, but against which the unsparing sarcasms of 
 Lord St. Leonards have been directed, being, he says, as far as 
 his connexion with Lord Brougham and Lord Lyndburst went, 
 a work of " misrepresentations," of allegations " unfounded in 
 fact," of "statements wholly untrue" — "being such a publica- 
 tion as no man can be sure that he may not be libelled." If it 
 be that the biographer of the Chancellors did libel the living 
 and the dead, Sir Charles Wetherell may have been justified in 
 bis amusing allusion : " Then there is Lord Campbell, his noble 
 and biographical friend, who has added a new terror to death." 
 It is not within our province to inquire whether Lord Campbell's 
 "Lives" deserve the onslaught made upon them by Lord St. 
 Leonards ; but, as to Lord Campbell's own life, there can be no 
 manner of doubt that he was in advance of his time, and in 
 advance of Lord St. Leonards himself, in advocating, to a cer- 
 tain extent, a fusion of law and equity. When he was Chan- 
 cellor he introduced a bill which contained many amendments 
 of procedure at common law, and two clauses which extended 
 to courts of law, in certain cases, the power to grantinjunctions, 
 and which enabled the common law judges to administer gene- 
 rally equitable relief . This, Lord St. Leonards says, he strongly 
 opposed in the House, and drew their lordships' attention, in 
 committee, to the two jurisdictions of law and equity; and, 
 finally, through his active interference, the Lord Chancellor was 
 constrained to run his pen through the equity clauses. 1 
 
 ' Lord St. Leonards' " Defence," pp. 51-53. 
 
268 LORD CAMPBELL 
 
 Lord Campbell was not raised to the woolsack of Great 
 Britain by the government of Lord John Eussell, which came 
 into power in the summer of 1846. The Great Seal was then 
 given to Lord Oottenham, and Campbell had to rest unsatisfied 
 with the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster — a place 
 which he hesitated to accept until reminded by the Premier 
 that " this office has been held by Sir Thomas More and by 
 Dunning." His seat in the Cabinet scarcely interrupted his 
 literary pursuits ; and, in fact, during his tenure of office he 
 published several volumes of his biographical series. His leisure 
 was not seriously invaded until Lord Denman, early in 1850, 
 retired from the Chief Justiceship of the Queen's Bench, when 
 Lord Campbell was appointed in his stead. Even this appoint- 
 ment was cavilled at. Lord Denman had a noble presence and 
 a dignified eloquence ; Lord Campbell was not of a command- 
 ing address ; his language was homely, and his judicial faculty 
 was almost untried. He did not, however, fail to maintain the 
 dignity of his office. His conduct in those great criminal trials 
 in which the direction of the presiding judge is of the highest 
 importance has been worthy of the bench on which he sat. It 
 once suited the argument of Home Tooke to speak of the judge 
 in a jury trial as an officer whose function is like that of the 
 common crier, merely to preserve order. At a trial like that of 
 the notorious William Palmer, such a view of the duties of a 
 judge, if ever for a moment seriously entertained, would have 
 been rudely shaken. It was one of those cases of circumstantial 
 evidence which could leave no doubt of the prisoner's guilt on 
 the mind of any juryman; but a very strong attempt was 
 made to prove that, however clear might be the assurance with 
 regard to the murder and the murderer, still the legal evidence 
 was incomplete, and that Palmer ought to have the benefit of 
 the lapse in the argument. The case was removed from Staf- 
 ford to be tried before Lord Campbell, at the Old Bailey, where 
 it was expected that the prisoner would obtain better law and a 
 fairer field. The Crown prosecution was conducted by the At- 
 torney-General in person. Great as was the praise wich Sir A. 
 Cockburn justly reaped on this occasion, to none engaged upon 
 the trial was its satisfactory result more due than to Lord Camp- 
 bell, who, unawed by the opposition which the friends of Palmer 
 attempted to raise, and the confidence which they expressed, 
 overruled their frivolous objections, and charged the jury in 
 terms which implied the condemnation of the prisoner. In such 
 cases the influence of the presiding judge cannot be well over- 
 rated, and Lord Campbell performed his part with a temper 
 which disarmed offence, with a discretion that was seldom at 
 fault, and with a zeal which never flagged. 
 
 The years immediately following the restoration of the Ca- 
 
BECOMES A LANDED PROPRIETOR IX GALWA Y. 269 
 
 tholic hierarchy in England were remarkahle for the intensity 
 of the religious animosity against the Boman Catholic faith in 
 that country. That Lord Campbell, though a man of advanced 
 liberalism, shared in the universal indignation, may be illus- 
 trated by the following incident. His lordship and Mr. Justice 
 Crompton travelled the Norfolk circuit at the Lent Assies, 
 1852. Now, it so happened that the sheriff of Buckingham- 
 shire was a Mr. Scott Murray, a gentleman who had seceded 
 from the Established Church and become a Catholic, and had 
 appointed the Rev. Mr. Morris, who was also a Catholic convert, 
 to be his chaplain. On Sunday, the 29th of February, Mr. 
 Justice Crompton proceeded in the sheriff's carriage to the 
 church of the hamlet of "Walton — whence, having deposited the 
 learned judge, the high sheriff and his chaplain drove direct to 
 the Catholic chapel, heard mass, and returned to the church 
 and there picked up his lordship. On the following morning, 
 Lord Campbell presided in the Crown court, and in his address 
 to the grand jury spoke of the impropriety of the sheriff intro- 
 ducing his Catholic chaplain into the presence of the judges on 
 circuit. " The chaplain," he said, "becomes the chaplain of the 
 judges, and the Protestant religion is the religion of the judges 
 of this country ; and he hoped that this act of intruding the 
 presence of a Roman Catholic priest upon them would not be 
 repeated." The grand jury then presented their full approval 
 of what had fallen from the noble and learned Chief Justice. 
 
 Lord Campbell continued to fill his high office with increas- 
 ing reputation until Lord Palmerston succeeded to power in 
 1859, when the biographer of the Chancellors was himself ap- 
 pointed to the woolsack. Many may have expected that a judge 
 so long practised in the administration of the Uueen's Bench 
 would have felt at a loss in the House of Lords or the Court of 
 Chancery ; but Lord Campbell lost none of the fame as Lord 
 Chancellor which he had most justly acquired as Lord Chief 
 Justice. 
 
 On Saturday, the 22nd of June, 1861, he sat for the last 
 time in court. The arguments in a case of some importance — 
 Cardinall r. Molyneaux — had concluded, and judgment was 
 reserved ; that judgment he never delivered ! After leaving 
 court he attended a cabinet council, and entertained a party on 
 the same evening. He retired to rest in his accustomed health 
 and spirits, but passed away in the night without giving an 
 alarm. 
 
 Lord Campbell had purchased, some years previous to his 
 death, a property near Moycullen, on the western shores of 
 Lough Corrib, in the county of Gralway. His name for kindness 
 of heart to his tenantry soon became, in that remote district, 
 even as a household word. He is yet remembered as amongst 
 
270 SIR MAZIERE BRADY 
 
 the test and kindest of the landlords of Ireland. By his energy 
 and determination he obtained the highest rank in his profes- 
 sion ; and he so fulfilled the duties of Lord Chancellor as to win 
 a name not unworthy to be placed beside those of any of his 
 predecessors whose careers he has described. 
 
 114. A. D. 1846. — Sir Maziere Brady (baronet) was de- 
 scended from the noble and once powerful family of O'Brady, 
 otherwise O'Grady, which boasts of an equal antiquity, and a 
 common lineage, with that of O'Brien, from the ancient kings 
 of Ireland. To Sir Denis O'Grady, alias O'Brady, knight, 
 and chief of his name, Henry VIII. granted by letters patent 
 the several lands which had previously belonged to the family. 
 Sir Denis died in Limerick in 1569, and his fourth son, Hugh, 
 on whom the estates had descended, was married to Alice (who 
 was married, secondly, to Sir Geoffry Fenton, Secretary of 
 State), daughter of Sir Robert Weston, 85th Lord Chancellor 
 of Ireland, and by her was father of Nicholas Brady, escheator 
 of Connaughtin 1606, who was father of Major Nicholas Brady, 
 who (by his wife Martha, daughter of Judge Gernon) was 
 father of the Rev. Nicholas Brady, who, jointly with Mr. Tate, 
 composed " the metrical version of the Psalms of David, fitted 
 to tunes," which, by an order of William III. made in Council 
 in 1696, was approved of and appended to the Book of Common 
 Prayer. Nicholas Brady left at his death, in 1726, a son, 
 Thomas, who was father of Nicholas William, father of Erancis 
 Tempest Brady, who was father of Maziere Brady, born in 
 1796, the subject of this memoir. In 1812 he entered Trinity 
 College, Dublin, and in 1814 became a Scholar of the House. 
 His poetic talents having won for bim the Vice-Chancellor's 
 prize, he took his Bachelor's degree in 1816, and in 1819 was 
 called to the bar. Although the whigs were then, and had 
 been since 1807, in opposition, he yet joined their ranks, and 
 became an advocate of Catholic emancipation. His knowledge 
 of law soon obtained for him business on the north-east circuit, 
 to which he belonged. Tears went on, and it was not until 
 1830 that the whigs returned to power. 
 
 His well-known advocacy of liberal principles brought him 
 under the notice of Louis Perrin, who, in 1833, had him 
 appointed one of the commissioners whose report on Irish 
 municipal corporations afterwards fructified in the destruction 
 of those nests of corruption, the unreformed corporations of 
 Ireland. * In 1837 he became Solicitor-General; in 1839 
 Attorney-General, and in 1840 Chief Baron. The Court of 
 Exchequer was then a court. of equity as well as of common 
 law, and the practitioners in both those branches of our dual 
 system of law and equity found in the judgments of the Chief 
 
RESTORES THE REPEAL MAGISTRATES. 271 
 
 Baron much to recommend him as a painstaking, learned, and 
 nstute reasoner. He was a model judge at Nisi Prius — expe- 
 ditious, without undue haste, he gave universal satisfaction 
 during the six years in which he filled the office of Chief Baron. 
 Indeed, his tastes inclined him to a court of law rather than 
 of equity. There were the bustle of the circuits, the meeting 
 with the bar, the fun of Nisi Prius, and the drollery of Irish 
 witnesses. One of his anecdotes had ever-increasing amusement 
 for him, connected as it was with the apprehensions which it 
 was said conscientious men must have in defending a client in 
 an unjust cause. Considerations of this nature seldom, he 
 thought, weighed with learned advocates ; it was for them to 
 assist in the investigation of truth, and if people were able 
 before a case was investigated to decide who was right, why 
 there would be no need of tribunals to conduct the investiga- 
 tion. This doctrine was illustrated by the observation of as 
 rude a specimen of humanity as ever made a philosophical 
 reflection. At the Spring Assizes of 1846, the Chief Baron was 
 presiding in the criminal court at Clonmel, when a rough-looking 
 fellow, of some eighteen or twenty years of age, shoeless and 
 hatless, was placed at the bar, charged with stopping her 
 Majesty's mail car, with intent to rob the same, on the Fethard 
 road. When asked whether he was guilty or not guilty, his 
 reply was, " How can I tell that, your lordship, till I am 
 tried ?" The Chief Baron was infinitely amused at the answer, 
 especially as the Crown failed to identify the prisoner, who, 
 much to his own astonishment, was acquitted ! 
 
 On the breaking-up of the tory administration in 1846 a 
 vacancy occurred in the Court of Chancery. Sir Edward 
 Sugden retired, and the question arose who was to succeed him. 
 In the temper of the Irish bar at that moment, a foreigner 
 would be unacceptable to them, and more unacceptable still to 
 the general public. Lord Campbell's re-appearance in the Irish 
 Court of Chancery would awaken the passions which had been 
 slumbering for years. Pigot was Attorney-General, and was, 
 according, to ancient usage, entitled to the first vacancy; but he 
 was a Catholic, and the bench of the Court of Chancery was closed 
 ao-ainst him. The Seals were then offered to the Chief Baron, 
 nor did he, without much persuasion, consent to leave the Ex- 
 chequer. He was, however, persuaded. He became Chancellor, 
 and Mr. Pigot was made Chief Baron. 
 
 One of the first of the political acts of the new Chancellor 
 was the restoration to the commission of the peace of all the 
 " repeal" magistrates who had been superseded by Sir Edward 
 Sugden. Assiduous in his attendance at the Privy Council in 
 the years of famine which succeeded 1846, his hands were kept 
 continually full of business. The outbreak of 1848 threatened 
 
272 SIR MAZIERE BRADY 
 
 to involve the country in the horrors of civil war, as it had heen 
 involved in those of famine. The action of the Young Irelanders- 
 in the Repeal Association, it was said, had hastened the end of 
 O'Connell, whose mission had been that of peace, while their 
 mission was to carry by the sword what he had failed to win 
 by constitutional means. Soon after the conclusion of the State 
 trials of 1848 an association known as the "Irish Alliance" was 
 inaugurated. Sympathy with William Smith O'Brien and 
 with the exiled patriots was their motto. A meeting of this 
 association was held on the 20th of November, 1849, at which a 
 Dr. Grattan, a justice of the peace for the county of Kildare, 
 presided. The speeches, which were reported in the Dublin 
 morning papers, were of an inflammatory nature, and the 
 Chancellor, fastening the responsibility on the chairman of the 
 meeting, caused the following to be addressed to him : — 
 
 " Secretary's Office, Court of Chancery, 
 Dublin, 23rd Nov., 1849. 
 
 "Sir, — I am desired to inform you that the attention of the 
 Lord Chancellor has been directed to the report contained in 
 the number of the Freeman's Journal herewith enclosed, of the 
 proceedings of an assembly at which you are reported as having 
 presided, on Tuesday the 20th instant, described as an aggre- 
 gate meeting of Irish nationalists. 
 
 " By the report it appears that speeches were made at the 
 meeting testifying warm approval of the conduct of several indi- 
 viduals who are now under sentence of transportation as having 
 been convicted of the crimes of high treason and felony, avow- 
 ing sympathy with and direct participation in the acts and 
 designs for which those persons were brought to trial, and 
 manifestly pointing to the end which they had sought to accom- 
 plish by the criminal proceedings of which they were found 
 guilty, as that for the attainment of which the association pro- 
 jected at the meeting, and called the ' Irish Alliance,' should be 
 established ; that these speeches, especially in their allusions to 
 those individuals and to their designs, were received by the 
 assembly with loud demonstrations of applause, and that no 
 steps were taken on your part to prevent the continuance of such 
 addresses, or in any way to express your dissent from the views 
 and opinions that were so proclaimed ; but that, on the contrary, 
 you joined in the association thus recommended, and are named 
 as one of a committee to manage its affairs for the ensuing 
 month. 
 
 " The Lord Chancellor has directed this communication to 
 be made to you as a magistrate of the county of Kildare and of 
 the King's County, in order that you may offer such observa- 
 
DISCOURAGES ORANGEISM. 273 
 
 tions as you shall think proper on the matters to which it 
 refers. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient Servant, 
 
 " F. W. Brady. 
 
 " B. Grattan, Esq., M.D" 
 
 Doctor Grattan, in reply, admitted the accuracy of the 
 report, justified the speeches, and applauded the inflammatory 
 language, and he was accordingly removed from the commission 
 of the peace. 
 
 "With the change of ministry in February, 1852, the Chan- 
 cellor resigned the Seals, to be restored, however, before twelve 
 months had elapsed. Thenceforward until 1857 his time was 
 occupied with duties of a judicial nature. The province of 
 Ulster was in that year much disturbed by what were, by an 
 abuse of the word, termed " religious riots ;" which means 
 simply that the Orangemen assembled annually in July, under 
 Orange banners ; and then, headed by martial music, made an 
 onslaught on their Catholic neighbours, while those Catholic 
 neighbours, inflamed with zeal not to be surpassed, made, at 
 other seasons, similar onslaughts on the Orangemen. The Lord 
 Chancellor, feeling that such a state of things was more suited to 
 the savagery of Africa than to a civilized country, resolved to 
 discourage, as much as in him lay, the repetition of such scan- 
 dalous scenes. He accordingly addressed the following letter to 
 the Marquis of Londonderry, Lieutenant of the county Down, 
 in reference to the magistracy of that county : — 
 
 " Mount Stewart, October 6, 1857. 
 
 " My Lord, — In reference generally to appointments to the 
 commission of the peace for the county of Down, and some other 
 counties in the north of Ireland, I feel obliged, by recent events, 
 to introduce conditions which seem to me imperatively called 
 for, with the view to the maintenance of public tranquillity. 
 
 " Tour lordship is, no doubt, well aware of the scenes of tur- 
 bulence and riotous outrage which have so long prevailed in the 
 town of Belfast. Whatever party may have been to blame for 
 the acts which more immediately led to these disgraceful tu- 
 mults, it is very manifest that they have sprung from party 
 feelings, excited on the recurrence of certain anniversaries, 
 which for years have been made the occasion of irritating de- 
 monstrations, too often attended by violations of the public 
 peace, and dangerous, and sometimes fatal, party conflicts. The 
 Orange society is mainly instrumental in keeping up this excite- 
 ment; and, notwithstanding the proceedings respecting that 
 association, which are now matters of history, and in conse- 
 quence of which it was supposed that it would have been finally 
 dissolved, it still appears to remain an extensively-organised 
 
 T 
 
274 SIR MAZIERE BRADY 
 
 body, with but some changes of system and rulers, under which 
 it is alleged to be secure from any legal prosecution. However 
 that may be, it is manifest that the existence of this society, and 
 the conduct of many of those who belong to it, tend to keep up, 
 through large districts of the north, a spirit of bitter and fac- 
 tious hostility among large classes of Her Majesty's subjects, and 
 to provoke violent animosity and aggression. It is impossible 
 rightly to regard an association such as this as one which ought 
 to receive countenance from any in authority who are responsi- 
 ble for the preservation of the public peace ; and however some 
 individuals of rank and station, who hold Her Majesty's com- 
 mission, may think they can reconcile the obligations of that 
 office with the continuing in membership with the Orange so- 
 ciety, it does appear to me that the interests of the public peace, 
 at least in the north of Ireland, now require that no such encou- 
 ragement should be given to this society by the appointment of 
 any gentleman to the commission who is, or intends to become, 
 a member of it. 
 
 " Intending the rule to be of general application, I think it 
 right to ask from every gentleman the assurance that he is not, 
 nor will, while he owns the commission of the peace, become a 
 member of the Orange society. I think it right to inform your 
 lordship that, in expressing the foregoing opinions and deter- 
 mination, I do so with the entire concurrence of his Excellency 
 the Lord Lieutenant. 
 
 " Maziere Brady, C." 
 
 The determination of the Chancellor to weed the magistracy 
 of the county Down of Orange justices met with the hearty ap- 
 proval, not only of the Liberal but of many of the Conservative 
 newspapers. 
 
 In 1858 Maziere Brady went out of office with his party, 
 and was succeeded by Sir Joseph Napier, but was again Chan- 
 cellor in 1859, and remained in undisturbed possession of the 
 woolsack for seven years. On the 19th of June, 1866, Lord 
 Dunkellin carried a vote against the government on the Reform 
 bill, and on the next day Lord Russell, in the House of Lords, 
 announced that the Liberal ministry had ceased to exist. On 
 the 28th of the same month Lord Chancellor Brady sat for the 
 last time in the Court of Chancery. The last case on his list 
 having closed : — 
 
 Mr. Brewster, Q,. C. — whose promotion was now certain, — 
 anxiously asked if his lordship had finished his list. The Chan- 
 cellor replied that he had. 
 
 Mr. Brewster, Q. C, then, as reported in The Irish Times of 
 the next day, in a state of great agitation, spoke the following : — 
 "My lord, I have been requested to state to your lordship, in 
 consequence of events that have lately occurred elsewhere, that 
 
RETIRES IX 1S66. 215 
 
 it is the wish of the bar that your lordship would give them an 
 opportunity of expressing their esteem and kindly feelings 
 towards your lordship, and I need not add that I shall do so in 
 one sense with great pleasure ; but I do not think that I should 
 do so under the present circumstance's, but we shall all be greatly 
 disappointed indeed if your lordship does not kindly give us the 
 opportunity of bidding you good-bye." 
 
 The Lord Chancellor, who appeared very much affected by 
 the expressions of respect and kindly feeling exhibited to him 
 by the bar, replied that he would very gladly indeed comply 
 with the request made by Mr. Brewster. 
 
 The bar then rose from their seats, and remained standing 
 whilst his lordship descended from the bench. 
 
 The ex-Chancellor spent the remainder of his days in com- 
 parative retirement with his family. His mind was, however, 
 so well stored with learning on natural history that his idle 
 hours could never press heavily upon him. When at the bar he 
 became director of some mining companies, and then acquired a 
 knowledge of the sciences of geology and mineralogy, which he 
 afterwards cultivated with the greatest assiduity. His geolo- 
 gical specimens he arranged with the greatest care. Concho- 
 logy was a favourite study of his, and he devoted much time 
 and expense to collecting the rarest of shells. 
 
 To the Senate of the Queen's University, of which he was 
 Vice-Chancellor, he gave the most unremitting attention. He 
 was also for very many years one of the most active and zeal- 
 ous members of the Board of National Education. 
 
 He added to his other tastes an earnest enthusiasm for the 
 art of painting, and it is mainly owing to his exertions that the 
 National Gallery of Painting was established in Ireland. 
 
 In 1869 the learned ex-Chancellor was created a baronet by 
 the government of Mr. Gladstone. Little time, however, was 
 then left to him to enjoy the honours he had won. On the 11th 
 -of April, 1871, he breathed his last at his house, No. 26, Upper 
 Pembroke-street, Dublin, and on the 18th his remains were con- 
 signed to the tomb in Mount Jerome cemetery. A handsome 
 monument in white marble has been erected to his memory, 
 over against the south wall, in the south transept of St. Patrick's 
 Cathedral. His career was remarkable for its steady, consist- 
 ent, and unswerving integrity. He was gifted with strong 
 common sense, a firmness of purpose, plainness of speech, and 
 sincerity in friendship, not forgetting those whom he knew in 
 earlier and less distinguished years. Courteous, affable, and 
 approachable at all times, his fine common sense made him con- 
 siderate for the feelings of others ; he neither chilled those who 
 approached him by affected superiority, nor embarrassed them 
 by pompous dignity. Hard work and an honest discharge of 
 
 T 2 
 
276 SIR MAZIEKE BEADY. 
 
 duty were Ms mottoes. The Irish Equity Eeports, Irish Chan- 
 cery Eeports, and Irish Jurist are full of eases that well illus- 
 trate Sir Maziere Brady's judicial career. The case of McCarthy 
 v. if' Carthy, reported in the ninth volume of the Irish Equity . 
 Eeports, was one that excited much interest at the time (1846),. 
 on the question of the rights acquired by convents through deeds 
 executed by nuns under the vows of obedience. His judg- 
 ment in that case has never been appealed from. The late Lord 
 Westbury was a great admirer of his, and constantly corre- 
 sponded with him ; one of his letters, when he was Solicitor- 
 General, dated 7th January, 1855, was in great part conversant 
 with the Incumbered Estates Court, Ireland— the future of a 
 Landed Estates Court, and of registration of title — he thus con- 
 cludes : — " I trust to see those objects accomplished : — 
 
 " First, — The title to estates put on such a footing that an 
 estate may be sold as readily and expeditiously as a sum of £100 
 consols. 
 
 " Second, — The Ecclesiastical Courts abolished, and their 
 jurisdiction exercised by the civil tribunals in a simple form. 
 
 " Third, — The consolidation of the statute law, and the esta- 
 blishment of a better system for the construction. 
 
 "Eourth, — The abolition of that absurd anomaly, the dis- 
 tinction between legal and equitable justices, which has created 
 in England and Ireland two orders of legal minds, each of which 
 is somewhat incapable of understanding the principles of the 
 other. 
 
 "Fifth, — The establishment of a very enlarged system of 
 legal education, the union of the bar in England and Ireland, 
 and the consolidation of the Inns of Court in London and 
 Dublin in one university. 
 
 " These are the subjects on which we are much engaged 
 here. Pardon me for inflicting upon you so long a letter, but I 
 have been anxious to avail myself of the privilege of writing to 
 you, by referring to subjects on which I much wish that there 
 should be free communication and discussion between lawyers in 
 England and Ireland. If you think any use can be made of 
 my letter, pray do so, and believe me, my dear Lord Chancellor, 
 " Your much obliged and grateful 
 
 " Eichakd Bethell." 
 
 During the many years that Sir Maziere Brady presided in 
 the Court of Chancery, there were twenty appeals only taken 
 from his decisions. Of these, twelve were affirmed, seven were 
 reversed, and one otherwise disposed of. 
 
 The deceased baronet was twice married ; first, in 1823, to 
 Eliza (died, 1858), daughter of Bever Buchanan, Esq.; and, 
 secondly, in 1860, to Mary, daughter of the Eight Honourable 
 
ROBBERY OF THE GAL WAY MAIL. 277 
 
 •John Hatchell, Q.C. By his first marriage he left two sons 
 and three daughters, viz. : Francis William, Q.C, Bart., County 
 Court Judge, married to a daughter of Doctor Kyle, late Pro- 
 testant Bishop of Cork ; Maziere John, Barrister-at-Law, mar- 
 ried to a daughter of the Rev. Robert Longfield, of Castle Mary, 
 Co. Cork ; Eleanor, wife of the Rev. Benjamin Hale Puckle, 
 Rector of Graftham, Hunts ; Charlotte Louisa, married to the 
 Rev. John Brady, Rector of Slane, Co. Heath, and Eliza Anne. 
 
 115. A. D. 1852. — Fraxcis Blackburne. This family in 
 the old times were known as the Blake-bournes. They were 
 settled in the county of Westmeath at the close of the sixteenth 
 century, and they appear, after the restoration of Charles II., to 
 have crossed the Shannon, and to have had landed estates in 
 Roscommon, of which county Andrew Blackburne was high 
 sheriff in 1698. We meet them in the next century at Moore- 
 town, in the county of Meath, where Charles Blackburne was 
 resident on his paternal estate in 1729. This Charles was father 
 -of George, whose son Richard was father of Francis, of whom 
 we now write: This last was born at Footstown, in the county 
 of Meath, on the 11th of September, 1782. His early education 
 was commenced at a school kept by a Protestant clergyman 
 named Nelson, in the village of Dunshaughlin. In the troubles 
 of 1798, a conspiracy to attack Footstown House having been 
 discovered, the Blackburnes wisely fled to the city of Dublin for 
 protection, and here Francis was placed under the tuition of the 
 Rev. William White. It has been observed that the " dull 
 child makes the bright man, and the bright child the dull 
 man." Francis Blackburne as a child was dull, and his mother 
 in a letter to a relative speaks of " his want of aptitude and 
 slowness of learning." His mind, however, soon opened, and 
 in Trinity College he became a Scholar of the House, took the 
 gold medal, and obtained a premium for his extraordinary clas- 
 sical attainments ; while in the College Historical Society he was 
 rewarded with gold medals in oratory and in history. In 1805 
 he was called to the bar, and joined the Home Circuit, where he 
 soon acquired the reputation of being a sound lawyer, and ac- 
 cordingly we find him in a short time engaged in a fair amount 
 of business, especially in his native county. Sensational cases 
 on circuit were then few and far between. Mr. Blackburne was, 
 however, engaged in a case of a sensational nature, which was 
 tried at Trim, before Mr. Justice Daly, the going judge of 
 assize in 1817, which excited the most intense interest. It was 
 the trial of Mr. Roger 0' Conor, a member of the bar, a magis- 
 trate for the county of Meath, and nephew to Philip Lord Lon- 
 gueville, for the robbery of the Galway mail-coach, on the night 
 of the 2nd of October, 1812, as it was proceeding on its journey 
 from Dublin to Galway. The mail bags were cut open and 
 
27S FRANCIS BLACKBURXE. 
 
 Hung into a ditch on the road side, and a sum of £4400, which 
 was on its way to the fair of Ballinasloe, was divided amongst 
 the robbers, while the unfortunate guard fell from his seat mor- 
 tally wounded. Mr. O'Conor, nearly five years after this atro- 
 cious outrage had occurred, was arrested, and true bills having 
 been found against him by the grand jury, was put upon his 
 trial. Serjeant Jebb and Mr. Jameson appeared as counsel for 
 the Crown, while Mr. Wallace, K. 0., and Mr. Blackburne were 
 for the prisoner. Mr. O'Conor had been, since 1807, resident at 
 Dangan Castle, said to be the birthplace of the Duke of Wel- 
 lington. The coach, drawn by four spirited horses, left at a 
 quarter before seven in the evening the General Post-office, 
 which was then, and up to 1818, in College- green, Dublin. 
 They proceeded at their usual rapid pace through the counties of 
 Dublin and Kildare, and near the Nineteen-mile House entered 
 the county of Meath. The sound of the horn and the ring of 
 the horses' hoofs gave the highwaymen ample notice that the 
 mail coach was rapidly approaching, and ascending Cappagh- 
 hill the coach was stopped at the turnpike-gate, which was 
 closed and tied with ropes. Shots were fired, and the guard 
 lost his life, as we have said; the mail-bags were then scattered, 
 and some were found in Dangan-demesne, and were forwarded 
 to the General Post-office by Mr. O'Conor, to whom no suspicion 
 attached. Five of the gang were afterwards arrested for endea- 
 vouring to pass Bank post-bills which had been posted on that 
 evening in Dublin ; they were convicted and hanged, but refused, 
 though an offer of pardon and rich gifts were promised to them, 
 to disclose who their leader was, or who their confederates were. 
 
 Five years later, a prisoner named Owens, in Kilmainham,. 
 who was under sentence of death, revealed to his spiritual ad- 
 viser that he could tell the names of some of those who had 
 been concerned in the robbery of the mail. The clergyman 
 advised the wretched man to disclose all he knew of the transac- 
 tion, and he did so, and the solicitor of the Post-office, a Mr- 
 Thompson, attended at Kilmainham., and the result was that 
 Mr. O'Conor was arrested, and put upon his trial. Beside him. 
 at the dock sat Sir Henry Meredith, a baronet, and the well- 
 known lawyer Leonard M'Nally, both ready to give, and did 
 give, their testimony as to his character. To the jury it ap- 
 peared incredible that a man of his position and wealth would 
 sacrifice all for the sake of a wretched sum of money that was 
 in no way needed by him. He was accordingly, amid deafen- 
 ing cheers, acquitted. The judge shook hands with him, and 
 he exclaimed that the pride of that hour was worth all he had 
 suffered. 
 
 Mr. Blackburne's position at the bar now entitled him to a 
 silk gown, nevertheless, he was not appointed one of His Ma- 
 
THE BURNING OF THE SHEAS. 279 
 
 jesty's counsel until 1822, in which year he was commissioned 
 to act as judge, pro tern., under the Insurrection Act, for the 
 county of Limerick, which, with Cork and Clare, were placed 
 under its provisions. In this unconstitutional court prisoners 
 coidd be tried, without the aid of grand jury or jury, for the 
 offences of being out of their houses longer than an hour after 
 sunset, or an hour before sunrise ; for attending unlawful as- 
 semblies, for riots, for insurrections, and for divers misdemean- 
 ours, for all of which he was empowered, if he, sole judge of law 
 and fact, found the accused guilty, to punish with fine or im- 
 prisonment, or with transportation even for life. During two 
 years Mr. Blackburne presided fairly in that odious court, tem- 
 pering justice with mercy. 
 
 The records of crimes in the early years of the present cen- 
 tury are painful evidences of the wildness of the people and of 
 the injustice of the laws then in force : 300 prisoners at the Sum- 
 mer Assizes for 1824 awaited their trial in the jail of Clonmel! 
 20 prisoners, at the Summer Assizes for 1878, awaited their trial 
 in the same jail ! Chief Justice Bushe and Mr. Justice Johnson 
 were the going Judges of Assize for the county of Tipperary, in 
 the month of August, 1824, and it was the Chief Justice who 
 tried that case whose very name would harrow up the soul, 
 " The burning of the Sheas." l 
 
 " Oh, horrible ! Oh, horrible ! Most horrible ! " 
 
 Sergeant Lloyd, Mr. Blackburne, K. C, and a number of others 
 were counsel for the Crown ; while the prisoners were defended 
 by Mr. Hamilton, the great criminal law lawyer of the Leinster 
 Circuit, and by Mr. Hatchell. The crime for which the pri- 
 soners William Maher and Darby Maher were charged was the 
 murder of Patrick Shea and others named in the indictment. 
 It appeared that in a gloomy glen, at the base of the mountain 
 of Slievnamon, there lived a farmer named Patrick Shea, who 
 had an undertenant whose name was William Gorman. With- 
 out any motive that could be assigned, other than a desire to get 
 the land into his own possession, he capriciously ejected Gorman 
 (whose rent had been punctually paid), tumbled his cabin, and, 
 without compensation, sent this unfortunate man and his family 
 adrift on the world. " Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," but 
 Gorman was resolved to be himself avenged. Secret societies, 
 the plague of every country in which they have existence, took 
 the matter up, and it was resolved that Shea should die, and not 
 alone Shea, but that his wife and his sons and his daughters, 
 and his man servants and his maid servants, and the strangers 
 that were within his gates — that all — all should perish in one 
 
 1 Waterford Mail, 21 August, 1S21. 
 
280 PRANCIS BLACKBTJRNE 
 
 pool of Mood. On the 19th of November, 1821, there were in 
 Shea's house many people, numbering in all eighteen, amongst 
 whom was one who was about to become a mother. On the 
 night of that day they retired to rest — the windows were pro- 
 tected by Venetian shutters, closed from the outside, and all of 
 them were provided with bolts, so that they could be fastened 
 alike from without and from within — the hall and kitchen doors 
 opened inwards, but were furnished externally with hasps for 
 padlocks, so that they might be padlocked from without. The 
 silence of that night was unbroken until " the glow-worm 
 showed the matin to be near," and then the house was silently 
 surrounded, and the doors and shutters were all secured on the 
 outside, so that if ingress was impossible from without, egress 
 was made impossible from within. Firearms were there in great 
 plenty, and there were strong men there to use them, but the 
 men were imprisoned, and their prison-house was on fire ! — 
 escape was impossible. The house was thatched, and into the 
 thatch burning coals were thrust. The shrieking of the impri- 
 soned, the crackling of the flames, the scorching heat of the 
 sheet of living fire, as it shone out with a dazzling brightness 
 against the murky and starless sky, must have filled the minds 
 even of the clustering savages with inexpressible horror — one of 
 the witnesses swore " that that night became as bright as the 
 day." The morning then broke, but the level rays of the rising 
 sun were unable to pierce the clouds of black smoke that still 
 stifling rose from the smouldering ruins. Seventeen bodies were 
 heaped on top of each other as they struggled to open the fastened 
 door. But where was the eighteenth ? She was found close to 
 a tub of water, with her infant child that had been born amidst 
 the flames, and it was thought by those who saw their position, 
 that she had crawled to the water for the purpose of baptizing 
 her infant that had just entered, and was just leaving, the 
 world ! Such was the crime for which the prisoners were indicted. 
 Their counsel struggled to break down on cross-examination 
 the witnesses for the Crown. One of the witnesses, Mary 
 Kelly, identified the prisoners; she saw them from behind a 
 hedge, and was looking on, when they put the fire into the 
 thatch ; she saw the conflagration, but did not speak a word of 
 it for twelve months, when she told the parish priest, who com- 
 manded her to acquaint a magistrate of the facts. She did 
 so, and immediately the prisoners were arrested. 1 Other wit- 
 nesses were examined, who also identified the murderers, and 
 were unshaken in their testimony. These, too, had not pre- 
 viously disclosed their knowledge of the crime, because they 
 feared the vengeance of the secret societies. 
 
 1 Saunder's News- Letter, August 31, 1824. 
 
CREATED SERJEANT BY THE TORIES. 281 
 
 For the defence, Philip Kyan, a tailor, swore that Darby 
 Maher slept in the same bed with him on the whole of that 
 night, and could not have left the bed without awakening him. 
 Other witnesses also sought to prove an alibi, but the jury 
 nevertheless found the monsters guilty. They were hanged on 
 the next day. 
 
 The state of this country in 1825 became the subject of an 
 inquiry in the House of Commons. In answer to the question 
 put to Mr. O'Connell, " Have any gentlemen that were junior 
 to you been appointed King's Counsel P" he replied, "Very 
 many; I do not know any junior who is put over my head has 
 as much business as myself. Many men of inferior oapacity are 
 promoted over my head. I do not complain of the promotion of 
 men of ability. There is Mr. Blackburne ; he is my junior, 
 certainly high in his profession ; but his promotion could never 
 create a jealousy in my mind, as he is one of the best lawyers at 
 the bar." 
 
 Mr. Blackburne, in 1826, was rewarded with a serjeantcy 
 by the tory government; and again, in the month of Feb- 
 ruary, 1830, the same party conferred further distinctions 
 upon him, by entrusting him with an inquiry into those party 
 riots by which the north of Ireland was then, as in later years, 
 disturbed. 
 
