1828-9] The Ministry accept Emancipation 651

and his Ministers. As for the Lords, forewarned they would also be forearmed ; and the Duke, like the experienced strategist he was, meant to carry their last defences by surprise before they could take counsel with the King or one another.

But the reasons which dictated secrecy might seem also to call for rapid action. The refusal of the Ministry to call an autumn session cannot be explained by any doubts upon their part. Already, in the month of August, they had begun to discuss the details of their Bill. Probably it was the King who had insisted on delay, in the hope that the Irish situation might improve before Parliament assembled. The main object of the Duke and Peel, in their correspondence with the King at this time, was certainly to convince him that concessions could no longer be avoided. On September 27 Peel wrote that all the disposable forces in Great Britain had been stationed within easy reach of Ireland, and that the Lord-Lieutenant had discretionary powers to summon the whole of them to his assistance. On October 14 Wellington, though he confessed that he saw no immediate cause to fear rebellion, warned his master that a general combination of the discontented Irish, to refuse the payment of tithes or rent, was well within the bounds of possibility. The Ministers at home were in fact no less convinced than Lord Anglesey of the necessity for coining to terms; and the dismissal of that popular Viceroy was due to personal reasons. Anglesey had lectured the Duke in his dispatches; he had publicly reflected upon the party which the Cabinet represented. He was showing more civility to Catholic Peers than the King thought decent, and in fact was generally suspected of courting popularity at the expense of his colleagues and the Crown. It was important to convince the King and the Tories out of doors that the Cabinet were not conceding Emancipation merely because a Viceroy of Liberal sympathies had told them that it must be done.

The Bill, which assumed its final shape in January, 1829, was chiefly the work of Peel and the Duke. They started from the principle that, in respect of civil rights, the Roman Catholics should be put upon a footing of equality with all other classes; but that certain offices and positions of trust should be excepted by name. In its final form the Act provided that no Roman Catholic should hold the offices of Guardian or Justice of the United Kingdom, of Lord-Lieutenant or Lord Deputy in Ireland, of Lord High Chancellor, Lord Keeper or Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal in either kingdom; nor any office in the Established Churches of England, Ireland, and Scotland, in the ecclesiastical Courts, in cathedrals, or collegiate, or ecclesiastical foundations, in the Universities, or in the Colleges of Eton, Westminster, or Winchester, or any college or school within the realm. The question of securities gave rise to long discussions. The Veto was abandoned on the ground that it would entail the recognition of the Roman Catholic religion as partially established; but Ministers probably reflected that Emancipation

652 The King's resistance overcome [1829

accompanied by the Veto would do little to appease Irish discontent. Clauses for the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy were cut out at the eleventh hour in deference to the wishes of the English Church. Peel's original desire had been to limit the number of seats in the House of Commons which might be held by Roman Catholics; but on this point he was overruled by Wellington. Both however agreed that it was advisable to bring in a supplementary Bill disfranchising the Irish fortyshilling freeholder. In all these points the Cabinet rapidly agreed to the decisions of the two leading Ministers.

The King's Speech at the opening of Parliament (February 5) announced that a Bill would be introduced to suppress the Catholic Association, and that the laws affecting Roman Catholics would be subsequently brought under consideration. Simultaneously Peel announced to his Oxford constituents that, having decided to support Emancipation, he placed his resignation in their hands. The party of the Church at once raised the cry of treason; but the surrender of the Ministry had been foreseen by the moderates of all parties, and even among extremists produced more indignation than surprise. A Bill suppressing the Association was introduced on the 10th. Advocated by Peel as the indispensable preliminary to Emancipation, this measure passed both Houses with little discussion. Before it became law the Association voluntarily dissolved, in spite of protests from O'Connell. He was chagrined that the organisation upon which he had counted for help in the campaigns of the future should be disbanded at the first victory. But the moderates were against him, and in this hour of rejoicing the moderates were in a majority. It was then announced that on March 3 Peel would move for a committee on the Catholic question.

At this point, when everything seemed settled, the King made a last stand for the principles of " his revered and excellent father." The Bill, he suddenly announced to his Ministers, involved a change in the Oath of Supremacy to which he could never consent. At noon on the day preceding that fixed for the Catholic motion the Cabinet presented their ultimatum through the Duke, the Lord Chancellor, and Peel. The King talked wildly for six hours, refreshing himself with brandy as he proceeded. At the end of the interview the deputation, who had scarcely been allowed to speak a word, announced the resignation of the Ministry and withdrew. Late in the evening, when they were expecting to hear that a new Cabinet had been formed on Protestant principles, they received instead the royal permission to proceed with the Bill.

Next day Peel presented his apology and his case for the Bill to an attentive House. He disliked Emancipation as much as ever. But the current of political opinion both in England and Ireland left him no alternative save to submit. This question could no longer be permitted to set the House of Lords against the Commons, Ministers against their colleagues, and Ireland against England. Upon the altar

1829] PeeVs surrender. The Bill carried 653

of necessity he was prepared to sacrifice his own convictions and his party ties. For himself he remained a Protestant; he feared the effect of admitting Roman Catholics to share in the working of a Protestant Constitution. But, since Protestants had ceased to be unanimous in defending the policy of exclusion, since even those of Ireland had presented a monster petition in favour of Catholic Relief, what course remained for Protestant Ministers except to surrender with a good grace ? It might be said that he and his colleagues should have left their opponents to assume the responsibility of this new departure. But the existing Cabinet had felt it their duty to undertake a work which it was doubtful whether any other group of politicians would be able to complete as satisfactorily, or, indeed, to complete at all.

