Enigma

by Paul Bew

  In August Gladstone contacted Parnell (both directly and with Mrs O’Shea as intermediary), asking him to come to Hawarden to discuss the political situation. Parnell was initially reluctant, as he had expectations that the Conservatives might concede a Catholic university (which the Liberals’ nonconformist supporters would oppose) and wished to use the issue to emphasise that he remained ultimately independent of the Liberals. The Conservatives’ university proposal, however, collapsed, and Gladstone renewed the invitation to Hawarden in October.49

  Attention now turned to the shape of a new Home Rule bill in the event of Liberal general election victory. On 18 December 1889 Parnell had ‘two hours of satisfactory conversation’—in Gladstone’s view at any rate.50 Indeed, Parnell told the Freeman’s Journal that he too was ‘more than satisfied with the impressions which appear to have been favourable everywhere’. Actually Gladstone’s notes suggest that some key issues were left open. There is, however, no evidence to support Parnell’s later claims following Gladstone’s rejection of his leadership—that he had found the discussion a disappointing one from the Irish point of view. In particular, his ability to deliver to Cecil Rhodes on the issue of the retention of Irish MPs seems to be unchallenged.51 The Unionist cause was at its lowest ebb since 1886.

  Not that the meeting was without its tense moments. Gladstone remarked: ‘I am certain, Mr Parnell, when you read Irish history you must have been deeply affected.’ Parnell, in his coldest and iciest tone, replied: ‘Mr Gladstone, I never read Irish history.’ Jasper Tully, the Roscommon MP and newspaper editor, regarded this as a master stroke: ‘It was like sticking a pen into a gas bag and letting all the gas escape. Gladstone’s idea was that all he had to do was pour out a long string of platitudes, overflowing with sympathy for Ireland.’52 In fact Gladstone was not quite so manipulative: the GOM had become genuinely obsessed with the wrongs of Irish history.53

  For Gladstone, Edmund Burke was the great guide on the Irish question. At one level this was eminently logical: Burke’s Irish writings are suffused with sympathy for the plight of Catholic Ireland. Gladstone hated it when Burke scholars suggested that Burke, nonetheless, would have supported the Union.54 He was even more furious when he discovered that the great German historian H. G. L. von Sybel, in his Edmund Burke and Ireland, did not support his view of the matter. On 6 February 1888 he dismissed his work as ‘a pretentious, poor affair’. Gladstone worked himself to the point where he conferred on the spirit of Irish nationalism an abstract liberality disconnected from the sectarian and social tensions of Irish land war: ‘The land question from its basis is an incidental, unhappy and hampering accompaniment.’55 On 23 December 1889 Gladstone drew up his memorandum of his recent talks with Parnell:

  After a very long delay, of which I do not know the cause, Mr Parnell’s promised visit came off last week. He appeared well and cheerful and proposed to accompany (without a gun) my younger sons who went out shooting.

  Nothing could be more satisfactory than his conversation; full as I thought it of good sense from beginning to end.

  I had prepared carefully all the points that I could think of, or recall from any suggestions from others, as possible improvements (as to essence or as to prudential policy) in the Irish Government Bill or Land Bill.

  I did not press him to positive conclusions, but learnt pretty well the leaning of his mind; and ascertained that, for as long as I could judge, nothing like a crotchet, or an irrational demand, from his side, was likely to interfere with the proper freedom of our deliberations when the proper time comes for practical steps.

  The points were numerous, and I propose to reserve the recital of them until we meet in London, which, if (as I assume) the Judges have made their report, I think we ought to do not later than the Saturday, or perhaps the Friday, before Tuesday the 11th when the Session opens.

  I may say, however, that we were quite agreed in thinking the real difficulty lies in determining the particular form in which an Irish representation may have to be retained in Westminster. We conversed at large on the different modes. He has no absolute or foregone conclusion.

  He emphatically agreed in the wisdom and necessity of reserving our judgement on this matter until a crisis is at hand.