 Serjeant Blackburne had hitherto served in the tory camp of 
 Lord Liverpool, the Duke of Wellington, and the Marquis of 
 Wellesley, statesmen opposed to the reform bill. It now came 
 to his turn to serve in the opposite camp of the whigs, and 
 under the leadership of Earl Grey and of the Marquis of 
 Anglesey, who had pledged themselves to carry the reform of 
 parliament at all hazards. In the month of November, 1830, 
 the Duke of Wellington, the leader of the party with whom the 
 learned Serjeant had theretofore been associated, resigned office. 
 Earl Grey was sent for by his Majesty King William IV., and 
 immediately proceeded to form a ministry ; and, amongst the 
 appointments, Lord Plunket was created Lord Chancellor of 
 Ireland, and Serjeant Blackburne Attorney-General. This 
 latter selection by the whigs does not at all prove that he him- 
 self had joined their party, but rather proves that the appoint- 
 ment was made to conciliate the tories ; and we are borne out in 
 this view by the judicial appointments made by the new ministry 
 on their accession to power. Two vacancies having occurred on 
 the bench, Messrs. Joy and Doherty, the former Attorney- 
 General, and the latter Solicitor-General, under the late govern- 
 ment, were created, the one Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and 
 the other Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. 
 
 The change of ministry in 1830 inspired the repeal party 
 
282 FRANCIS BLACKBURNE 
 
 ■with the delusive hope that as the whigs were in office they 
 would abolish the tithes, overturn the Protestant Church, and dre 
 much that they promised when out of office to do. One of the- 
 very first acts, nevertheless, of Lord Anglesey, after his arrival 
 in Dublin, was an avowal of his determination to put down 
 agitation, and to suppress illegal associations. But he was met 
 at every step by O'Connell, by whose ingenuity the Repeal 
 Association, if we may so call it before its time, lived on under 
 a multitude of different names. If a proclamation were issued 
 in the morning, putting down " The Society of the Friends of 
 Ireland," at noon O'Connell dissolved it, and in the evening the 
 same body appeared under another name, " The Anti-Union 
 Association." This association was also proclaimed and dis- 
 solved, and was immediately succeeded by the " Irish Volun- 
 teers for a Repeal of the Union." The agitation for a Home 
 Parliament went on, increasing in strength as it went, and 
 Daniel O'Connell was the vivifying spirit of the movement. 
 Untiring in his efforts, in season and out of season, in the 
 House of Commons and on the platform, by his pen as well as 
 by his voice, he advocated the great principle which he con- 
 sidered essential to the well-being of his country. 
 
 The great majority of the citizens of Dublin, throwing their 
 whole heart and soul into the movement, determined to support 
 him in the struggle. They therefore resolved to fete him whom 
 they styled " the man of the people;" and it was accordingly 
 arranged that, on the 27th of December, 1830, a great meeting 
 and procession should take place. The bands of music of the 
 several guilds were to meet at Phibsborough, on the north side 
 of the city, and were to march thence through the principal 
 streets to Mr. O'Connell's residence in Merrion-square, on the 
 south side. A Privy Council was held at the Castle, which was 
 attended by the Lord Lieutenant, the Lord Chancellor, the 
 Attorney-General (Blackburne), and others, when it was re- 
 solved that both meeting and procession should be put down by 
 proclamation. Mr. O'Connell advised the people not to meet, 
 and counselled them to remain quietly in their homes on that 
 day ; they did so, but this was the beginning of a long contest 
 between the agitator and the Lord Lieutenant. If, on the one 
 side, his Excellency was guided by the advice of the Attorney- 
 General, the repeal party was guided, on the other, by the 
 advice of Mr. O'Connell. His next ingenious device for a 
 repeal meeting was, to issue cards for an enormous breakfast 
 party at the Rotunda, but this was also put down by proclama- 
 tion. The next, and perhaps the most dreadful of the plans 
 that emanated from the fertile imagination of the great agitator, 
 was a counsel to the people to run on the banks. A run 
 followed, the consequences of which were disastrous, in many 
 
ATTORiS'EY-GENEKAL TO THE WHIGS. 285 
 
 instances, to the great mercantile houses throughout the 
 country. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell now resolved to set the government at de- 
 fiance. The several associations which' he 'had started, one and 
 all, had been put down by proclamation. He had, as we have 
 already said, inaugurated a new body, under the title of " The 
 Irish Yolunteers for a Eepeal of the Union." A Privy Council 
 was held, which was, as usual, attended by the Attorney - 
 General, when a proclamation was issued to put down that 
 body. Mr. O'Connell refused to submit, the grounds of his 
 refusal being that the organisation was legal, and that the 
 proclamation was therefore powerless to suppress it, and he 
 pledged his reputation as a lawyer that it was legal. He there- 
 fore held the meeting, and was immediately, together with 
 Mr. Lawless, Mr. Steele, Mr. Barrett, and others, arrested, 
 taken before a magistrate, and held to bail on a charge of 
 having violated the provisions of the " Act for the Suppression 
 of Illegal Associations." 
 
 The Attorney- General immediately directed a prosecution, 
 and at the opening of Hilary Term, in the month of January, 
 1831, bills of indictment, including counts for a misdemeanour 
 in violating the Act, and also for unlawful assemblies, at 
 common law, were preferred against them. Thereupon " true 
 bills" were found by the grand jury of the city of Dublin, in 
 the Court of King's Bench. On the following day a letter 
 appeared in the columns of the Fireman's Journal, ad- 
 dressed to the editor, which, though anonymous, was well- 
 known, from its power and its sarcasm, to have been written 
 by Mr. O'Connell himself, and which not alone turned the 
 whole of the proceedings into the most painful ridicule, but 
 accused the government of being actuated in the case by 
 the basest of motives. At the sitting of the Court that 
 morning, the Attorney- General brought the article in question 
 under the notice of the Chief Justice. The letter was, he said, 
 calculated not alone to prejudice any jury that might go into 
 the box to try the question at issue, but to bring the adminis- 
 tration of justice into ridicule and contempt. The Court, 
 having heard counsel on both sides, directed an attachment to 
 issue forthwith against the proprietor of the Freeman's Journal, 
 who was accordingly arrested and lodged in jail. 1 
 
 The Attorney-General then proceeded with the prosecution, 
 and at every turn was harassed by the learning and inge- 
 nuity of Mr. O'Connell, whose first step was to demur to the 
 indictment ; and when the day arrived for arguing the questions 
 of law, he withdrew the demurrer, and pleaded not guilty. The 
 Term was then nearly over, and the Crown was apparently 
 i Hansard's Parliamentary Dfhntrn. 
 
« 
 
 284 FKAXCIS BLACKBURXE. 
 
 thrown out of a trial at bar, or before the full court. But on 
 the last day of Term he withdrew the plea of not guilty, and 
 then pleaded guilty; the consequence was, that all that remained 
 for the Court to do was to pass sentence upon the traversers. 
 But the judges were then unprepared, and, therefore, deferred 
 doing so until the first day of Easter Term, nearly three months 
 off. In the meantime Lord John Eussell having been defeated 
 in committee on the reform bill, parliament was, on the 22nd of 
 April, 1831, dissolved, and with that dissolution the Act under 
 which the traversers were indicted expired. Sentence then 
 became impossible, and the indictment fell to the ground. The 
 history of these proceedings is given by the Attorney- General 
 in a letter from him to Mr., afterwards Lord, Stanley, Chief 
 Secretary for Ireland, which was read by that gentleman in the 
 House of Commons, on the 16th of February, 1832. * 
 
 The following year, 1833, was remarkable for the agitation 
 against the payment of tithes to the Established Church. It 
 was in vain that the Protestant clergy alleged that they were 
 the representatives, as well as the successors, of the old Church 
 that had existed in Ireland from the days of St. Patrick. The 
 people declined to accept their services, and refusing their 
 proffered ministrations they also refused to pay them for their 
 uninvited advice on matters spiritual. 
 
 The established clergy, reduced to a state bordering on 
 starvation by this conspiracy against the payment of tithes, 
 were constrained to have recourse to legal proceedings. The 
 Rev. Hans Hamilton was then rector of a parish in the county 
 of Kilkenny, and he also insisted on his tithe, but the people 
 were resolved never to pay him a farthing, no matter what the 
 rights of the Church, real or imaginary, might be. A process- 
 server proceeded to the parish to serve the necessary legal docu- 
 ments in the first instance. This functionary was protected by 
 the police on his mission. Angry crowds collected along his 
 line of route — a fight ensued, blood flowed on all sides, and 
 before an hour eleven constables and many civilians were laid 
 dead on the common of Carrickshock. 
 
 Intense was the excitement that followed this dreadful 
 oarnage, many arrests were made, and many informations 
 sworn, but the chiefs of the movement were never made amena- 
 ble to the law. Some were committed for the approaching as- 
 sizes at Kilkenny; but strange to say, out of thirteen one only, 
 a young man named Kennedy, was put on his trial. The 
 Attorney- General (Mr. Blackburne) appeared as leading counsel 
 for the Crown, and Mr. O'Connell for the accused. From the 
 opening of the case it was manifest that no conviction could be 
 obtained. The prisoner at the bar, who, however, had not the 
 
 1 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. 
 
THE TITHE WAR. 285 
 
 same confidence that Lis counsel had, frequently interrupted 
 Mr. U bonnell with an imploring whisper, " Do you think will 
 they convict me?" At length the judge commenced his charge 
 to the jury, the prisoner hecoming bewildered as his lordship 
 advanced, leant over the dock, and, as the story goes, had the 
 rashness to say, loud enough for the jury to hear, " Oh, Coun- 
 sellor jewel ! do you think, your honour, that they'll hang 
 me?" "Whist," says O'Connell, with a leer, "make your 
 mind aizij, my friend, on that point ; for if they hang you, I 
 promise you, my friend, that I'll make it a dear hanging to 
 them.'' This consolation, administerd in a stage whisper, not 
 only disturbed the gravity of the Attorney-General, but threw 
 the whole Court into shouts of laughter. After the close of the 
 charge, the jury retired, and immediately returned a verdict of 
 not guilty. The prisoner was then about to be put on his trial 
 on another count, but the Attorney-General entered a nolle 
 prosequi on the part of the Crown, declaring, at the same time, 
 that he never would be a party to putting a person in jeopardy 
 twice for the same transaction. 
 
 The Carrickshock riot was not the only one in which blood 
 was shed during the tithe war. Prosecutions followed prose- 
 cutions with great rapidity, and in every case in which a 
 trial was had Catholic jurors were kept out of the box. Lord 
 John Russell, in allusion to the subject afterwards in 1843, thus 
 speaks in the House of Commons : " It is the general practice 
 in Ireland for the Crown to set aside all Catholics and liberal 
 Protestants. In one case Mr. Blackburne set aside forty-three 
 persons, of whom thirty-sis were Catholics and seven were 
 Protestants, and all of them respectable men." : The inju- 
 dicious conduct of the government in those prosecutions exaspe- 
 rated the sensitive mind of Daniel O'Connell. The defeats he 
 inflicted on them in the courts of law had immeasurably in- 
 creased his influence over the people, which was as great as that 
 of Demosthenes in Athens, Cicero in Rome, or Mirabeau in 
 France. His impassioned eloquence produced a greater im- 
 pression on assembled multitudes than that of any other man 
 of whom we have knowledge. When he harangued incredible 
 gatherings of the people, they seemed to roll to and fro like 
 waves in a storm, under the magic influence of his oratorical 
 powers. In the House of Commons, too, his powers of argu- 
 ment, his ready and original wit, and his invective, though 
 often coarse and personal, obtained for him a ready attention. 
 The same qualities distinguished him as a writer — he ad- 
 dressed a series of letters to the Home Secretary, Lord Dun- 
 
 1 Lord John Russell's speech, 19th Feb., 1843. — Hansard's Parlia- 
 mentary Debates. 
 
286 FRANCIS BLACKBUKNE. 
 
 •cannon, in which he thus writes his opinion of the Attorney- 
 Greneral. 1 
 
 " The office of Attorney- General is the most important office 
 in the administration of the government of Ireland — consulted 
 on everything, advising, guiding, directing everything. The 
 Irish government is identified with the Attorney-Greneral. It 
 is not of much importance how the other offices are filled if the 
 Attorney-Greneral be a man of sound principles. The whigs 
 selected for their Attorney-Greneral Francis Blackburne! you 
 know him well. I appeal with confidence to the opinion you 
 must give your colleagues in the confidence of official inter- 
 course. I appeal to your opinion as I would to your oath in a 
 court of justice for the truth of this assertion, that so unhappy 
 and fatal a selection was never yet made. 
 
 " Of all the members of the Irish bar, the very worst choice 
 that could have been made by the whigs was that of Francis 
 Blackburne. I care not what other barrister you name, I defy 
 you to name one whose appointment could be more unfortunate 
 for the whigs — that is, if their object was to conciliate the people 
 of Ireland. If, indeed, their object was to provoke and exas- 
 perate the people, then indeed they did right to select Mr. 
 Blackburne. They could not possibly have devised any mea- 
 sure more calculated to excite popular resentment and indigna- 
 tion against them. They could not, in short, have better 
 proclaimed hostility against the people of Ireland. 
 
 "Why was Mr. Blackburne chosen to be the principal in- 
 strument of the whig government ? The history of his life 
 seemed to forbid such a choice. It is quite true that he had been 
 successful in his profession, his reputation as a lawyer was consi- 
 derable — an overrated man certainly, but a man of high standing 
 in his profession ; but then he was the most constant and de- 
 cided enemy of the whigs and of the people. . . . He enrolled 
 himself a member amongst the virulent and vexatious saints of 
 Kildare-place. He was also a constant attendant at those Bible 
 meetings and tract societies at which the religion of the people 
 and the people themselves were the subject of every species of 
 vulgar ribaldry and abuse. He was, besides, the chosen and 
 standing orator of those scenes of good dinners and bad poli- 
 ties — the Corporation of Dublin dinners. You know that these 
 dinners were and are the rallying points of all that was and is 
 violent and bigoted in the Irish metropolis. At these dinners 
 Blackburne filled the station which Shaw now occupies, and his 
 tirade against Pope and popery proved a regular part of each 
 entertainment. 
 
 1 Vide Saunders' Kens-Letter, 4th Sept., 1834, " Letter of O'Connell 
 to Lord Duncannon, dated 30th August, 1834." 
 
O CORNELL DENOUNCES ULACKBURNE. 287 
 
 " Tet it was this man — fresh from the oratory of bigotry, 
 and from signing the last and worst petition against emancipa- 
 tion — that Lord Anglesey appointed Attorney-General ! ! ! 
 Yes, my lord, it is the very man— the anti-whig, the no-popery 
 orator, the Bible and tract calumniator, the enemy of emanci- 
 pation — that you Lord Duncannon, you yourself, Secretary as 
 you are for the Home Department — this is tbe man that you 
 and your present colleagues continue in the office of Attorney - 
 General ! ! ! Oh shame upon you ! if in this particular at least 
 you do not give the people of Ireland a proof that you are 
 sincere. 
 
 " I need not remind you of the active patronage which your 
 Attorney-General has afforded the most Orange part of the 
 Irish bar. But you, my lord, know him — you know him well ; 
 and you must feel that you cannot preserve any species of cha- 
 racter unless you, without any delay, either change your At- 
 torney-General or resign. 
 
 " As I proceed I will notice his prosecutions — prosecutions 
 contrived to raise a wall of eternal separation between the po- 
 pular party in Ireland and the ministry. It is true that these 
 prosecutions had the sanction of Mr. Stanley and of Earl Grey ; 
 out recollect, it is the faults and crimes of the whigs I am com- 
 menting on, and not of their Attorney-General. I blame them 
 for selecting a political enemy both of the whigs and of the 
 Catholic people of Ireland. I blame them for placing in this 
 important post one of the most virulent of the Orange tories in 
 Ireland. I blame not him for labouring in his vocation and 
 serving his friends, openly as he has done, under the banners of 
 his political enemies and with their authority." 
 
 Mr. O'Connell then calls his lordship's attention to the con- 
 duct of the Attorney-General in the government prosecutions, 
 and complains of the insults flung by him at Catholic jurors, 
 and he thus hints — and that hint was not thrown away — that 
 the Irish party might be reconciled with the ministry : — 
 
 " I appeal to your own common sense whether there be any 
 possibility of reconciling the popular party in .Ireland with the 
 ministry, so long as you contuiue in office so decided a political 
 enemy of both as your Attorney-General. 
 
 " I am ready to aid in the perfect reconciliation of the people 
 with the ministry, but I have neither the power nor the inch- 
 nation to do so unless you will confer on that people not sweet 
 and soft words, but substantial and distinct acts of friendship 
 and protection. Until parliament meets, we require that you 
 will discountenance and dismiss your and our enemies, and that 
 you will be governed by and through your and our friends. 
 Sacred heaven ! that it should be necessary to make such a re- 
 quest of any men not confined within the walls of bedlam." 
 
288 FRANCIS BLACKBUKNE 
 
 It must not be forgotten that Mr. O'Connell, who now- 
 stated that Mr. Blackburne was an overrated man, had pre- 
 viously, in 1825, stated before a committee of the House of 
 Commons that he was one of the ablest lawyers at the bar ; and 
 as to his being " the chosen and standing orator " of the old 
 Dublin Corporation, it would appear that he was viewed by it 
 with feelings of dislike, for he had conducted against it a suit in 
 Chancery on behalf of the citizens of Dublin, and after twelve- 
 years' contention had succeeded. 
 
 An opportunity soon occurred by which the Attorney- 
 General might with dignity retire from office, but his retirement 
 would at that moment have embarrassed the government. 
 
 Mr. Justice Jebb having died, a vacancy occurred in the- 
 Court of King's Bench, and Blackburne was, as a matter of 
 course, offered the seat. His patent was actually made out, and 
 it only awaited the royal signature to complete the appointment; 
 but Lord Melbourne induced him to resign his claim in f avour 
 of the Solicitor-General, Mr. Crampton, with a distinct promise 
 that he should be promoted to the first vacant chief's place. 
 Blackburne made a mistake. At the close of the same year 
 the whig ministry, divided against itself on the Irish Protestant 
 Church question, was dismissed from office and replaced by Sir- 
 Robert Peel, who was entrusted with the task of forming a tory 
 administration. Lord Haddington then became Lord Lieute- 
 nant, Sir Edward Sugden Lord Chancellor, and Mr. Blackburne 
 Attorney- General. Thus, on the morning of the 9th of De- 
 cember, 1834, Blackburne was Attorney-General to the ex- 
 piring whig government, and in the evening of the same day 
 he was Attorney-General to the tory government of Sir Robert 
 Peel. 
 
 On the 7th of April following (1835) a hostile vote on th& 
 Irish Church again displaced the tories, and Lord Melbourne 
 returned to power as Prime Minister. Mr. Blackburne, how- 
 ever, was no longer Attorney-General. O'Connell's letter was 
 remembered, and Serjeant Perrin was appointed in his stead. 
 No doubt there was Lord Melbourne's distinct promise that he 
 should have the first vacant chief's place ; but as " the chief 
 butler forgot Joseph," so Melbourne forgot Blackburne. 
 
 In 1835 Mr. Perrin became Judge of the King's Bench. 
 Sir Michael O'Loghlen, in 1836, was made a Baron of the 
 Exchequer, and in 1837 Master of the Rolls, and Richards and 
 Woulfe and Ball were all provided for ; but Blackburne was 
 remitted to the bar, and had reason then to lament his assent to 
 the promotion of Mr. Justice Crampton over his head. It had 
 been customary to grant a patent of precedence to ex- Attorney- 
 Generals, but even this barren favour O'Connell would not suffer 
 to be extended to Blackburne. 
 
ATTORXEY-GENERAL TO THE TORIES. 289 
 
 On the overthrow of the whigs in 1841 the tones, under the 
 leadership of Sir Robert Peel, returned to power, and Black- 
 burne was again Attorney-General. His tenure of this office 
 was, however, short, for in the next year the country mourned 
 the death of one of her most distinguished Catholic lawyers, 
 Sir Michael O'Loghlen, who was, as we have said, Master of 
 the Rolls, and Blackburne was appointed his successor. For 
 four years he held that office, in whose dull routine there is 
 little to chroniole. Passing thence to the Queen's Bench he 
 became Chief Justice in 1846. 
 
 With the death of O'Connell in 1847 perished the influence 
 of the repeal association, and the doctrine of moral force was 
 forgotten by those who in 1848 preached open revolution and 
 rupture with England. The Catholic bishops and the clergy, 
 with few exceptions, were opposed to the movement ; and it was 
 hard to say what miseries would be entailed on the country if it 
 were not stayed in mercy to the people themselves. John Mitchel 
 was tried before the Chief Justice, and found guilty of writing 
 and publishing a letter exciting the people to rebel, and was 
 transported. In the month of September, 1848, William Smith 
 O'Brien, Thomas Francis Meagher, and others, were tried at a 
 special commission in Clonmel, for high treason, before the Lord 
 Chief Justice, and after a lengthened trial were found guilty, but 
 the sentence of death passed upon them was commuted to trans- 
 portation. But we are now speaking of what is known to all 
 men and remembered by many. Blackburne was called upon 
 many times during the six years he presided in the Queen's 
 Bench to lend his assistance at special commissions issued for the 
 putting down of crime in various parts of the country. 
 
 On the 27th of February, 1852, Lord John Russell's minis- 
 try resigned, Lord Clarendon then ceased to be Lord Lieutenant 
 of Ireland, and Maziere Brady to be Lord Chancellor. Of the 
 shuffling of the political cards it is needless here to speak. Lord 
 Derby became Prime Minister, with Benjamin Disraeli Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer, the Earl of Eglinton Lord Lieutenant, 
 and Francis Blackburne Lord High Chancellor of Ireland ; and 
 in the same year he was appointed a Commissioner of National 
 Education. The government, however, of which he was a mem- 
 ber, falling before the end of that year, he too retired from 
 office, and in the next year, in company with Archbishop 
 Whately and Baron Greene, left the National Board. The 
 cause of the retirement of these three commissioners from the 
 National Board was the exclusion by the majority of that body 
 of two works from the list of text-books — one on the " Truth of 
 Christianity," written by Dr. Whately, Protestant Archbishop 
 of Dublin, and the other "The Scripture Lessons." These 
 
 U 
 
290 FRANCIS BLAOKBURNE 
 
 books, which were in use in the national schools almost from the 
 foundation of the system, had been condemned by Dr. MacHale, 
 Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, and the national schools in his 
 extensive archdiocese were consequently suppressed by his 
 grace ; nevertheless, those books lived on until Doctor, now Car- 
 dinal, Cullen became, in 1852, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, 
 when, through his influence, they were excluded. The three 
 commissioners we have named immediately resigned. 
 
 Blackburne's active mind was now relieved for a time from 
 labour. In 1856, however, he was once more invited, and by 
 Lord Palmerston, to take a seat on the bench. In that year the 
 Court of Appeal in Chancery was constituted, and Mr. Black- 
 burne became the first Lord Justice of Appeal. 
 
 In 1858 Lord Derby, on becoming Prime Minister, offered 
 him the Seals, but his health was too much shattered to permit 
 his acceptance of office, and Mr. Napier became Lord High 
 Chancellor of Ireland. 
 
 In 1 866 the tories, who again returned to office, pressed the 
 Chancellorship once more on Mr. Blackburne. At first he de- 
 clined the responsibility, but the confidence so long reposed in 
 him made his acceptance a matter greatly to be desired by the 
 government. At length he accepted — unwillingly accepted — 
 the appointment, and he was once more Lord High Chancellor. 
 
 The Lord Justiceship, which he had so long filled (and it is 
 in the remembrance of the bar how he did fill that office), 
 became vacant, and Mr. Brewster, one of the ablest of lawyers, 
 became Lord Justice of Appeal. 
 
 The year 1867, however, was one that required, in the office 
 of Chancellor, an adviser who could be ever at the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant's side, counselling him with the wisdom of his counsel. 
 Fenianism, which was then rife, threatened to deluge the coun- 
 try with blood. Large sums of money, arms, ammunition, and 
 even men were sent home from the exiles beyond the Atlan- 
 tic ; — and it was whispered that those audacious men had the 
 properties of the gentry mapped out amongst themselves. Their 
 immediate ancestors were ignorant, but the schools established by 
 landlord influence which were now abroad had opened their eyes, 
 and had uprooted all respect for "his honour" and for "his 
 honour's" family. The Lord Chancellor was physically unequal 
 to the duties of his office, for the weight of eighty-five years was 
 heavy upon him ; and he wrote, accordingly, to Lord Derby, 
 placing his resignation in his hands. That resignation was 
 accepted ; and Blackburne's public career was at an end. 
 
 Shortly after his retirement, a general meeting of the bar 
 was held, at which the following address was unanimously 
 agreed upon : — 
 
RETIRES IN 1867. 291 
 
 " To the Eight Hon. Francis Blakburne. 
 
 " Sir, — The bar of Ireland desire, while they bid you fare- 
 well on the occasion of your retirement from the bench, to ex- 
 press to you their feelings of respect and admiration for the 
 great qualities which have distinguished you, and have reflected 
 so much honour upon your profession. The history of your 
 career, extending over more than sixty years, contains a record 
 of which the Irish bar are proud, and which is in many respects 
 without a parallel. In your earlier years at the bar those qua- 
 lities which had won the great distinctions of your college course 
 raised you to pre-eminence among rivals with whom few could 
 have ventured to compete. Having reached the highest point 
 of professional eminence, and proved yourself a sound lawyer 
 and consummate advocate, public honours and public trust soon 
 followed as the just recognition of your well-earned position. 
 In the discharge of your duties as first law officer of the Crown 
 during times of difficulty, your abilities were ever equal to the 
 occasion, while your moderation and firmness have left an ex- 
 ample worthy of imitation. You were then in succession Master 
 of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justice, Lord High Chancellor, and 
 Lord Justice of Appeal. In the history of this country no man 
 ever filled so many high and judicial offices, and brought to the 
 <lischarge of each such great and varied powers. Calm and im- 
 pressive dignity, great grasp of mind, unequalled sagacity, and 
 a rare faculty of clothing thought in clear and simple language, 
 conspicuously marked your administration of the law. Your 
 uniform courtesy and kindness will be long remembered by us 
 all, and you bear with you into retirement the sincere good 
 wishes of every member of the Irish bar. 
 
 " Signed for the bar of Ireland, in pursuance of a resolution 
 unanimously adopted at a meeting held in the Law Library, 
 Four Courts, Dublin, April 24th, 1867. 
 
 " Robert D. Mecredt, 
 
 " Father of the Bar." 
 
 Blackburne's reply was as follows : — 
 
 " It is with feelings of no ordinary character that I reply to 
 your address, so kind, so touching — I would add so affectionate ; 
 and it causes me no little difficulty to find words to give ade- 
 auate expression to them. It affords me the deepest gratifica- 
 tion to receive from the bar of Ireland such a recognition of my 
 services, when I consider its worth, its learning, and its proud 
 character. In your feeling address you allude to the several 
 high offices which I from time to time have filled, by favour of 
 the Crown, and to the mode in which their attendant duties 
 were performed. I can only say that in the discharge of those 
 duties I felt that a sacred trust was committed to my keeping, 
 
 u2 
 
292 FRANCIS BLACKBTJRNE. 
 
 and that a strict regard to the interests of justice and to the wel- 
 fare of our country, and perfect impartiality between man and 
 man, should be my guiding principles of action. 
 
 " In bidding you farewell at the close of a long professional 
 career, I cannot do so without in the fullest manner reciprocating 
 the kindly sentiments which your address contains, and wish- 
 ing you, my friends, a long enjoyment of life and happiness,, 
 and of success in the noble profession of which we are members. 
 I had hoped to have had the great pleasure of being able to 
 receive your address in person ; but I deeply regret that, owing- 
 to my lengthened illness, I am unable to do so, and must 
 therefore send to the Father of the Bar the reply which I should 
 have so much wished to deliver in person." 
 
 Such a unanimous expression of feeling on the part of the 
 bar was almost without precedent. Men of all shades of opinion 
 for once merged their differences, and united in paying their 
 tribute of admiration and esteem to one so universally and de- 
 servedly respected. 
 
 He had filled during his long life more offices than any other 
 lawyer on record. For many years Vice- Chancellor of the' Uni- 
 versity of Dublin, he took great interest in everything appertain- 
 ing to the success of that seat of learning, where he received 
 his early education. He was also a member of the Senate 
 of the Queen's University. Devoted to the principles of the 
 Reformation, he was associated with Lord Derby (then Mr. 
 Stanley) in preparing the Tithe Rent-charge and the Church 
 Temporalities Acts. His advice was frequently asked by the 
 government during troubled times, and was as often acted upon. 
 "While at the bar the chief characteristic of his style was bre- 
 vity — in cross-examination he was very skilful, never using that 
 overpowering loudness of tone and violence of language which 
 sometimes succeed in breaking down a dishonest witness, and 
 sometimes disconcert an honest one. 1 Mr. Blackburne rather 
 used his dexterity in leading on a witness, by cautiously and 
 calmly putting questions calculated to commit him, and bring- 
 ing him, from point to point, to the statement at which he 
 wished to arrive. On the bench he was all that could be desired 
 in an equity and common law Judge ; and as a proof of the esti- 
 mation in which his judgments were held, not merely in Ireland 
 but in England, we refer to the opinion of Lord Justice Turner, 
 who, in giving judgment in the case of Hawkins v. Gathercole? 
 says: — "In the former of these cases the late Master of the 
 Rolls in Ireland, Mr. Blackburne, the weight of whose judg- 
 ments cannot be too highly spoken of, expresses himself thus." 
 His judgment in the case of Box v. Jackson, in Drury's Reports, 
 
 1 Irish Law Times, vol. i., p. 55. 
 
 2 6 Be Gex, M'Nacjhten, $ Gordon's Reports, p. 25. 
 
SIR JOSEPH NAPIER. 293 
 
 is a memorable one, in which the dootrine applicable to the 
 rights of married women over their reversionary interest in 
 personal chattels was reviewed and discussed. "His deci- 
 sions," it was said by a high authority, " were clear and logical." 
 His death occurred on the 17th of September, 1867, at 
 Eathfarnham Castle, near Dublin, he being then in his 86th 
 year. Mr. Blackburne was married in 1809, to Jane, daughter 
 of William Martley, Esq., M.D., of Ballymullen, county of 
 Meath, and by her left issue six sons and three daughters. 
 
 116. A.D. 1857. — Sir Joseph Napier, Baronet. Amongst 
 the Scottish chieftains who, in 1296, tendered their allegiance to 
 Edward I. of England was John de Napier, ancestor of the 
 Napiers of Murchuistoun, near Edinburgh, a family that has 
 since produced men great in the senate, at the bar, and in the 
 army. Many of them have been famous in the universities, 
 and to John de Napier mathematical students are indebted for 
 the discovery of logarithms. A descendant of this remarkable 
 family settled in the north of Ireland in the last century, and 
 from him descended William Napier, the father of Joseph, who 
 was born on the day after Christmas-day, 1804. His early edu- 
 cation was committed to the care of a private tutor, who was no 
 other than the great dramatic writer James Sheridan Knowles. 
 Erom his tutelage he was sent to the Belfast Academical In- 
 stitution, then recently founded, where he was well grounded 
 in classics and the kindred sciences. In 1820 he entered the 
 University of Trinity College, and before the termination of 
 his Junior Ereshman year published a demonstration of the 
 " Binomial theorem." In 182-5 he took his degree as Bachelor of 
 Arts, and immediately commenced to read for a Fellowship. 
 During the intervals of severe study he cultivated his tastes for 
 polite literature, and contributed much to the principal periodi- 
 cals of the day. He also became an active member of the His- 
 torical Society, which then held their weekly meetings outside 
 the walls of the College. 
 
 The political views which young Napier had acquired in 
 College were those of the high tory and anti-Catholic school ; 
 and accordingly we find him, when yet young, ranged with the 
 opponents of the Catholic emancipation. His first political 
 speech was delivered against that measure, at a meeting of the 
 graduates held in Dublin, on the 28th of October, 1828. He 
 now abandoned the idea of reading for a Fellowship, and entered 
 his name on the books of one of the Inns of Court in England, 
 and became a pupil at the law school of the London University, 
 then recently instituted, where he attended the lectures of Mr. 
 Amos, afterwards the learned author of a work on fixtures. He 
 afterwards entered chambers as a pupil of Mr. Patteson, and on 
 
294 SIR JOSEPH NAPIER 
 
 the promotion of that celebrated lawyer to the bench, Mr. 
 Napier commenced to practise in London as a special pleader. 
 In Easter Term, 1831, he was called to the Irish bar, and chose 
 for his circuit " the north-east," where he quickly acquired the 
 character of an accurate pleader, a sound lawyer, and an easy, 
 fluent, and classical speaker. 
 
 To improve the system of legal training for law students 
 was his earnest aim ; for he had seen, with feelings akin to con- 
 tempt, that no requisite was necessary for a call to the bar other 
 than the eating a number of dinners at the Inns of Court on 
 both sides of St. George's Channel. 
 
 Although Mr. Napier, from an early period subsequent to 
 his call, began steadily to advance to the foremost rank in his 
 profession he had not as yet (we speak of 1843) been called 
 within the bar. A case occurred, however, in that year which, 
 while adding to his fame as a lawyer learned in the law of cri- 
 minal procedure, was the immediate cause of the Chancellor of 
 that day (Sir Edward Sugden) appointing him one of Her Ma- 
 jesty's counsel. The case alluded to was "The Queen v. Gray," 
 and it occurred at the Lent assizes of the county of Monaghan. 
 The prisoner, Samuel Gray, was indicted for firing a pistoL 
 " then loaded with leaden shots and gunpowder, at and against 
 one James Cunningham, with intent to do him grievous bodily 
 harm." Such an offence was, by the 85th chapter of an Act 
 passed in the first year of Queen Yictoria, declared to be a 
 felony. The grand jury having found "true bills," the pri- 
 soner was arraigned for this felony, and Mr. Napier peremp- 
 torily challenged one gentleman who was about to be 
 sworn on the jury. The Crown demurred to the challenge, 
 insisting, as indeed had been frequently decided by the 
 Irish judges,, that in cases of capital felony only did such a 
 right exist. The judge disallowed the right, the challenged 
 juryman was with the other jurors sworn, the trial proceeded,, 
 and the prisoner was convicted. That jury was, however,, 
 according to the prisoner's counsel, illegally constituted, and he 
 therefore moved the Court of Queen's Bench in arrest of judg- 
 ment. The arguments were heard in the following Easter- 
 Term, when Chief Justice Pennefather, Mr. Justice Burton, and 
 Mr. Justice Crampton delivered their opinions in favour of the 
 Crown, Mr. Justice Perrin alone dissenting ; and the judgment 
 of the court was thereupon entered against the prisoner. By 
 the advice of Mr. Napier a writ of error was sued out to 
 the House of Lords, and the law lords were unanimous in 
 reversing the decision of the court below. Mr. Napier then 
 returned to Dublin, but his fame as a criminal lawyer was be- 
 fore him, and he was called within the bar during the following 
 Term. His services were sought for both by the Crown and the- 
 
counsel in o'coxnell's CASE. 295 
 
 prisoner in the ever-to-be-remembered case of " The Queen r. 
 Daniel O'Connell." It was a race, so to speak, between the 
 Crown Solicitor and the attorney for the traverser who should 
 be first in retaining him. Both briefs with their enormous fees 
 were sent to his house on the same day, but he was absent in 
 Belfast at the time, and both briefs were sent to him, but the 
 retainer of the Crown Solicitor arrived, and was formally ac- 
 cepted by return of post, before the other retainer, which had 
 not been posted so soon, reached his hands. The Law Society, 
 on being consulted, gave their opinion in favour of the Crown 
 Solicitor, of which Mr. Holmes, the father of the Irish bar, ap- 
 proved. ^ As an equity lawyer Mr. Napier was occasionally 
 brought into notice in equity ; and in the Equity and Chancery 
 Reports, as well as in the reports of appeal cases from the courts 
 of equity to the House of Lords, his name is frequently to be 
 met with in some remarkable appeals and Cases ; of these the 
 most remarkable was the case of Lord Dungannon, Mr. Napier's 
 argument in the House of Lords, reported in the books. It 
 was the admiration of Lord Lyndhurst, and was most empha- 
 tically commended by Lord Wensleydale, then Baron Parke, 
 parliamentary honours were not sought for by him until the 
 year 1847, when he contested unsuccessfully the University of 
 Dublin. Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Shaw were elected, but Mr. 
 Shaw was soon constrained by failing health to resign, and Mr. 
 Napier was returned in his stead without opposition. 
 
 Early in March, 1848, he took his seat in the House of 
 Commons, and he speedily became an active and working mem- 
 ber. His speeches on the abolition of the punishment of death 
 in capital cases, and of the extension of the income tax to Ire- 
 land, are well known. He delivered with much earnestness his 
 conscientious opinions on a bill brought into parliament by the 
 Marquis of Lansdowne, for the establishment of diplomatic rela- 
 tions with the court of Rome, a measure against which he pro- 
 tested " as likely to irritate the feelings of the Protestants of 
 Ireland." Of the Protestant Church he was ever the unflinch- 
 ing advocate. In 1849 he struggled to maintain the principle 
 that the successive failures of the harvests in Ireland should be 
 regarded as a national rather than as a local calamity: "the 
 calamity," he urged, " was providential, and the charge conse- 
 quent upon relieving her from it should be borne by the king- 
 dom generally." And in opposing the rate in aid (as it was 
 called), he made a remarkable speech, which was highly praised 
 by the late Sir Robert Peel, who followed him in the debate, for 
 its ability and moderation. 
 
