[Sidenote: Lord Pembroke and Swift]
The Earl of Pembroke remained in Ireland less than a couple of years, playing at governing, and amused by Swift. The post of Lord High Admiral was more to his liking, and he gladly resigned the viceroyalty to take it up. Swift acted as chaplain to Pembroke, but his princ.i.p.al duty appears to have been that of amusing the earl with humorous doggerel or by his caustic criticisms of Dublin"s leading citizens, official and otherwise. The punning correspondence with the viceroy was the forerunner of a habit that lasted through Swift"s life, and gained him a reputation for wit which, fortunately for the dean, was supplemented by something more recondite. During several viceroyalties he exercised considerable influence, and although Swift hotly repudiated the t.i.tle of Irishman, at times he rendered some service to the country in which he was born. The Earl of Wharton was sixty when appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland on November 25, 1708, and there were forty years of profligacy behind him. He was an atheist, unscrupulous, licentious, witty, contemptuous, and absolutely without fear. From the first he had been an opponent of James II., and the invitation to William was suggested by {130} Wharton. To send this man to Ireland to settle the religious question and maintain the supremacy of the Protestant party was a matchless piece of irony; but Wharton, who could insist upon an elaborate ritual of household prayers in his own home, undertook the task, undeterred by the sneers of his opponents, the amazement of his friends, and the bitter invective of that disappointed office-seeker, Jonathan Swift.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Lord Wharton]
Wharton had done considerable service to the cause of William by the writing of a single song that proved to be worth an army to the Orange party. Like most of the English n.o.bility, Wharton had been vastly amused by Tyrconnel"s elevation to the viceroyalty. In his opinion the position was one for a gentleman, and not a bully with Irish leanings and unrepentantly Catholic. The famous song, set to music by Purcell, and known as "Lilli Burlero, Bullen-a-la," was the result, and, whistled and sung from one end of the country to the other, it ridiculed Tyrconnel out of existence. That was Wharton"s first contribution to the history of Ireland.
His second took the form of a law declaring that all property held by Catholics must be inherited by their Protestant heirs--a statute which was declared to do more towards stamping out Popery in three months than all others had done in three years. The viceroy, however, took no pains to please anybody but himself. He lived in Dublin as he lived in London, and, when satiated with the pleasures of the Irish metropolis, he crossed over to London, following the example of his {131} predecessors, who never became too fond of Dublin to prefer it to London.
Wharton"s first wife, Ann Lee, brought him a large fortune and a plain face; his second, Lucy Loftus, was heavily dowered, but her character almost matched his own--and that is saying a great deal. During his viceroyalty most of the royalty was absent, and Dublin Castle became a glorified tavern and brothel. The viceroy"s discarded mistresses were married to distressed profligates, whom Wharton promoted to office in the State or gave preferment in the Church. Once he recommended a boon companion for a bishopric, declaring that "James was the most honourable man alive, and possessed of a character practically faultless save for his d.a.m.nable morals." This person did not secure the bishopric, but he found compensation in a deanery.
[Sidenote: Joseph Addison]
The only sober member of the viceroy"s retinue was Joseph Addison, whose hackwork in the service of the party had been rewarded with this appointment, much to Swift"s envy, for the Irishman was supposed to be ent.i.tled to payment before Addison, who served with zeal "the profligate son of a Puritanical father, and the father of a son more licentious than himself." When the Lord-Lieutenant left Ireland the Parliament actually thanked the queen for having sent "one so great in wisdom and experience to be our chief Governor." This was the man who had knighted potmen who served him with ale, tried to idealize the most abandoned women, and regarded with complacency the amours of his wife, who, having {132} lost the affections of her husband, found consolation in a dozen other men. Cardsharpers, profligates, and every species of base adventurer had the _entree_ to Dublin Castle, where the viceroy reigned as a "prince of good fellows," many of whom had been kicked out of decent society in London. But Wharton was powerful enough to be more than unconventional, and it suited his peculiar sense of humour to shock even his most licentious companions-in-arms. When they roamed Dublin at night seeking for prey, Wharton behaved like a drunken madman, and he fondly imagined that his ident.i.ty was not discovered, except when, in an intoxicated mood, he called for a sword and bestowed knighthoods indiscriminately on waiters and landlords, and even went through the farce of knighting women of the street. His motto was never to give a challenge and never to refuse one. When in his teens he had fought two duels with outraged husbands, and gained the victory in each encounter.