Seldom has a political surrender been so frankly acknowledged or so ably defended. That the surrender was a necessity could not be disputed, even at that time, save by those whom religious or political bias had rendered blind to the plain facts of the Irish situation. Whether Peel and Wellington did wisely in undertaking to carry a measure of which they personally disapproved was, on the contrary, a question hotly debated; but those who censured them did so without full knowledge of the difficulties to be apprehended from the King and the Lords. Only the combined influence of Peel and the Duke could overcome these difficulties. The modern critic of their conduct will be less disposed to blame them for their change of front than for the obstinacy with which they had fought a losing battle, and for the ungracious manner in which they at last gave way to the argument of force.

The Bill, after being read the first time without opposition, passed the second reading by 353 votes to 180, went through committee without any substantial alteration, and on the third reading was carried by 320 votes to 132. Petitions poured in against it; and Lord Eldon shed tears in the Upper House as he prophesied the impending downfall of the British Empire. But the Lords had altered their convictions or lacked the courage to continue the fight. In less than a fortnight they had allowed the Bill to pass through all its stages. On April 13 it received the royal assent.

In spite of its sweeping character, it left many causes of friction behind. The disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders (numbering over 190,000), could not fail to strike Irishmen as an act of party vengeance. Peel had expressed a hope that his Emancipation scheme would heal the feud between the Irish landlord and the Irish tenant; but a stranger method of promoting reconciliation has surely never been devised. A pettier affront to the Catholics was the refusal to let O'Connell's election count as valid. After two nights' debate the Commons were induced by the Ministry to decide that he must take the oath which had been in force at the time of his return. He appeared in the House, read the oath, and refused to take it; whereupon a new writ

654 The remaining disabilities [1829-46

for Clare was issued. He was of course re-elected; but the slight was one which his countrymen resented, if he did not. His treatment and that of the freeholders kept alive the Catholic complaint of injustice, and exacerbated the agitation, which began shortly afterwards, for the removal of their remaining disabilities.

These were not altogether trivial. Some of the rights conceded by the Act of 1829 could only be exercised by those who took a special form of oath. The Act also imposed restrictions upon Jesuits and the members of monastic Orders which were none the less offensive for being allowed to remain a dead letter. It required the registration of all priests and Catholic places of worship. It left Roman Catholic foundations for charitable and religious purposes still subject to the law of superstitious uses, from which they were only in part relieved by an Act of 1832. Marriages of Catholics celebrated by their own priests were only recognised at law in 1838. The Acts of 1844 and 1846 were necessary to sweep away a mass of minor restrictions and obsolete penalties. It was reserved to a later generation to make Catholics free of the great Universities. And it must be remembered that the social and political disabilities which legislation had created could not be altogether removed by the mere repeal of the obnoxious statutes. From the Irish Administration, from British constituencies, from high political office, the Catholics were still excluded with but few exceptions; and although there is much force in the contention that their long ostracism from public life had left them unfitted for responsible positions, it cannot be denied that theological animosities increased the difficulties in the path of ambitious Catholics and were habitually regarded by such men as the chief obstacle to their advancement.

These, however, are facts which belong to the social history of a later period; and the consideration of them would carry us far beyond the end of the movement which we have been engaged in studying. The main point at issue in 1829 was not the levelling of distinctions created by theological prejudice, for the theological arguments against Emancipation were already exploded when Grattan moved his first great Bill. Rather it was a trial of strength between the Irish electorate and the Imperial legislature; between a voluntary combination of individuals and the Executive; between the agitator and the constituted Government. It opened a new stage in the relations of the two countries by showing Irish politicians the point at which the armour of England could be pierced. It gave Ireland the hope of Repeal; it inspired England with the determination to resist any change in the relations of the two countries which might give a wider scope to the ambitions and the influence of agitators working hand in hand with the priests of a still suspected creed.

CHAPTER XX

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND

(1832-41)

The election of the first Reformed Parliament was anticipated with alarm by the Tories and with confidence by the Whigs. The disturbances that had been freely prophesied did not occur; and Grey expressed lively satisfaction at the success with which his newly-launched bark was navigatingtherapids. The numerical result was equally favourable to the authors of the Bill, who found themselves confronted by not more than 150 declared opponents. The only familiar figure missing was Croker, who refused to offer himself as a candidate for the Reformed Parliament, and who for the rest of his life maintained his attitude of contemptuous aloofness, despite the example and the banter of his political associates. Though extreme Tories made the most of the fact that a prizefighter (Gully) was elected, the return of Grote, Jeffrey, Macaulay, Molesworth, Bulwer Lytton, Gladstone, Lord Mahon, and other distinguished men, falsified the prediction that an extended electorate would confine its favours to men of mediocre ability and low social station.

The election reduced the Tory party for a time to political insignificance. Half its numbers fell on the field of battle ; and Peel seized the first opportunity of declaring that he accepted the situation created by the Reform Bill. The change was reflected in the adoption of the name "Conservative"—an invention of Croker's — as an alternative designation of the party and its principles. Before 1832 the party had consisted almost exclusively of landowners. It now received a considerable infusion of traders and manufacturers, who had little in common with the Toryism of Eldon and Sidmouth. On the other hand the older Toryism remained strongly entrenched in the Upper House, where even Wellington was not Tory enough to satisfy the Buckinghams and the Londonderrys. Of this old Tory section Lyndhurst rapidly became the spokesman.

If the Tory party was weakened by internal divisions, the victorious Whigs were in similar plight. Though Althorp, Russell, Durham, Poulett Scrope, and Duncannon, were almost wholly free from the