 Amongst the ministerial measures of 1849, not the least 
 remarkable was that introduced by Lord John Russell for the 
 emancipation of the Jews. That measure met with the opposi- 
 
296 SIR JOSEPH NAPIER 
 
 tion of Mr. Napier. Many able and earnest men shared in his 
 views, for it is not easy to fling away the traditions of centuries; 
 and though we may dissent from his conclusions, we must still 
 respect the zeal and honesty of purpose by which they were dic- 
 tated. To another ministerial measure, the legalisation of mar- 
 riage with a deceased wife's sister, he offered his strenuous, and 
 then successful, opposition. The next important measure hear- 
 ing on the internal government of Ireland, which emanated 
 from the ministerial council, and which was patriotically opposed 
 by Mr. Napier, was a bill introduced on the 18th of May, 1850, 
 by Lord John Russell, for the abolition of the Lord Lieute- 
 nancy of Ireland. 
 
 The sudden death of Sir Robert Peel, in the summer of 
 1850, cast over the House of Commons, as over the nation, a 
 deep and lengthened gloom. Mr. Hume moved the adjourn- 
 ment of the House, paying a feeling tribute of regret to the 
 deceased statesman ; Mr. Gladstone, Sir Robert Inghs, and Sir 
 William Somerville, in eloquent terms concurred in the pro- 
 posed mark of respect. " As I," said Mr. Napier, " have a 
 motion on the paper; I may be permitted to say how willingly 
 I waive everything, to join in testifying, in any manner I can, 
 my sorrow and regret for the loss which the country has sus- 
 tained. It is a remarkable circumstance that a large portion of 
 these legislative measures, to which I was about to ask the atten- 
 tion of the House, have been suggested by the legislative wis- 
 dom -of that great man who has just been gathered to his 
 fathers. The impulse and encouragement which he has given 
 to measures of legislation in connexion with the criminal juris- 
 prudence of this country, and the records he has left behind 
 him of his enlightened wisdom on that important subject, 
 entitle him to the gratitude, and will ever claim the unanimous 
 respect, of all classes of the community. When the news came 
 to me of his death, and when I reflected how short was the 
 period since I had beheld him in the full vigour of a matured 
 intellect — chastened but not impaired by age and experience — I 
 was reminded what shadows we are, that the life of the wisest 
 and strongest of us is but a wavering flame which the passing 
 breeze may extinguish." 
 
 Upon the resignation of Lord John Russell and his col- 
 leagues, in the month of March, 1852, the Earl of Derby became 
 Prime Minister, the Earl of Eglinton Lord Lieutenant of Ire- 
 land, Francis Blaokburne Lord Chancellor, and Mr. Napier 
 Attorney- General. One of his first acts, foreshadowing as it 
 were the changes in the law of landlord and tenant that took 
 place in 1871, was to introduce four measures dealing in a large 
 and comprehensive manner with the land question. The first 
 
ATTORNEY-GENERAL, 1852 CHANCELLOR, 1858. 297 
 
 -was a Land Improvement bill ; the second, a Leasing Power bill ; 
 the third, a Tenant's Improvement Compensation bill ; and the 
 fourth, a Landlord and Tenant Law Amendment bill. The 
 merits of these proposed enactments were many; but, before they 
 could become the law of the land, and at the close of the same 
 year, the Derby administration had resigned, and Mr. Napier 
 ceased to be Attorney-General. 
 
 Several questions of the deepest interest came in 1853 under 
 the consideration of parliament, and amongst them the Cana- 
 dian Reserves bill, which was brought in by the Liberal govern- 
 ment. The "Reserves" were certain lands reserved to the 
 Protestant Church of Canada, amounting to one-seventh of the 
 entire lands granted out by the government of Canada to the 
 settlers in that colony. The government were resolved that the 
 reserves should cease, and a measure was introduced to that 
 effect. Mr. Napier opposed the bill in all its stages. His 
 resistance, however, proved unavailing, and the measure became 
 the law in the same session. 
 
 In 1857, Mr. Xapier advocated the principle that there 
 should be in the United Kingdom (as in France and other 
 continental countries) a ministerial department of " Justice ;" 
 and, in accordance with this view, he moved for an address to 
 the Crown, praying for the appointment of a law functionary to 
 preside over the department of the Privy Council for the affairs 
 of public justice. The motion was assented to by Lord Palm- 
 erston, advocated by Lord J. Russell, and carried ; but the dis- 
 solution of parliament prevented any further step being then 
 taken in the matter. He also, about this time, carried a motion 
 in the House of Commons for an address to the Crown, for a 
 commission of inquiry into the Inns of Court; out of which the 
 reform of their system emanated in due course afterwards. The 
 general election of that year again brought Mr. Napier before his 
 constituents, and he was again returned with Mr. Hamilton for 
 the University of Dublin. His party, which had been in opposi- 
 tion, with the exception of a few months in 1852, since the fall 
 of the Peel administration in 1846, returned, in 1858, to a 
 short-lived official existence. The Earl of Derby became Prime 
 Minister, and it was intended that the post of Lord Justice of 
 Appeal should be conferred on Mr. Napier, in succession to Mr. 
 Blackburne, who was then Lord Justice, and who was to be 
 restored to the woolsack. Mr. Blackburne, however, was at that 
 time much shaken in health, and signified his determination in 
 consequence not to accept the Seals, which were thereupon offered 
 to, and reluctantly accepted by, Mr. Napier. In the following 
 year he was elected president of the jurisprudence section of the 
 Association for Local Science. Their meeting was held in Liver- 
 pool, but his lordship was unable to attend its deliberations, and 
 
298 SIR JOSEPH NAPIER 
 
 his written address was read for him by Earl Russell. In the- 
 month of June, 1859, the Conservative government resigned,, 
 and Mr. Napier ceased to be Chancellor. A wish was then ex- 
 pressed by many of his friends, as well in England as in Ireland^ 
 that a selection from his decisions in Chancery should be made, 
 and published in a separate volume, and his friend Mr. Drury 
 accordingly undertook the office of editor, and selected (as he- 
 states in his preface) such of his judgments as had not a merely 
 local character. These Reports were published under the super- 
 vision and with the authority of the ex-Chancellor, and dedi- 
 cated by permission to Mr. Justice Patteson. There are besides 
 several judgments, relating more especially to Irish law, which 
 are reported in the 7th and 8th volumes of the Irish Chancery 
 Reports. In the last case heard by Mr. Napier — it was the case 
 of Walker a. Taylor, and heard on the 16th of June, 1859 — his 
 lordship, having delivered his judgment, thus concluded: — 
 "And here, for the present, I close the book, the great volume of 
 equity. To have been enrolled as a commentator — associated 
 with the wise, the learned, and the good — 
 
 " ' The noble living and the noble dead,' 
 
 might more than satisfy the highest professional ambition. I 
 have enjoyed, moreover, while here presiding, what to me at 
 least has been a source of unmixed gratification, the household 
 happiness — may I call it ? — for which I am mainly indebted to 
 the kindness of my brethren of the bar, and the unceasing 
 attention of the officers of the court. To both I am grateful. 
 Eor all, I am deeply thankful to God." 
 
 Soon after Mr. Napier ceased to be Chancellor he had a com- 
 munication from the Solicitor-General for England (Sir R. 
 Bethell), stating that he wrote with the concurrence and appro- 
 val of Lord Palmerston (the Premier) and of Lord Campbell 
 (then the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain), to request that he 
 would consent to have his name placed on the judicial committee 
 of the Privy Council in London. Mr. Napier assented, but it 
 was unexpectedly found that the Act of Parliament under which 
 the committee was constituted had not provided for the admis- 
 sion of an ex-Chancellor or an ex-Judge of Ireland or of Scot- 
 land, but had confined the privilege to those of England, so he 
 had to " stand aside." This was not the only testimonial to the 
 great merits of Mr. Napier. He also received a kind letter 
 from the Earl of Eglinton, expressing his high approval and 
 grateful appreciation of his political conduct as Chancellor, and 
 as his colleague in the executive government of Ireland ; whilst 
 Lord Justice Blackburne addressed to him a letter containing 
 
AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION. 290 
 
 the highest testimony to the manner in which he had performed 
 the judicial duties of his office in the Court of Appeal. 
 
 In 1861 Mr. Nanier spent some time in Rome, and on his 
 return delivered an opening address as president of the depart- 
 ment of jurisprudence, at the meeting of " The Social Science 
 Association," which was held during the long vacation in the 
 Four Courts, Dublin. Speaking of social science, he says : — 
 
 " Is it not worthy of social science to give a greater effi- 
 ciency to this system, a greater reverence for the law itself, a 
 higher position for the legal profession ? Nor is it a light mat- 
 ter whether this profession should sink to a vulgar level, or be 
 raised to a higher elevation. Public justice must have its minis- 
 ters, and public policy requires that these should be men of cul- 
 tivated minds. It is not enough to have a supply of rough and 
 ready justice. However useful this lower currency may be, we 
 must seek to maintain a great and goodly system of jurispru- 
 dence, under which public order, civil and religious freedom, 
 protection of life and property, may be adequately secured — a 
 system which will nurture advocacy of the highest order, and 
 encourage the learning, the wisdom, and the love of justice 
 which are not less the ornament than the support of judicial 
 authority. The amendment of the law, the increased efficiency 
 of our judicial system, and the elevation of the bar, are not the 
 only benefits to be realised. But here I must halt. I have 
 reached the extreme limits of my own department. I cannot 
 now turn towards the venerable hall of justice where we assem- 
 ble on this occasion, without being reminded that there I learned 
 to reverence the laws and institutions of my country. I cannot 
 forget the many years of kindly intercourse which I have had 
 with my brethren of the bar, and those venerable magistrates 
 who have been gathered to their everlasting rest, who have en- 
 riched our jurisprudence with the treasures of their sober wis- 
 dom, their exact learning, and their chastened experience — - 
 Plunket, Bushe, Burton, Smith, Joy, Pennefather — 
 
 ' The dust of these is Irish earth, 
 
 Whilst with their own they rest ; 
 And the same land which gave them birth 
 Has caught them to her breast.' 
 
 " Their memorials have not perished with them ; these are 
 bound up with the moral order of the world. The jurisprudence 
 of every country is connected with the great system of universal 
 justice, whose seat is in the bosom of God. The vo/jloq of the 
 Greek, the mum cuique of the noble and enlightened jurispru- 
 dence of Eome, the justice and mercy of our own, all culminate 
 in a higher law — that divine but simple code of sacred and of 
 
300 SIR JOSEPH NAPIER 
 
 social duty, on which our gracious Bedeemer, by His memorable 
 comment, has stamped His own image and superscription : — 
 
 ' It sinks the specialties of race and creed 
 In the deep sympathy of man with man : 
 The highest law is systematic love.' " 
 
 Mr. Napier had now hours of leisure at his command, and 
 those hours were usefully employed — at one time in delivering 
 lectures to young men on the lives of distinguished Irishmen 
 who had gone before us ; at another time in ably combating 
 the infidel tendencies of the age. With this latter purpose he 
 wrote the preface prefixed to the work of the Rev. John Nash 
 Griffin, " Seven Answers to the Seven Essays and Reviews." 
 His lecture on Edmund Burke was a graphic and remarkable 
 composition — rich in sound criticism, full of incident, and abound- 
 ing in practical illustrations of the rough up-hill toil which that 
 great Irishman had to undergo in his youth, before he was even 
 recognised as a man of established merit. Nor did the lecturer 
 forget to characterise the baneful code which was in force 
 during the last century against Roman Catholics, as " odious 
 and oppressive laws." 
 
 In 1867, the Conservatives having returned to power, it was 
 expected that Mr. Napier would have been re-appointed to his 
 place in the Court of Chancery ; but it must be remembered that 
 after he had retired from the bench, in 1859, he did not return 
 to the House of Commons, and he was therefore, in 1867, no 
 longer amongst the actual combatants of his party. Lord 
 Derby thought it necessary at that time to extend the supports 
 of the Conservative party as widely as possible, and for this 
 purpose to take into coalition several of the Conservative Libe- 
 rals. It was, of course, necessary to find places for those who 
 were, in accordance with this policy, to be provided for ; and it 
 was thought, by taking into their ranks Mr. Brewster, Mr. 
 Morris, then member of parliament for the town of Gralway, 
 and some others, that much useful support would be procured 
 for a ministry somewhat dependent for such support. More- 
 over, it was considered by a certain party in the new ministry, 
 that Mr. Napier had not been sufficiently a partisan as Chan- 
 cellor; for, truth to tell, he had always acted with resolute 
 impartiality, and without fear, favour, or affection. It was, 
 therefore, arranged to hold him over for the place of Lord 
 Justice of Appeal, which it was expected would soon be vacant. 
 The complications which prevented the appointment of Mr. 
 Brewster to the woolsack ended in the elevation of Mr. Black- 
 burne, and upon his acceptance of the Seals Lord Derby at once 
 wrote to Mr. Napier, to offer him the post of Lord Justice of 
 
CHIEF COMMISSIONER IN 1874. 301 
 
 Appeal. But tke various intrigues and competitions for place 
 made it as much an object with several to exclude Mr. Napier 
 as it had been to set Mr. Brewster aside. Their ostensible 
 ground was, his alleged inability to hear in court, for he was 
 subject to a slight deafness; but the real ground was that he 
 was said by several of the malcontents to have got enough 
 already, and that a good place ought to be made available for 
 the more urgent uses of a struggling party. Mr. Napier felt in 
 this state of things that he ought to relieve Lord Derby as 
 much as possible from any embarrasssment on his account, 
 though he had the emphatic assurance of Lord Brougham, of 
 Mr. Blackburne, and of others most competent to judge, that 
 there was no real hindrance to his efficient discharge of the 
 duty of the Lord Justice of Appeal. Indeed, Lord Brougham 
 considered that the post was peculiarly appropriate, and what 
 Sir Joseph Napier could best fill with satisfaction. Mr. Napier 
 had a personal interview with Lord Derby, who acted with 
 high spirit and honour, and with that friendly regard which he 
 had always shown him, and advised Mr. Napier, if the latter 
 felt any perplexity in the matter, to confer with three friends, 
 whom he named — Lord Chelmsford, Sir H. Cairns, and Mr. 
 Gr. A. Hamilton. The opinion of Sir Hugh Cairns was that it 
 was altogether for himself to decide; but Sir Hugh acknow- 
 ledged that, although he fully believed him to be quite fit, yet 
 he would be subject to be worried in court and misrepresented, 
 so long as there was an object in getting him out of the 
 position, and that he would, therefore, best consult his own ease 
 and dignity by declining. Lord Chelmsford took a more ad- 
 verse view, on the ground of the deafness ; but Mr. Hamilton 
 coincided with Sir Hugh Cairns, yet thought, nevertheless, that 
 advantage might be taken of his infirmity, in the House of 
 Commons, to embarrass Lord Derby by some adverse motion. 
 Under these circumstances, Mr. Napier came to the conclusion 
 that he ought to consider the exigencies of Lord Derby's 
 position, sink all considerations of self, and give up the ap- 
 pointment, which otherwise, beyond all doubt, he could have 
 filled with satisfaction. That he was afterwards made a member 
 of the English Privy Council, and placed on the Judicial 
 Committee in London, in 1868 — and still later, that he was 
 appointed in 1874 Chief Commissioner, having the custody of 
 the Great Seal in Ireland, and head of the Irish Court of 
 Appeal — are facts sufficient to show that, beyond the intrigues 
 of party, there was no real hindrance to his filling the office of 
 Lord Justice of Appeal in Ireland. 
 
 In the month of April following, Mr. Napier was created a 
 baronet by Lord Derby, a graceful and deserved compliment, 
 and which, his lordship stated, was in consideration of the 
 
302 SIR JOSEPH NAPIER 
 
 many services for which he pledged his gratitude. Soon after 
 the elevation of Lord Cairns to the Chancellorship of England, 
 a vacancy occurred in the Judicial Committee of the Privy 
 Council, by the death of Lord Kingsdown, and Sir Joseph 
 Napier was selected to fill the vacancy by appointment under 
 the Queen's warrant, dated 28th March, 1868. From that time 
 to 1874 he frequently attended that court, and his judgments 
 are reported in Moore's Privy Council Cases, commencing with 
 the fifth volume of the new series. Amongst the honours con- 
 ferred upon him, not the least valued was this, that he was twice 
 chosen Vice-Chancellor of that University where he had had his 
 early training. The first time he was appointed by the great 
 astronomer, Lord Posse, then Chancellor of the University of 
 Dublin, and afterwards, on his death, when Lord Cairns, the 
 present Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, was elected as his 
 successor, Sir Joseph Napier was re-appointed Yice- Chancellor 
 of the University. 
 
 In the summer of 1871 Sir Joseph Napier devoted much 
 of his attention to the consideration of a subject which had been 
 one of much controversy — the constitution of the University of 
 Dublin, and its relation to Trinity College. Having investi- 
 gated the question at issue, he published a thesis, which met 
 with the entire approval of Lord Cairns, entitled The College 
 and the University, and the result of his investigations appeared 
 to be this : — 
 
 1. That the College has certain University privileges which 
 have been conferred on its studiosi and on its governing body. 
 
 2. That the University (properly so called) is a distinct 
 corporate body. 
 
 3. That the studiosi have not, and never had, the right to 
 elect any of the principal officers of the University. 
 
 4. That the governing body of the College had the power of 
 making the " leges Academise," with reference to the conferring 
 of degrees, and were not confined to the adoption of laws of 
 either of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. 
 
 5. That the true intent and purpose of the charters and sta- 
 tutes is, to deal with the College and the University as integral 
 parts of one educational institution, in which a complete course 
 of instruction in arts and faculties is to be provided. 
 
 In connexion with the subject of University education, a 
 question of much nicety arose out of the Fellowship examination 
 which took place on the 23rd of May, 1872. Mr. Purser, one 
 of the successful candidates, was a Moravian. Before the 
 examination counsel were consulted as to whether, in the event 
 of his being entitled by superior merit to one of the two Fellow- 
 ships then vacant, he would be eligible, and would not be dis- 
 qualified by the religious test. Counsel differed in opinion, one 
 
VICE-CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 303 
 
 holding that the Board were not debarred by the terms of the 
 statute from electing him, while another held that they were. 
 In this dilemma they consulted Sir J. Napier as to the course 
 they ought to take, and he advised them to elect the two best 
 candidates, and that in the event of Mr. Purser being disquali- 
 fied, the third would succeed to the second place without having 
 another examination next year. 
 
 After the examination had concluded, Mr. Purser was de- 
 clared entitled to the first Fellowship, Mr. M'Oay to the second, 
 while Mr. Minchin was the third, and Mr. Pattison the fourth, 
 in order of merit. Mr. Purser, a Moravian, as we have said, 
 admitted that he had no objection to attend the services of the 
 Church of Ireland, and to receive the sacrament according to the 
 rites and ceremonies of that Church, but he declined to make 
 the statutable declaration. The Provost thereupon refused to 
 admit him, although elected by the Board to the vacant Fellow- 
 ship. 
 
 On the Ilth of June, 1872, the question was argued in the 
 Examination Hall of the College, before the Visitors, Sir 
 Joseph Napier, and the Archbishop of Dublin. 
 
 The Solicitor-General, Mr. Palles, Q.C. (with Mr. Murray), 
 appeared as counsel for Messrs. Minchin and Panton. 
 Mr. Jellett, Q.C, and Mr. Bewley, for Mr. Purser. 
 Dr. BaH, Q.C, Messrs. Tandy, Q.C, and Webb, for Trinity 
 College. 
 
 The case of Mr. Purser involved the question whether, 
 although in other material respects he was adjudged to be 
 superior to his competitors, he was legally disqualified to be 
 elected a Fellow, inasmuch as at the time he was a member of 
 the Moravian Church. 
 
 The Tice-Chancellor of the University, Sir Joseph Napier, 
 held that the case was not one of a disqualification distinctly 
 and directly provided for in the College statutes, either ex- 
 pressly or by clear and manifest implication ; and that beyond 
 this, it was for the electors to decide according to the terms of 
 their electoral oath, and their conscientious judgment, which 
 was in its nature final and conclusive. The Archbishop of 
 Dublin intimated his opinion to be that a question of theology 
 was involved, upon which he proposed to communicate his 
 opinion to the Chancellor of the University (Lord Cairns). The 
 Tice-Chancellor proceeded on the principle established by the 
 decision in the case of Downing College, Cambridge (3 Jli/lne <Sr 
 Craig), an authority which he discovered by his subsequent re- 
 search, and fully confirmed his view; but the opinion of the 
 Chancellor was in itself and by the statutes conclusive. The 
 opinions of each of the Visitors having been communicated to 
 him, together with a full report of the arguments, Lord Cairns 
 
304 SIR JOSEPH NAPIER 
 
 arrived at the same conclusion as the Vice- Chancellor, and the 
 decision was made accordingly. The Yice-Chancellor gave his 
 reasons in an elaborate judgment, in which he dealt with the 
 arguments and authorities relied on by counsel. The Arch- 
 bishop, on this occasion, stated that, having seen the opinions of 
 the Chancellor and the Vice- Chancellor, he thought it could not 
 be of any service to the parties for him to offer any opinion 
 upon the question of Mr. Purser's eligibility. In other respects 
 he concurred with the decision. The decision has been signed 
 by the Visitors, and countersigned by the Chancellor of the 
 University. 
 
 Mr. Purser being thus declared eligible, was called upon to 
 make the declaration required to be made by a Fellow after his 
 election, and before his admission to the full rights of Fellow- 
 ship. This he declined to do, and the Fellowship thereupon 
 was declared vacant. 
 
 On the 17th of February, 1874, Mr. Gladstone tendered his 
 resignation as Prime Minister, and on the 22nd of February 
 Lord O'Hagan retired from the Court of Chancery. Mr. Ball, 
 one of Her Majesty's counsel and Member of Parliament for 
 the University of Dublin, was appointed Attorney- General for 
 Ireland by the new Premier, Mr. Disraeli ; but a difficulty 
 arose as to the selection of a Chancellor. Mr. Ball was offered 
 and accepted the post, but as his assistance was then required in 
 the House of Commons, the government resolved to postpone 
 making the appointment until his services could with more ease 
 be dispensed with in the House. In the meantime the Great 
 Seal was put in commission, and Sir Joseph Napier, Mr. Justice 
 Lawson and Master Brooke were chosen as Commissioners, with 
 Mr. William J. Napier as secretary. Sir Joseph was Chief 
 Commissioner. The amount of labour now done by him was 
 marvellous. In addition to his duties in the Court of Chancery, 
 he was assessor to the General Synod of the Church of Ireland, 
 and was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dublin. In this 
 latter capacity he presided at a meeting of the Senate held in 
 the Examination Hall of Trinity College, on Saturday the 25th 
 of April, for the purpose of considering a proposed change in 
 the governing body of the College. Meanwhile the business of 
 the court was apportioned between the three Commissioners: 
 Sir Joseph Napier and Mr. Justice Lawson heard causes, and 
 Mr. Justice Lawson and Master Brooke heard the petitions 
 moved, according to custom, on Saturdays, while the Court of 
 Appeal was filled by the Chief Commissioner, Mr. Justice 
 Lawson and the Lord Justice of Appeal. On Friday the 27th 
 of November, 1874, Sir Joseph Napier presided for the last 
 time in the Court of Chancery; for on that day his son, Mr. 
 William J. Napier, a most efficient and esteemed officer of the 
 
DEATH OF HIS SON. 305 
 
 court, had been seized with his death-sickness, his afflicted 
 father was, in consequence thereof, unable to return to his 
 duties. He had been invited to a banquet to be given on the 
 following Tuesday to Her Majesty's judges by the Lord Mayor 
 of Dublin, but the invitation he declined ; and on that night 
 he was sitting by the bed of his dying son, while his brother- 
 in-law, the late Chief Justice "Whiteside, was responding to the 
 toast of " Her Majesty's Judges," and modestly declaiming on 
 the glories of the bench. He spoke de omnibus rebus, and on 
 the " headless Court of Chancery," in allusion to the fact that 
 that court was then without a Chancellor. The phrase was am- 
 biguous, and the ambiguity was patent. 
 
 On the 22nd December, 1874, Mr. Justice Lawson, one of 
 the Lords Commissioners for the custody of the Great Seal, and 
 Lord Justice Christian, sat in the Court of Appeal in Chancery, 
 there to deliver judgment in the last case in their lordships' 
 list. It was the case of Mulholland and others v. Killeen and 
 others, which was an appeal from a decretal order of the Vice- 
 Chancellor, allowing the prayer of the plaintiffs' bill, which 
 prayed for an injunction to restrain the defendants, farmers 
 residing on the sea-coast, at Bellaghan, in the county of Louth, 
 " from taking sea- weed from that portion of the sea-shore, same 
 being a mile and a-half in length, that was between high water 
 and low water- mark, from a point marked B on the Ordnance 
 map on the north, to another point W on the south, by 
 a mile in breadth, and being a portion of what had been 
 the estate of the Marquis of Anglesey, and which was set up and 
 sold in the late Incumbered Estates Court, and under the con- 
 veyance from that Court the plaintiff (Mulholland) claimed to be 
 owner of the foreshore in question, and entitled to all the sea- 
 weed drifted or growing upon it. He insisted on this as his 
 right, but it was held not to be included in the conveyance from 
 the Incumbered Estates Court. Plaintiff then obtained from 
 the trustees of the Marquis of Anglesey's estate a conveyance of 
 whatever right the Marquis had over the property in question. 
 Relying upon this conveyance, he afterwards brought an action 
 against Killeen, who had taken seaweed from the place without 
 his leave, and obtained a verdict. The defendant and others, 
 farmers near Bellaghan, insisted that by immemorial custom 
 they had a right to the seaweed, and that the foreshore was not 
 the property of the plaintiff, but that of the Crown. Numerous 
 affidavits were filed on both sides as to the usage of the tenants 
 in taking seaweed as a matter of right, and, as to a custom 
 existing on the estate of the late Marquis of Anglesey, of 
 giving licenses to tenants, on the payment of certain rents, 
 to take seaweed from the place." The Vice-Chancellor having 
 granted the required injunction, the defendants appealed. 
 
306 ' SIR JOSEPH NAPIER. 
 
 Lord Commissioner Lawson read the judgment of Lord. 
 Commissioner Sir Joseph Napier, in which he (Lord Commis- 
 sioner Lawson) concurred, affirming the decision of the Vice- 
 Chancellor, and dismissing the appeal. 
 
 Lord Justice Christian had some doubt whether the plain- 
 tiffs had sufficiently established at law their ownership of the 
 sea-shore in question, so as to warrant the Court of Chancery in 
 granting the prayer of a bill of peace, and thereby quieting the 
 plaintiffs for ever in the possession of the shore, and excluding 
 therefrom all the rest of the public. His lordship then paid this 
 parting tribute to the Commissioners, the chief of whom was Sir 
 Joseph Napier: — "I have thus tried to make intelligible the 
 considerations which, I must confess, have left me full of mis- 
 givings as to the soundness of this claim, though it has met with 
 the approval of both the Lords Commissioners. Then the ques- 
 tion presents itself — which is, under the circumstances, of little 
 or no consequence to anyone but myself — what course ought I 
 to take ? If I were sitting alone, and were hearing this case in 
 the first instance, I believe that I should send it to a trial at 
 law. But I am not hearing it in the first instance, and I am 
 not sitting alone. I have the advantage of being associated 
 with colleagues whose judgment, whose knowledge, whose con- 
 versance with the affairs of this court, and exclusive devotion of 
 their time to them, I can hold in that respect that, as when I 
 find them agreeing with me I am encouraged ; so when I find 
 them differing from me, I am instantly held in check. The latter 
 is precisely the position in which I find myself at this moment, 
 and which I have found myself in since the commencement of 
 the present admirable constitution of this court, I say advisedly 
 — and I am happy to take this, the last, opportunity of saying 
 it — the present admirable constitution of this court — headless 
 though it be — a headless institution — as, with exquisite appro- 
 priateness of time, and place, and circumstances, it has been 
 lately called by one who seldom stops to measure his phrases by 
 his knowledge of whatever subject he may take a fancy, to 
 declaim about. I have great pleasure in informing that very 
 eminent legal personage, as he has been good enough to concern 
 himself about us, that the Court of Chancery in Ireland is now, 
 and has been for the last nine months of this year, under very 
 excellent headship and leadership indeed — and in particular as 
 to this its upper branch, of which I can speak with some know- 
 ledge—this, the Court of Appeal in Ch'ancery — this, let me 
 remind our censor, the first and most exalted, without a single 
 exception, among all the courts within this realm, whether of 
 law or of equity, as the court must needs be which hears appeals 
 from the court of the Lord Chancellor himself, when we have 
 the felicity to possess one— that never since it was founded has 
 
ABKAIIAM BREWSTER. 307 
 
 it teen better headed, better guided, better led, smoother in 
 working, more harmonious in mutual help and co-operation, 
 more efficient in every way for transacting the public business 
 than it has been during the last three terms of the present 
 year." 
 
 The Queen's Letter appointing the Eight Hon. John Thomas 
 Ball Lord High Chancellor of Ireland arrived in Dublin on 
 Saturday the 26th of December, and on the following Tuesday 
 he was sworn into office by Sir Joseph Napier, who, on Friday 
 the 1st of January, 1875, with the other commissioners, waited 
 on the Lord Lieutenant at the Yiceregal Lodge, and there 
 delivered the Seals of their high office to his Excellency. With 
 this last public act we shall conclude our memoir ; and we have 
 perhaps to offer some apology to the Eight Honourable and 
 learned baronet of whom we have written so much, and who 
 would doubtless prefer to leave his memoir to be written by an- 
 other and an abler hand in a day as yet, we trust, far distant, 
 when he shall himself have gone to his rest : but then it is the 
 fate of the learned and the upright, that their sayings and their 
 doings, even in their own lifetime, shall be chronicled, so that 
 others may follow in their footsteps. 
 
 117. A. D. 1867. — Abraham Brewster. The Brewsters 
 <?ame for the first time to this country during the protectorate of 
 Oliver Cromwell. Sir Francis Brewster was, after the Eestoration 
 of Charles II., associated with the Earl of Drogheda and others, 
 as a commissioner to take an account of the forfeited estates. 
 Another branch of the family settled about the same time in the 
 county of Wicklow, and of this branch was Samuel Brewster, 
 of Ballywilliam-Eoe, in the county of Carlow, whose son, Wil- 
 liam Bagenal Brewster, of Bullymutra, county of Wicklow, 
 was married to JIary, daughter of Thomas Bates, Esq., and was 
 father of Abraham Brewster, the subject of this memoir, who 
 was born in the year 1796. 
 
 Mr. Brewster entered the University of Dublin in 1812, and 
 regularly, as it appears by the college books, kept his terms 
 until he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts at the Spring com- 
 mencements of 1817. In his college course he, like many other 
 able men, was undistinguished, and gave no hopes of his future 
 success. In 1819 he was called to the bar, and having chosen 
 '■ theLeinster" for his circuit, soon acquired the reputation of a 
 sound lawyer, an able cross-examiner, and a powerful speaker. 
 His business slowly but steadily increased. Though taking his 
 place amongst the Conservative lawyers, it was by Lord Plunket 
 he was honoured with a silk gown in 1835, and his practice then 
 increased enormously. The change of ministry, which brought 
 
 ,\2 
 
308 ABRAHAM BREWSTER, 
 
 in 1841 Earl de Grey to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, brought 
 the Conservative lawyers again into high places. Mr. Black- 
 burne as Attorney- General was consulted as to who should be- 
 the new law adviser, and he named Mr. Brewster, who was then 
 on the continent, at the same time " doubting whether the sacri- 
 fices which the acceptance of such an office involved might not 
 induce him to decline it." On the day on which he recom- 
 mended Mr. Brewster he wrote letters to the Lord Chancellor 
 (Sir Edward Sugden) and to Mr. Brewster on this subject, and 
 the following is the Chancellor's reply : — 
 
 " House or Commons, Monday. 
 
 " My dear Blackburne, — I entirely approve of Mr. Brew- 
 ster's nomination. I am still here, as the proper steps have not 
 yet been completed to place me in the office of Chancellor of 
 Ireland. I wish you would be so good as to let me know when 
 my patent is completed. I think I shall go over for a short 
 time as soon as I can. 
 
 " In haste, 
 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 " Edward B. Sugden." 
 
 When the appointment of Mr. Brewster became known r 
 O'Connellwas loud in his denunciations. Charges of Orangeism 
 and extreme party feeling and prejudice were made, and as 
 these were believed in England, the government took the 
 alarm, and Sir James Graham, on the 23rd of September, wrote 
 to the Attorney-General, " that the selection of legal adviser at 
 the Castle should be suspended " until they could have an op- 
 portunity of consulting with the Lord Lieutenant. Mr. O'Con- 
 nell persisting in his denunciations, the government desired to 
 cancel the nomination, but this the Attorney-General vigorously 
 resisted, and intimated to the Lord Chancellor that he would not 
 tolerate so gross an insult to Mr. Brewster. At length on the 
 10th of October the appointment was made, though the mem- 
 bers of the government were by no means at rest on the sub- 
 ject. 1 
 
 In the case of The Queen v. Daniel O'Connell and others, in 
 1844, Mr. Brewster was associated with the able lawyers that 
 appeared for the Crown. On him, however, little of the labour 
 was cast, inasmuch as the statement of the case and the reply 
 were made by the Attorney- and Solicitor- General. 
 
 From his appointment to the law advisership down to the 
 
 1 Life of Francis Blackburne, by his Son, pp. '208-215. 
 
ATTORXEY-GEXERAI.. 309 
 
 •early part of the year 1846 he was, though in enormous private 
 practice, assiduous in his duties at the Castle ; nevertheless he 
 was not appointed Solicitor-General until the eve of the retire- 
 ment of Sir Robert Peel in the last-named year. This promo- 
 tion was due, it was said, to the influence of Sir James Graham, 
 then Home Secretary; and when Sir James took his place in the 
 Aberdeen cabinet of 28th of December, 1852, Mr. Brewster be- 
 came Attorney-General. 
 
 The anti-Catholic movement in England in 1852, conse- 
 quent on " the papal aggression," was followed by a movement 
 in the opposite direction in this country, and several mem- 
 bers of ultramontane principles were returned to parliament 
 from Ireland, at the general election of that memorable year ; 
 and it was not without a struggle, sometimes to the death, that 
 the Catholic party carried the day. The Six-mile-bridge tra- 
 gedy is an instance of the horrors that prevailed at that 
 blood-stained election. A military escort consisting of two 
 officers, two Serjeants, and forty men, were called upon to act 
 -as a safeguard for some voters who were going to the hustings 
 at Sis-mile-bridge, when the soldiers fired on an angry but 
 unoffending people, many of whom lost their lives in the affray. 
 An inquest was held on the bodies, and a verdict of wilful 
 murder was found against the magistrate in command, and 
 soldiers. At the Clare assizes for 1853 the grand jury threw 
 out the bills, and the Attorney- General then put the prisoners 
 on their trial on the coroner's inquisition, when they were all 
 acquitted. 
 
 The Coalition ministry was strong in parliamentary in- 
 fluence, but the coalition was in name only. It was practically 
 a ministry of suspended opinions and smothered antipathies. 
 Formed in times of peace, for the purpose of peace, the ministers 
 were unexpectedly called upon to undertake the duties of the 
 Russian war, for which subsequent events showed them wholly 
 inefficient. The horrible state of the army in the Crimea had 
 oxcited to the highest pitch the indignation of the public and of 
 the House of Commons, who, by the overwhelming majority of 
 157, in a House numbering 453, condemned the government to 
 -an ignominious end. On the 1st of February, 1855, the Earl of 
 Aberdeen in the Lords, and Lord Palmerston in the Commons, 
 formally announced that ministers had placed their resignation 
 in Her Majesty's hands. On the 16th of February the ministry 
 was reconstructed, the tory element having been eliminated, 
 Lord Palmerston taking the place of Lord Aberdeen as Premier. 
 Am ongst those who retired was Sir James Graham. Mr. Brew- 
 ster, on his party going out of the cabinet, conceived that he 
 was bound in honour also to resign, and he was succeeded by 
 
310 ABRAHAM BREWSTER. 
 
 the Solicitor- General (Mr. Keogh) as Attorney-General for Ire- 
 land. 
 
 Mr. Brewster, from his resignation in 1855 to the return of 
 the Conservatives in 1866, was entirely devoted to his profes- 
 sion. A powerful cross-examiner, an able advocate, he lived 
 for his clients, and knew no other interest than theirs — and their 
 name was legion ! As an equity lawyer he was great, few to 
 equal and none to surpass him. In the criminal law he was 
 equally well read, and equally powerful. "With a stentorian 
 voice, he adopted in the cross-examination of witnesses the rules- 
 of the Eoman lawyer Quintillian, " leading the unwary into a. 
 trap, deceiving the foolish, flattering the vain, stupifying the 
 stupid, thundering at the cunning, and terrifying the perjurer." 
 He was a moderate politician, but his political views were never- 
 propounded on the platform, nor did he write in the press ; and 
 his conversations on political subjects, and his silent votes at an 
 election of a member of Parliament, were the only means by which 
 men would know on which side his political leanings were. It 
 is remarkable that this great lawyer and powerful though un- 
 oratorical speaker, engaged in every ease of magnitude that was 
 at trial for forty years, has left behind him no wonderful speech 
 and no singular effort of statesmanship, and no legislation is 
 identified with his name. As a real-property lawyer his opinion 
 was taken in every case of difficulty, and no man at the Irish 
 bar had such extensive chamber practice. Engaged as special 
 counsel at every assizes, he was omnipresent during the circuits. 
 In Cork, Deny, Galway, and Wicklow, he might be retained ;. 
 and he so managed his cases as to be, even before the days of 
 railroads and telegraphs, at each town in time for the case, which 
 was generally fixed by the Judges for his convenience. 
 