His viceroyalty was certainly unconventional. Dignified prelates, hovering in draughty rooms and corridors, were twitted mercilessly by my Lord Wharton, who was the most contemptuous enemy the Protestant faith ever knew. Once he declared that he hated all religions, but if he had to join one he would select the Presbyterian, because it was opposed to the Church of England. Swift"s famous attack on him merely created a temporary annoyance in the English n.o.bleman.
It was no misfortune for Ireland that the fall of the Government entailed Wharton"s recall in {133} October, 1710, and the Duke of Ormonde"s reappointment was at once announced. Wharton, cynical and contemptuous, looked upon his supersession with indifference. He had exhausted all the pleasures Dublin had to offer, and so London knew him once more. He lived until 1715, and saw King George on the throne and his rival, Ormonde, a penniless fugitive. The latter fact must have enabled him to believe that there were compensations in this world even for a man who defied it. There is a story told of him which aptly ill.u.s.trates his cynical sense of humour. When the famous "twelve peers" were created by Queen Anne in order that the Government might carry a certain measure in the House of Lords, Wharton nicknamed them "the jury," and, rising in his place in the House of Lords, inquired blandly whether the twelve voted singly or through their foreman. He was nearing the close of his life when a marquisate was conferred on him, and he maintained his influence on public affairs right to the end.
[Sidenote: The Duke of Shrewsbury]
The second viceroyalty of Ormonde having terminated, Queen Anne selected Charles Talbot, twelfth Earl and only Duke of Shrewsbury, to succeed him in 1713. It was the queen"s last important appointment, and Shrewsbury carried on the Government from 1713 to 1717, spending more time in England than in Ireland, and contenting himself by staying at Dublin Castle whenever the Irish Parliament was in session. He was an interesting person in many ways. Named after Charles II. because he was the first {134} of that king"s G.o.dchildren--being born in the year of the Restoration--he pa.s.sed his childhood amid Catholic influences.
His mother carried on an intrigue with the Duke of Buckingham which resulted in her husband"s death. According to a contemporary, Lady Shrewsbury, disguised as a page, held Buckingham"s horse whilst he killed her husband in the duel that followed the discovery of her infidelity.
In 1699 Shrewsbury, who had formed one of the seven who invited William to come to England, was offered the viceroyalty, but declined it, as well as half a dozen alternative proposals made to him. He was tired of politics, and for three years--1700-02--he lived in Rome, and then travelled about the Continent. He brought back with him an Italian wife, a lady whose jealousy, ambition, and unscrupulousness shortened his life. Shrewsbury was not ambitious, but his wife was, and it is supposed that she induced him to accept the viceroyalty so that she might play at being a queen amid the indifferent and unorganized state of Dublin society. Swift, who met him very often, described him as "the finest gentleman we have"; and William referred to him more than once as "the King of Hearts." Lady Shrewsbury insisted upon his keeping his Irish appointment, and, bullied by her, he did, although he neither loved nor respected her. In London the Italian sought to place herself at the head of society as the wife of His Majesty"s representative, but failed decisively. Her husband became the b.u.t.t of the wits; he was mercilessly ridiculed, and even the {135} gift of the office of Lord Chamberlain, to enable him to retire from the viceroyalty, could not help him to regain his prestige. He died in 1718, and all England ascribed his premature death to his wife.
[Sidenote: Draining the Irish exchequer]
Charles Paulet, Duke of Bolton and Marquis of Winchester, accepted the vacancy, and came to Dublin in 1719 to open the Irish Parliament. This was two years after his appointment, but it was not necessary in those days for the viceroy to govern in person. He had his share of the profits of the office remitted to him in London. These consisted of the official salary and such annual sums as were due to him by persons whom he either continued in office or appointed. It is related of Lord Wharton that, despite his wealth, he insisted upon all persons nominated by him paying a commission on their salaries, and in one particular instance he agreed with a certain lawyer to make him Lord Justice at a salary of 40 a month, the latter agreeing to hand over the balance of the official allowance of 100 per month to the viceroy.
Ireland was regarded as a sort of till to be robbed by viceroys and their friends. For many years it had been the practice to include the heavy expenses of the numerous mistresses of royalty in the accounts of the Government of Ireland; but most of the money came from London. Yet Ireland got the reputation of being costly and useless, while every monarch and every English statesman continued to rob the Irish Exchequer and the people. They drained the country without troubling to insure its stability and prosperity; active attempts were {136} made and succeeded in injuring Irish industries, and the greatest sufferers were the descendants of the English settlers. By now there was no "English colony" to uphold the viceroy"s rights or wrongs, and to every Englishman a resident in Ireland was "savage and Irish." Dean Swift, who spent a lifetime endeavouring to disprove the--to him--terrible accusation of being Irish, was moved to declare that the Anglo-Irish families spoke the best English, and were the most civilized persons under the dominion of the English Crown. It is amusing to read his letter to Pope (July 13, 1737), in which he scornfully protests against the confusion existing in English minds concerning the "savage old Irish" and the "English gentry in Ireland." Five years before this he declared to Sir Charles Wigan that the peasantry were distinguished by "a better natural taste for good sense, humour, and raillery than ever I observed among people of the like sort in England." Swift"s attack on the English administration of Ireland was, however, not intended for the benefit of the country as a whole. He represented the "English in Ireland," and was fond of describing them as "English colonists."