  Will those of my late colleagues who may see this paper kindly note the fact by their initials.

  S[pencer] 24.12.89

  R[osebery] 27.12.89

  W. V. H[arcourt] 29.12.89

  G[ranville] m[emorandu]m forwarded 30.12.89

  H[erschell] 1.1.90

  K[imberley] 2.1.90

  J. M[orley] 3.1.90

  R[ipon] 4.1.90

  J. S[tansfield] 7.1.90

  A. J. M[undella] 8.1.90

  H. C. B[annerman] 20.1.90

  A. M[orley] 25.1.9056

  Thus did the Liberal leadership happily contemplate the future.

  Immediately after his Hawarden visit Parnell addressed a Liberal meeting in Liverpool. Revealingly, he called Gladstone ‘our great leader’ and was more critical than usual of Irish landlords as a class. He declared that

  He could not consent to sales under coercion. The Irish landlords were given the land originally charged with certain conditions and certain duties, but they had been unjust stewards, and must expect to meet the fate of the unjust steward of the scriptures. The question of the relations between landlord and tenant would, he believed, be easily settled without danger, and he did not believe for a moment that it would constitute the same difficulty and impediment in the way of a settlement of the national question that it constituted under Mr Gladstone’s bill of 1886. The landlords were then offered a settlement on terms which they would never be offered again.57

  The tone of this speech was designed to appeal, above all, to British Liberal hostility to Irish landlordism: indeed, to reassure British Liberals that there was no expensive scheme (such as Parnell had himself supported in 1886) lurking in the background. When Parnell returned to his more usual tone—of greater sympathy for the plight of the Irish landlord—his critics were not slow to remind him of these words in Liverpool.58

  Parnell’s ascendancy was at its height. But such unparalleled dominance was not to last long—not for twenty hours, in fact. On Christmas Eve 1889 Captain O’Shea filed a petition for divorce from his wife, citing the Nationalist leader as co-respondent. Even before Gladstone’s colleagues were able to read his optimistic document, the political situation had been entirely transformed.

  5

  Before the O’Shea suit Parnell’s supremacy was unquestioned. Although his state of health since 1887 (it is now known that he was suffering from some form of kidney disease) had, by his own admission, reduced his effectiveness, there is a sense in which Parnell’s low profile was politically functional, or at least not actually dysfunctional. In the post-1886 period it behoved the British Liberal Party to be in the van in making the case for Home Rule. It was thought that it would be more politically persuasive if the Irish took a back seat for a while as the converts convinced others of the rationality of their new stance. Between September 1886 and December 1890 Parnell spoke only seven times on a public platform and not once in Ireland. He continued, as British intelligence noted, to be very active at Westminster, cajoling impoverished members to stay at their posts in London.59

  It should be noted in the late 1880s the party itself was a rather less inspiring body than in earlier years. Frequent public references were now made to a ‘plague’ of opportunist lawyer MPS who displayed less than the necessary ardour. In August 1889 the Freeman’s Journal declared that the Irish Party was a more effective fighting force ‘when they were thirty or forty than now when they are eighty-six’.60

  Parnell was further assisted by the fact there was no sign of any serious competitor for the leadership. Certainly neither Dillon nor O’Brien had his experience. His real enemy was not overmighty lieutenants but rather the growing status of Gladstone in Ireland, ironically built up by the nationalist press itself. It is a
fact which is often overlooked—perhaps because of Parnell’s relative youth at his death—but in 1890 and 1891 Parnell could boast, despite his illness and irregular involvement, a longer consistent record of public activity in Nationalist politics than any other significant parliamentarian. It is therefore no surprise to find that at the beginning of 1890 the party offered Parnell an unequivocal and laudatory statement of support. This came not simply after O’Shea had opened divorce proceedings, but also after a public statement by Parnell which revealed clearly that there was a basis to those proceedings. This came on 30 December 1889, when the Freeman’s Journal reported a remarkable assertion by Parnell himself: ‘Captain O’Shea was always aware that he [Parnell] was constantly there [Mrs O’Shea’s house at Eltham] in his absence from 1880 to 1886, and since 1886 he has known that Mr Parnell constantly resided there from 1880 to 1886.’61 This declaration throws a revealing light on Parnell’s assurance to Michael Davitt that ‘he would emerge from the whole trouble without a stain on his reputation’. Parnell seems to have meant—although Davitt did not understand him this way—that, while the charge of adultery was not false, he had followed a gentleman’s code of honour and that Captain O’Shea had not been deceived.