 Mr. Brewster's reputation may be gathered in the pages of the- 
 Irish Laic and Equity Reports, and in the later series of Irish 
 Common Law Reports, Irish Chancery Reports, and in The Irish 
 Jurist, in all of which his name so largely figures. Of course it 
 is impossible, according to the fashion of modern times, to report 
 the temper of the lawyer or of the judge. We have heard of 
 judges who, like ordinary mortals, have from time to time lost 
 their tempers; but no reporter would think of jotting down 
 heated exclamations such as the reporters did in the reign of 
 Henry V. There was then a Mr. Justice Hall, and the ques- 
 tion that arose before him was, could the plaintiff recover da- 
 mages from the defendant in an action brought to restrain the 
 latter from following the trade of a dyer. Mr. Justice Hall 
 having heard the case, says in his brief judgment :— " The 
 plaintiff sues on a bond to restrain the following of a lawful 
 trade ; that bond is against the common law, and, by God ! if 
 
THE MOTJNTGARRETT CASK. 311 
 
 the plaintiff were here he should go to prison until he paid a 
 fine to the king." 1 And thus it is, that whilst the irritable 
 temper of Judge Hall, living 460 j'ears ago, is chronicled, the 
 irritable temper of Brewster on the bench is not recorded by the 
 reporters living in our day. 
 
 Amid the important eases in which Mr. Brewster was em- 
 ployed may be mentioned the Mountgarrett case, involving 
 great issues — a peerage and an estate of £10,000 a-year. It 
 was tried in 1854 at the assizes for Kilkenny, the case turning 
 on the validity of a Scotch marriage. 
 
 A Colonel Colebrooke died, leaving a widow with £1500 
 a-year, which she was to lose if she married again. Henry 
 Butler, the third son of the eleventh Viscount Mountgarrett, 
 met the lady in society, and a connexion ensued, resulting in 
 the birth of a child in 1809. 3 
 
 They proceeded to Edinburgh, where she met another Irish 
 gentleman of the name of Taaffe, who supplanted Butler for a 
 time in the lady's regards. Butler separated from her, but her 
 money being an object to the gallant gentleman, he affected in- 
 dignation at her conduct, and, alleging she was his wife, returned 
 to Edinburgh, his object being to procure such a marriage as 
 would enable him to proclaim Mrs. Colebrooke his wife when- 
 ever it might suit him ; he was, in fact, living on her income. • 
 When Butler arrived in Edinburgh, he forced his way into her 
 house, called her his wife and the mother of his child, and 
 created a great disturbance. 
 
 At the inconvenient hour of his calling, a Mr. Taaffe was in 
 Mrs. Colebrooke's bedroom, and she, in order to prevent a row 
 and an inevitable duel, locked Taaffe up in her room, and brought 
 Butler into another room. Butler then insisted on their being 
 then and there married, and she, summoning her man and maid 
 servants, and a third person, told them Mr. Butler wished to be 
 married to her, and they were required to witness the marriage. 
 A written contract was then entered into and signed, and by the 
 Scotch law they were actually married. They afterwards lived 
 as man and wife, but Butler deserted her, when she again re- 
 turned to Taaffe. 
 
 Butler was afterwards introduced to a Miss Harrison, a 
 Yorkshire lady, with whom, in the parish church of Harrogate, 
 he contracted marriage. The defendant in the case was the 
 eldest son of this marriage. The question therefore was, whether 
 the Scotch marriage with Mrs. Colebropke were valid ; for, if so, 
 this son was illegitimate, and so the plaintiff in the action, being 
 
 1 This ancient case is mentioned in the Ipswich Tailors' case, 6 Coke's 
 Hep., part xi., p. 53. 
 
 2 from the Dublin University Magazine, 1874, p. 655. 
 
312 ABRAHAM BREWSTER 
 
 the eldest son of the fourth son of the eleventh Yiscount Mount- 
 garrett, would be entitled to the property and title. 
 
 Mrs. Colebrooke was, after the alleged marriage with Butler, 
 married by a "Roman Catholic priest in Lancashire to Taaffe ; 
 but he, finding amid her papers some document stating she and 
 Butler had been married, at once separated from her. She en- 
 deavoured to validate the marriage with Taaffe, but failed, as she 
 was a professing Protestant and Taaffe was a Itoman Catholic. 
 
 The jury at the first trial found for the plaintiff, but on a 
 second trial the defendant succeeded, and his title was after- . 
 wards confirmed by the House of Lords. Mr. Brewster, who 
 had the responsibility of this case thrown upon him, was aided, 
 however, by the great oratorical powers of Mr. Whiteside, who 
 was retained on the same side. 
 
 Another case of note, by reason of the position of the parties, 
 in which Mr. Brewster, as Attorney-General, conducted the 
 prosecution, was the " Carden abduction," tried at the Clonmel 
 assizes, in July, 1854. This was the case of a gentleman of 
 fortune and family in the county of Tipperary attempting to 
 carry off by violence Miss Arbuthnot, whose sister was married 
 to Lord Gough. It was a most audacious effort, and failed, 
 owing to the courage of a lady who at the time was in company 
 with Miss Arbuthnot. They were returning from church in 
 broad daylight, when their horses were stopped and the traces 
 of their carriage cut, and the high-miuded Tipperary gentleman 
 attempted by force to seize and drag from her carriage the lady 
 he professed to admire. She was happily rescued, and for this 
 gross outrage he was tried and sentenced to two years' imprison- 
 ment with hard labour. 
 
 The Yelverton case, involving the validity of both a Scotch 
 and Irish marriage, was also entrusted by Major Yelverton, 
 the defendant, to Mr. Brewster's management ; and though he 
 failed in essentially shaking the testimony of the lady, on whose 
 evidence the plaintiff's case rested, after a cross-examination of 
 nearly two days, the power and force of that cross-questioning 
 cannot readily be forgotten. And to show how varied the bu- 
 siness and the cases in which Mr. Brewster was engaged, we 
 may cite the Egmont case, in which the issue was whether a cer- 
 tain instrument was the last will and testament of Henry Earl of 
 Egmont ? _ This involved all the issues suggestible on a charge 
 of undue influence, and was ultimately compromised by the 
 Earl of Egmont paying Sir W. Dayrell, the plaintiff in the 
 issue, £127,000, and the plaintiff surrendering to the earl the 
 estates devised by the will. 
 
 Mr. Brewster was counsel also for Lord Templemore, in an 
 action of ejectment, instituted by the Marquis of Donegal, to 
 recover a line of quayage in the town of Belfast, of enormous 
 
RETIRES FROM THE CHANCELLORSHIP. 313 
 
 •value ; and this contention ultimately, after ten or twelve trials 
 *t Nisi Prius, was, on appeal to the House of Lords, com- 
 promised. 
 
 The last of the great causes in. which he was engaged was 
 that of Fitzgerald r. Fitzgerald, tried in the Probate Court, on 
 an issue as to the validity of a will, involving a rental of some 
 thousands a-year, where the evidence was so varied, and the 
 witnesses so numerous, that the trial lasted for three weeks. Mr. 
 Brewster's statement for the plaintiff is said to have been one 
 of his most successful efforts. 
 
 On Lord Derby's becoming Prime Minister in 1866, Mr. 
 Blackburne vacated, as we have said, the office of Lord Justice 
 ■of Appeal, and Mr. Brewster succeeded to the vacant seat ; and 
 thus, after forty-seven years' practice, one of the most distin- 
 guished members of the bar was raised to the bench. 
 
 In the month of March, 1867, Mr. Blackburne resigned the 
 Seals, and the Lord Justice of Appeal became Lord Chancellor. 
 The result of the general elections of 1868 was soon apparent, 
 as return after return became known. Mr. Disraeli, then 
 Prime Minister, convinced that the decision of the constituencies 
 was such as to preclude all prospect of the Conservative party 
 remaining in power, at once placed his resignation and that of 
 his cabinet in the hands of Her Majesty ; and as Parliament was 
 not sitting at the time, the resolution of Mr. Disraeli was com- 
 municated by a circular to the supporters of the government. 
 
 On the 17th of December Mr. Brewster sat for the last time 
 in Court as Lord Chancellor of Ireland. As the hour for part- 
 ing approached, every avenue to the Court became thronged. 
 The last case on the list being disposed of, the Attorney-General 
 (the Bight Hon. John Thomas Ball) rose, and thus, in eloquent 
 ■words, addressed the retiring Chancellor : — ' 
 
 " My Lord,. — "We are informed that it is not your lordship's 
 intention to sit again in this Court ; and therefore I, on behalf 
 of the bar, and at their request, take the opportunity to acknow- 
 ledge the courtesy and kindness which we have all experienced 
 from your lordship on all occasions. We have also to express 
 our respect and admiration for the unwearied attention, the 
 great learning and capacity, that has ever characterised the 
 discharge of the duties of your high office. Your elevation to 
 that office, after a life of pre-eminent professional distinction, 
 was an object of gratification to us all ; and now, on your lord- 
 ship's retirement, consequent on political changes, I have to 
 oonvey to you the warmest wishes of the bar for your happiness 
 and welfare." 
 
 1 Vide Irish Times, 18th December, 1S68. 
 
314- lord o'hagax. 
 
 The Lord Chancellor, who was no orator, thus in disjointed 
 sentences replied : — 
 
 " Gentlemen, — The few words I have to say are meant for 
 all of you. I have always found it the most disagreeable thing 
 in the world to say farewell. No man ever came to the Irish 
 bar who owes more to the whole body than I do, because from 
 the day I was called — from that day to the day I, ascended the 
 bench — I never met anything but the most uniform kindness- 
 from every individual member of that body ; and a great deal 
 more, when I was young I never wanted assistance that I did 
 not find the hand stretched to assist me. When I became a 
 leader at the bar, I found from the juniors such assistance as- 
 made my labours comparatively light ; for I am bound to say 
 that during the twenty or thirty years that I practised in this 
 court, I never came into it as an advocate without having placed 
 before me every assistance from my junior; and when I came- 
 bere as Chancellor, I looked back on those kindnesses with gra- 
 titude — I remember with gratitude that kindness — and now I 
 wish you all good-bye ! " 
 
 He then left the bench, and ceased to have connexion with 
 public life. Whether his j udicial career was in keeping with 
 his previous reputation it is for those who practised before- 
 him to say. There are not in print more than three or four 
 judgments delivered by him either in the Appellate Court or the 
 Court of Chancery. He died at his residence in Merrion-square; 
 Dublin, on the 26th of July, 1874. By his wife Mary, daughter 
 of P. Gray, of Upton, in the county of Carlow, he had issue, 
 one son, Colonel Brewster, and one daughter, Mrs. French, both 
 of whom died in his lifetime. 
 
 118. A.D. 1868.— Lord O'Hagan. The name of O'Hagan 
 
 is so old that its early origin is lost in fable. When the O'Neils- 
 reigned sovereigns oi' Ulster, the chief of the sept of O'Hagan 
 was chief Brehon, or chief judge of that kingly race, and we 
 have it on the authority of Donald O'Neal, who in his cele- 
 brated letter to Pope John XXII. in 1329, styles himself 
 "King of Ulster and true heir of the whole dominion of 
 Ireland," that from the time of St. Patrick in 440 to the land- 
 ing of Henry II. in 1171, through a period of 731 years, "sixty 
 monarchs of the same princely family had swayed the Hiber- 
 nian sceptre." This would give an average duration of a little- 
 more than twelve years to the reign of each sovereign. He 
 also states that previously to the coming of St. Patrick, one 
 hundred and thirty of his ancestors had been Kings of Ireland. 
 If we allow to each reign a similar average duration, then the 
 
THE RIGHT HOX. LORD U'HAGAN. 
 
TULLAGHOGUE. 315- 
 
 O'Neils 1 would have been on the throne 1560 years before the 
 tune of St. Patrick, or 1120 years before Christ, and the 
 O'Hagan as chief Brehon may have judged the people in 
 Ulster when Samson was yet one of the Judges of Israel. The 
 inauguration of the O'Neils was a solemn ceremony performed 
 at a short distance from the western shores of Lough Neagh, and 
 within the fortress of Tullaghogue, where the chief Brehon 
 O'Hagan dwelt. A remarkable feature in this ceremonial was 
 •' the casting of the shoe," which was evidently an eastern cus- 
 tom, and was done after this manner: — When all things were 
 ready, the representative of the people who was chief of the 
 O'Cahans took the' golden shoe from off his foot, and flung it 
 over the head of the O'Neil, then seated on the coronation 
 >tone._ The O'Hagan, as cliief Brehon, took up the shoe, and 
 kneeling, fastened it on his sovereign's foot, and this was a 
 testimony of their allegiance made by the people through their 
 representative. 
 
 That the ceremony of casting the shoe was common amongst 
 the Jews, appears from the 4th chapter of the Book of Buth, 
 verse 7, where it is said : " now this in former times was the 
 manner in Israel between kinsmen, that if at any time one 
 yielded his right to another, that the grant might be sure, the 
 man put off his shoe, and gave it to his neighbour ; this was 
 a testimony of cession of right in Israel." 
 
 After the coronation, the O'Neil, who was presented with the- 
 white rod, which symbolized at once the authority, the purity 
 and the justice with which he promised to wield the sceptre, 
 took up his residence in his palace at Dungannon, while the 
 O'Hagan continued to reside in his princely residence within 
 the fortress of Tullaghogue. Of the palace of Tullaghogue 
 all that now remains is a large number of unhewn blocks of 
 limestone scattered around — 
 
 ' ' Remnants of things that have passed away, 
 Fragments of stone, reared by creatures of clay." 
 
 1 In an Irish poem, of great antiquity, entitled Duan Erranach, it is 
 stated that Juul (hence O'Xeil) was the son of Fcnius the ancestor of the 
 early Fenians, that this Niul was married to a daughter of Pharoah, named 
 .Scota, from whom the " Scots " derive their name, and that one of the sons 
 of that marriage was Gael, from whom the Gauls, &c, are descended, and 
 after whom they are called ; that when Pharoah's host was swallowed up in 
 the Red Sea (a. c. 1491), the Fenians left Egypt, and after centuries of 
 wanderings settled in Spain, and from that country colonized Ireland. 
 The poem of which we speak is copiously annotated by the late Eev. James 
 Henthorn Todd, D.D., Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and pub- 
 lished by the Irish Archaeological Society in Ncnnius. On this subject of 
 the descent of the Irish race, see an Act passed in the 1st of Elizabeth, for the 
 attainder of O'Neil, Irish Statutes, vol. 1. where " Her Majesty is advertized 
 that afore the coming of the Irishmen into Ireland they were dwelling in a 
 province in Spain." 
 
-316 lord o'hagan, 
 
 The O'Hagans were also chief constables of the castle of 
 Dungannon, and many of them were men of distinction in 
 their day. Thus when O'Neil invited James VI. of Scotland 
 to ascend the throne of this country, it was his secretary 
 O'Hagan that was despatched on that fruitless mission to 
 Holyrood. Again, when Hugh O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone, fled 
 from his native country in 1607, he was accompanied by his 
 secretary John Punty O'Hagan; and in the next generation 
 we find the O'Hagans ranged under the standard of Owen 
 Eoe O'Neil, and fighting against the regicide Cromwell. In 
 the reign of James II. there were in Colonel Charles O'Neil's 
 regiment seven officers of the O'Hagans — Captains Arthur, 
 Charles, and Daniel O'Hagan ; and Lieutenants John, Michael, 
 Oliver, and Peter O'Hagan. We also find that Arthur and John 
 •O'Hagan were commissioners under James II. for the applot- 
 ment of taxes on property in the county and city of Derry. 
 
 The O'Hagans were protectors of many religious houses in 
 the North of Ireland. The monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul, 
 founded by St. Patrick, in the primatial city of Armagh, for the 
 canons regular of St. Augustin, was rebuilt by Imar O'Hagan, 
 and became one of the most celebrated of the religious establish- 
 ments that existed there. The O'Hagans had also founded in 
 the neighbourhood of Tullahoghue the priory of Donarick, where 
 they are interred. Pound this spot gather the memories of the 
 past, of the old times when 
 
 ' ' A strong chief ruled over Tullahogue, 
 O'Hagan the lord of fair avenues" ! ' 
 
 In the latter end of the last century and in the beginning of 
 this, there lived at Belfast an O'Hagan whose Christian-name 
 was Edward, and who by his wife, a daughter of Captain Thomas 
 Bell, was father of Thomas O'Hagan whose memoir we are 
 now writing. He was born in 1812, and received his early edu- 
 cation at the Belfast institution. 
 
 While pursuing his academical course he became a member 
 and ultimately president of the Belfast Historical Society, which 
 at that time rivalled in talent and fame its Dublin namesake. 
 Even at that early age his genius for oratory displayed itself, 
 and his reputation as a speaker was established in Ulster while 
 he was yet a student. He prepared himself for the bar with 
 great assiduity, and in London studied in the chambers of the 
 well-known common law pleader, Thomas Chitty, among whose 
 pupils Lord Cairns, Lord Chancellor Napier, Lord Chief Justice 
 Whiteside, and other distinguished men were numbered. 
 
 In Hilary Term, 1836, he was called to the bar, and joined 
 
 1 Topographical poem on Ulster — Connellan's Annals of the Four Masters, 
 p. 601, n. 
 
COUNSEL FOlt O'COXNELL. 317 
 
 the north-east circmit, -where he rose rapidly into reputation and 
 practice. His early successes, like those of most young lawyers, 
 were won in the defence of prisoners. The first case which 
 brought him conspicuously before the public outside of his own 
 province was a criminal prosecution instituted in the year 1842 
 against Mr. Duffy (now Sir Charles Gavan Duffy), the editor 
 of the Belfast Vindicator. Some men had been tried, convicted, 
 and executed in Armagh for an agrarian murder. They may 
 have been guilty, but their jury had been duly packed accord- 
 ing to the old system in Ireland, not one Catholic being per- 
 mitted to serve upon it. Against this unfairness Mr. Daffy 
 protested in language indignant as it was just, and he was 
 answered by a criminal information. His counsel were Mr. 
 O'Connell, Mr. O'Hagan, and the late lamented Sir Colman 
 O'Loghlen, then hardly a year at the bar. Mr. O'Connell was 
 unexpectedly detained in London, and the speech for the tra- 
 verser fell to Mr. O'Hagan. His defence was so masterly, that 
 it called down the warm applauses of the Attorney-General 
 (Blackburne) , who prosecuted, and of the Chief Justice (Penne- 
 father), who tried the case. It at once acquired for the young 
 lawyer the reputation of an advocate of the highest order. 
 
 In 1844 he formed one of the band of the foremost lawyers 
 at the bar to whom the defence of O'Connell and his fellow- 
 traversers was entrusted. In the report of that case we find 
 that several of the most important law arguments were entrusted 
 to him ; and his speech for Mr. Duffy, on the motion for a new 
 trial, was recognised as amongst the most telling and effective 
 of the pleadings against the unfairness and irregularity which 
 marked the trial. In the year 1849 he received a silk gown, 
 and very soon took his place in the foremost rank of the common 
 law bar. 
 
 The question of the better treatment of criminals engaged 
 much of the attention of Mr. O'Hagan. When appointed in 
 1847 to the important office of assistant-barrister for the county 
 of Longford, he worked energetically to bring this matter under 
 the attention of the authorities, and his exertions on behalf of 
 the most neglected of the community are worthy of the highest 
 praise and of gratitude. Sincere and earnest in his devotion to 
 the faith of his fathers, he took a leading part in organizing an 
 opposition to the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, and to the proposed 
 legislation concerning convents, in 1852. 
 
 About this time active exertions were made by those who 
 conscientiously believed in the truth of their own doctrines to 
 win converts from the Church of Eome. A second reformation 
 was believed to be at hand, and schools and soup kitchens in aid 
 of this work were freely opened throughout the country. In Dub- 
 lin and the surrounding districts the work of "evangelisation " 
 
'318 lord o'hagan. 
 
 went on, increasing as it went in strength, viresque acquirit eundo. 
 The doctrines of the reformers were brought before the people 
 in every possible manner. Scripture readers, preachers, tract 
 distributors, and converts, were to be met with in all directions. 
 To counteract this movement the clergy of the Church of Rome 
 went into the work with all their energies, and missions were 
 opened with this view in various places. Amongst other missions 
 one was conducted by Father Petcherine, of the Order of Ee- 
 demptorists in the Catholic Church of Kingstown, in the year 
 1855. Multitudes flocked to those special services, and at their 
 termination many books, which were denounced from the altar, 
 were brought into the chapel-yard and there publicly burnt. 
 In the burning pile was observed a book which was sworn to 
 be the authorised version of the Holy Scriptures, but how it 
 got into the burning mass was not accounted for. Informa- 
 tions were immediately sworn against Father Petcherine for a 
 misdemeanour at common law, and "the Bible-burning case," 
 as it was called, was sent for trial at the December commission 
 in Green-street. The Attorney- General (Mr. Keogh) appeared 
 to prosecute for the Crown, and Mr. O'Hagan conducted the 
 defence. His speech on that occasion was, we are told by the 
 newspapers of the day, "a masterpiece of learning, ability, and 
 eloquence." From the opening to the close of the case, there 
 was no evidence to connect the rev. defendant with the charge 
 which Mr. O'Hagan indignantly denied. He repelled the false 
 accusation that the Catholic Church was the enemy of the 
 Bible. 
 
 " I am not ignorant," he said, " that at the very threshold 
 of the argument, I have to encounter a deep and wide-spread 
 prejudice, calculated to warp the judgments and cloud the un- 
 derstandings of the most honest men. It is believed by multi- 
 tudes in these countries that the Catholic Church is the enemy 
 of the Holy Bible — that she fears and hates its divine teachings, 
 and would utterly destroy it if she could. This belief has been 
 sedulously circulated, sometimes through ignorance, and some- 
 times through fanaticism — fostered by the teachings of an anti- 
 Catholic literature — enforced from the Protestant pulpit and by 
 the Protestant press, and entertained, with unquestioning assur- 
 ance, by crowds of the simple Protestant people. But is it 
 founded on the evidence of facts ? And can you safely base 
 on it an assumption of the antecedent likelihood of my client's 
 guilt — Catholic as he is, priest as he is, and clinging to his 
 faith with all the power of his intellect, and all the devotion 
 of his heart ? The question affects deeply the entire discussion 
 of the case : — and I answer to it boldly that the belief is ground- 
 less — that it falsifies the truth of history, and all the traditions 
 of the Christian world. 
 
SPEECH IN FATHER PETCHERIXe's CASE. 319 
 
 " The Catholic Church is not the enemy of the Bible. She 
 lias been the gaurdian of its purity and the preserver of its ex- 
 istence through the chances and changes of eighteen hundred 
 years. In the gloom of the catacombs, and the splendour of the 
 basilica, she cherished that holy book with equal reverence. 
 When the seed of Christianity was sown in the blood of the mar- 
 tyrs, and she braved the persecutions of the despots of the 
 world, — and when those despots bowed before the symbol of re- 
 demption, and she rose from her earthly humbleness and ' reared 
 her mitred head' in courts and palaces, — it was equally the 
 ■object of her unceasing care. She gathered together its scattered 
 fragments, — separated the true word of inspiration from the 
 spurious inventions of presumptuous and deceitful men — made 
 its teachings and its history familiar to her children in her noble 
 liturgy — asserted its divine authority in her councils — main- 
 tained its canonical integrity against all gainsayers, and trans- 
 mitted it from age to age, as the precious inheritance of the 
 Christian people. 
 
 " The saints whom she most venerates were its sagest com- 
 mentators, and of the army of her white-robed martyrs, whom 
 she still commemorates on her festal days, there were many who 
 reached their eternal crowns by refusing, on the rack and in the 
 flames, to desecrate or deny the holy book of God. And when time 
 passed on, and barbarism swept over the earth from its northern 
 fastnesses, and the old civilisation was no more, and rude violence 
 ^,nd savage ignorance threatened to crush for ever the intellect of 
 Europe, the Bible found its shrine in her cathedrals and its sanc- 
 tuary in her cloisters. In their cells and their scriptoria, the monks 
 of old — holy and laborious and unselfish men — men like the 
 monk you see before you, branded as a blasphemer of the reve- 
 lation of his ITaster — laboured by day and by night, and multi- 
 plied copies of the record of that revelation, adorning them with 
 rare illustrations and gorgeous blazonry, and perpetuating and 
 diffusing them throughout the world. The scholars of those 
 -times were adepts in Holy Writ. In the words of the Eev. Mr. 
 Maitland, the late librarian of the Archbishop of Canterbury : 
 ' The writings of the dark ages are made of the Scriptures. . . . 
 The writers thought, and spoke, and wrote the thoughts, and 
 words, and phrases, of the Bible, and did this constantly and 
 habitually, as the natural mode of expressing themselves.' And 
 worldly men in those ancient days vied with the monk and the 
 scholar, if not in knowledge, at least in love and faith ; for we 
 know that gold, and silver, and precious stones, were lavishly 
 bestowed in adorning the sacred volume, and testifying the deep 
 reverence with which it was preserved. And of all that mediae- 
 val time the same learned Protestant declares:— 'I do_ not recol- 
 lect any instance in which it is recorded that the Scriptures, or 
 
320 lord o'hagan. 
 
 any part of them, were treated with indignity, or with lei* 
 than profound respect.' 
 
 " So far, the Catholic Church did not prove herself the enemy 
 of the Bible, when there was unity in Christendom, and none- 
 presumed to check the development of her true policy and the 
 manifestation of her real spirit. She guarded that which, by 
 excellence, she named ' The Book,' through the gloom of igno- 
 rance, the fury of civil strife, the wreck of nations, and the revo- 
 lutions of the world. And so the Bible was preserved, in the- 
 cloister and the school, and by the endless labours of devoted 
 men, until printing came to give wings to thought and universa- 
 lity to knowledge. And how did the Catholic Church then deal 
 with the sacred word ? As if to consecrate the birth of the won- 
 drous art, its earliest employment of importance was devoted to 
 the preparation of editions of the Bible which, to this hour, are- 
 matchless in their splendour, and unequalled in their worth. In 
 the middle of the fifteenth century, the Mazarin Bible com- 
 manded the wondering approval of the learned of Europe, 
 and, at its close, the great Polyglot Bible was devised by the 
 magnificent Ximenes. The presses of Europe teemed with edi- 
 tions of the Scriptures. France, Belgium, Italy, and Spain r 
 were rich in them. Two hundred editions of the Vulgate ap- 
 peared after the invention of printing and before the completion 
 of Luther's Bible, and more than fifty editions in the vernacular 
 tongues of the various nations were circulated during the same- 
 period. Surely these facts — and they are only a very few out 
 of a multitude — demonstrate that the Catholic Church has not 
 been the enemy of the Bible, and has never regarded it with 
 dislike or apprehension." 
 
 The evidence was sufficient to disconnect Father Petche- 
 rine from any knowledge of or participation in this transaction,, 
 and he was acquitted. 
 
 Mr. O'Hagan's fame as an advocate was now world-wide. 
 Wherever the English language was understood, his defence of 
 Father Petcherine was published word for word as it was spoken. 
 In France, in Germany, in Spain, the papers of the day gave 
 faithful translations of this, one of the most remarkable speeches 
 delivered in modern times. In 1857 he was removed from 
 the Chairmanship of the county of Longford to that of the 
 county of Dublin, and his removal called forth the warmest ex- 
 pressions of gratitude from the magistrates of the former county 
 for his manifold labours in the cause of the Reformatory system. 
 
 His speech at the inauguration of Moore's monument excited 
 universal admiration. It was on the 15th of October, 1857, that 
 the ceremony of unveiling the statue of Thomas Moore took 
 place. To do honour to his memory on that day came the 
 
INAUGURATION OF MOOEE's MONUMENT. 321 
 
 representative of Boyalty, the chief magistrate and the munici- 
 pality of his native city, and a distinguished array of the titled 
 and of the untitled aristocracy of the country. The chair was 
 taken hy the Earl of Charlemont. To Mr. O'Hagan was en- 
 trusted the duty of presenting this statue (which had heen just 
 nnveiled) to the Lord Mayor and Corporation, and through 
 them to the citizens of Dublin : — 
 
 "The celebration," he said, "which has gathered this great 
 assembly is of happy auspice, for it indicates the growth of a 
 wise and healthy public sentiment, and proves that we can com- 
 bine, at least, to cherish the memory of genius which was all 
 our own — racy of the soil and instinct with the spirit of our 
 own people. The genius of Thomas Moore was surely such. Its 
 fair creations have been the delight of many countries, but they 
 are peculiarly the property of the land that bore him, and on it 
 is cast the duty of proving its special value for the great posses- 
 sion." 
 
 "You have heard, to-day, from those who have addressed 
 you, enough to prove that men differ as to his character and 
 conduct. If we were here to criticise, some of us — and I should 
 be of the number — would find matter to disapprove in his writings, 
 his opinions, or his life. But when has earthly greatness been 
 nndef ormed by error, and are we to deny it reverence, because it 
 is not without a blemish to remind us of the imperfection of our 
 mortal state ? Time, which blots from men's recollection the 
 occasional and the fleeting in human deeds, establishes, with a 
 perpetual consecration, that which merits to endure. And, regard- 
 ing the permanent substance of his public life and work, coming 
 generations will for ever recognise in Moore a great Irishman, 
 whose Irish heart and intellect prompted and achieved great 
 things for Ireland. He had a high mission, and he fulfilled it 
 bravely. When he was born, near the spot on which we stand, 
 and whilst he gathered knowledge in the old University which 
 towers above us, we were yet without a poet to interpret to man- 
 kind the spirit and the character of Ireland — her genial fancy 
 and her earnest feeling — her sorrows, her struggles, and her 
 hopes. The dear old music of our island — so sweet, so various, 
 so marvellously expressive, in its deep pathos and its bounding 
 mirthfulness, of the changeful phases of the Irish nature — had 
 not been ' married to immortal verse.' Much of it was passing 
 to forgetf ulness, for fit words had not been found to give wide 
 acceptance to the airs which still lived in the traditions of the 
 people — sounding by the cottage fireside, or from the strings of 
 the wandering harper. Moore did for us what we needed, and 
 what no man had done before him. 
 
 " Exquisitely organised in soul and sense, he gathered up 
 the fragments of our ancient melodies, associated them with 
 
322 lord o'hagan 
 
 lyrics such as had not been heard in later times, and made 
 them 'joys for ever' to his country and the world. His songs 
 have resounded, wherever the English tongue is borne by the 
 mixed races who utter it throughout the earth. They aro 
 resounding still beneath eastern suns, and amidst Canadian 
 snows — in the deep forests of the west, and at the far anti- 
 podes, where young empires begin their progress. And the 
 same sweet strains, coupled with the same old music, but 
 clothed in the dialects of other lands, have been heard through- 
 out Christendom and beyond it — have been sung by the French- 
 man and the Russian, the Persian and the Pole. And thus have 
 the name, and the history, and the genius of our country been 
 made familiar to distant nations ; and Ireland has been exalted 
 in claiming as her own one of the greatest lyrists of the modern 
 world. Fitly, therefore, even without reference to his achieve- 
 ments in other fields of intellectual action — for in this place, and 
 on this occasion, I choose to regard him as the poet of Ireland — 
 fitly do we honour him who has honoured us — and we can so 
 honour him, even though some weaknesses of his bright career 
 have been exposed rudely and blazoned far ; for he had rare 
 virtues too. 
 
 " His love of Ireland ceased only with his being, and often 
 found bold utterance, according to his conception of the truth, 
 at the risk, and with the consequence, of evil to his fortunes. 
 He was faithful to all the sacred obligations and all the dear 
 charities of domestic life. He was the idol of his household. 
 He clung to his humble parents with reverential affection in 
 his day of greatness as when he prayed at his mother's knee, 
 and kept himself poor that his family might have comfort. 
 Temptations beset him on his course and tried him sorely ; but 
 he was true and brave as he was gentle, and of a manly spirit, 
 which never brooked dishonour or abased itself for gain. All 
 these things are remembered this day by Ireland, and she has 
 not denied to him the prayer of his own most beautiful appeal. 
 She does not ' blame the bard ' who has done her such noble ser- 
 vice. He has kept his promise, and fulfilled his prophecy — He 
 has made her name to live in songs which are immortal — The 
 stranger has ' heard her lament on his plains ' — the sigh of her 
 harp has been ' sent o'er the deep,' and she is grateful for his 
 labours as she is proud of his fame. Therefore it is that we 
 stand here to-day — men of every party, and creed, and condi- 
 tion in the land — forgetting the small strifes which fret us and 
 the dissensions which hold us unhappily asunder, to strive, as 
 Irishmen, with generous emulation, in guarding his memory as 
 a glory to us all. And Ireland is well represented here — her 
 old historic names — her aristrocraoy and her middle classes, and 
 the mass of her community. A Charlemont, worthy of his sire, 
 
ATTORNEY-GENERAL IN 1861. 323 
 
 Is supported by a Geraldine of that great race, Hibernicis ipsis 
 Hibemiores, whose love of country is their old inheritance. The 
 head of the Bar of Ireland unites with her Surgeon-General, 
 Moore's early and faithful friend, to speak for her learned pro- 
 fessions. Merchants of the highest influence and position offer 
 their tribute to the child of a Dublin trader, who, in his bright- 
 est noon of fame and his highest pride of place, was never 
 ashamed of the class from which he sprung. With true hearts, 
 our kindly people ring forth their plaudits for the poet whose 
 verses are, to them, dear and familiar ' as household words' ; 
 and to consummate the occasion, the representative of Majesty 
 graces it with his presence, and by his high faculties and 
 generous nature Moore is not less appreciated because he was 
 an Irishman. 
 
 "In such an assembly, my Lord Mayor, it is my high privi- 
 lege to present to the municipality of Dublin this statue — the 
 creation of an Irish artist, who by his works has done credit to the 
 name he bears, and raised the reputation of his country. And 
 I present it with the hope and prayer, that the feeling which 
 pervades us here may outlive the passing hour and be fruitful 
 of great results — that it may originate other celebrations such 
 as this, of other men whose names we must never allow to 
 perish — that it may make us, without pausing in our material 
 and industrial progress, zealous to preserve all that is peculiar 
 to us in literature and art, to maintain the venerable monu- 
 ments which connect us with distant ages and vanished races, 
 to cherish those historic recollections which are, indeed, ' the 
 immortal life of an historical people,' and, by the earnest culture 
 of a true national spirit and a just national pride, to prove 
 ourselves jealous of the honour, devoted to the interests, and 
 faithful to the fortunes of our native land." 
 
 In 1858, Mr. O'Hagan was appointed Serjeant-at-Law. 
 In 1860 he became Solicitor-General, and in 1861 Attorney- 
 General for Ireland. His conduct of the prosecutions arising 
 out of agrarian or party questions was marked by a success 
 unsurpassed up to that time. 
 
 In 1862, a vacancy having occurred in the representation of 
 Tralee, Mr. O'Hagan sought the suffrages of the electors^ of 
 that borough. A violent opposition was organised against him, 
 grounded solely on the fact of his holding the office of Attorney- 
 General, an opposition in which some of the clergy of his own 
 Church took part ; but he overcame that opposition, and was 
 returned to Parliament for Tralee. In the same year (1862), 
 he brought before the Social Science Congress in Dublin the 
 Irish Eeformatory system, which he had laboured not a little to 
 
 develop. . . . 
 
 In the House of Commons he was distinguished tor his 
 
324 lord o'hagan 
 
 attention to Irish business. To his exertions the public are' 
 indebted for the abolition of the old system of special or private- 
 bailiffs being entrusted with the execution of writs issuing from 
 the county courts, and for the substitution of sheriffs' bailiffs. 
 On the 25th of April, 1864, he brought forward his proposed 
 measure of reform of the Court of Chancery practice in Ireland. 
 His speech on this occasion was a remarkable one, and showed 
 that he was perfect master of the practice and procedure of that 
 court in which he was afterwards called upon to preside. He- 
 traced the history of the reforms of the Court of Chancery, both 
 in Ireland and in the sister country. 
 
 Mr. Whiteside opposed the motion, on the ground that the 
 cause petition system, established in 1850, had worked well, 
 and had given perfect satisfaction. He, however, admitted 
 that the Attorney- General for Ireland " had given the House a 
 clear and able statement." 
 
 A vacancy having occurred in the Court of Common Pleas,, 
 by the retirement of Judge Ball, shortly previous to his death, 
 in January, 1865, Mr. O'Hagan was elevated to the Bench on 
 the 26th of that month. His elevation is thus noticed by the 
 Daily Express, a journal well known for its anti-Catholic pro- 
 clivities. 
 