Whigs and Tories alike used the unfortunate country for selfish reasons, and Irish trade was ruined to appease English voters or to guard the vested interests of great n.o.blemen. There was no purely Irish party to attack the abuses of the administration in Dublin; the leading men were placated with office, or else had to join in the scramble for emoluments, for fear that they should be left out in the cold. {137} The Protestant Church was in the ascendancy; the Catholic hierarchy looked on complacently, leaving it to the priests to show that the Catholic religion was not altogether selfish and political.
Swift himself was a typical clergyman of the Established Church, irreligious, scornful of his trust, and seeking preferment in the Church because it was the only way to power for a man of humble birth in those days.
[Sidenote: Irish society]
Dublin Castle seldom housed the viceroy, the administration being left to one or more Lords Justices who escaped criticism, provided their remittances to the absent Lord-Lieutenant were regular and satisfactory in amount. Dublin society was scarcely half formed, and consisted of beggarly exiles from England, compelled to emigrate by reason of their debts and misdeeds, the friends and relatives of the Lords Justices, obscure army officers and their kind, and a few of the wealthier citizens who could not be ignored. Those with English names affected to despise those with Irish; it was considered sheer savagery not to speak well of the Government, for the viceroy and his lady set the fashions, and not to follow them was to court ignominy and insult.
It is said that the Duke of Bolton accepted the viceroyalty out of curiosity and on the condition that the Government paid the expenses of his journey to Dublin to see the Irish. Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, and Lord Townshend had allowed themselves in 1714 and 1716 respectively to accept the post, but neither n.o.bleman troubled to visit Ireland; and the Duke of {138} Bolton was regarded with a certain amount of admiration for his pluck and fort.i.tude in surrendering the delights of London for the uncivilization of Dublin. Charles Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, a descendant of Charles II., became Lord-Lieutenant in 1721, and tasted some of the sweets of sovereignty as the representative of the king, whose occupancy of the throne meant the extinction of the Stuarts.
Grafton came to Ireland with no intention of overworking himself in the service of the State, and he was, therefore, disagreeably surprised when he found himself in the midst of a political turmoil. Dean Swift"s satire was stinging everybody, irrespective of position or cla.s.s. Roused by him, the people were actually protesting against the newest form of English tyranny, and they even dared to scream insults at the gilded fop as he drove about the city. It was the irony of fate that all the trouble should be caused by the king"s fondness for his mistress. Grafton, however, was averse to facing a crisis; he was better in London--far from the maddening Irish--and when Grafton retired with alacrity in 1723, the Government decided to send John, Lord Carteret, to carry out their policy. The descendant of Charles II. was not eager to battle for the vindication of a policy arising out of the turgid German morals of the oddest figure that ever sat on the throne of England. King George"s failing was that he possessed appet.i.te without appreciation; he wanted the best, and yet never recognized it when he had it.
{139}
CHAPTER IX
Lord Carteret was only thirty-four when, on April 3, 1724, he was declared Viceroy of Ireland. The appointment was Walpole"s, whose accession to power presented him with the opportunity of sending Carteret to quell the disturbance in Ireland which he himself--the new viceroy--had encouraged secretly while occupying a private position in the State. Carteret, however, did not flinch, nor did he exhibit any distaste for the task. It was not necessary to treat the Irish as human beings, and he knew that if he propitiated the Anglo-Irish he would gain his own way in everything.
The origin of the trouble and turmoil was the grant of a patent to the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal, the king"s mistress, for the coining of halfpence in Ireland. The d.u.c.h.ess already drew 3,000 a year from the Irish Exchequer, but her avarice was aroused by stories of how easily the Irish were plundered, and she persuaded the king to give her the famous patent. She pa.s.sed it on to Wood, who paid her 10,000, and agreed to remit to the State 1,000 a year for fourteen years. The coinage was not base, but it meant that a profit of 40,000 was to pa.s.s into the pockets of the {140} king"s mistress and William Wood; they were to rob rich and poor alike, and the State was to lose heavily. The grant was made without consulting the Irish Parliament or the Irish Privy Council.