  It was therefore Captain O’Shea and the divorce case alone which brought down Parnell. Nothing else at the time could have undermined his leadership. Why, then, did the Captain act as and when he did? Up to 1886 O’Shea certainly exploited the Parnell connection for political advancement; but in June 1886, four months after his election at Galway, he walked out of parliament rather than vote on the second reading of the Home Rule Bill and resigned his seat. After this development O’Shea could no longer look to Parnell for any further political help. But O’Shea still had one strong reason for inactivity. He expected his wife’s aged Aunt Ben to leave a large sum to her niece. If he remained Katharine’s husband, O’Shea might reasonably expect to share in this windfall. In the late 1880s the nonagenarian Aunt Ben’s death was expected almost daily by the Captain.

  This background information helps to explain why O’Shea acted at this juncture. Aunt Ben’s death on 19 May 1889 was followed by the revelation that she had left her money to Katharine in such a way that O’Shea was not legally entitled to a share. The will was contested by Katharine’s brothers and sisters as well as by O’Shea himself; this probate case placed the money out of reach for at least three years. O’Shea therefore had no further motive for silence or delay. In fact a divorce action, if successful, might have weakened Katharine’s chances when it came to the matter of the will.

  What was Parnell’s strategy in this new crisis? Labouchere speculated that Parnell had rather too optimistic a view about the likely Irish reaction: ‘One morning while the case was proceeding he sat quietly reading the report of the evidence. He calmly looked up and said, “My people never will believe all this.”’ Labouchere adds: ‘In the end he was so eager for the divorce that he would not have prevented it had he been able.’62

  This seems to be the truth of the matter. Although Mrs O’Shea may perhaps have been interested in proving in court that the Captain was a conniving husband, Parnell, on the other hand, was not. He was naturally anxious that Katharine should inherit her aunt’s estate—he had, after all, for years been engaging in deception and subterfuge with this end in view—but his overriding concern now was not to take any step which might endanger the prospects of outright divorce and his eventual marriage to Katharine. (This continued to influence Parnell’s behaviour after the court case. Under the divorce law as it then existed, the divorce could have been invalidated within six months after a decree was granted if collusion were proven; Parnell’s desire to avoid this and marry Katharine helps to explain why he did not, when defending himself during the split, publicly accuse O’Shea of collusion.) The future of their two children had, of course, also to be taken into consideration. At any rate, it was Parnell’s hope that O’Shea could be ‘squared’ with a sum of £20,000: in return for his substantial bribe it was hoped—reasonably enough—that the Captain might confess his own adultery with some party. However, in the end the money was unavailable and O’Shea pressed his case successfully.

  It cannot be stressed enough: if O’Shea had been ‘squared’, Parnell would have remained the undisputed leader of his party. Instead Parnell found himself in the position of having raised hopes that he would triumph here as he had triumphed over The Times; with his failure to do so, it should not be surprising that an embittered reaction set in against him. Parnell was eventually destined to lose his unique position of power and authority for the want of a ready £20,000 in 1890.

  Chapter 7

  ‘STICKING TO HIS CORNER’

  Well, I confess that I don’t admire a man who doesn’t stick to his corner and fight it out whether he is losing or winning.