 "Mr. O'Hagan possesses all the qualifications for an ex- 
 cellent judge, and all the claims to be elevated to the bench. 
 It is due to the high position which he had attained at the Bar 
 on circuit — to his learning as a lawyer, and his eloquence as an 
 advocate — to his mental accomplishments, and his highly culti- 
 vated literary tastes — to his highly promising, though brief, 
 career in Parliament, where he quickly attained a standing 
 which less gifted men are never able to reaoh — to the efficient 
 and impartial manner in which he discharged his duties as 
 Attorney-General. He did not owe his advancement solely 
 to the circumstance that he had the good fortune to be a 
 Boman Catholic. He rose steadily in his profession by his 
 talents, his industry, his energy, and at every step of his 
 career he won the good-will and esteem of all parties by his 
 honourable, gentleman-like, and kindly bearing, by the win- 
 ning grace of manner and benevolence of disposition which 
 secures friendship and disarms envy. This was proved in a 
 striking manner in the address which was presented to him 
 a few years ago by the magistrates of the county of Long- 
 ford, most of whom differed from him in religion and politics. 
 Mr. O'Hagan is more than an able lawyer, more than an 
 accomplished orator; he is a statesman and a political econo- 
 mist, whose range of thought and sympathy extends beyond 
 the sphere of his profession; and we may feel confident that 
 in the discharge of his duties on the bench he will take no 
 
OX THE IRISH LANGUAGE. 325 
 
 narrow view of the great questions of jurisprudence and con- 
 stitutional right that may come hefore him. Judge O'Hagan, 
 we believe, will ascend the bench with the approval and good- 
 will of the whole community, without distinction of sect or 
 party." 
 
 Mr. O'Hagan's career in Parliament, though short, was 
 sufficient to give him popularity with all sections of the House, 
 and he left it, on his accession to the bench, with the reputation 
 of being one amongst those members of the Irish Bar who, 
 while they won for themselves fame in St. Stephen's, were at 
 the same time an honour to the arena. 
 
 In 1867 he was elected president by the Statistical Society, 
 in succession to Archbishop Whately and Judge Longfield. 
 
 In the same year the subject of our criminal classes, to which 
 he had long devoted himself, was again treated by him at the 
 meeting of the Social Congress at Belfast. His lordship, in 
 referring on that occasion to the Brehon Code, alluded to the 
 deplorable neglect of the Irish language in the Queen's Col- 
 leges — a language which is now almost a wreck, long abandoned, 
 without improvement, to the humble classes of society. 
 
 But even in its present condition the Irish language is one 
 of the most effective instruments of oratorical persuasion by 
 which the feelings of a religious and sensitive people could be 
 roused, and regulated to any pitch. Were there no other monu- 
 ment to attest the early and superior civilization of our nation, 
 it is indelibly impressed on its truly philosophical language : 
 for if, as is universally conceded, language be one of the most 
 unequivocal standards by which one can ascertain the degree of 
 refinement reached by any people, the sententious and expressive 
 .aphorisms that give such a complexion to ours prove that those 
 to whom it is familiar as a spoken dialect must necessarily be a 
 highly intellectual people : its capability in literary composition 
 may be estimated from this simple fact, that in the hands of the 
 Most Illustrious and Most Reverend John Mac Hale, Catholic 
 Archbishop of Tuam, it has become the means of translating 
 fully and faithfully the choicest productions of Moore, the most 
 refined of the modern, and of Homer, the most sublime of the 
 ancient poets. 
 
 The learned judge spoke thus of its neglect in the Queen's 
 Colleges : — " To the study of that ancient system (the Brehon 
 law), which for so many ages held sway in Ireland, some of our 
 children of the soil will be attracted, as if by ' ancestral voices ' 
 from the buried past. And for all the learned of Europe who 
 have interest in the history of jurisprudence, and the archee- 
 ology of law, it must be the subject of intelligent curiosity and 
 useful investigation. I can say no more of it here ; but having 
 said so much, I should be untrue to my own feelings and con- 
 
326 lord o'hagan 
 
 victions if I did not seize the occasion to add the expression 
 of my great regret, that an end has been put to the study of 
 the Irish language in those hospitable halls which are opening 
 to receive us. Tou will find in them the amplest appliances for 
 scientific and literary teaching, but amongst their accomplished 
 professors there is not one to give instruction in the ancient 
 tongue which is still sounding, with melodious sweetness and 
 expressive power, amongst the glens of the fair county in which 
 we are assembled. There is not one to help in training future- 
 O'Currys and O'Donovans, so that the remnants of our old 
 literature, scattered in mouldering manuscripts through the- 
 libraries of Europe, from Copenhagen to the Yatican, may be 
 saved from destruction, as the Brehon laws have been, and 
 made available for the honour of Ireland and the benefit of the 
 world. 
 
 " When the Queen's Colleges were established, each of them 
 had a small endowment for a professorship of Irish. In two of 
 them that endowment has been diverted to other purposes, and 
 the professorships are abolished. As to the third, the same course- 
 is contemplated. The time was strangely chosen for such a 
 questionable act, when Englishmen like Matthew Arnold and 
 Professor Morley are labouring, with generous enthusiasm, to- 
 assert the dignity and celebrate the achievements of the Celtic 
 race ; when Germany produces an unmatched Irish grammar ; 
 and continental scholars, recognising the wisdom of Lebnitz, who 
 urged the cultivation of the Irish language for the general pur- 
 poses of European literature, have found, in the pursuit of Celtic 
 studies, the necessary and efficient means of advancing ethnologi- 
 cal and philological inquiry. Irishmen have been too justly 
 reproached with being incuriosi suorum, but that reproach should 
 not have found confirmation in a change so needless, so injurious, 
 so little in harmony with the spirit of a self-respecting people 
 and the tendency of thought throughout the world. I trust 
 that the publication of the Brehon laws, and the attention it 
 must attract to Celtic literature and jurisprudence, may con- 
 tribute to make plain, and undo quickly, the mischief of this 
 retrogressive step." He then proceeded with great power to 
 condemn the project of imperialising the Irish tribunals, attract- 
 ing of the bar to the English courts, and disposing of Irish causes 
 there, leaving to us narrow jurisdictions and a debased profes- 
 sion, and making the capital of England the legal metropolis of 
 Ireland also. 
 
 " Ireland and Scotland," he said, "have suffered enough from 
 the action of excessive centralisation. They both have plain inte- 
 rest in resisting the further progress of that evil, and they can 
 best resist it by maintaining such local institutions as may 
 counteract the tendency of the elements of national life to with- 
 
APPOINTED LORD CHANCELLOR. 327 
 
 draw themselves from the extremities of the empire and gather 
 at the centre of power and wealth, where success is worth the 
 trouble of achievement, and merit is sure to seek distinction and 
 reward. We may labour in all proper cases to assimilate the 
 laws of the three kingdoms, giving for that purpose from every 
 district what light and help we can reciprocally furnish ; but 
 we should maintain, for all, the integrity of their independent 
 judicatures, in the assurance that they will not less enjoy the 
 benefits of a common code if it do not aim to subordinate any 
 one to any other of them, or unduly exalt a part at the expense 
 of exhaustion and depression to the rest." 
 
 Mr. O'Hagan's labours on the Marriage Law Commission 
 are well known to the world. They resulted in the report with 
 which many of our readers are familiar, and which was presented 
 to the House of Commons in the summer of the year 1868. 
 All distinctions between the Catholic and Protestant clergy 
 performing the marriage ceremony between Catholics and Pro- 
 testants have been since swept away. 
 
 At the close of this year the Conservative government of 
 Mr. Disraeli came to an end. Mr. Gladstone succeeded to office, 
 and Mr. Justice O'Hagan was appointed Lord High Chancellor 
 of Ireland. One hundred and seventy-seven years had elapsed 
 since a Roman Catholic Chancellor — Sir Alexander Fitton — 
 held the Great Seal. From the fall of James II. to the last 
 quarter of the eighteenth century, the cloud of sectarian bigotry 
 overshadowed the land. Then, as we have seen, during the 
 progress of the American war, and owing to the principles 
 thereby developed, a faint glimmering of light began to illu- 
 mine the political horizon ; but it was not until two-thirds of the 
 nineteenth century had passed, that the glimmering ; and the 
 dawn, and the cold light of morning gave place to the full 
 blaze of noon. Restriction after restriction was swept away 
 from the creed of the majority, until at last an Act was passed 
 by which the bench of the Court of Chancery, wrenched from 
 the grasp of religious monopoly, was thrown open to the pro- 
 fessors of the Catholic religion. The Eight Honourable Thomas 
 O'Hagan was chosen, worthy amongst the worthy, to inaugu- 
 rate the beginning of the new era. On the 18th December, 
 1868, he was sworn into his new office, and the spirit of reli- 
 gious equality was enthroned in his person for the first time 
 during long ages on the bench of justice in Ireland. He wa3 
 sworn in by Sir Ealph Cusack, Clerk of the Hanaper, at the 
 residence of the Eight Honourable Abraham Brewster, the 
 retiring Chancellor. 
 
 On Monday, the 12th of January, 1869, the new Chancellor 
 took his seat for the first time in his court. The bar seats, the 
 gallery, the side passages, were filled to overflowing by a people 
 
328 lord o'hagan 
 
 who felt a just pride in the triumph of the principles of religious 
 equality, and in seeing their fellow-countryman ascend to that 
 lofty position by the force of his unaided ability, and without 
 the stains of party strife. The Irish Times of the following 
 day thus describes that event : — 
 
 " Court of Chancery — Yesterday. 
 
 " Yesterday, being the first day of Term, the courts were 
 opened with the usual formalities. The Court of Chancery was 
 crowded to excess from an early hour, the bar seats being filled 
 with ladies. At one o'clock precisely the new Lord Chancellor, 
 the Eight Hon. Thomas O'Hagan, attended by his purse-bearer, 
 Mr. Lentaigne, and by his train-bearer, Mr. Armstrong, as- 
 cended the bench. The moment his lordship appeared in court 
 loud cheers were given, which lasted for several minutes. The 
 Chancellor was met on the bench by the Master of the Rolls, the 
 Right Honourable John Edward Walsh ; the Lord Justice of 
 Appeal, the Right Honourable Jonathan Christian ; and the 
 Vice- Chancellor, the Eight Honourable Hedges Eyre Chatterton. 
 After remaining a few moments in conversation with the Chan- 
 cellor, their lordships retired to their several courts. The present 
 Lord Chancellor was called to the bar in the year 1836, and is 
 the thirteenth Chancellor since the year 1800 ; the twenty-fourth 
 since Sir Alexander Eitton, the last Catholic Chancellor under 
 James II., and is the 118th in succession from Stephen Riddel, 
 the first of the Irish Chancellors, in the reign of Henry II." 
 
 Mr. O'Hagan immediately entered on the active duties of 
 his new office, and in the Court of Equity he exhibited — Lord 
 Campbell did so before him — the ability which distinguished 
 him in the Court of Common Law. His able and elaborate 
 judgment in the great and romantic case of Croker v. Croker 
 will not soon be forgotten by those who heard it. In the books 
 are many of his decisions which would reflect credit upon any 
 Equity judge who had made them. We shall instance one, 
 Lord Lifford v. Quinn, his ruling in which formed the basis of 
 the decision of the present Chancellor, the Eight Honourable 
 John Thomas Ball, in the case of Vernon v. Wade. The present 
 Chancellor thus speaks in the latter case of Lord O'Hagan's 
 decision in the former one : — 
 
 " The application," his lordship said, " was for an order to 
 restrain the defendants, their servants and workmen, from taking 
 sand from the foreshore of Clontarf, the property of Mr. Vernon, 
 of Clontarf Castle ; and he claimed to be entitled to that shore 
 under a patent of Charles II., which gave it to his ancestors. 
 The defendant had not got up any title or claim, neither had 
 any other person. Many years ago the Corporation of Dublin. 
 
KAISED TO THE PEERAGE. 329 
 
 claimed to be the owners of the Clontarf shore, and contested 
 the Vernons' claim, and were unsuccessful in that suit. The 
 only other body that could lay any claim thereto was the Crown, 
 and the Crown did not do so, but, on the contrary, had acqui- 
 esced in the plaintiff's title by reason of their purchasing some 
 -of the shore from him for the Coastguard station. That being 
 so, it appeared that Mr. Vernon's title was not disputed ; and he 
 (the Lord Chancellor) from the moment he heard the case re- 
 solved to give an injunction ; but he was met with the difficulty 
 as to whom the injunction should go against. Xow, the evi- 
 dence of three constables of police was quite clear that it was the 
 practice of others, not defendants here, to take away gravel from 
 the foreshore. The question therefore arises, what description 
 ■of bill this is ? This is a possessory bill, and he found that all 
 the learning on this class of injunction that could be collected 
 was collected by his (the Lord Chancellor's) immediate prede- 
 cessor in this Court — Lord O'Hagan — in the case of Lord Lifford 
 v. Qiiiiin; and in no other case that is in the books is there so 
 much learning upon this very point as in Lord Lifford's case, 
 reported in the authorized ' Irish Reports, Equity,' vol. vii., page 
 347. In Lord O'Hagan's exhaustive judgment every single 
 difficulty that could present itself, in making a decree, is ably 
 •dealt with and removed. The most extensive relief that has 
 been or could be given in a possessory bill must be given here 
 to restrain not alone those defendants, but also to restrain all 
 •others not parties, not defendants. His lordship concluded by 
 saying that he would grant the injunction in the terms of Lifford 
 v. Qtiinn, and that he would follow the principles laid down in 
 that case by Lord O'Hagan." Amongst other many remark- 
 able judgments delivered by him when Lord Chancellor, we 
 may mention those in Davies v. Kennedy, I. E. 3 Eq. 678, 
 Meades minors, I. E. 5 Eq. 95, and lit re the Marquis of 
 Waterford's JExtate, do., p. 436. 
 
 On the 8th of June, 1870, an announcement was made in the 
 columns of the Daily News, that it was Her Majesty's pleasure to 
 raise the Chancellor to the peerage of the United Kingdom as 
 Baron of Tullahoge, in the county Tyrone. With the recent 
 exception of Lord Acton, Lord Howard of Glossop, Lord Emly, 
 -and Lord Gerard, he is the only Eoman Catholic commoner 
 who, since the passing of the Act of Emancipation, has been 
 raised to the peerage of the United Kingdom. The government 
 were naturally anxious to secure the aid of his eloquence in the 
 discussions which were then about to occupy the House of Lords 
 upon the Irish Land Bill. 
 
 The Chancellor, immediately on his patent being made ouo, 
 took his seat in the Supreme Court of Appeal in the House of 
 Lords. The pending appeal was at the suit of the Earl of 
 
330 lokd o'hagan 
 
 Strathmore from the decision of the First Division of the Court 
 of Session at Edinburgh ; and it is worthy of remark that on 
 this, the first occasion on which Lord O'Hagan sat in the Su- 
 preme Court, judgment was delivered by three of the law 
 lords — one a Catholic, one a Protestant, and one a Presbyterian. 
 
 On the 23rd June, 1870, Lord O'Hagan spoke in his place 
 in the House of Lords on the Irish Land Bill, which " he re- 
 garded as a happy reversal of the policy of the past, as a great 
 attempt at reparation by a noble people for wrongs inflicted and 
 endured, and a bright augury for a better future, which he- 
 trusted was opening for that country to which he was bound by 
 every tie." Speaking of the relations of landlord and tenant,., 
 and of the relative improvements made on the soil by both those 
 classes, his lordship said that "in Ireland, all improvements 
 were made by the tenants," and he relied on the evidence of the- 
 Poor Law Inspectors, of Dr. Eoughan, 1 and other witnesses,, 
 which corroborated this statement. 
 
 Lord O'Hagan advocated the creation of a class yet unknown 
 in Ireland — that of "peasant" proprietors. The introduction 
 of such a class would, in the course of time, have the effect of 
 breaking up grass farms, and converting them into tillage. A 
 great writer on the laws of England, and one of the greatest of 
 her judges, Lord 1 Coke, was of opinion that an agricultural, rather 
 than a pastoral, was the true and healthy state of society. 2 
 
 "Agriculture, or tillage," he wrote, "is of great account in 
 law, as being very profitable to the commonwealth. By laying 
 of lands used in tillage to pasture, six maiDe inconveniences do- 
 daily increase. First, idlenesse, which is the ground and be- 
 ginning of all mischiefs. Second, depopulation and decay of 
 townes ; for where in some townes 200 persons were occupied, 
 and lived by their lawful labours, by converting tillage into- 
 pasture, there have been maintained but two or three herdsmen ; 
 and where men have been accounted sheepe of God's pasture, 
 now sheepe become men of these pastures. Third, husbandry, 
 which is one of the greatest commodities of the realme, is de- 
 cayed. Fourth, churches are destroyed, and the service of God 
 neglected by diminution of church livings (as by decay of tythes, 
 &c.) Fifth, injury and wrong done to patrons and God's mi- 
 nisters. And sixth, the defence of the land against forraine- 
 enemies is enfeebled and impaired, the bodies of husbandmen 
 
 1 The report of which, the Chancellor here speaks was prepared in the month 
 of January, 1870, hy the writer of these pages jointly with L)r. lioughan, with 
 whom he had been associated in making inquiries in the several Unions in the- 
 counties of Sligo and Mayo, in the Unions of Oughterard and Clifden, in the 
 county of Galway, and in the Union of Manorhamilton, in the county Lei- 
 trim. This report was presented to the House of Commons in March, 1870. 
 
 ' Co. Lit. 85, b. 
 
OX THE LAND ACT OF 1870. 331 
 
 being more strong- and able, and patient of cold, beat, and hun- 
 ger, than any other." 
 
 The Land Act passed, and Lord O'Hagan's opinion of that 
 Act is best told in his own words addressed to the Statistical 
 Society, on Thursday, 17th November, 1870. "This Act 
 gives the tenant farmer protection, not in Ulster only, but 
 throughout the country, more ample than in times gone by he 
 ever dreamed of possessing. He was at the mercy of the land- 
 lord. The notice to quit was for him the sword of Damocles, 
 which for ever threatened his social existence, and from which 
 he was powerless to escape. The absolute will of the proprietor 
 terminated his tenancy without condition or restraint, and he 
 was very much in the condition of the serfs of France under the 
 old regime — a merci et miseiicorde. No doubt, in the vast majo- 
 rity of cases legal rights were not pressed to an extremity, though 
 sometimes political vengeance or personal interest prompted 
 their enforcement. Now, the tenant has a claim against the 
 landlord merely by reason of the possession of his holding. 
 
 The power to evict remains, but it is no longer absolute 
 
 The Irish tenant who, by toil and thrift, has accumulated a little- 
 money, may look forward with fair anticipation of bettering 
 bis social position, and lifting his family to a higher station in 
 the world. If a property be in the market, and he has a third 
 of the money necessary, he can go to the Board of Works and 
 obtain an advance of the additional two-thirds, which he is per- 
 mitted to repay on easy terms in a fixed number of years. . . . 
 The good landlord will not really feel the measure hard upon 
 him, for it requires him to do very much as he had done hitherto, 
 and as his own kindly instinct and sound judgment would have 
 led him always to do, without legal pressure." 
 
 On the same occasion the Chancellor alluded to the defective- 
 state of the laws — to the absence of power in the county courts 
 to enforce specific performance, to the marriage law, the law of 
 lunacy, the jury system, the grand-jury system, the application 
 to Ireland of cheap and facile machinery for securing the good 
 government of towns, and the codification and revision of the 
 statutes. Many of these defects have, owing to his laborious as- 
 siduity, been since ameborated. 
 
 The Lunacy Act, the Local Government Act, and the Chari- 
 table Donations Act, were passed in the session of 1871, and in 
 connexion with these several enactments the name of Lord 
 O'Hagan will be gratefully remembered. The Lunacy Act has 
 in many instances simplified and cheapened the procedure, par- 
 ticularly in cases where the application is of a temporary cha- 
 racter, or where the property of the lunatic is small. It has 
 substituted an inexpensive for an expensive procedure, and has 
 provided for the efficient and periodical visitation of lunatics. 
 
332 lord o'hagan 
 
 Of the recent discharge of the Fenian prisoners his lordship 
 •approved, and is reported to have thus expressed himself in the 
 House of Lords : — " Although these men were guilty of treason 
 — the highest crime, on account of the evils it brings in its 
 train — they were yet enthusiasts, men who looked only to a 
 political object, and were prepared to sacrifice themselves to its 
 attainment. And when you come to consider the question in 
 connexion with their discharge, although they were men who 
 forgot their duty to the Crown — although they forgot the 
 absurdity of opposing and encountering the full power of this 
 mighty empire, whilst, within the constitution and the law, the 
 people of Ireland have the fullest opportunity of achieving 
 ■everything which they can legitimately desire — still you must 
 remember that these men had an object which seemed pure and 
 good to them at the time : and in considering whether they are 
 to be dealt with mercifully or hardly, you must take this cir- 
 cumstance into account, or you will shock the common feelings 
 of humanity." 1 
 
 The Gladstone ministry, in the month of February, 1874, 
 -came to an end. But we are now speaking of what is in the 
 knowledge of everybody, and we shall therefore merely say, 
 that on Saturday, 22nd of that month, Lord O'Hagan presided 
 for the last time in the Court of Chancery. When his lordship 
 had disposed of the business in the day list, and had given 
 judgment in a case which stood over, the Solicitor- General, the 
 Bight Hon. Hugh Law, rose, and said : — 
 
 "My Lord, — "We understand that the delivery of the judg- 
 ment we have just heard leaves no further judicial business to be 
 done by your lordship, and that therefore you will not sit again 
 in this court. Under these circumstances, I must ask your lord- 
 ship to permit me, on behalf of the bar, to express our apprecia- 
 tion of the manner in which you have presided here during the 
 last five years. "We all cordially acknowledge the attention and 
 patience with which you have ever listened to each one of us, 
 as well as the kindliness and unfailing courtesy which you have 
 shown to us all from day to day, and the dignity with which 
 you have throughout discharged the duties of your office. ' 
 
 ""We feel that your exercise of the important jurisdiction 
 •committed to you as Lord Chancellor has been such as to com- 
 mand the respect and confidence of the bar and the public ; and 
 now that you are about to retire from amongst us, we desire to 
 assure your lordship that you carry with you the very best 
 wishes of the Irish bar for your welfare and happiness." 
 
 i Lord O'Hagan's speech in the House of Lords, Hansard, vol. 204, 
 •col. 1654. 
 
RETIRES FROM THE COURT OF CHANCERY. 331$ 
 
 The Lord Chancellor, who was much affected, said, in 
 reply :— 
 
 " Mr. Solicitor-General, — I am deeply moved by the- 
 words you have spoken, and by the feeling which they indicate- 
 on the part of the bar of Ireland. With that distinguished 
 body it has been my pride to be identified throughout the 
 chequered years of a laborious life. Never, in all its chances 
 and changes, have I, for one instant, failed to maintain with 
 them relations of cordiality and confidence; and now, when 
 my judicial career is closing, I feel a just pride in receiving 
 such a signal proof that those relations have continued unbroken 
 to the end. 
 
 "Fully aware of many shortcomings, I am yet conscious 
 that I have striven to fulfil the duties of my great office with 
 impartiality and faithfulness ; and the presence of the eminent 
 persons who have thronged to meet me to-day is their spon- 
 taneous assurance that I have not striven entirely without 
 success. I pass from the bench, remembering with the truest 
 pleasure the uniform courtesy, consideration, and respect which 
 I have received, at all times, from all the members of the bar, 
 to whom I have so long had the daily privilege of listening in 
 this Court : and I should be the most ungrateful of men if, in 
 the coming years and in the new sphere of activity on which I 
 may enter, I should not be eager and earnest on all fit occasions 
 to aid in advancing the honour and the interest of our noble- 
 profession. I believe that the maintenance of the Irish bar and 
 the Irish bench in full integrity, efficiency, and independence is 
 essential, in the highest sense, to the welfare of Ireland, and I 
 trust the day may never come when either of them will lose its 
 lustre or sink into decay. Again I thank you for your great 
 kindness, and with a full heart and a faltering tongue I bid you 
 all farewell." 
 
 The entire bar, rising from their seats, greeted the conclusion 
 of the Lord Chancellor's speech with loud applause, which con- 
 tinued until he had left the Court. 1 
 
 The noble and learned lord, in retiring from the Irish bencb, 
 did not give up the active duties of judicial life. In the Court 
 of Ultimate Appeal in England, associated with the great 
 judges of that country, he has sat almost continuously, nor does 
 a volume of the Law Reports appear which does not contain several 
 valuable judgments from him. Neither are his labours confined 
 to the House of Lords and to the expounding of the laws of th« 
 British Isles and their wide dependencies ; the codification o t" 
 the Law of Nations has occupied much of his attention ; and in 
 the city of Antwerp, on the 30th of August, 1877, he delivered 
 
 i Irish Times, 23rd February, 18T4. 
 
334 lord o'hagak. 
 
 an address at the opening of the fifth annual conference of " The 
 Association for the Reform and Codification of the Law of 
 Nations." The object of this Society is, as the name imports, 
 to bring into harmony, at least to some extent, the laws and 
 usages which mutually affect the several families of our race in 
 their inevitable transactions with each other, and so diminish 
 the occasions of contention, and promote amity between them. 
 
 Later on in the same year, on the 4th of October, his lord- 
 ship delivered an address on the opening of the Letterkenny 
 Literary Institute in the county of Donegal. Having told his 
 audience that he was no stranger in their county, he said : — "I 
 have been long familiar with its scenery and its annals. I have not 
 been unconscious of the common pride of Irishmen in a district 
 forming, with its gray mountains and pleasant valleys, one of 
 the loveliest portions of that girdle of beauty which compasses 
 round about the shores of our island, and I have shared their 
 common interest in the brilliant deeds and sad reverses which 
 have made your local history so picturesque and touching. I 
 do not forget the relations of your ancestors, in the ages that are 
 gone, with the old Celtic stock, to which I am proud to owe my 
 origin ; or the struggles, the triumphs, and the sorrows which 
 once associated, for good or for evil, the fortunes of Tyr- 
 Connell and that fair Tyr-Owen, in which my fathers dwelt. 
 With such feelings and such memories I am glad to be amongst 
 you." 
 
 His lordship then enlarged on the benefits to be reaped 
 from the Institute, which was to afford a library, a reading- 
 room, a circulating library, a fine lecture hall, and a schoolroom 
 of great proportions ; a billiard-room, ball courts, and things of 
 a like kind, all of which would wean men from the dangers of 
 dissipation. He then reminded them how the Civil Service was 
 open to all, and how Irishmen have forced themselves every- 
 where into an honourable recognition — 
 
 "Abroad, they have risen to the most coveted and eminent 
 posts. A Northern Irishman directs the commerce of the 
 Chinese Empire. Another Northern Irishman — a very dear 
 and honoured friend of mine — after holding, with high distinc- 
 tion, the premiership of the great dominion of Victoria, now 
 occupies the foremost place in its legislative assembly, by the 
 unanimous choice of the representatives. Our colonies have 
 had — I believe every one of them had — Irish governors ; and 
 a distinguished compatriot of your own, born almost within a 
 stone' s-throw of the place in which I stand, has held the 
 dignity successively in Queensland, New Zealand, and Victoria. 
 I cannot speak as I would wish, in his own presence and that of 
 his venerated brother, of another Donegal man, who reached, at 
 ■an early age, the highest position at the bar of the colony in 
 
HIS SPEECH AT LETTERKEXNY. 335 
 
 "which he had chosen to commence his professional career ; and, 
 having well and faithfully discharged the high functions of its 
 Attorney-General, has returned — at once with youthful vigour 
 and ripe experience — to win new honours in his own land. 
 
 " I have thought fit to refer to these things, because such 
 •examples of well-won success may profitably excite honest emu- 
 lation and rouse dormant energy ; but it is not needful that I 
 should appeal to recent events, in this historic region, where 
 thronging memories of the past connect themselves with your 
 effort of the present, and impel you to make it worthy of the 
 men who have gone before you. 
 
 " The memories of Donegal are proud though they are mourn- 
 ful. I do not ask you to recall the days of pomp and splendour 
 when the O'Donnell stood upon the Rock of Doon, and received 
 from the successor of Columb-Cille the white rod which symbo- 
 lized at once the authority, the purity, and the justice with 
 which he promised to wield the sceptre. Nor shall I stir you 
 with a narrative of the conflicts of the time when a Fitzgerald, 
 the bravest of the Anglo-Norman race, encountered the chief- 
 tain of Tyrconnell, and each fell, fighting, by the other's hand. 
 Nor shall I tell the sad story which, to this hour, so touches the 
 hearts of Irishmen, of the flight of the great Earls from the 
 Hathmullen shore to hide their broken fortunes in the obscurity 
 -of exile, and yearn through dismal years for return to the land 
 they loved, until foreign earth received their dust in the capital 
 of Christendom. 
 
 "But it is fit and becoming that I should ask you to remem- 
 ber, whilst we inaugurate an Institute designed to diffuse know- 
 ledge and improve morality, that Donegal, in the distant past, 
 when intellectual darkness was settling down upon the world, 
 and the ruin of Imperial Rome was followed by barbarous 
 anarchy, had teachers, eminent alike for their learning and 
 their sanctity, directing schools which possessed liberal endow- 
 ments and gave sound instruction, not to the Irish only, but to 
 those who sought it from afar : — amandati in Hibemiam ad dis- 
 cipline. The most conclusive evidence assures us that, in the 
 ■sixth century, Moville and Clonard and Derry had seminaries 
 whose masters were of high repute ; and in that century, to be 
 trained in those seminaries, was born, close to this town of Let- 
 terkenny, the illustrious man to whom, it is said in your ancient 
 Martyrology, the Apostle of Ireland prophetically gave the title 
 of Dove of the Churches (Golumb Cille). He was at once, a poet, 
 a scholar, and a saint. In his own country he was the founder 
 of many schools and monasteries. He encouraged the bards of 
 his time to preserve the muniments of their nation ; and when 
 his zeal in (rod's service drove him to carry the glad tidings of 
 salvation to the Scotish Isles — radiating from Iona the_ light of 
 learning and religion across tempestuous seas, and spending him- 
 
336 lord o'hagan 
 
 self in toils and wanderings to evangelize the people of Britain — 
 lie continued to be an earnest student, and left writings behind 
 him which justified the eulogium of Adamnan, his biographer 
 and successor, on his eloquence and wisdom. On such an occa- 
 sion as this there is a special fitness in the reverent recollection 
 of one so wise and holy, who always combined intellectual laboiir 
 with his works of piety and mercy; and whose name, after 1400 
 years, is still dear to the hearts and blessed by the tongues of the 
 people around us. 
 
 " One remembrance more it behoves me to awaken — that of 
 the 'Four Masters,' to whom we owe the preservation to Ireland 
 of the mass of her historical recollections, which, but for their 
 labours, must, to a great extent, have perished for ever. When 
 they gathered with pious care the ancient records which had 
 been spared by time and civil strife, and made a faithful digest 
 of them in those Annals which O'Ourry describes as ' the largest 
 collection of national, civil, military, and family history ever 
 brought together in this or, perhaps, any other country,' — they 
 did not know the value of the service they were rendering. They 
 did not know that days, even more evil than had been theretofore 
 her miserable portion, were coming to afflict their country, in 
 which many of those precious records must, probably, be de- 
 stroyed. The mischief was averted by the devotion of Michael 
 O'Clery and his Franciscan brethren ; and if Ireland shall ever 
 possess a complete and authentic history, she must acknowledge,, 
 with gratitude, that she owes it largely to the monks of Donegal. 
 
 " There are other local memories on which I would gladly 
 dwell, as full of interest and instruction on such an occasion. 
 But I have already outrun the time allotted for my address ; 
 and I have said enough to justify me in asking whether the 
 emotion roused in you, I doubt not, even by this brief recur- 
 rence to the lives and doings of famous men, does not stir you 
 with some ambition to imitate them, however humbly, by aiding 
 in a new endeavour for the cultivation of that love of knowledge, 
 of virtue, and of God, which once inspired them on your native 
 soil. 
 
 " In conclusion, let me assure you of the true pleasure I have 
 had in meeting you for a purpose so very worthy, and of the 
 value I attach to the more than cordial welcome you have given 
 me. To me, this day will be always memorable for the kindness 
 of which I have been the object. And to you it may be memora- 
 ble also, as that on which you inaugurated, under fortunate- 
 auspices, an Institution — destined, I trust, to promote liberal 
 culture and pure morality for many generations — in an assem- 
 blage which, by its rare union of adverse creeds and parties for 
 one noble end, does honour to Ulster and is of the happiest pre- 
 sage for the future of our country." 
 
OK INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION. 337 
 
 "We have now brought our memoir to the present year, 
 and it is with pride we notice the fact that the days of national 
 and religious antipathies are consigned to oblivion; and that 
 the present Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, Lord Cairns, 
 an Irishman of whom Irishmen are proud ; he a Protestant, 
 and a member of a Conservative government which introduces 
 the " Intermediate Education (Ireland) Bill," finds a supporter 
 for that measure in Lord O'Hagan, a Catholic, and member 
 of the late Liberal government. " The conception of that 
 measure is due to an eminent Irishman, Mr. Keenan, resi- 
 dent Commissioner of National Education, who in 1869, at the 
 instance of Lord O'Hagan, then Lord Chancellor of Ireland, 
 and of Lord Emly, then in the Colonial office, was deputed to 
 report on the educational difficulties that had arisen in the 
 distant island of Trinidad. He did so, and made those sugges- 
 tions which afterwards, with some slight alterations, met with 
 the approval of the Imperial and local authorities, and which 
 are almost identically the same with those which have been now 
 applied to Ireland." 1 Lord O'Hagan's speech in the House of 
 Lords in support of the bill is worthy of being scattered broad- 
 oast over the country. It opened by the disclosure of a fact, 
 which is not generally known, that in the Excise and Customs 
 department the Irish successful candidates outnumbered those 
 from England and Scotland put together. He said : — 
 
 " My lords, Scotland contains 10 J per cent, of the popula- 
 tion of the United Kingdom, England 72J, and Leland 17 per 
 cent. Since 1871, there were 1918 places in the Excise and 
 Customs disposed of by public competition. For these places 
 there were 11,371 candidates — 11 per cent. Scotch, 46 per cent. 
 English, and 43 per cent. Irish ; and of these, Scotland gained 
 6 per cent., England, 38 per cent., and Ireland 56 per cent. Of 
 every 100 Scotch candidates, 9 passed ; of every 100 English 
 candidates, 14 passed ; and of every 100 Irish candidates, 22 
 passed. 
 
 " My lords, the statement is not mine, or made according to 
 my calculation. I offer it as that of the Executive Government 
 of Ireland, formally pronounced by the distinguished nobleman 
 who now represents the Sovereign in that country, at the annual 
 dinner of the Lord Mayor of Dublin in February last. It will 
 probably astonish you ; but it only comes in sequence to a num- 
 ber of such startling narratives, made, year after year, by suc- 
 cessive viceroys, ever since competitive examination opened a 
 new career to the young men of Ireland. They have uniformly 
 been in a high degree, honourable to the industry and intellect 
 of her people; and they will not indispose your lordships to 
 
 1 Introduction to Lord O'Hagan's speech, published by GUI & Son, 1878. 
 
 z 
 
338 LORD o'hAGAN 
 
 aid in opening a new and fruitful field for that industry and 
 intellect, because they make more flagrant and intolerable the 
 want of the higher culture which, to this hour, is denied her. 
 
 " The Irish boy," his lordship said, " can distance his com- 
 petitors in striving for the humbler posts in the public service ; 
 hot there he must bound ambition and abandon hope. If he wishes 
 to look beyond them, and raise himself by honest effort to a 
 higher position in the world, the way is barred against him. 
 Almost every lad in Scotland has a classical school within easy 
 reach of his home. A few years since, a fifth of all the students 
 of the University of St. Andrew's are said to have been the sons 
 of labourers. Ample endowments, scattered broadcast through- 
 out England, invite her people to progress and to honour. And, 
 accordingly, at home and abroad, the youth, so favoured, have 
 chances in the world for which the poor Irishman longs in 
 vain, whatever may be his faculties and aspirations. He cannot 
 compete for the offices which are the reward of a more liberal 
 training ; and he continues, here and in the colonies, ' a hewer 
 of wood and drawer of water' — from no natural inferiority, 
 from no social or legal disqualification, but from the lack of that 
 needful intelligence to which the State neglects to help him, 
 and, by its own action, has denied him the means of approach 
 which he formerly enjoyed. 
 
 " My lords, a million of children are educated in the na- 
 tional schools of Ireland. About the age of fifteen, they exhaust 
 the sources of instruction which these schools supply ; and, if 
 they fully avail themselves of their opportunities, they may be, 
 so far, amongst the best informed boys in Europe. But, from 
 that time forth, they are without aid to advancement, though they 
 may find within them the impulses of genius, the love of labour, 
 and the consciousness of being worthy of a better destiny. 
 
 " When the census was taken in 1871, there was, in all Ire- 
 land, of the entire Catholic population, one in 923 learning 
 Latin, and of the Protestant population, one in 259 ; whilst, of 
 the Catholics, one in 1209 was learning Greek, and of the Pro- 
 testants, one in 398. The figures are eloquent. They prove 
 how sad has been the decadence of intermediate education in 
 latter days ; and they show, also, that the Catholic majority 
 suffer most from it, and have the deepest interest in a proposal 
 to remove the blight which is withering up their intellectual 
 force. They suffer from it in every way ; but its baleful effect 
 is especially conspicuous in the disproportion between their total 
 number and that which they supply to the various learned pro- 
 fessions. I shall not weary your lordships by a detail of the 
 statistics by whioh this is demonstrated. Tou will find them 
 abundantly in the Report of the Census Commissioners, which 
 proves that, in spite of the destruction of sectarian ascendancy, 
 
ON INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION. 339 
 
 the religious equality, which has been legally established, has 
 not given to the majority of Irishmen the social position they 
 ought to hold in their own land." 
 
 His lordship then deals with the dismal history of the past : 
 He says : — " The history of Ireland contains no blacker page 
 than that which describes the dealings of her rulers with the 
 education of her people. It gives them no stronger claim to re- 
 dress and reparation from the Imperial Legislature. Down to 
 our own times, every successive act of British statesmanship 
 whioh affected their mental and moral training was designed 
 and administered in the spirit of an intolerant sectarianism, 
 aiming at the propagation of religious tenets which they re- 
 jected, and to the adoption of which they could neither be cor- 
 rupted nor coerced. They were asked to purchase knowledge 
 by the sacrifice of faith. They refused, with heroic obstinacy ; 
 and they triumphed, after suffering and sacrifice such as have 
 rarely defied the cruelty of persecution, and vindicated the liberty 
 of conscience. Not the desolating wars of Elizabeth ; not the 
 ruthless massacres of Cromwell ; not the repeated confiscations 
 which spoiled the old possessors of the soil, and made them fugi- 
 tives in bogs and mountains, or homeless wanderers in foreign 
 lands ; not the commercial jealousy and high-handed injustice 
 which palsied industry and extinguished manufactures : not 
 these, or the many other destructive influences which, for ages, 
 made Ireland miserable, were so calculated to secure her perpe- 
 tual degradation as the infamous statutes which deliberately 
 attempted to keep in compulsory ignorance four-fifths of her 
 inhabitants, and so trample out her intellectual life, and, with 
 it, all hope of her social redemption. Under that abominable 
 system, a Catholic parent could not instruct his own child; a 
 Catholic teacher could not bring up a Catholic pupil, save under 
 penalties of the most barbarous kind. From all the means of 
 instruction Catholics were shut out ; all Catholic education was 
 absolutely prohibited ; and it is difficult to conceive how, under 
 such circumstances, the Catholic people did not sink into a state 
 of brutal and hopeless debasement. But they did not. In the 
 darkest days they kept the light of knowledge still glimmering 
 faintly. Their eagerness for it never slackened. They never 
 ceased to struggle for it ; and, in the struggle, they were always 
 helped by the Catholic priesthood, and by humble teachers in 
 obscure places who ventured to pursue their noble calling in 
 spite of the inhuman law. 
 
 "The Act of Henry VIII., which required the establish- 
 ment of parochial schools, was never really enforced ; and, if it 
 had been, would probably have repelled, in its operation, the 
 mass of the community. 
 
 " The Endowed Schools, which gave Ulster a special advan- 
 
340 
 
 tage, as they were founded in connexion with the plantation of 
 the province, although not legally exclusive of Catholics, were 
 practically so, and were believed to be so, until a very recent , 
 period. They were of small advantage, admirably as some of 
 them have been recently conducted, in relation to the real neces- 
 sities of the country. 
 
 " The Charter Schools hoped to evangelise 'Ireland by ap- 
 pealing to the basest motives, and outraging the best feelings of 
 the human heart. They made the relief of misery conditional 
 on apostacy from the Church which was dear to the people. 
 They took children from parents in the name of religion, and 
 were authorised by the Legislature to render the separation 
 lifelong. They flourished for nearly a hundred years. But 
 their monstrous abuses at last brought them to ruin. Wesley 
 and Howard combined to denounce them ; and the latter, in one 
 of the most meritorious acts of his noble life, induced the Irish 
 Parliament to inquire into their condition, describing their 
 pupils as ' sickly, naked, and half-starved,' and the whole 
 system as a deplorable disgrace to Protestantism. That system 
 then got its death-blow ; but its hideous existence lingered on 
 to the nineteenth century, and it perished at last, leaving an 
 evil memory, to the perpetual execration of mankind. 
 
 " Then came the Kildare-place Society, which laboured in 
 the same direction — with diminished virulence, and with equal 
 absence of result — to undermine the ancient faith of Ireland. 
 It also failed, and was succeeded by Lord Derby's proposal for 
 a plan of national education which abandoned the hopeless 
 work of proselytism, repudiated the very suspicion of it, and 
 aimed to give the humbler classes separate religious and com- 
 bined secular instruction. 
 
 "To that plan there was much and obstinate resistance. 
 It was assailed from the most opposite quarters, and on the 
 most inconsistent grounds. But it has gone on, prospering and 
 expanding. It has filled the island with its schools, and borne 
 into every district the means of information. I have indicated 
 to the House the remarkable results of its operation in con- 
 nexion with the Civil Service ; and they are manifested in 
 many other ways. But they have not all been beneficial — 
 
 * Surgit amari aliquid de f onte leporum ! ' 
 
 They have, undoubtedly, tended to destroy multitudes of schools 
 which gave the people the chance of a classical and scientific 
 education. The masters of those schools were maintained by 
 the contributions of the majority of their pupils, who were 
 satisfied with such instruction, in English, as they could obtain. 
 The minority, who desired a higher culture, only afforded a 
 small supplement to incomes which were very moderate. And 
 
ON INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION. 341 
 
 when the State drafted away the children of the poor, in tens 
 of thousands, by its liberal subventions to the National Board, 
 the schools -which had been kept in a struggling existence were 
 inevitably extinguished. 
 
 " The evil so wrought has been very grievous, and it is not 
 unreasonable that the Legislature, which — indirectly and un- 
 consciously, and with the best intentions — has produced that 
 evil, should be urged to supply a sufficient remedy. 
 
 " Equally in the south and in the north the old schools have 
 perished. In Kerry ripe scholars used to be found along its 
 lakes and in the recesses of its mountains. In the noble pro- 
 vince where the Lord Chancellor and I first saw the light, 
 Down had modest seminaries, which sent many a distinguished 
 man to the legal and clerical professions. Tyrone was called 
 the Kerry of Ulster ; and I cannot better inform your lordships 
 as to the change which has been accomplished, there and else- 
 where, than by citing some words from a remarkable memorial 
 presented to the Board of Education by the inhabitants of 
 Newtownstewart, praying that classics and French might be 
 introduced as a branch of the teaching of the National Schools 
 in that town and neighbourhood." 
 
 He then cited some very remarkable passages from the 
 Newtownstewart memorial, and proceeded : — 
 
 " These are, surely, striking and persuasive statements ; and 
 they are applicable widely throughout the Irish counties. Of 
 themselves, are they not abundant to demonstrate the calami- 
 tous change which has occurred, and the absolute need of 
 prompt and decisive action to undo its mischiefs, and prevent 
 the recurrence of them ? 
 
 " Representations, such as I have cited, have been pressed 
 repeatedly on the National Board, and have induced it — 
 perhaps without sufficient authority so to dispose of funds 
 provided for primary education — to offer some small result 
 fees to teachers instructing in classics, before and after the 
 ordinary school hours. But the utmost which could be given in 
 that ^ay was manifestly inadequate to the exigencies of the 
 case ; and I find that, in the last year, only 305 pupils enabled 
 the masters to take advantage of it by passing in Latin, and 
 90 by passing in Greek. 
 
 "The Eeport of the Census Commissioners of 1871, one of 
 the ablest and most instructive official papers ever produced in 
 Ireland, is sadly conclusive as to the lamentable deficiency of 
 intermediate education. My noble and learned friend on the 
 woolsack has already so fully detailed the figures which forced 
 them to proclaim that deficiency in the strongest terms, that I 
 shall not weary the House by repetition of his statement. They 
 
342 lokd o'hagan 
 
 declare, with deep regret, that all available evidence points, in 
 this grave matter, to rapid retrogression. 
 
 " No wonder that the intelligence of Ireland has been 
 alarmed by such a state of things. The outcry against it has 
 been unanimous and universal. In 1857 the Endowed Schools 
 Commissioners testified to the anxiety displayed by people of 
 all parties and religions, in every district of the country, for 
 some supply of middle class instruction, for some assistance to 
 those who were willing and earnest to seek advancement by 
 honest industry and mental cultivation. The Commissioners 
 urged compliance with the demand in emphatic language, and 
 suggested the adoption of a scheme, in some of its principles, 
 fully accordant with the bill before your lordships. But 
 twenty years have gone, and their recommendations remain 
 barren of result. Our condition is worse than it was, and year 
 by year grows more deplorable. We do not move one hour too 
 soon. We cannot afford to wait any longer. 
 
 "For, my lords, the state of things I have weakly at- 
 tempted to describe has had its necessary consequences. The 
 intellect of Ireland — I borrow the strong words of the Census 
 Commissioners — nas been 'starved and dwarfed.' A moral 
 paralysis has deadened it. The people have ceased, to a large 
 extent, to know or care for a high and wholesome literature. 
 Bookshops are vanishing from the towns. The publishing 
 trade, which in the last century was large and flourishing, is 
 almost extinct. Once, the presses of Dublin teemed with ex- 
 pensive works — encyclopaedias, dictionaries, classical and scien- 
 tific treatises, aDd others — such as an educated community 
 demands and will procure. But the production of such works 
 has almost ceased. Those who read must look abroad for the 
 means of indulging their intellectual appetite. The excellent 
 editions which enabled Falconer and others, a hundred years 
 ago, to compete with English publishers are to be had no more. 
 And the literary ability of Irishmen, finding scant encourage- 
 ment at home, is driven to seek distinction and reward in other 
 countries. 
 
 " There is material progress. The masses of the people are 
 more comfortable than those who went before them. They no 
 longer suffer from chronic destitution ; they do not dread the 
 frequent famines of other times. They have an interest in the 
 soil which was denied to their forefathers, and a security in the 
 fruit of their industry which affords them a future full of happy 
 promise. 
 
 "There is moral progress too. Crime has marvellously 
 diminished. The social warfare, which issued so often in 
 murderous outrage, is waged no longer with the violence of 
 other days. Earnest religious faith penetrates the national 
 
OX INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION. 343 
 
 spirit ; and, in purity of morals, Ireland need acknowledge no 
 superior amongst the countries of the earth. It is sad that a 
 people with suck good gifts skould have been allowed to pine in 
 mental inactivity. They have not many of the advantages of 
 other nations. They have not the iron or the coal of England, 
 her ships, her manufactures, or her commerce. But they are 
 rich in the faculties of the mind — in keenness of apprehension, 
 and liveliness of wit, and facility of acquisition ; and in the 
 cultivation of those faculties they have been conspicuously 
 successful, whenever they have had the opportunity of being so. 
 My lords, I believe that the measure now offered to your 
 lordships will yield them such an opportunity of utilising their 
 dormant powers, and, therefore, I press for the adoption of it, 
 without hesitation and without delay. 
 
 " My lords, I shall not occupy your time by any discussion 
 of the details of the bill ; they have been already lucidly dealt 
 ■with by the Lord Chancellor. To some of them I might be 
 disposed to object ; some of them might, in my opinion, be 
 improved ; but the session wears towards its close, and I shrink 
 from the responsibility — by act or suggestion of mine — of 
 putting it in peril. Almost any controversy at such a period 
 might be fatal to it ; and I should hold myself criminal if I 
 assisted in postponing or defeating a scheme which promises 
 such benefits to Ireland. 
 
 " It commends itself to me as an honest effort to supply an 
 unquestionable want in a just and judicious manner. It respects 
 the rights of conscience. It cannot offend the religious senti- 
 ment of any reasonable man. It is absolutely impartial, in 
 dispensing, with an equal hand, the public bounty amongst the 
 subjects of the realm. It will encourage the enterprise of 
 teachers, and, in the absence of endowments which at present 
 are unattainable, supply some means for the increase and 
 improvement of scholastic establishments, without vexatious 
 meddling in their internal administration. It will stimulate 
 honourable ambition, and give humble merit, striving against 
 adverse circumstances, opportunity of recognition and assistance 
 to success. And to these excellent purposes it dedicates a fund 
 which could not be more fitly applied, in making reparation for 
 the evil past, and heralding the better future. 
 
 " My lords, if the fair promises of this Bill be realised, we 
 shall yet see the Irish people, self-reliant and self-respecting, 
 redeemed by the power of an awakened intelligence. Too 
 many of them have mourned lapsed opportunities and baffled 
 hopes. Too many have passed from childhood to adoles- 
 cence, and from youth to age, and gone to the grave with- 
 out the culture which would have enabled them to rise to 
 the level of their own capacities, and improve and exalt their 
 
344 lord o'hagan 
 
 country. A brighter day has dawned. A happier prospe< 
 opens before them. Legislation like this will rouse them froi 
 their mental torpor, and inspire them with courage for tt 
 battle of life. The pool of Bethesda was sluggish until tt 
 angel stirred it, and a healing grace descended on its wateri 
 The bones were dry and formless in the vision of the prophe 
 but the spirit moved upon them, and they grew to shapes c 
 strength and beauty. And, with God's blessing, the influenc 
 of this measure and those which may succeed it — with as soun 
 a principle and as wise an end — will launch Ireland on a grea 
 career, and help her to pursue it with hope and energy." 
 
 Lord O'Hagan married, first, Mary (died 1868), daughte 
 of Charles Hamilton Teeling, Esq., of Belfast; and secondly 
 Alice Mary, youngest daughter of Colonel Charles Townelev 
 of Towneley, Lancashire. 1 By his first marriage he was fathe 
 of six children, of whom only one is living, the Hon. Frances 
 married in 1865 to John O'Hagan, Esq., Q,. C. By his seconi 
 marriage his lordship has had two children — the Hon. Kathleei 
 Mary O'Hagan and the Hon. Thomas Towneley O'Hagan. 
 
 We shall now conclude — our work is done. We have relatei 
 the history of the lives of one hundred and eighteen Chancellors 
 who held the Irish Seals during the long period of seven hundrei 
 years, from Stephen Biddel to Lord O'Hagan. We have sum 
 moned up before us the nobles of the Anglo-Norman, and th 
 princes of the Celtic races. We have seen the struggles of th 
 rival creeds — the supremacy now of the one, now of the othei 
 And we have rejoiced when the true spirit of Christianity 
 
 1 The Towneleys, of Towneley Hall, deduce their descent from Spartlingu 
 de Towneley, who lived in the reign of Alfred the Great. And from that tim 
 to the present, during a space of a thousand years, they have takeu thei 
 rank foremost amongst the untitled aristocracy of England. The Towneley 
 were one of the few families who refused to change their faith at the plea 
 sure of the sovereign during the severity of the penal laws. Colonel Towne 
 ley was, in 1836, married to Lady Catherine Harriet, fifth daughter of th 
 Earl of Sefton, Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire. His predecessor and name 
 sake, Charles Towneley, was the well-known connoisseur and patron of the fin 
 arts who collected the Towneley Marbles now in the the British Museum, o 
 which he was one of the trustees, and of which Lord O'Hagan, as representin, 
 the family, is now a trustee. The late Colonel Towneley was a Deputy-Lieu 
 tenant, a Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Society of Arts, an 
 Fellow of the Academy of Sciences. He represented Sligo in 1848, and agar 
 in 1852-3. He was High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1857, a magistrate an 
 Deputy-Lieutenant of the county, and Colonel of the Lancashire Volunteers 
 Colonel and Lady Catherine Towneley had three daughters, Caroline, who, i 
 1858, married Lord Norreys, eldest son of the Earl of Abingdon, Lop 
 Lieutenant of Berkshire. The second daughter, Emily, married, in 1868 
 Lord Francis Lennox, third son of the late and brother of the present Duk 
 of Richmond ; and both daughters have issue. The third and younges 
 daughter, Alice Mary, is married to Lord O'Hagan. 
 
ouxclusiox. ;j45 
 
 placed all of them, so far as civil rights are concerned, on one 
 common level. We have had to examine laws and customs, 
 and a state of society different from our own, and we have 
 had to view these laws and customs, and that state of society 
 through the medium of our modern civilization. Biography 
 is the handmaiden of history, and, like history, should search 
 after the sources of things. Happy would we be could we 
 think that we have fulfilled our mission; happy, if we have 
 been able so to hold the scales that the merits and the de- 
 merits of the various opinions, and civilizations, and races of 
 men who came before us for judgment, have been weighed out 
 duly. How difficult the task, let those tell who, like us, have 
 lifted up the shroud by which the past is covered. For ourselves 
 the work has been a work of love ; and even if the judgment of 
 others on the completeness of our work reward us for our labour, 
 we know not still whether we shall rejoice in parting from that 
 which has been so long the occupation of our leisure hours. It 
 was a pleasure to search into the gloom of the past, to pass in 
 review the venerable forms of the great men of other days, to 
 live with them and to see things in the light in which they saw 
 them. And surely they were great men — many of those with 
 whom we have had to deal — men who left their impress on the 
 ages that came after them. And well may it be the boast of 
 the present generation, and of the generation that preceded it, 
 that the great Chancellors they produced — Mitford, Ponsonby, 
 Plunket, Sugden, Napier, and O'Hagan, have equalled and sur- 
 passed the greatest of the Chancellors of former times. Of the 
 last, clarum et venerabile nomen, we shall say little in addition to 
 what we have already said. The records of his court are the 
 best eulogium on the Chancellor. He stands prominently be- 
 fore the present and the future as the first, during long ages, of 
 a once proscribed religion, who was allowed to sit on the high- 
 est of the thrones of justice. He has been, what it so well 
 befitted a son of his tribe to be, chief Brehon of this Irish land. 
 He has added one to the few coronets that have been placed 
 upon the brows of the children of the Celtic race. Let us hope 
 that the example he has set will encourage others to follow in 
 his footsteps, and that he himself may long wear the honours 
 he has won. 
 
 Note. — As the object of the foregoing pages was confined to the Lord 
 Chancellors who have heretofore held the Great Seal of Ireland, we do not 
 speak of the distinguished lawyer, orator, and scholar, John Thomas Ball, 
 who now holds that high position. 
 
 2 A 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Note, Page 22. 
 
 richakd talbot, aechbishop of dublin. 
 
 In out memoir of this Chancellor, it is stated, supra, p. 22, fourth 
 last line, that " in 1428 a parliament was held in Dublin, when a me- 
 morial was drawn up " and despatched to the King. That document, 
 which is as follows, demonstrates the lawless state of society in this 
 country, and the dangers of travel in England, during the early por- 
 tion of the 14th century, as also the desire of the Irish Parliament 
 that the Irish law students should continue, as in times past, to resort 
 to the English Inns of Court. 
 
 " Sovereign Lord — These are the articles which we, your humble 
 lieges, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, of your land 
 of Ireland, at your Parliament held in your city of Dublin, assembled 
 before John Sutton knight, your Lieutenant in the said land, the 
 Friday next after the feast of All-Hallows : "We commissioned Blenry 
 Eortescue, Chief Justice of Ireland, and Thomas Strange, knight, to 
 deliver to you those articles that follow. First, that your said land, 
 for want of good government, suffered by burning, robbing, taking 
 and killing of your liege people here by your Irish enemies, of which 
 misfortunes, you and your worshipful and wise council there had 
 notice, graciously remedied by sending over one to us to be your 
 Lieutenant, and for which we thank you with all our hearts. And 
 your said Lieutenant, since his coming here, with manly diligence hath 
 made war on and rebuked your said enemies, and hath burnt and 
 destroyed their corn, broken and ruined their castles, and cut down 
 their woods, slaughtered your enemies, burnt their houses, and greatly 
 impoverished them ; so thanks be to God, we, your liege people here, 
 are now sheltered from the malice of your enemies ; and our persons, 
 corn, houses, and goods, are secured from the burning, robbing, taking 
 away of those men. And we beseech yon that your said Lieutenant 
 may receive your thanks, which he well deserves, for the great labour 
 and diligence he has been at, so that he may have the more courage 
 further to prosecute his said labours. 
 
 " We, your lieges, also beseech that your said Lieutenant may have 
 "ood and hasty payment of his salary, remembering that he hath been 
 
 2a2 
 
348 APPENDIX. — SIR ALEXANDER PLTJNKET. 
 
 at great personal expense in supporting horsemen and footmen ovei- 
 the number allowed to him. 
 
 "Also that divers clerks, merchants, and other honest persons from 
 Ireland, have travelled in England, from Chester to Coventry, Oxford, 
 and London, and of late have been robbed of their horses and goods, 
 and they themselves imprisoned, and some of them beaten ; and we 
 beseech of you, that steps may be taken to prevent a recurrence of 
 such outrages. 
 
 " We also beseech of you to consider the services of James, Earl of 
 Ormond, to your father, and to you at all times ; and that he be 
 thanked by you for his said services, that inasmuch as the laws of this 
 land in every of your counties at all times have been used both in 
 pleading and in giving judgments according to the laws used in Eng- 
 land, and the learned men here have learned your said laws in the 
 Inns of Court in your realms of England, and they have now been re- 
 fused to be admitted into the said Inns of Court, contrary to ancient 
 custom that hath been used in times before this ; and we beseech you 
 that ordinances may be made there, that your liege people of this land 
 that go into England for their said learning may be received into the 
 Inns of Court as they have been of old times, so that the laws in this 
 land may be continued to be learnt, considering that otherwise, when 
 those who are now learned therein may be dead, there shall be none 
 in this land that shall know your laws, unless it be learnt there, which 
 shall be a great disprofit to you and a great misery for us your poor 
 
 lieges And at the special request of us, the Eight 
 
 Eeverend Eather in God, Eichard, Archbishop of Dublin, your Chan- 
 cellor, in your said land, hath affixed your great seal of your said land 
 unto this our message. Written at your said city of Dublin, the said 
 Friday after All Halwenday." (Close Eolls. Petham's Hist, of the 
 Constitution of Ireland, p. 353.) {Proceedings of the Privy Council 
 vol. 6.) 
 
 Note on Page 31, Line 5. 
 bur alexander plttnket. 
 
 The following is the Will of Sir Alexander Plunket, referred to in 
 the text : — 
 
 " I bequeath my soule to Almighty God, my body to be buried in the 
 sanctuary of St. Lawrence of Eathmore : my will is that my son and 
 heir, Sir Christopher Plunkett, Sir Thomas Plunkett, and Margaret 
 Butler, my wife, shall be my executors. My will is, if any of my 
 sons or any of their stock rebel and leave the country, that my son 
 and heir enter into all his lands. Item: I leave with my sons, 
 that if any variances happen between them, they come to Kells, 
 and there to abide as brethren, and they all to wait on "some 
 person whose name is not mentioned" in the king's service, 
 and they all to be his, and he that will otherwise do, I leave 
 that he forfeit a certain sum of money or fine" (without mentioning 
 what sum). " Item : I leave daily wages to my sons upon the afore- 
 
WILL OF SIR MAURICE EUSTACE. 349 
 
 =*aid Lord of Rathmore as lie and they agree, and that none of them 
 take maintenance one against the other, and who of them buy lands 
 or other bargain, that every of them help him that bargains, and so 
 prefer one another in all good." The Chancellor then proceeded to 
 make devises of his goods and possessions to and amongst his sons and 
 -daughters — to his daughters 100 marks each (£66). He next created 
 a fund " for the endowment of a priest for my father and mother's 
 soules' sake, and for the soules of all them that I have taken any of 
 their goods, with their will or against their will, and for all Christian 
 soules, to sing and say mass before St. Lawrence in the church of 
 Rathmore for ever. Item : I leave with my sons, if there be any 
 that hath the order of their own brethren and kinsmen, never to 
 vary from the way of blessedness ; and who doth contrary I will leave 
 him my curse, if he be not reformed ; and if my children cannot 
 agree, they shall go to two or three of their best kinsmen, and to be 
 sayd by them ; and I also leave upon blessing that none of my sons 
 take wages [employment] of any man that shall be against his brethren ; 
 but of my heir, the Lord of Rathmore, also I leave that my son and heir 
 shall wage (id est, employ) all my sons, and they shall go with none 
 other to do the king's" service. Any one that hath a better title to my 
 lands than I have myself, the best title shall have the lands. I discharge 
 my own sowl, and charge the sowl of them that shall hold the same 
 accordingly. Item : I leave all my cows and garrons with my son and 
 heir, and I do leave with the four riders four pecks of wheat, four 
 pecks of malt, and four pecks of Keave malt." 
 
 Alexandeb Plunxet, Chancellor. 
 
 Page 67, Line 20. 
 
 The bones of Archbishop O'Hurley were interred in St. Kevin's 
 churchyard, Dublin. Multitudes of pilgrims have for three centuries 
 thronged to his tomb, which the fancy, perhaps the superstition, of 
 the people clothed with many legends. One is, that on dark and 
 tempestuous nights, the spectre of the murdered archbishop, arrayed in 
 mourning and gory vestments, is to be seen reading the canon of the 
 Mass by sickly lights, on a phantom altar raised over his grave, but 
 when he comes to " the rising of the Host," the lights are out, and 
 the altar is gone ! 
 
 Page 88, Line 26. 
 will op sir maubice eustace. 
 
 " In the name of the glorious Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy 
 -Ghost, three persons and one God, blessed for evermore — I Sir Maurice 
 Eustace, Knight, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, having been and being by 
 
350 APPENDIX. WILL OF SIR MAURICE EUSTACE. 
 
 God's signal providence brought through many good alterations and 
 changes, which I have met with in the wilderness of this world, where 
 I have had to do with unreasonable men, to a good old age and to .be 
 full of years, and now drawing near to the great change that I must 
 look for when this corruptible body must put on incorruption, and 
 this mortal shall put on immortality ; so now to the end that I may 
 have nothing to do but to await this change which I believe I may 
 henceforward await for with joy and longing, make this my last will 
 and testament as f olloweth — First, I do commend my immortal soul 
 to the blessed Trinity, trusting to be saved by the merits of my dear 
 Saviour, who according to his blessed name came into the world to 
 save sinners, whereof I acknowledge myself to be the chief, and I 
 give my body to be buried at Castle Martin in the county of Kildare 
 without any solemnity, and being thus interred it is my desire and I 
 do so will and declare that such debts as I shall owe at the time of my 
 death, if it be that my personal estate shall fall short thereof, be in 
 the first place for so much as my personal estate shall fall short, satis- 
 fied out of my lands, and I do hereby according to such power as I 
 have, limit and appoint the legacies following to be paid if my per- 
 sonal estate do not reach thereto out of the profits of my leased lands 
 and lands of inheritance. To my dearly beloved wife the Lady 
 Charity Eustace the one-half of my personal estate and goods remain- 
 ing after my debts. To my sister Elizabeth Watson £100" [he 
 then bequeathed several other pecuniary legacies] : " To the poor of 
 the parish of St. Werburgh, Dublin £10, to the poor of the parish of 
 Carnallway in the county Kildare £5. All my law books and written 
 manuscripts I leave as an heir-loom to my heirs exclusively who shall 
 study the law, which study I commend my heirs as being the most 
 necessary and useful study for any one who intends to serve his king 
 and country, and which presupposeth a knowledge of all other learn- 
 ing." [He then devised his estates in the counties of Dublin, Kildare 
 and "Wicklow, together with Cong Abbey and its appurtenances in the 
 county of Mayo, to his eldest son]. " It is likewise my will that my 
 household stuff such as" . . . . " shall go to my dear wife : 
 my house in Dame-street, my coach horses to Doctor Leach, Provost 
 of the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, near Dublin. I do 
 appoint my noble friend Arthur Earl of Anglesea and my nephew, 
 John Keating, Esq., my executors ; I do give £50 a piece to them to 
 buy mourning for my sake. And now unto the King immortal, eter- 
 nal, invisible and only one God, be honour and glory for ever and 
 ever. Amen. And now Lord Jesus receive the soul of thy poor ser- 
 vant unto the everlasting dwellings which thou hast prepared for those 
 who love thee. In attestation for this my last will and testament I 
 do hereunto put my hand and seal this 12th day of July, 1663, in the- 
 presence of, &c, 
 
 "Mattkice Eustace, Lord, Chancellor" 
 
THE UNION. 351 
 
 Note, Pages 178, 193, 213. 
 iokd claee george ponsonby lobd plunket. 
 
 In our memoirs of Lord Clare, George Ponsonby, and Lord Plunket, 
 we made but a passing allusion to the parts played by those great men 
 in the last struggle concerning the Union. These parts were so closely 
 interwoven, that it was impossible to separate them, and to give Lord 
 Clare's speeches and his acts in reference to the Union in his memoir; 
 and at the same time leave the speeches and the acts of Mr. Ponsonby 
 and Lord Plunket to be told separately in theirs, would present 
 the appearance of a thrice-told and disjointed tale. "We have reserved 
 therefore for this place such portion of their biographies as are con- 
 versant with this subject. If Lord Clare came down like a wolf on the 
 fold, he was met by those watchers of the night, Ponsonby and Plunket, 
 and others of that gallant band of incorruptible men, such, for ex- 
 ample, as Henry Grattan and John Philpot Curran, with whom indeed 
 our narrative has not to deal, but whose genius and whose patriotism 
 have given them immortality. That the Union was effected by bribery 
 is not and can not be denied. But which in the scale of vice was the 
 worst ? The Englishman who bought the liberties of a venal race, or 
 the Irishman who sold them ? Let casuists answer. 
 
 The fury of the rebellion of 1798 had not yet subsided when the 
 British minister recommended preparatory steps to be taken to Enable 
 the Irish government to introduce the proposal of a legislative Union. 
 An anonymous pamphlet was written advocating the measure, and it 
 was soon discovered that the author was Mr. Edward Cooke, the Under- 
 Secretary. The leaders on both sides now stood forth, and Lord Clare 
 was at the bead of the supporters of the Union. Some men lost their 
 places for their hostility to the measure, and amongst the first dis- 
 missals were those of Sir John Parnell, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 and Mr. Fitzgerald, the Prime Serjeant. A meeting of the Bar was 
 immediately convoked to consider the question, and there appeared 
 against the Union 166, and for it 32 — majority 134. " Thirty-two," 
 continues Sir Jonah Barrington, " was the precise number of the 
 county judges" ; and he then gives the names of those "who were 
 afterwards rewarded for their adherence to Lord Clare." 
 
 The Bar meeting was followed by a meeting of the merchants of 
 the city of Dublin, who declared that they looked with abhorrence on 
 any attempt to deprive the people of their parliament. Similar de- 
 monstrations were made in various quarters. 
 
 On the 22nd of January, 1799, Lord Cornwallis, then Lord Lieute- 
 nant, came down, with Lords Clare and Castlereagh, to open the 
 session of parliament. They were accompanied by a strong guard, 
 and His Excellency duly delivered his speech from the throne, of 
 which those two ill-omened paragraphs were listened to with breath- 
 less attention : — 
 
 " The zeal of His Majesty's regular and militia forces, the gallantry 
 of the yeomanry, the honourable co-operation of the British fencibles 
 and militia, and the activity, skill, and valour of His Majesty's fleets, 
 -will, I doubt not, defeat every future effort of the enemy. But the 
 
352 APPENDIX. THE UNION. 
 
 more I have reflected on the situation and circumstances of this king- 
 dom, considering on one hand the strength and stability of Great 
 Britain, and on the other those divisions which have shaken Ireland 
 to its foundations, the more anxious I am for some permanent adjust- 
 ment which may extend the advantages enjoyed by our sister kingdom 
 to every part of this island. 
 
 " The unremitting industry with which our enemies persevere in. 
 their avowed design of endeavouring to effect a separation of this 
 kingdom from Great Britain must have engaged your particular atten- 
 tion, and His Majesty commands me to express his anxious hope that 
 this consideration, joined to the sentiment of mutual affection and 
 common interest, may dispose the parliaments in both kingdoms to 
 provide the most effectual means of maintaining and improving a con- 
 nexion essential to their common security, and of consolidating as far 
 as possible into one firm and lasting fabric the strength, the power, and 
 the resources of the British empire." 
 
 This was the first acknowledged official intimation of the desire of 
 the government to carry the Union, Lord Clare standing on the 
 right-hand side of the throne during the delivery of that speech, 
 which, it is not unlikely, he himself had written. In both the Lords 
 and Commons the debates on the address were animated. In the 
 Commons Mr. George Ponsonby moved as an amendment, that after 
 the passage declaring the willingness of the House to enter on a con- 
 sideration of what measures might best tend to the " consolidating as 
 far as possible into one firm and lasting fabric the strength, the power, 
 and the resources of the British empire," should be inserted these 
 words: "maintaining, however, the undoubted birthright of the 
 people of Ireland to have a resident and independent legislature such 
 as was recognised by the British legislature in 1782, and was finally 
 settled at the adjustment of nil differences between the two countries." 
 
 Mr. Ponsonby, in moving this amendment, said that "neither the 
 legislature nor any power on earth had a right or authority to annihi- 
 late the Irish Parliament, and deprive the people for ever of their 
 rights to the benefits of the constitution and of civil liberty. 
 
 " The minister," he added, " had told them that they ought to dis- 
 cuss the measure with coolness ; but the minister himself would not 
 leave men to the free exercise of their understanding, but turned out 
 of office [in allusion to the Prime Serjeant] the best and oldest servants 
 of the Crown, because they would not prostitute their conscience. 
 "When the terror of dismissal was thus holden out to deter men in 
 office from a fair exercise of their private judgment, how could he 
 talk of a free discussion?" 
 
 In the debate that followed many warmly supported Mr. Pon- 
 sonby's amendment, while Lord Castlereagh, the leader of the Union- 
 ists in the House of Commons, called on the country torn with 
 dissension to fling itself into the arms of England. "William Cun- 
 ningham Plunket, immediately on Lord Castlereagh's resuming his 
 seat, rose and spoke that memorable speech, known as the famous 
 Hamilcar speech, of which the following is an extract : — 
 
 " Sir, I, in the most express terms, deny the competency of par- 
 liament to do this act. I warn you, do not dare to lay your hands on 
 
plunket's speech. 353 
 
 the constitution. I tell you, that if, circumstanced as you are, you 
 pass this Act, it will be a nullity, and that no man in Ireland -will be 
 hound to obey it. I make the assertion deliberately — I repeat it, and 
 1 call on any man who hears me to take down my words. You have 
 not been elected for this purpose. Tou are appointed to make laws, 
 •and not legislatures. You are appointed to act under the constitu- 
 tion, not to alter it. You are appointed to exercise the functions of 
 legislators, and not to transfer them. And if you do so your act is a 
 tl issolution of the government. You resolve society into its original 
 •elements, and no man in the land is bound to obey you. 
 
 " Sir, I state doctrines which are not merely founded in the im- 
 mutable laws of justice and of truth. I state not merely the opinions 
 of the ablest men who have written on the science of government, but 
 I state the practice of our constitution as settled at the era of the re- 
 volution, and I state the doctrine under which the house of Hanover 
 derives its title to the throne. Has the king a right to transfer his 
 crown ? Is he competent to annex it to the crown of Spain or any 
 other country? !N T o — but he may abdicate it, and every man who 
 knows the constitution knows the consequence — the right reverts to 
 the next in succession : if they all abdicate, it reverts to the people. 
 The man who questions this doctrine, in the same breath must arraign 
 the sovereign on the throne as an usurper. Are you competent to 
 transfer your legislative rights to the French council of five hundred ? 
 Are you competent to transfer them to the British Parliament? I 
 •answer, no. When you transfer you abdicate, and the great original 
 trust reverts to the people from whom it issued. Yourselves you may 
 extinguish, but parliament you cannot extinguish. It is enthroned in 
 the hearts of the people. It is enshrined in the sanctuary of the consti- 
 tution. It is immortal as the island which it protects. As well might 
 the frantic suicide hope that the act which destroys his miserable 
 hody should extinguish his eternal soul. Again I therefore warn you, 
 <lo not dare to lay your hands on the constitution ; it is above your 
 power. 
 
 " Sir, I do not say that the parliament and the people, by mutual 
 •consent and co-operation, may not change the form of the constitu- 
 tion. Whenever such a case arises it must be decided on its own 
 merits — but that is not this case. If government considers this a 
 season peculiarly fitted for experiments on the constitution, they may 
 call on the people. I ask you are you ready to do so ? Are you 
 ready to abide the event of such an appeal ? What is it you must, in 
 that event, submit to the people ? Not this particular project; for if 
 jou dissolve the present form of government, they become free to choose 
 •any other — you fling them to the fury of the tempest; you must call on 
 them to unhouse themselves of the established constitution, and to 
 fashion to themselves another. I ask again, is this the time for an 
 «xperiment of that nature ? Thank God, the people have manifested 
 no such wish — so far as they have spoken, their voice is decidedly 
 •against this daring innovation. You know that no voice has been 
 uttered in its favour, and you cannot be infatuated enough to take 
 confidence from the silence which prevails in some parts of the king- 
 dom : if you know how to appreciate that silence, it is more f ormida- 
 
354 APPENDIX. THE UNION. 
 
 ble than the most clamourous opposition — you may he rived and 
 shivered by the lightning before you hear the peal of the thunder. 
 