  PARNELL’S LAST SPEECH, CREGGS, CO. ROSCOMMON, REPORTED IN ROSCOMMON MESSENGER, 3 OCTOBER 1891

  Hatred is a fish that haunts slow, stagnant waters. It can hunt in packs, too. I have heard of a sick salmon being devoured by eels. Parnell’s last months were like that.

  STEPHEN GWYNN, FOND OPINIONS (1938)

  1

  The divorce case began on 15 November 1890. No defence was entered, and the trial lasted a mere two days. The evidence presented the two lovers in the most squalid light: most ludicrous of all, it was alleged that Parnell had on occasions evaded the Captain by departing rapidly down a fire escape. A decree nisi was granted on 17 November. On the following day the Dublin branch of the National League passed a resolution upholding Parnell’s leadership. The meeting of the party to elect their sessional leader, the technical title of the Irish leader, was fixed for Tuesday 25 November. Meanwhile everyone held their breath. The issue, after all, was a most sensitive one. The Spectator commented: ‘The one thing which apparently the free play of national character expresses itself in is the choice of a nation’s favourite statesman. If national feeling does not manifest itself in that, it will hardly manifest at all.’1 At first the outcome seemed genuinely unsure. ‘It does not in the least follow that Irishmen will not continue to treat him as the head of the Home Rule party, and as the one politician whom they can best trust, just as it would not follow that if Englishmen nearly a century ago had known of Nelson’s private character, they would have trusted him less.’2

  Parnell was at the height of his power, and it was difficult for any Irish force to move against him. The bishops were silent—some explicitly declaring the issue to be purely political. (This was a fact Parnell was later to exploit in 1891 when the bishops rediscovered their capacity for moral leadership.) It was rather the ‘nonconformist conscience’ in England which openly rebelled first against Parnell. The Liberal leader, Gladstone, found that a large proportion of his own supporters would no longer support an alliance with the Irish if the Irish were led by Parnell. Gladstone then sent for Justin McCarthy, Parnell’s nominal second-in-command, and, while paying tribute to Parnell’s work, told him that Parnell’s retention of the leadership would mean the loss of the next election and would mean also the putting off of Home Rule until a time when he (Gladstone) would no longer be able to lend a hand in the struggle. In order to avoid the charge of ‘dictation’, Gladstone had resolved not to convey this directly to Parnell himself, but he authorised McCarthy to pass on these opinions to Parnell when he next saw him. McCarthy attempted to contact Parnell, but without success or, at any rate, impact.

  Gladstone also took the step of addressing a letter to Morley, incorporating his conversation with McCarthy and claiming that the continuance of Parnell’s leadership

  would not only place many hearty and effective friends of the Irish cause in a position of great embarrassment, but would render my retention of the leadership of the Liberal Party, based as it has been mainly upon the prosecution of the Irish cause, almost a nullity.3

  Gladstone further stated in this letter that he had requested McCarthy to make known his viewpoint at the meeting of t
he party in the event of Parnell showing no sign of retirement.

  However, neither Morley nor McCarthy were able to get this point through to Parnell before the meeting of the Irish Parliamentary Party on 25 November. Parnell’s famous inaccessibility once more came to his (temporary) rescue. Even more remarkably, Justin McCarthy failed to tell the other party members once the meeting had started. When all allowance is made for the possibility of a genuine misunderstanding of Gladstone’s instructions on McCarthy’s part, it seems clear that his nerve failed him. ‘That nice old gentleman for a tea party’, as Parnell later called McCarthy, could not cope with the harsh reality of high politics.

  Parnell was therefore able to make his appeal under the best possible conditions. His themes were rudimentary. He denied any friendship with O’Shea; he insisted vehemently that he had never accepted any hospitality from him; he hinted of further important disclosures which would show his position in a better light; and finally, he appealed to the collective loyalty of the party. Slightly stunned—for some members were expecting Parnell to conclude by resigning—the party unanimously re-elected him to the chair. They did so—thanks to McCarthy’s pusillanimity—without the knowledge of Gladstone’s assessment of the political situation.