 " But, sir, we are told that we should discuss this question with 
 calmness and composure. I am called on to surrender my birth-right 
 and my honour, and I am told I should be calm and should be com- 
 posed. National pride ! Independence of our country ! These, we 
 are told by the minister, are only vulgar topics fitted for the meridian 
 of the mob, but unworthy to be mentioned to such an enlightened 
 assembly as this ; they are trinkets and gewgaws fit to catch the fancy 
 of childish and unthinking people like you, sir, or like your prede- 
 cessor in that chair, but utterly unworthy the consideration of this 
 house, or of the matured understanding of the noble lord who con- 
 descends to instruct it ! Gracious God ! "We see a Perry reascending 
 from the tomb, and raising his awful voice to warn us against the sur- 
 render of our freedom, and we see that the proud and virtuous feelings- 
 which warmed the breast of that aged and venerable man are only 
 calculated to excite the contempt of this young philosopher, who has 
 been transplanted from the nursery to the cabinet to outrage the feel- 
 ings and understanding of the country. 
 
 "But, sir, I will be schooled, and I will endeavour to argue this 
 question as calmly and frigidly as I am desired to do ; and since we 
 are told that this is a measure intended for our benefit, and that it is- 
 through mere kindness to us that all these extraordinary means have 
 been resorted to, I will beg to ask, how are we to be benefited ? Is- 
 it commercial benefit that we are to obtain ? I will not detain the 
 house with a minute detail on this part of the subject. It has been 
 fully, discussed by able men, and it is well known that we are already 
 possessed of everything material which could be desired in that respect. 
 But I shall submit some obvious considerations. 
 
 "I waive the consideration, that under any union of legislatures 
 the conditions as to trade between the two countries must be, either 
 free ports, which would be ruinous to Ireland ; or equal duties, which 
 would be ruinous to Ireland ; or the present duties made perpetual, 
 which would be ruinous to Ireland ; or that the duties must be left- 
 open to regulation from time to time by the united parliament, which 
 would leave us at the mercy of Great Britain. I will waive the con- 
 sideration, that the minister has not thought fit to tell us what we 
 are to get, and, what is still stronger, that no man amongst us has any 
 definite idea of what we are to ask ; and I will content myself with 
 asking this question — is your commerce in such a declining, desperate 
 state, that you are obliged to resort to irrevocable measures in order 
 to restore it ? Or is it at the very moment when it is advancing with 
 rapid prosperity, beyond all example and above all hope — is it, I say, 
 at such a time that you think it wise to bring your constitution to- 
 market, and offer it to sale, in order to obtain advantages, the aid of 
 which you do not require, and of the nature of which you have not 
 any definite idea ? 
 
 "A word more, and I have done as to commerce. Supposing- 
 great advantages were to be obtained, and that they were specified 
 and stipulated for, what is your security that the stipulation will be 
 observed? Is it the faith of treaties? "What treaty more solema 
 
PLUNKET S SPEECH. 35i 
 
 than the final constitutional treaty between the two kingdoms in 
 1782, which you are now called on to violate ? Is it not a mockery 
 to say that the parliament of Ireland is competent to annul itself, and 
 to destroy the original compact with the people and the final compact 
 of 1782, and that the parliament of the empire will not be competent 
 to annul any commercial regulation of the articles of Union ? And 
 here, sir, I take leave of this part of the question. Indeed, it is only 
 justice to government to acknowledge that they do not much rely on 
 the commercial benefits to be obtained by the Union — they have been 
 rather held out in the way of innocent artifice, to delude the people 
 for their own good; but the real objects are different, though still 
 merely for the advantage of Ireland. 
 
 " What are those other objects? To prevent the recurrence of re- 
 bellion, and to put an end to domestic dissensions ? Give me leave to 
 ask, sir, how was the rebellion excited ? I will not inquire into its 
 remote causes ; I do not wish to revive unpleasant recollections, or to 
 say anything which might be considered as invidious to the government 
 of the country ; but how was it immediately excited ? By the agency 
 of a party of levellers actuated by French principles, instigated by 
 French intrigues, and supported by the promise of French co-operation. 
 This party, I hesitate not to say, was in itself contemptible. How did 
 it become formidable ? By operating on the wealthy, well-informed, 
 and moral inhabitants of the north, and persuading them that they had 
 no constitution ; and by instilling palatable poisons into the minds of 
 the rabble of the south ; which were prepared to receive them by 
 being in a state of utter ignorance and wretchedness. How will an 
 Union effect those pre-disponent causes ? Will you conciliate the 
 mind of the northern by caricaturing all the defects of the constitu- 
 tion, and then extinguishing it, by draining his wealth to supply the 
 contributions levied by an imperial parliament, and by outraging all 
 his religious and moral feelings by the means which you use to accom- 
 plish this abominable project ? and wi]l you not, by encouraging the 
 drain of absentees, and taking away the influence and example of 
 resident gentlemen, do everything in your power to aggravate the 
 poverty, and to sublimate the ignorance and bigotry of the south ? 
 
 " Let me ask again, how was the rebellion put down? By the 
 zeal and loyalty of the gentlemen of Ireland rallying round — what? 
 a reed shaken by the winds — a wretched apology for a minister, who 
 neither knew how to give nor where to seek protection ? No ! but 
 round the laws and constitution and independence of the country. 
 What were the affections and motives that called us into action ? To 
 protect our families, our properties, and our liberties. What were the 
 antipathies by which we were excited ? Our abhorrence of French 
 principles and French ambition. What was it to us that France was 
 a republic? I rather rejoiced when I saw the ancient despotism of 
 France put down. What was it to us that she dethroned her mo- 
 narch ? I admired the virtues and wept for the sufferings of the man ; 
 but as a nation it affected us not. The reason I took up arms, and am 
 ready still to bear them against France, is because she intruded her- 
 self upon our domestic concerns — because with the rights of man and 
 the love of freedom on her tongue, I see that she has the lust of 
 dominion in her heart — because wherever she has placed her foot, she 
 
■356 APPENDIX. THE UNION. 
 
 has erected her throne ; and to be her friend or her ally is to be her 
 tributary or her slave. 
 
 " Let me ask, is the present conduct of the British minister calcu- 
 lated to augment or to transfer that antipathy ? No, sir, I will be bold 
 to say, that licentious and impious France, in all the unrestrained ex- 
 cesses which Anarchy and Atheism have given birth to, has not com- 
 mitted a more insidious act against her enemy than is now attempted 
 by the professed champion of civilized Europe against a friend and an 
 -ally in the hour of her calamity and distress — at a moment when our 
 country is filled with British troops — when the loyal men of Ireland 
 are fatigued with their exertions to put down rebellion ; efforts in 
 which they had succeeded before these troops arrived — whilst our 
 Habeas Corpus Act is suspended — whilst trials by court martial are 
 carrying on in many parts of the kingdom — whilst the people are 
 taught to think that they have no right to meet or to deliberate, and 
 whilst the great body of them are so palsied by their fears, and worn 
 down by their exertions, that even this vital question is scarcely able 
 to rouse them from their lethargy — at the moment when we are dis- 
 tracted by domestic dissensions- — dissensions artfully kept alive as the 
 pretext for our present subjugation, and the instrument of our future 
 thraldom ! 
 
 " Yet, sir, I thank the administration for this measure. They are, 
 without intending it, putting an end to our dissensions — through this 
 black cloud which they have collected over us I see the light breaking 
 in upon this unfortunate country. They have composed our dissen- 
 sions — not by fomenting the embers of a lingering and subdued rebel- 
 lion — not by hallooing the Protestant against the Catholic and the 
 Catholic against the Protestant — not by committing the north against 
 the south — not by inconsistent appeals to local or to party prejudices; 
 no — but by the avowal of this atrocious conspiracy against the liber- 
 ties of Ireland, they have subdued every petty and subordinate dis- 
 tinction. They have united every rank and description of men by the 
 pressure of this grand and momentous subject; and I tell them that 
 they will see every honest and independent man in Ireland rally round 
 her constitution, and merge every other consideration in his opposition 
 to this ungenerous and odious measure. For my own part, I will 
 resist it to the last gasp of my existence, and with the last drop of my 
 blood, and when I feel the hour of my dissolution approaching, I will, 
 like the father of Hannibal, take my children to the altar and swear 
 them to eternal hostility against the invaders of their country's free- 
 dom. 
 
 " Sir, I shall not detain you by pursuing this question through the 
 topics which it so abundantly offers. I shall be proud to think my 
 name may be handed down to posterity in the same roll with these 
 •disinterested patriots who have successfully resisted the enemies of 
 their country. Successfully I trust it will be — in all events I have 
 my great reward ; I shall bear in my heart the consciousness of having 
 done my duty, and in the hour of death I shall not be haunted by the 
 reflection of having basely sold or meanly abandoned the liberties of 
 my native land. Can every man who gives his vote on the other side 
 lay his hand upon his heart and make the same declaration ?" 
 
 For twenty-two hours the debate lasted, and at 10 o'clock on the 
 
PONSONBY S MOTION. 357 
 
 24th of January, 1799 the House divided, and the vote stood — for Mr. 
 Ponsonby's amendment, 105; against it, 106. Majority for the Go- 
 vernment, 1 (which was substantially a defeat). 
 
 On the very nest day the struggle was renewed, when Lord Cas- 
 tlereagh stigmatised the Bar of which Mr. Ponsonby, who had just 
 spoken was so distinguished a member as "petty-loggers." After 
 many had spoken on both sides, Mr. Plunket rose and delivered one of 
 the ablest speeches ever delivered in Parliament. He could go no 
 farther than Mr. Ponsonby had done, but his language, according to 
 Sir Jonah Barring-ton, was irresistible. On this occasion there was a 
 majority of six against the Union. 
 
 This was a triumph for the popular party, but in the moment of 
 triumph disaster was looming in the distance. Elated with success, 
 Mr. Ponsonby requested his supporters, who rose to leave the House, 
 to remain for a few moments, as he was bringing on a motion of the 
 utmost importance. Silence being restored, he " congratulated the 
 House and the country on the honest and patriotic assertion of their 
 liberties, but declared that he considered there would be no security 
 against future attempts to overthrow their independence, save by a 
 direct and absolute declaration of the rights of Irishmen, recorded 
 upon their Journals as the decided sense of the people through their 
 Parliament, and he, therefore, would without further preface move: — 
 " Tliat this Souse will ever maintain the undoubted birth-right of Irish- 
 men, by preserving an independent Parliament of Lords and Commons re- 
 siding in this Kingdom, as stated and approved by Sis Majesty and the 
 British Parliament in 1782." 
 
 Lord Castlereagh "conceived this motion of Mr. Ponsonby of a 
 most dangerous tendency ; however if the House were determined upon 
 it, he begged to declare his entire dissent, and on their own heads be 
 the consequences of so wrong and inconsiderate a measure." !No 
 further opposition was made by the Government, and the motion was- 
 carried, by acclamation ; but, the Speaker having called upon Mr. 
 Ponsonby to write down his motion accurately, while he was in the 
 act of doing so, some of the Members who had voted with him hesi- 
 tated. Whether from the weakness that belongs to some minds, or 
 because they did not wish the Government to be finally beaten, they 
 stated that they did not desire to bind themselves for ever, as circum- 
 stances might occur which would render the measure expedient for 
 the Empire. The motion was not pressed by Mr. Ponsonby, who 
 "lamented that the smallest contrariety of opinion should have arisen 
 amongst men who ought to be united by the most powerful of all in- 
 ducements — the salvation of their independence. He perceived, how- 
 ever, a wish that he should not press it, founded, he supposed, on a 
 mistaken confidence in the engagements of the noble lord (Lord Cas- 
 tlereagh), that he would not again bring forward this ruinous mea- 
 sure without the decided approbation of the people and of the Parlia- 
 ment. Though he must doubt the sincerity of the minister's engage- 
 ments, yet he could not hesitate to acquiesce in the wishes of his 
 friends, and he would, therefore, withdraw his motion" — a withdrawal 
 which was sarcastically said, by Sir Henry Cavendish, to be a retreat 
 after a victory. 
 
 The House of Lords met on the 22nd of January, 1799, the same 
 
■358 APPENDIX. THE UNION. 
 
 ■day as the Commons, to receive the speech of the Viceroy ; but there 
 the voice of Lord Clare was omnipotent. " In his hands (writes Sir 
 Jonah Barrington) that House was powerless ; there were, however, 
 amongst the Irish nobility, a few men of spirit, pride, talent, and 
 integrity ; but there were too few for resistance. 
 
 ' ' The education of the Irish noblemen of that day was little calcu- 
 lated for debate or parliamentary duties ; they very seldom took any 
 active part in parliamentary discussions, and more rarely attained to 
 that confidence in public speaking, without which no effect can 
 be produced. They could argue, or might declaim, but were unequal 
 to what is termed debate ; and being confirmed in their torpidity by 
 an habitual abstinence from parliamentary discussions, when the day 
 of danger came, they were unequal to the contest. 
 
 "Lord Clare, on the contrary, from his forensic habits, his dog- 
 matic arrogance, and unrestrained invective, had an incalculable 
 advantage over less practised reasoners. The modest were over- 
 whelmed by flights of astounding rhapsody, the patriotic borne down 
 by calumny, the diffident silenced by contemptuous irony ; and 
 nearly the whole of the peerage, without being able to account 
 for their pusillanimity, were either trampled under his feet, or were 
 mere puppets in the grasp of this all-powerful Chancellor. Such was 
 the state of the Irish Lords in 1799. The extent of Lord Clare's 
 connexions, and the energy of his conduct during the last insurrec- 
 tion, had contributed to render him nearly despotic over both Govern- 
 ment and the country. Dickson, Bishop of Down, and Marlay, 
 Bishop of Limerick, were the only spiritual peers that ventured to 
 oppose him ; both were of invincible integrity and undeviating 
 patriotism. His Lordship of Limerick was the uncle of Mr. Grattan; 
 and the Bishop of Down was the intimate friend of Mr. Fox. Unfor- 
 tunately, both were too mild, unassuming, and dignified, to contend 
 successfully against so haughty and remorseless an opponent." 
 
 It was also, on the same day on which the Union was indirectly pro- 
 posed by Lord Cornwallis in Ireland, that a similar proposal was made 
 to the British Parliament by Lord Grenville ; but there the matter 
 remained during the rest of the year 1799. In Ireland, meanwhile, 
 Catholic Emancipation was promised as the result of the Union; 
 shameless bribery was resorted to, and Catholic barristers being them- 
 selves ineligible for promotion, were silenced by pensions, bestowed in 
 many instances upon themselves for life, with remainder to their 
 wives and children. 
 
 The trading and commercial classes of Catholics in the city of 
 Dublin were opposed to the Union ; and, immediately before 
 the opening of the Session, a meeting of those people was held at 
 the Royal Exchange, to deliver their opinion upon it. It was pro- 
 posed to prevent their assembling by military force — such was 
 Lord Clare's first thought ; but the meeting was held, and no less a 
 person than Daniel O'Connell, then rapidly rising at the Bar, took an 
 active part in its proceedings. We shall give an extract from his 
 speech, although in doing so we are travelling out of the line we had 
 traced, which was to confine ourselves to the course adopted by 
 Lord Clare, George Ponsonby, and "William Conyngham Plunket. 
 Mr. O'Connell said that "it was asserted by the advocates of Union 
 
DANIEL O'COXXELl/S SPEECH. 359 
 
 daringly and insolently asserted — that the Roman Catholics of Ireland 
 ■were friends to the measure of Union, and silent allies to that conspi- 
 racy formed against the name, the interests, and the liberties of Ire- 
 land. This libel on the Catholic character was strengthened by the 
 partial declarations of some mean and degenerate members of the 
 communion, wrought upon by corruption or by fear, and, unfortu- 
 nately, it was received with a too general credulity. Every Union 
 pamphlet, every Union speech imprudently put forth the Catholic 
 name as sanctioning a measure which would annihilate the name of the 
 country, and there was none to refute the calumny. In the speeches 
 and pamphlets of anti-Unionists, it was rather admitted than denied, 
 and, at length, the Catholics themselves were obliged to break through 
 a resolution which they had formed, in order to guard against misre- 
 presentation, for the purpose of repelling this worst of misrepresenta- 
 tions. To refute a calumny directed against them, as a sect, they 
 were obliged to come forward as a sect, and in the face of their coun- 
 try to disavow the base conduct imputed to them, and to declare that 
 the assertion of their being favourably inclined to a measure of a legis- 
 lative incorporation with Great Britain was a slander the most vile — 
 a libel the most false, scandalous, and wicked, that ever was directed 
 against the character of an individual or a people. 
 
 " Sir," continued Mr. O'Connell, " it is my sentiment, and I am 
 satisfied it is the sentiment, not only of every gentleman who now 
 hears me, but of the Catholic people of Ireland, that if our oppo- 
 sition to this injurious, insulting, and hated measure of Union 
 were to draw upon us the revival of the Penal Laws, we would 
 boldly meet a proscription and oppression, which would be the 
 testimonies of our virtue, and sooner throw ourselves once more 
 on the mercy of our Protestant brethren, than give our assent to 
 the political murder of our country ; yes, I know — I do know, 
 that although exclusive advantages may he ambiguously held forth 
 to the Irish Catholic, to seduce him from the sacred duty which 
 he owes his country ; I know that the Catholics of Ireland still 
 remember that they have a country, and that they will never accept 
 of any advantages as a sect, which would debase and destroy them as 
 & people." 
 
 Mr. O'Connell then moved the following resolution, which was 
 unanimously agreed to : — 
 
 " Resolved — That we are of opinion that the proposed incorporate 
 Union of the Legislatures of Great Britain and Ireland is, in fact, 
 an extinction of the liberty of this country, which would be reduced 
 to the abject condition of a province, surrendered to the mercy of the 
 Minister and Legislature of another country, to be bound by their 
 absolute will, and taxed at their pleasure by laws, in the making 
 of which this country could have no efficient participation what- 
 ever." 
 
 On the 15th of January, 1800, the last Session of the Irish Parlia- 
 ment met in College-green. It was expected that the speech from the 
 throne would have again brought before the minds of men the all- 
 absorbing topic of the Union. The Viceroy congratulated them on 
 the victories of the combined British armies over France, and recom- 
 mended to their especial care the Protestant Charter Schools, but 
 
360 APPENDIX. — THE UNION. 
 
 ended without saying one word of the one subject that was uppermost 
 in the minds of all ! 
 
 The address was moved in the House of Commons ; and Sir Lawrence- 
 Parsons moved an amendment, declaratory of Mr. Ponsonby's resolu- 
 tion that Parliament would preserve the Constitution as established 
 in 1872, and would support the freedom and independence of the 
 nation. This motion created a warm debate on the first evening of the 
 Session. Mr. Plunket spoke that night in impassioned language 
 against the Union, and Mr. Ponsonby delivered one of his most bril- 
 liant speeches, and then left the House; but soon returned, leading, or 
 rather helping Mr. Grrattan to enter, in a state of total feebleness and 
 debility. Long illness had reduced him to the appearance of a 
 spectre, and he now resumed his place in the House from which 
 he had, more than two years previously, seceded. He joined in the- 
 debate that night, but neither his eloquence, nor that of Ponsonby 
 nor of Plunket, prevailed — Quid non mortalia pectora eogis, auri sacra 
 fames f Mnety-six only voted for Sir Lawrence Parsons' amendment, 
 while one hundred and thirty-eight voted against it — a majority 
 of forty-two for the Castle ! 
 
 At length, on the 1 5th of February, 1800, Lord Castlereagh formally 
 brought the project before the House by reading a message from 
 Lord Cornwallis, recommending that measure to the earnest attention, 
 of Parliament. 
 
 Mr. Ponsonby, in reply, made a violent attack upon the Minister,. 
 and his whole scheme. He treated as visionary all the proffered 
 advantages of the Union: "In the ecclesiastical establishment it 
 would produce but one solid effect — namely, to translate Irish into- 
 English bishops ; while," he said, " your Peerage is to be disgraced — 
 your Commons purchased, and no additional advantage to be given to- 
 commerce ; for twenty years a little savings in contributions ; but 
 if the Cabinet of England think that we contribute more than 
 we should, why not correct that extravagance now ? If anything be* 
 conceded in the way of trade, why is it not conceded now ? Are any 
 of these benefits incompatible with our present state ? No ! but the 
 Minister wants to carry his Union, and no favour, however trifling, can 
 be yielded to us unless we are willing to purchase it with the exist- 
 ence of Parliament, and the liberties of our country." 
 
 On a division there appeared for printing the Articles of Union one- 
 hundred and fifty-eght ; against it one hundred and fifteen — majority 
 forty-three. 
 
 At once Lord Castlereagh sent up the Articles to the House- 
 of Lords. Lord Clare's speech on that occasion was one of the most 
 remarkable delivered in either House in the debates preceding the 
 Union. His lordship having expressed his conviction that nothing 
 but "union" could save the country from annihilation, thus pro- 
 ceeded, giving, as he went along, a historical disquisition on the- 
 whole career of the English colony in Ireland : — 
 
 " My opinion on this subject has not been recently or lightly 
 formed. Early professional habits had taught me to investigate the- 
 foundation of Irish titles, and of necessity to look back into Irish his- 
 tory. It had been my fortune," he says, "to be called into active 
 and forward public service, perhaps during the most eventful period 
 
lord clare's speech. 361 
 
 of it ; and from a critical and attentive observation of what has passed 
 in Ireland for the last twenty years, I am satisfied, in my judgment 
 and conscience, that the existence of her independent parliament has 
 led her to recent complications and bitter calamities, and that it has 
 at length become desperate and impracticable. I did more than once, 
 when I sat in the House of Commons, state without reserve, that the 
 rapid growth of faction and the precipitate folly and passions of men 
 who, from time to time, were suffered to take a commanding lead in the 
 councils of that assembly, would inevitably reduce us to the alterna- 
 tive of separation or union. I have, with as little reserve, stated the 
 same opinion since I have had the honour of a seat in this house ; and 
 I make no scruple to avow, that in every communication I have had 
 with the King's ministers on Irish affairs for the last seven years, I 
 have uniformly and distinctly pressed upon them the urgent necessity 
 of union, as the last resource to preserve this country to the British 
 Crown. I pressed it without effect until British ministers and the 
 British nation were roused to a sense of the common danger, by the 
 late sanguinary and unprovoked rebellion. 
 
 " It seems perfectly immaterial now to inquire what was the 
 origin of that connexion which has subsisted for more than six centu- 
 ries between this country and England — whether it originated in con- 
 quest, as English lawyers and historians have confidently advanced, 
 or as we assert, with equal confidence, in a federal compact of some 
 old Irish chiefs with the English king. If the conquest of Ireland 
 was the object of the English king, his embarrassments on the Conti- 
 nent seem to have disabled him from effecting it. 
 
 " The first English settlements here have been merely colonial, 
 such as have been since made by the different nations of Europe, on 
 the coasts of Asia, Africa, or America. During several successive 
 reigns, the English colony was left to thrive by its own strength and 
 resources, having received no other reinforcement than the occasional 
 arrival of new British adventurers : the consequence was, that for 
 centuries the English Pale was not pushed beyond its original limits. 
 So late as the reign of Henry VIII., it consisted of four shires only, 
 and Mr. Allen, then Master of the Bolls, reported to the King, that 
 his laws were not obeyed twenty miles from the capital. The com- 
 mon observation of the country was, that they who dwelt west of the 
 river Barrow dwelt west of the law. 
 
 " The early policy of the English Government certainly was, to 
 discourage all connexion of the colony with the native Irish; the 
 Statute of Kilkenny, enacted by the provincial assembly of the Pale 
 in the reign of Edward III., having prohibited marriage, or gossipred 
 with the Irishry, or claiming the benefit of the Brehon Law by any 
 person of English blood, under the penalties of treason. This statute 
 has been much extolled by Sir John Davis, as eminently qualified to 
 reform the degenerate English, as he calls them. It seems difficult, 
 however, to reconcile it to any principle of sound policy ; it was a de- 
 claration of perpetual war, not only against the native Irish, but 
 against every person of English blood who had settled beyond the 
 limits of the Pale, and from motives of personal interest and conve- 
 nience, had formed connexions with the natives, or adopted their laws 
 and customs ; and it had full effect, whieh might have been expected : 
 
 2b 
 
362 APPENDIX.— THE tmioN. 
 
 it drew closer the confederacy it was meant to dissolve, and implicated 
 the colonies of the Pale in ceaseless warfare and contention with each 
 other, and with the inhabitants of the adjacent districts. 
 
 " Such was the state of Ireland when the attempt was first made 
 to promulgate the English statute law here ; and it is not extraordinary 
 that in the complicated quarrels and promiscuous warfare which had 
 subsisted for centuries between the native Irish and degenerate Eng- 
 lish, and English of blood and English of birth within the Pale, that 
 the attempt proved altogether abortive. The taunting answer of 
 Maguire, chief of Fermanagh, to the Lord Deputy, who applied to 
 him to receive a sheriff commissioned by Henry VIII., sufficiently 
 explains the state of the country, and the authority of the King's 
 Government in it : ' Your sheriff shall be welcome to me ; but if he 
 comes, send me his erie (the price of his head), that if my people slay 
 him, I may fine them accordingly.' 
 
 " In the same reign a formal treaty was made with the Earl of 
 Desmond, for his permission that the English law should be executed, 
 and the subsidies granted by the parliament of the Pale be levied in 
 his country ; and other chiefs treated ' for the admission of the King's 
 judges, on condition only that they should observe the Irish law ; and 
 perhaps if these judges, or any other officers commissioned by the 
 Crown, had been authorised to act as arbitrators, to compose the feuds 
 and animosities of the Irish tribes, with the powerful Lords of English 
 blood, the habitual and licentious turbulence of the Irish nation might 
 gradually have subsided, and acquiesced in the establishment of a ra- 
 tional and civilised government ; but fatally at this time a new schism 
 rose, which has been the lane and pestilence of Ireland. It has rendered 
 her a blank amongst the nations of Europe, and will, I fear, long con- 
 tinue to retard her progress in the civilised world. 
 
 " In the reign of Henry VIII. no attempt was made to force the 
 reformed liturgy upon them ; he was satisfied with a silent acquies- 
 cence in his claim of supremacy ; but on his death this system of 
 moderation was deserted : orders were issued by the Regency for en- 
 forcing the use of the English liturgy, and stripping the churches of 
 their old ornaments in every district in which the English power was 
 acknowledged. 
 
 < ' In the succeeding reign the tables were reversed : — the Protestant 
 churches were shut ; the popish liturgy and old ensigns of superstition 
 were restored. 
 
 " In the reign of Elizabeth, a new reverse took place : the popish 
 churches were again stripped of their ornaments ; the reformed liturgy 
 was again enforced, and the English Act of Uniformity was enacted 
 by the colonial parliament ; and what seems to be a solecism in the 
 history of legislation, in the body of this Act, by which the use of the 
 English liturgy, and a strict conformity to it, are enjoined under severe 
 penalties, a clause is introduced, reciting, ' that English ministers 
 cannot be found to serve in Irish churches ; that the Irish people did 
 not understand the English language ; that the Church service cannot 
 be celebrated in Irish, as well for difficulty to get it printed, as that 
 few in the whole realm can read"; — and what is the remedy ? "if 
 the Minister of the Gospel cannot speak English, he may celebrate 
 the Church service in the Latin tongue," 
 
LOfet) CLARe's SPEECH. SG3 
 
 The Chancellor next proceeds to condemn the persecutions of the 
 Irish Catholics : — 
 
 " It seems difficult to conceive any more unjust or impolitic act of 
 government than an attempt thus to force new modes of religious 
 faith and worship, by severe penalties, upon a rude, superstitious, 
 and unlettered people. Persecution or attempts to force the reformed 
 religion in Ireland had no other effect than to foment a general disaffec- 
 tion to the English Government — a disaffection so general as to induce 
 Philip II. of Spain to attempt partial descents on the southern coasts 
 of this island, preparatory to his meditated attack upon England. 
 Elizabeth quickly saw her danger, and that it was necessary, without 
 delay, to secure the possession of Ireland ; she sent over a powerful 
 and well-appointed army, and after a difficult and bloody war of seven 
 years, effected the complete reduction of the island, which, to the 
 period of this first conquest, had been divided into a number of licen- 
 tious and independent tribes, under the rule of the ancient chiefs of 
 the country, and powerful lords of English blood, who had obtained 
 profuse ' territorial grants from the Crown.' She did not, however, 
 live to see this reduction completed. The capitulation with O'Neale 
 was not signed till some time after her death ; and therefore her suc- 
 cessor must be considered as the first English monarch who possessed 
 the complete dominion of Ireland. 
 
 " The accession of James the Pirst I consider as the era of connexion 
 between the sister islands. Then, for the first time, was the spirit of 
 resistance to the English power broken down, and the English laws 
 universally acknowledged. The first object of the King seems to 
 have been, to establish the Reformation ; but, in pursuing it, unfor- 
 tunately he adopted the same course by which his predecessors had 
 been misled ; but his measures were attended with much more serious 
 and extensive consequences; their orders for religious reformation 
 had extended only to the churches and districts within the Pale ; but 
 the orders sent by the council of James I. extended to the whole 
 island." 
 
 Of the Confiscation of Ulster in the reign of James I. he thus 
 speaks : — 
 
 "The province of "Ulster had been the principal theatre of the 
 late civil war, and had been confiscated and seized into the hands of 
 the Crown. The old proprietors, who had led the revolt, were ex- 
 pelled, and replaced by a new set of adventurers from England and 
 Scotland — all Protestants, who, with a new religion, brought over 
 with them a new source of contention with the inhabitants. 
 
 "One of the modern arts of civil war in Ireland has been to 
 stigmatise the memory of James I. as having sapped the liberties, and 
 subverted the parliamentary constitution, of Ireland ; and this revolu- 
 tionary text, from the moment it was given out, has been enlarged 
 upon with equal assiduity and success by every avowed rebel and 
 equivocal loyalist in the kingdom. But what is the fact which stands 
 recorded and authenticated beyond doubt or controversy ? That Ire- 
 land, before the accession of James I., had never anything like a 
 
 2b2 
 
364 APPENDIX. — THE UNION. 
 
 parliamentary constitution. In tie reign of Edward II., the descen- 
 dants of the first English settlers had a provincial assembly which 
 was called the Parliament of the Pale. The same sort of assembly 
 was occasionally summoned during several successive reigns ; and any 
 man who will take the trouble to read the Statute-book will find that 
 the principal business of them all was to pass ordinances of outlawry 
 against the native Irish, and inhabitants of English blood connected 
 with them. But such was the contempt in which these assemblies 
 was held, that even the colonists of the Pale considered it an insult 
 to be summoned to attend them. The Earl of Desmond claimed it as 
 the right and privilege of the lords of English blood not to attend 
 these assemblies, or to come into any walled town, but at their will 
 and pleasure. 
 
 " In the province of Connaught there is not the trace of any 
 claim, or exercise of any parliamentary franchise till late in the reign 
 of Elizabeth : in Ulster, none till the reign of James I. Some few of 
 the seaports in Munster had been occasionally summoned to send de- 
 puties to the colonial parliament ; but such was the state of the 
 country that they could not make their way to the Pale, insomuch 
 that in the thirty-third year of the reign of Henry VIII. it was found 
 necessary to repeal an ordinance by which the place of meeting of the 
 colonial parliament was restricted to Dublin or Drogheda. The cause 
 assigned in the Act of repeal is, that by reason of the distance of 
 obedient shires and borough towns, and the perilous passage by the 
 way from the King's rebels, these deputies could not attend. 
 
 " The crime for which the memory of James I. has been calum- 
 niated is, that he laid the foundation of a regular government in Ire- 
 land, and of the existing establishments in Church and State,. At 
 his accession there were scarcely any Protestants amongst the old 
 inhabitants of English blood — amongst the native Irish none : for the 
 last twenty years, therefore, of Elizabeth, she could not venture to 
 call the colonial parliament. The distinction of Englishry and Irishry 
 had been nearly efEaced in her time, and was succeeded by a new 
 schism of Protestant and Papist ; but, from the first introduction of 
 his Protestant colony by James I., the old distinctions of native Irish 
 and degenerate English, and English of blood and English of birth, 
 were lost and forgotten. All rallied to the banner of the Popish faith, 
 and looked upon the new Protestant settlers as the common aggressor 
 and enemy ; and it is a melancholy truth, that from that day all have 
 clung to the Popish religion as a common bond of union, and an 
 hereditary pledge of animosity to British settlers and the British 
 nation. "What alternative, then, remained to the King for retaining 
 this country under the dominion of his crown, in the modern revolu- 
 tionary phrase ? The physical consequence of the country was arrayed 
 against the English colony and the English government; he was 
 therefore driven to the necessity of treating the old inhabitants as a 
 conquered people, and governing their country as an English province ; 
 or of fortifying his Protestant colony by investing them exclusively 
 with the artificial power of a separate government, which, on every 
 principle of self-interest and self-preservation, they were bound to 
 administer in concert with England. The executive departments were 
 under the immediate control of the ordinary royal prerogative ; but it 
 
LORD CLARE S SPEECH. 365 
 
 was vain to hope that he could retain possession of Ireland under a 
 separate government, unless a majority of the Irish Parliament stood 
 well affected to the English Crown and English nation ; and to obtain 
 that majority he resorted to the exercise of a prerogative which has 
 always belonged to the English Crown, by erecting new counties, and 
 incorporating some of the principal towns occupied by the new settlers, 
 giving them the franchise of sending representatives to the Irish Par- 
 liament ; and I repeat, without incurring the hazard of contradiction, 
 that Ireland never had an assembly which could be called a parlia- 
 ment until the reign of James I. 
 
 " The legislative assemblies before his accession were composed 
 only of the few persons who could be prevailed upon to attend from 
 obedient shires and towns within the Pale or immediately adjacent to 
 it, and from a few scattered English settlements on the coast of Mun- 
 ster : and with all the exertions made in support of the Protestant 
 colony, the majority in its favour at the first meeting was little more 
 than twenty ; and it would seem that the debates of that day partook 
 pretty largely of modern virulence, for a scuffle took place in the 
 House of Commons, which might have ended in bloodshed if the pre- 
 caution had not been taken to disarm the combatants before they were 
 suffered to meet in parliament. 
 
 " The steady government of Strafford kept down these animosities, 
 which had continued with unabated rancour until his time ; but, at 
 his removal, the old inhabitants, taking advantage of the weakness 
 and distraction of the English Government, broke out into open hos- 
 tility and rebellion : the flame had long been smothered, and at length 
 burst forth with a terrible explosion. The native Irish began the in- 
 surrection, but were soon joined by the old English colony, and the 
 lords of English blood, with few exceptions. After a fierce and 
 bloody contest of eleven years, in which the face of the whole island 
 was desolated, and its population nearly extinguished by war, pesti- 
 lence, and famine, the insurgents were subdued, and suffered all the 
 calamities which could be inflicted on the vanquished party in a long- 
 contested civil war. This was a civil war of extermination. 
 
 " The rebellion of 1798 would have been a war of extermination, 
 if it had not been for the strong and merciful interposition of Great 
 Britain; and I could wish that the besotted rebels of this day, who 
 have been saved from extermination by a British monarch, would look 
 back at the blessings of Republican liberty dealt out to their ances- 
 tors by the usurper Cromwell. His first act was to collect all the 
 native Irish who had survived the general desolation and remained in 
 the country, and to transplant them into the province of Connaught, 
 which had been completely depopulated and laid waste in the progress 
 of the rebellion. They were ordered to retire there by a certain day, 
 and forbidden to repass the river Shannon on pain of death, and this 
 sentence of deportation was rigidly enforced until the Restoration. 
 Their ancient possessions were seized and given up to the conquerors 
 as were the possessions of every man who had taken part in the re- 
 bellion, or followed the fortunes of the King, after the murder of 
 Charles I. : and this whole fund was distributed amongst the officers 
 and soldiers of Cromwell's army, in satisfaction of the arrears of their 
 pay, and amongst the adventurers who had advanced money to defray 
 
366 APPENDIX. — THK TJNrOJT. 
 
 the expenses of the war. Thus a new colony of new settlers, com- 
 posed of all the various sects which then infested England, many 
 of them infected with the leaven of democracy, poured into Ireland, 
 and were put into possession of the ancient inheritance of its inhabi- 
 tants : and I speak with great personal respect of the men, when I 
 state that a very considerable portion of the opulence and power of 
 the kingdom of Ireland centres at this day in the descendants of this 
 motley collection of English adventurers. 
 
 " It seems evident, from the whole tenor of the declaration made 
 by Charles II. at his restoration, that a private stipulation had been 
 made by Monck, in favour of Cromwell's soldiers and adventurers, 
 who had been put into possession of the confiscated lands in Ireland ; 
 and it would have been an act of gross injustice on the part of the 
 King to have overlooked their interests. The civil war of 1641 was 
 a rebellion against the Crown of England ; and the complete reduction 
 of the Irish rebels by Cromwell redounded essentially to the advan- 
 tage of the British empire. But admitting the principle in its fullest 
 extent, it is impossible to defend the Acts of Settlement and Explana- 
 tion, by which it was carried into effect ; and I could wish that the 
 modern assertors of Irish dignity and independence would take the 
 trouble to read and understand them. The Act of Settlement pro- 
 fesses to have for its object ' the execution of His Majesty's gracious 
 declaration for the settlement of his kingdom of Ireland, and satisfac- 
 tion of the several interests of adventurers, soldiers, and other his 
 subjects there'; and after reciting the rebellion, the enormities com- 
 mitted in the progress of it, and the final reduction of the rebels by 
 the King's English and Protestant subjects, by a general sweeping 
 clause, ' vests in the King, his heirs and successors, all estates, real 
 and personal, of every kind whatsoever in the kindom of Ireland, 
 which at any time from the 21st October, 1641, were seized or se- 
 questered into the hands, or to the use of Charles I., or the then 
 king, or otherwise disposed of, set out or set apart by reason, or on 
 account of the rebellion, or which were allotted, assigned, or distri- 
 buted to any person or persons for adventures, arrears, reprisals, or 
 otherwise, or whereof any soldier, adventurer, or other person were in 
 possession for or on account of the rebellion.' 
 
 " Having thus, in the first instance, vested three-fourths of the 
 lands and personal property of the inhabitants of this island in the 
 King, Commissioners were appointed, with full and exclusive autho- 
 rity, to hear and determine all claims upon the general fund, whether 
 of officers and soldiers for arrears of pay, of adventurers who had ad- 
 vanced money for carrying on the war, or of innocent papists, as they 
 are called ; in other words, of the old inhabitants of the island who 
 had been dispossessed by Cromwell, not for having taken a part in the 
 rebellion against the English Crown, but for their attachment to the 
 fortunes of Charles II. ; but with respect to this class of sufferers, 
 who might naturally have expected a preference of claim, a clause is 
 introduced, by which they are postponed after a decree of innocence 
 by the Commissioners, until previous reprisal shall be made to Crom- 
 well's soldiers and adventurers, who had obtained possession of their 
 inheritance. I will not detain the House with a minute detail of the 
 provisions of this Act, thus passed for the settlement of Ireland ; but 
 
lord clare's speech. 367 
 
 I 'wish gentlemen, who call themselves the dignified and independent 
 Irish nation, to know that seven millions eight hundred thousand 
 acres of land were set out, under the authority of this Act , to a 
 motley crew of English adventurers, civil and military, nearly to the 
 total exclusion of the old inhabitants of the island ; many of whom, 
 who were innocent of the rebellion, lost their inheritance, as well for 
 the difficulties imposed upon them by the Court of Claims in the proofs 
 required of their innocence, as from a deficiency in the fund for re- 
 prisal to English adventurers, arising principally from a profuse grant 
 made by the Crown to the Duke of York, and the Parliament of 
 Ireland. 
 
 ' ' Having made this settlement of the island, in effect, on them- 
 selves — granted an hereditary revenue to the Crown, as an indemnity 
 for the forfeitures thus relinquished by Charles II., after the expul- 
 sion of James from the throne of England — the old inhabitants made 
 a final effort for recovery of their ancient power, in which they were 
 once more defeated by an English army ; and the slender reliques of 
 Irish possessions became the subject of fresh confiscation. Erom the 
 report made by the Commissioners appointed by the Parliament of 
 England in 1698, it appears that the Irish subjects outlawed for the 
 rebellion of 1688 amounted to 3,978, and that their Irish possessions, 
 so far as could be computed, were of the value annually of £211,620, 
 comprising 1,060,700 acres. This fund was sold under the authority 
 of an English Act of Parliament, to defray the expenses incurred by 
 England in reducing the rebels of 1688, and the sale introduced into 
 Ireland a new set of adventurers. 
 
 " It is a subject of curious and important speculation to look to 
 the forfeiture cf Ireland incurred in the last century. The superficial 
 contents of the island are calculated at 11,742,682 acres (that is of 
 arable land). Let us now examine the state of forfeitures : — 
 
 " Confiscated in the reign of James I. the whole of the 
 
 province of Ulster, containing .... 2,836,837 
 
 " Set out by the Court of Claims at the Restoration, . 7,800,000 
 
 " Forfeitures of 1688, acres, 1,060,792 
 
 Total, . 11,697,629 
 
 So that the whole of your island has been confiscated, with the ex- 
 ception of the estates of five or six old families of English blood, some 
 of whom had been attainted in the reign of Henry VIII., but reco- 
 vered their possessions before Tyrone's rebellion, and had the good 
 fortune to escape the pillage of the English republic inflicted by Crom- 
 well ; and no inconsiderable portion of the island has been confiscated 
 twice, or perhaps thrice, in the course of a century. 
 
 "The situation, therefore, of the Irish nation at the revolution 
 stands unparalleled in the history of the inhabited world. If the wars 
 of England carried on here, from the reign of Elizabeth, had been 
 wa°-ed against a foreign enemy, the inhabitants would have retained 
 their possessions under the established law of civilized nations, and 
 their country have been annexed as a province to the British empire ; 
 but the continued and persevering resistance of Ireland to the British 
 
368 APPENDIX. THE UNIOX. 
 
 Crown during the whole of the last century was mere rebellion, and 
 the municipal law of England attached upon the crime. What, then, 
 was the situation of Ireland at the revolution, and what is it at this 
 day ? The whole power and property of the country has been con- 
 ferred by successive monarchs of England upon an English colony, 
 composed of three sets of English adventurers, who poured into this 
 country at the termination of three successive rebellions. 
 
 " Confiscation is their common title ; and from their first settle- 
 ment they have been hemmed in on every side by the old inhabitants 
 of the island, brooding over their discontents in sullen indignation. 
 It is painful to me to go into this detail ; but we have been for twenty 
 years in a fever of intoxication, and must be stunned into sobriety. 
 "What, then, was the security of the English settlers for their physical 
 existence at the revolution, and what is the security of their descend- 
 ants at this day ? " 
 
 His lordship having thus demonstrated to the House that their 
 titles rested on confiscation, reminded them that the Catholic eman- 
 cipation which would place the Catholics in the Irish senate and 
 on the Irish bench would be a prelude to the restoration of the ancient 
 proprietors in their ancient estates, from which they, the Protestants, 
 would be most certainly in turn expelled. By the union of both le- 
 gislatures a Protestant House would legislate for both countries, and 
 the security of the Protestant Church and Protestant proprietors be- 
 come undoubted. 
 
 The measure was carried through the House of Lords, seventy-five 
 peers voting for and twenty-six against it. 
 
 On the 25th of May, 1800, Lord Castlereagh moved for leave to 
 bring in his bill for the Legislative Union : that leave was given by a 
 vote of 160 against 100. 
 
 The resolutions of the English Parliament suggesting articles of 
 Union had some short time previously been laid before the Irish 
 House of Commons. They had been warmly debated ; and during 
 that debate Mr. George Ponsonby raised the question of bribing mem- 
 bers under the pretence of compensating for the loss of parliamentary 
 influence. Mr. Plunket challenged Lord Castlereagh to declare 
 whether he really meant to raise £1,500,000 for such a purpose — 
 " Because if the noble lord had decency enough to abandon so infa- 
 mous, so base a part of his plan, as that of employing the money of 
 the people to buy up their representatives, he deserved credit for it, 
 and he called upon him now to stand up in his place and avow his 
 abandonment." 
 
 Lord Castlereagh answered, that he had no notion whatever of 
 abandoning any part of his plan, and he was only waiting until the 
 articles of Union were adopted by both houses, to, propose "the 
 exact quantum and mode of compensation." Plunket retorted : — 
 
 " Gentlemen on one side, it appears, are to have compensation 
 for past services, and gentlemen borough proprietors on the other 
 side are promised compensation in hope of future services. But 
 neither are to have compensation unless the Union is carried. 
 
 " Here, then, is a poor country that has travelled, according to 
 
DEBATES. 369 
 
 the noble lord's account, so rapidly in the career of bankruptcy, that 
 her finances are unequal to her war establishment, or her civil esta- 
 blishment — a nation almost engulfed in the jaws of beggary and 
 ruin— yet this poor country is now told by the minister he must find 
 a million and a-half of money, to be raffled for by the members of this 
 house — but that every man who takes the dice-box in his hand, to 
 throw for his share of the plunder, must first pledge himself to vote 
 for the Union. 
 
 " What will the people of Ireland say to so base and flagitious a 
 piece of plunder as this juggling from them, by taxes on their wants 
 and miseries, the enormous sum of a million and a-half, to reward the 
 betrayers of their rights and liberties ?" 
 
 He did not speak again until the 26th of May, when the bill for 
 settling the commercial relations of the two countries under the Union 
 was in the stage of second reading. Grattan opened the debate with a 
 masterly statistical statement, followed by passages of glowing appeal 
 and exquisite imagery. 
 
 Lord Castlereagh " called in question the patriotism of those who 
 took every opportunity of inflaming the public mind against a settle- 
 ment, which was on the very eve of conclusion. Whatever might be 
 their views, however strong their allusions to rebellion, government 
 was energetic and able enough to defend the constitution against all 
 future attacks, as it had against the past." 
 
 Mr. May supported the Secretary. In his mind it was an excel- 
 lent argument for Union that the Irish house might by admixture 
 reform the English house. One of the articles of Union, however, 
 provided that not more than twenty Irish members holding office 
 should be eligible to sit in the united parliament ; so that Mr. May 
 and his friends were, as it were, innocently supporting a self-denying 
 ordinance. 
 
 Mr. Plunket then rose and delivered his last speech on the Union, 
 and his words are worthy of remembrance : — 
 
 " Mr. Speaker, I rise to reiterate my opposition to this measure — 
 an opposition which I will never cease to make until the constitution 
 is finally extinguished. I cannot subscribe to the new doctrine of the 
 noble lord, that this bill must now be considered as passed, and that 
 whoever ventures to oppose it in its second reading is guilty of inso- 
 lent disrespect to the law of the land. I congratulate the noble lord 
 on his recent discovery, that it is insolence in any man to set up his 
 private opinion against the declared sense of parliament. If, when 
 an unbought majority of parliament had reprobated a certain measure 
 as a violation of the liberties and constitution of the land, a young 
 man, with intemperate and ill-advised obstinacy, should declare him- 
 self determined to persevere in pressing that very measure, and that 
 he would never lose sight of it — if 6uch a man, slighting the sense of 
 the legislature, abusing the power he possesses, and practising against 
 the virtue and independence of parliament, should come back here in 
 less than twelve months, and, with a miserable venal and packed ma- 
 jority at his back, propose and carry that very measure against the 
 former unbought and avowed opinion of the parliament and the 
 
370 APPENDIX. THE UNION. 
 
 people, such a man must indeed be insolent and audacious. So far is 
 it from being treason to expose and resist an attempt of such a kind 
 in every stage of it, it is loyalty and virtue to do so — it is a duty to 
 the country — it tends to preserve its peace — to show the people of 
 Ireland that they are not destitute of friends, and to hold out a hope, 
 which I have no doubt will be realised, that the constitution shall 
 again be restored, and that better days are yet to come. It may prove, 
 too, that notwithstanding the treachery and the insolence with which 
 our constitution and our liberties are now attacked, the people of 
 Ireland are not yet abandoned, and that they have friends who will 
 stand by them to the last. This bill I oppose, not as a bill of union, 
 but of separation — as a bill calculated to dismember the empire — a 
 bill to put down the loyalty of the country — a bill of robbery, not 
 of legislation." 
 
 He then adverted to Mr. May's argument that the Irish Parlia- 
 ment might, by admizture, reform the English Parliament : — 
 
 "This argument, so ingenious, I will not attempt to refute; nor 
 do I wish to deprive a British parliament of any advantage they may 
 derive from the infusion of such virtue and independence as that of 
 the honourable gentleman; but I cannot help calling the attention of 
 the house and of the country to the opinion expressed by the British 
 minister himself of that class of men who are now to decide on the 
 fate of Ireland. Into a British parliament twenty men only will be 
 admitted of that description which now constitutes the minister's ma- 
 jority. Let no more than twenty placemen vote on the present ques- 
 tion, and I would freely and cheerfully submit the fate of the country 
 to their decision. Let the minister even retain all his placemen, and 
 let him put the question on the constitution of Ireland to a ballot, and 
 I will abide the issue. Let the gentlemen who hold places vote unin- 
 fluenced by the fear of losing their situations, and even they will act 
 like Irishmen. "Who, then, are this body of men to whose opinions 
 we are asked to look up with so much reverence ? They are men 
 whom a British minister had declared too foul to pollute the walls of 
 a British senate. Those men who are too base to enter the door of 
 one parliament are to vote the extinction of another, and decide for 
 ever upon the liberties of this country ! I again repeat it emphati- 
 cally, you are incompetent to pass this measure against the sense of 
 the nation. Such an act in such circumstances must want the bind- 
 ing obligation of a law. If any person, petulant and ignorant, should 
 accuse me of treason for this sentiment, I answer him but by scorn. 
 My habits, my known principles, and the whole tenor of my life give 
 the lie to the imputation. 
 
 " The noble lord has talked in high-sounding terms of the ease 
 with which he would put down another rebellion, should this measure 
 produce one ; but if a future rebellion should not rouse the noble lord 
 to more valorous exertion than he made during the last, the country 
 cannot safely depend much upon the prowess of the noble lord. Sir, 
 who put down that rebellion ? I look around me, and I see the men 
 to whose exertions we owe our deliverance. These are the men 
 whose courage and loyalty restored peace to the country while the 
 
DEBATES. 071 
 
 noble lord was lounging about the Castle — if not more 'wickedly em- 
 ployed in plotting the destruction of tbe constitution of his country. 
 As to the part which I have taken in opposing this measure, I look 
 upon it as the proudest honour of my life. By it I wish to be remem- 
 bered by posterity — it is an inheritance I am glad to transmit to my 
 children. The recollection of the part I have taken in common with 
 the one hundred and twenty honest men who with incorruptible 
 steadiness have defended the liberty of their country against the 
 machinations of the noble lord, and those under whom he acts, will 
 soothe me at my last hour, and soften the blow of death : nay, when 
 I am called before the Almighty Power, in whom I believe and trust, 
 I am willing to take in my hand the record of my opposition to this 
 measure, in humble confidence that it may afford some atonement for 
 the errors of which I have been guilty." 
 
 The "Act for the Union of Great Britain and Ireland" (40th 
 Geo. III. chapter 38) then passed, and on the 2nd of August, 1800, 
 the last session of the last Irish parliament was brought to a close. 
 If the patriotism of a few could have saved Ireland, then Ireland 
 would have been saved by the virtues of Grattan, of Curran, of 
 Plunket, and of those who stood beside them in the battle ; but the 
 number of the patriots was too small; venality had eaten into the 
 vitals of the country, and religious animosity had paralyzed her 
 strength. There is a Nemesis of Nations, and when nations are 
 willing to sell their liberties to strangers, while they refuse an 
 equality of rights to their own citizens, then the hour of retribution 
 cannot be far distant. Nations, too, as Lucian tells us, die like men, 
 and the shears of Atropos are ever ready to avenge the crimes of 
 peoples, no less than of individuals. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 Absentee Tax in- Ireland [temp. 
 
 Bichard II.), 17. 
 Alan of the Holy Faith, Chancellor, 
 
 A. D. 1235, 2. 
 All-Hallows, Priory of, now Trinity 
 
 College, 3. 
 Allameston, Chancellor, 28. 
 Allen, Archbishop, Chancellor, 36. 
 Allen, Sir John, Chancellor, 38. 
 Annesley v. Lord Anglesey, 124. 
 Antiquissims liter ce patentes, 3. 
 Appeal, Conrt of Ultimate, 16, 24, 
 
 85-117. 
 Archbishop of Dublin formerly a 
 
 member of the British Parlia- 
 ment, 11. 
 Askeaton, Richard, Chancellor, 14. 
 Askeaton, Prior of Newton, Chan eel - 
 
 lor, 14. 
 Assizes, , Chancellors in 1377 
 
 went circuit as judges of, 17. 
 
 B. 
 
 Bagnel, Mabel, romantic story of, 76. 
 
 Ball, John Thomas, Chancellor, 313. 
 
 Balscott, Bishop of Ossory, Chancel- 
 lor, 17. 
 
 Banquet in St. Patrick's Cathedral, 
 9. 
 
 Barrett, Bishop of Perns, Chancellor, 
 21. 
 
 Beauclerc, Chancellor, 3. 
 
 Beresford, Chancellor, 4. 
 
 Bermingham tower — why so called ? 
 9. 
 
 Bicknor, Archbishop, Chancellor, 
 8-11. 
 
 Blackburne, Francis, Chancellor, 277. 
 
 Blessington, Court of Chancery held 
 at, 88. 
 
 Bolton, Sir Edward, Chancellor, 84. 
 
 Bottle riot case, 225. 
 
 Bourke, Kev. Ulick, on the Irish 
 language, 325. 
 
 Bowes, Chancellor, 124. 
 
 Boyle, Primate, Chancellor, 88. 
 
 Brady, Sir Maziere, Chancellor, 270. 
 
 Brecknock, Timothy, trial, convic- 
 tion, and death" of, 162. 
 
 Brewster, Chancellor, 307. 
 
 Bribes, Lord Chancellor indicted for 
 taking, 14. 
 
 Brown, George, first Protestant 
 Archbishop of Dublin, 52. 
 
 Brunn, Fromund le, Chancellor, 2. 
 
 Brunn, Fromund le, Chancellor, 3. 
 
 Bruce, Edward, 11. 
 Burke, Edmund's, opinion on the ap- 
 pointment of the Catholic Bishops 
 by the Crown, 196. 
 Burleigh, Prior of Kilmainham, 
 Chancellor, salary £40 a-year, 
 
 Cairns, Lord, 303, 307. 
 Campbell, Lord, Chancellor, 262. 
 Cantoc, Bishop of Emly, Chancel- 
 lor, 3. 
 Cases : — 
 Annesley v. the Earl of Anglesey, 
 
 125. Fid. Errata, p. xviii. 
 Appellate jurisdiction of the Irish 
 
 Courts, 85-117. 
 Archbishop of Dublin v. Lord 
 
 Howth, a.d. 1544, 42. 
 Atterbnrr's (Bishop), 115. 
 
374 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cases — continued. 
 Beanston v. De Wickford, 16. 
 Bottle riot case, 225. 
 Brecknock, Timothy, Rex v., 157. 
 Brufl Magistrates (rule of, ex- 
 cluding counsel), 206. 
 Cardinal v: Molyneux, 269. 
 Cloncurry's (Lord), 198. 
 Cobbett, Win., Eex v., 188-215. 
 Connaught proprietors {temp. 
 
 Car I.), 83. 
 Emmet, Robert, Rex v., 215. 
 Fenwick's, 98. 
 
 Fethard Mail, Robbery of, 271. 
 Fitton, Sir Alexander (Forgery), 
 
 96. 
 FitzGerald's (Lord Edward), 169, 
 
 170, 171. 
 Fitzgerald, George Robert, Rex v., 
 
 153. 
 Fitzgerald (Lord Thomas), 35, 36. 
 Fitzsimon v. The Corporation of 
 
 Galway (a.d. 1548), 43. 
 Freeman' s Journal, Editor of , com- 
 mitted for contempt of Court in 
 1833, 283. 
 Garth's (ex officio information), 
 
 225. 
 Gray, Reg. v., 294. 
 Johnson (Judge), 215. 
 Kennedy, Rex v.. 285. 
 Kettler (witchcraft), 5. 
 Kingston (Earl of), Rex v., 
 Lifford (Lord) v. Quinn, 328. 
 Lloyd, Rex v., 114. 
 Maher, Rex «. (burning of the 
 
 Sheas), 279. 
 Mountgarret's (Lord), 311. 
 Mulholland v. Killeen, 305. 
 O'Conor v. O'Conor (trial by com- 
 bat), 66. 
 O'Connell, Daniel, Rex v. (1831), 
 
 283. 
 O'Connell, Daniel, Reg. v. (1844), 
 
 254. 
 O'Connor, Roger, Rex v. (Robbery 
 
 of the Galway Mail), 278. 
 O'Hurly, Archbishop, Rex v., 67, 
 
 349. 
 Petcherine, Reg. v., 317. 
 Queen Caroline's, 199. 
 Purser's, 303. 
 
 Rowan, Hamilton, Rex v., 166. 
 Santry, Lord, Rex v., 121-124. 
 Sacheverel's Case, 112. 
 Secretary of the Master of the 
 
 Rolls, In re, 203. 
 Sheas, burning of, 279. 
 
 Cases — continued. 
 Sheares, The, Rex v., 171. 
 Sherlock v. Annesly, 117. 
 Six-mile-bridge, 309. 
 Vernon v. "Wade, 328. 
 Walker v. Taylor, 298. 
 Catholic Association, 231. 
 ,, Cemeteries, 231. 
 ,, Disabilities, 95-121. 
 ,, Emancipation, 248. 
 ,, priests, mutilation of advo- 
 cated by Lord Chancellor 
 Middleton. 
 ,, priests opposed to the rebel- 
 lions of 1798, 176, 177, 
 and 1803, 185. 
 Chace, Chancellor, 24. 
 Chancellors in ancient times went 
 
 circuit as judges of assize. 
 Christian, Lord Justice, 306. 
 Circuits travelling in the old times, 
 
 211. 
 Clanricarde, Earl of, 45-47, 48. 
 Clare, Lord, Chancellor, ix., 147, 351. 
 Clontarf, meeting at, prohibited in 
 
 1843, 253. 
 Clynn's Annals, 13. 
 Cobbett, William, 189. 
 Colton, Archbishop, Chancellor, 18. 
 Combat, trial by, 12, 66. 
 Compton, Chancellor, 34. 
 Confiscations, 81-83. 
 Converts from Popery, Acts against 
 
 Papists, 121. 
 Counsel's fee in 1324. 
 Counsel, rule for excluding from 
 practice in petty sessions court 
 rescinded, 207. 
 Court of Chancery held in Dublin 
 Castle, temp. Henry VIII. , 35. 
 Cox, Sir Richard, Chancellor, 100. 
 Coyne and livery, 21. 
 Cranley, Archbishop, Chancellor, 20. 
 Cromer, Archbishop, Chancellor, 36. 
 Cromwell lands in Dublin in 1649, 
 
 86. 
 Curran, duel with Fitzgibbon, 151. 
 
 „ Master of the Rolls, 194. 
 Curwen, Archbishop, Chancellor, 53. 
 Cusack, Sir Thomas, Chancellor, 
 43. 
 
 D. 
 
 Darcy, Patrick, 85. 
 Dean, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 Chancellor, 31. 
 
IXDEX. 
 
 De Burgh, Archbishop of Tuam, con- 
 federate Chancellor, 86. 
 
 De Burgo, Earl of Ulster, 3. 
 
 De Vere, Robert, Duke of Ireland. 
 18. 
 
 De Worchley, Chancellor, 
 
 Diving-bell, 111. 
 
 Donelan, Sir James, Chief Justice of 
 the C. P., 97. 
 
 Donelan, Nehemiah, Chief Baron, 83. 
 
 Dudley, Chancellor, 28. 
 
 Dynham, Chancellor, 25. 
 
 Ely, Lord, Chancellor, 81. 
 
 Emmet, R., 213. 
 
 English power in Ireland, decline of, 
 
 in 1392, vii., 12. 
 Eustace, Sir Maurice, Chancellor, 
 
 82, 87, 440 n. 
 Excommunication of Lord Thomas 
 
 Fitzgerald and others, 37. 
 
 F. 
 
 Fenians, 261, 315 n. 
 
 Fitton, Sir Alexander, Chancellor, 
 
 95. 
 Fitz Eustace, Chancellor ; presides 
 
 at a Parliament which abolished 
 
 appeals save in cases of high 
 
 treason, to the English courts of 
 
 appeal, 24. 
 Fitzgerald, Lord Abbot, Chancellor, 
 
 24. 
 FitzGerald, Lord Edward, 169-171. 
 FitzGerald, George Robert, trial of, 
 
 153. 
 FitzGerald, Thomas, Chancellor, 
 
 killed in battle, 30. 
 FitzGerald, Thomas, 35-36. 
 Forty-shilling freeholders, 202. 
 Freeman, Lord, Chancellor, 111. 
 
 G. 
 
 Galway, jury of, decline in 1638 to 
 find that the title of the lands 
 in that county was in the Crown. 
 83. 
 
 Galway Mail, Robbery of, 277. 
 
 George IV. visits Ireland, 200. 
 
 Gerrard, William, Chancellor, 63. 
 
 Grattan, Henry, 149-151. 
 
 Hart, Sir Anthony, Chancellor, 204. 
 Henningburgh, Chancellor, 11. 
 
 Howth, loth baron, Chancellor, 29. 
 ,, 16th baron, Chancellor, 31. 
 Hutchinson, John Hely, Prime Ser- 
 geant, Provost of T. C. D., 148. 
 
 Incumbered Estates Court, origin of 
 
 (vid. St. Leonards), 2.57. 
 Inge, Archbishop, Chancellor, 34. 
 Inns of Court — Collet's Inn, viii. 
 
 King's Inns, viii, ix. 
 Preston's Inn, Dub- 
 lin, viii. 
 Englishlnns, 23,347. 
 Irish House of Lords, appellate 
 jurisdiction of taken away in 
 1717, 117. 
 Irish language, neglect of in the 
 
 Queen's Colleges, 325-371. 
 Irish Parliament, temp. Henry VI., 
 25 ; not permitted either to ap- 
 prove or disapprove of the title 
 of Queen Anne to the throne, 
 105 ; Vid. Regency, 364. 
 
 Joeelyn, Lord, Chancellor, 121 ; 
 
 letter of to the Marquis of Clan- 
 
 ricarde, 123. 
 Jones, Protestant Archbishop of 
 
 Dublin, Chancellor, 77. 
 Judgment obtainable in Westminster 
 
 against a defendant resident in 
 
 Ireland, without any process 
 
 issuing from the Irish Courts, 
 
 17. 
 
 E. 
 
 Katharine of Arragon, marriage of, 
 performed by Henry Dean, ex- 
 Lord Chancellor of Ireland, 32. 
 
 Kettlei, the Dame Alice, trial for 
 witchcraft, 5. 
 
 Kildare, Earl of , Chancellor, 27. 
 
 Kilkenny, Confederation of, 85. 
 
 Kilkenny, Statute of, 15, 361. 
 
 Kilmainham, Priory of, 4. 
 
 Kingston, Earl of, trial for the mur- 
 der of Colonel Fitzgerald, 172 ; 
 acquittal of, 1 75. 
 
 Knights of St George established to 
 save the power of England 
 vanishing in Ireland, temp. 
 Henry VII., 28. 
 
 Knight's service, knight's fees, 23. 
 
376 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 L'Acher, Prior of Kilmainham, 
 Chancellor, 12. 
 
 Le Brunn, Fromond, Chancellor, 2 ; 
 his son Chancellor, 3. 
 
 Lech, Archbishop of Dublin, death 
 of, in 1313, having obtained 
 bulls for the establishment of a 
 university in Dublin, 4. 
 
 Ledred, Bishop of Ossory, 5. 
 
 Lifford, Lord, Chancellor, 140. 
 
 Limbury, Chancellor, 11. 
 
 Limerick, Treaty of, 92 ; infraction 
 of, 94. 
 
 Lords and Commons, quarrel be- 
 tween, 96. 
 
 Lutterel, Chancellor, 2. 
 
 M. 
 
 MacDermot, Prince of Moylurg a.b. 
 
 1334, atrocities by, 9. 
 Manners, Lord, Chancellor, 197. 
 Maynooth — an ecclesiastical college 
 
 founded by Gerald, Earl of 
 
 Eildare, in 1518, 33. 
 M'Guinness's country, 76. 
 Merbury, Chancellor, 21. 
 Methuen, Chancellor, 97 ; envoy at 
 
 the Court of Lisbon, 98. 
 Middleton, Chancellor, 115 ; advo- 
 cates the mutilation of the 
 
 Catholic clergy, 118. 
 Monasteries, suppression of, 37, 38, 
 
 39, 40, 41. 
 Morris, Chancellor, 13. 
 
 N. 
 
 Napier, Sir Joseph, Chancellor, 293. 
 
 Neville, Bishop of Chichester, Chan- 
 cellor of England and Ireland 
 for life, 2. 
 
 Norman-French language of the 
 Court in early times, 1. 
 
 Northalis, Bishop of Ossory, Chan- 
 cellor, 20. 
 
 Nuns, Franciscan, expulsion of, in 
 1712, from Galway, 113. 
 
 Nugent, Chief Justice of the Common 
 Pleas, tried for high treason and 
 executed, temp. Elizabeth, 65. 
 
 0. 
 
 O'Connell, Daniel; educated at 
 Douay; returns to Ireland on 
 21st January, 1797 ; meets the 
 Sheares on board the packet 
 
 0' Connell — continued. 
 
 between Calais and Dover; 
 tears the tricolour from his hat, 
 171 ; joins the lawyers' corps 
 in 1798 against the rebels; 
 opposes the veto, 196 ; his 
 opinion of Robert Emmet, that 
 his " rebellion was as wild as 
 anything in romance," 184; his 
 opinion of Lord Manners, 203 ; 
 bitterly opposed to Mr. Plunket's 
 Catholic Relief Bill of 1821, 
 218 ; his opinion of Plunket, 
 222, 245 ; his Bolivar speech in 
 1824— indictment for, 230; 
 Catholic Association, 231 ; most 
 prominent member of, 232-33 ; 
 Catholic Emancipation, 239 ; 
 takes his seat for Clare, 240 ; 
 O'Connell has a patent of pre- 
 cedence bestowed upon him in 
 1832 by Lord Plunket, 240; 
 supports the Reform Bill, 249 ; 
 opposed to Sir E. Sugden in the 
 House of Commons, 248 ; de- 
 nounces the appointment of that 
 English lawyer to the Irish 
 Bench in 1835, 251 ; denounces 
 the appointment of Francis 
 Blackburne as Attorney-Gene- 
 ral to the whigs, 285, 286, 287, , 
 288 ; O'Connell courted by Lord 
 Normanby, 265; Repeal Associ- 
 ation suppressed in 1830, 282 ; 
 State Trials in 1830— O'Con- 
 nell' s ingenuity causes their 
 collapse, 283, 284; O'Connell 
 counsel in the Carrickshock tithe 
 murder case — his influence as 
 a speaker equal to that of 
 Demosthenes, Cicero, or Mira- 
 beau, 285 ; O'Connell denounces 
 Brewster as an orangeman, 
 308; State Trials of 1844— 
 O'Connell tried and found guilty 
 by a jury drawn from a tam- 
 pered jury list, 254 ; Convic- 
 tion quashed by the House of 
 Lords, 255. 
 
 O'Hagan, Chancellor, 314. 
 
 O'Hurly, Catholic Archbishop of 
 Cashel, martyrdom of, temp. 
 Elizabeth, 67, 349. 
 
 Orangeism discouraged by Lord 
 Chancellor Sir Maziere Brady, 
 277. 
 
 Ouldhall, Bishop of Meath, Chan- 
 cellor, 24. 
 
IN'DEX. 
 
 Outlawe, Roger, Prior of Kilmain- 
 ham, Chancellor, 4. 
 
 Outlawe, William, tried for witch- 
 craft, 5. 
 
 P. 
 
 Palatine counties Tipperary and 
 Kilkenny, 9. 
 
 Papists enabled by 11 Geo. III. c. 
 21, to take long leases of bog- 
 land, if not within a mile of a 
 town, 112. 
 
 Parliament House, College-green, 
 commenced in 172s, completed 
 1739, 121. 
 
 Paul, St., Archbishop, Chancellor — 
 builds the choir of Christ 
 Church, 13. 
 
 Penal laws against Catholics, 95, 106, 
 107, 121. 
 
 Persecution of the Catholic clergy, 
 81, 82, 85. 
 
 Phipps, Sir Constantine, Chancellor, 
 retires —resumes his practice at 
 the English bar, 115. 
 
 Phoenix Park, 10. ^ 
 
 Plague, the, 13. 
 
 Plunket, Sir A., Chancellor, 30, 
 348. 
 
 Plunket, Lord, Chancellor, 210, 351. 
 
 Ponsonby, George, Chancellor, 169, 
 351. 
 
 Porter, Sir Chirles, Chancellor of 
 William III., 89 ; possessed of 
 great abilities — idle — fond oi 
 dissipation — always in debt — 
 beloved by everybody — against 
 the infraction of the treaty of 
 Limerick, 95. 
 
 Portlester, Lord, Chancellor, 28. 
 
 Poyning's law, 32. 
 
 Preston, Sir Robert, Chancellor, 19. 
 
 Priests, statute against, playing 
 
 football, 37. 
 Priory of All Hallows, 69. 
 Priory of Kilmainham, 4 ; splendour 
 of life in, 10. 
 
 U. 
 
 Quarrel between the Lord Chancel- 
 lor, Sir Charles Porter, and the 
 Speaker of the House of Com- 
 mons, 94, 95. 
 
 Quarrel between Lord St. Leonards- 
 and Lord Brougham, 251. 
 
 Ralph, Bishop of Norwich, Chan- 
 cellor, 2. 
 
 Reade, Chancellor, 43. 
 
 Rebellion of 1641, 85; of 1798 de- 
 nounced by the Catholic clergy, 
 175-177. 
 
 Redesdale, Lord, Chancellor, 181. 
 
 Reformation, the, 362 ; distasteful 
 to the lawyers, 53. 
 
 Reform Bill rejected by the Irish 
 House of Commons, 149-169. 
 
 Regency question, 141-162. 
 
 Reports, Freeman, 109. 
 
 Revi, Bishop of Waterford, Chancel- 
 lor, 14. 
 
 Reynolds, Tom, the informer in 
 1798, lti'j. 
 
 Richard II. lands in Ireland, 19-21. 
 
 Riddel, Stephen, Chancellor, 2. 
 
 Rokeby, Archbishop, Chancellor, 32. 
 
 Rotheby, Archbishop, Chancellor, 16. 
 
 Rowan, Hamilton, 166. 
 
 Rutland, Earl of, Chancellor, slain 
 at the battle of Wakefield, 24, 
 25. 
 
 St. Laurence, Chancellor, 29. 
 
 St. Leonards, Lord, Chancellor, 246. 
 
 St. Paul, ChanceUor, Archbishop of 
 Dublin, contest with the Arch- 
 bishop of Armagh touching the 
 primacy, 13. 
 
 Salamanca, College of, 73. 
 
 Salary of Chancellor £40 a-year in 
 1357, 14. 
 
 Strafford's inquisition, 87. 
 
 Sachaverel's, Dr., case, 113. 
 
 Secretary of the Master of the Rolls' 
 case, 205. 
 
 Sheares, execution of the, 171. 
 
 Sherlock v. Annesley, 117. 
 
 Sherwood, Bishop of Meath, Chan- 
 cellor, 29. 
 
 Simnel, Lambert, the impostor, 29, 
 32, 37. 
 
 Statute of Kilkenny, 15. 
 
 Steele, Sir William, Chancellor, 86. 
 
 Talbot, Sir John, Chancellor, 24. 
 
 Talbot, Richard, Archbishop, Chan- 
 cellor, 22. 
 
 Tany, Prior of Kilmainham, Chan- 
 cellor, 16. 
 
S78 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Thornbury, "Walter de, Chancellor, 4. 
 Tone, Theobald Wolfe, Secretary of 
 
 the Catholic Committee, 211- 
 
 213. 
 Thmreagh, "William, Chancellor, 
 
 22. 
 Tithe war, 223, 284. 
 Trimleston, Lord, Chancellor, 38. 
 Trinity College, Dublin, founded by 
 
 Archbishop Loftus, 65-75. 
 Turville, de, Geoffrey, Chancellor, 2. 
 
 U. 
 
 Ulster, confiscation of, 79, 80. 
 
 Union of Ireland with Great Bri- 
 tain, 109. 
 
 United Irishmen, 165. 
 
 University of Dublin — vide Lech, 
 Archbishop, De Bicknor, Arch- 
 bishop, 11, 58 ; Loftus, Arch- 
 bishop, 61-72; expulsions from 
 in 1798, 169 ; celibacy of the 
 Fellows of, 178. 
 
 Tenham, de, Chancellor, 29. 
 Yeto, the, 195, 196. 
 
 i Visitation of the University of 
 Dublin by Lord Clare in 1798, 
 168. 
 Volunteers, the, 149. . 
 
 W. 
 
 "Walby, Archbishop, Chancellor, 19_ 
 
 "Wallace's Reports, temp. Lord Lif- 
 ford, 147. 
 
 Welles, Chancellor, 25. 
 
 Weston, Robert, Chancellor, 118. 
 
 "Wickford, de, Archbishop, Chancel- 
 lor, 16. 
 
 Williams, Prior of St. John, Chan- 
 cellor, 11. 
 
 "Wilward, "William, Chancellor, 3. 
 
 Witchcraft, trial for, 5. 
 
 "Wogan, Chancellor, 24. 
 
 "Wolsey, Cardinal, 34, 35. 
 
 Woodington, Chancellor, 4. 
 
 "Woollen manufactures in Ireland,. 
 104, 105. 
 
 "Worcester, Earl of, Chancellor, 25 j 
 beheaded, 27. 
 
 Worchley de, Chancellor, 2. 
 
 Wyndham, Lord, Chancellor, 
 120. 
 
 THE ENJ1.