Swift, who had been waiting for this opportunity, seized it with avidity, and the "Drapier"s Letters" was the result. Wood"s halfpence was characteristic of English misrule of Ireland, and, roused to frenzy by the dean"s pamphlets, the country unanimously obeyed his call to ignore the latest coins, and always to refuse to recognize their legality. The dean"s extravagant fancy found full scope in the "Drapier"s Letters"; the pamphlets were sold in their tens of thousands, and Walpole"s determination was outmatched by the fury of the Irish not to allow themselves to be swindled to provide for the expenses of the German"s mistress.
The new viceroy landed in Ireland in the month that witnessed the publication of the fourth "Letter," and his first act was to offer a reward of 300 for the discovery of the writer. Swift"s anonymity was too safe, however, and the Lord-Lieutenant had to be satisfied with the arrest of the printer, Harding. When the dean heard of this, he bearded Carteret in Dublin Castle, and reproached him in singularly straightforward language with cowardice and weakness in persecuting a tradesman. The viceroy took the verbal buffeting in good part, for Swift and he were old friends; but Harding was put to all the worry and expense of a prosecution at the hands of a {141} partisan Chief Justice--Whitshed--though the grand jury eventually threw out the bill against him, and he was discharged.
[Sidenote: Swift"s victory]
The cancellation of the patent has been described as a victory for Swift and Ireland, but all that can be said truthfully is that it enabled the dean to claim a personal triumph, while the county actually lost by the agreement. For the surrender of his rights Wood was paid 3,000 a year for eight years, a sum--24,000--at least equal to the profits he would have made had he been allowed to carry out the terms of his patent without opposition. The princ.i.p.al cause of the surrender to popular opinion was, undoubtedly, the indifference of Carteret to the policy he had been sent to carry out. He was no enthusiastic admirer of Walpole"s statesmanship, and he knew very well that Irish affairs were considered of no importance whatever in England, and that if he went to the trouble and worry of defeating the malcontents he would get no credit in London, and make himself and his presence in Dublin unpopular. He was, therefore, only too willing to flatter public opinion by pretending to bow to it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Lord Carteret]
Carteret was a scholar and a gentleman, who did much to popularize the Latin quotation as a subst.i.tute for logic. The statesmen of the period, whenever they were puzzled in English, immediately had recourse to the safe obscurity of a Latin or Greek epigram. It was polished, abstruse, and impressive. This mannerism gained for him the reputation of an orator--even the best of his generation--and Lord Chatham has placed on {142} record his appreciation of Carteret: "Whatever I am I owe to him."
The viceroy did not create any precedent by remaining very long in Dublin Castle. It was an unwritten law that only during the actual sitting of Parliament was the Lord-Lieutenant"s presence considered necessary, and Carteret took full advantage of his opportunities to spend at leisure in London the money he drew so readily from Ireland.
Had it not been for Swift, he might not have stayed in Dublin half as long as he actually did. The dean was the paramount power in Dublin society, although he complained that he was not popular among his equals. The crowd, however, worshipped him; he was the national hero.
All this was pleasing and yet displeasing to the dean, whose soul languished for the smiles of the great. He disliked a popularity that entailed the sneers of the educated, but he was not the man to abjure the applause of the mob. Carteret kept friendly with Swift, and never denied him anything. When this became known, Swift"s house was the meeting-place of all the office-seekers in Ireland, and some even came from England. Swift had only to recommend a cleric to the viceroy"s attention and the man"s preferment was certain.
One of Swift"s recommendations was in favour of Sheridan, the grandfather of the celebrated dramatist and orator. Carteret good-naturedly presented Sheridan with a living, and made him one of his chaplains; but the ex-schoolmaster, on the anniversary of the accession of the Hanoverian {143} family, preached a sermon from the text, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." It was a pure accident, but Sheridan was accused of Jacobinism, and he was removed from his chaplaincy. For the remainder of his life he was one of Swift"s satellites, at the mercy of his generosity and his satire.
Sheridan records a story which ill.u.s.trates very vividly the popularity of the famous Dean of St. Patrick"s. A large crowd a.s.sembled to witness an eclipse. Swift sent out the bellman to cry out to all and sundry that the eclipse had been postponed by the dean"s orders, and the crowd quietly dispersed!
Carteret summed up his administration in words that have become historic. "When people asked me how I governed Ireland," he remarked, "I say that I pleased Dr. Swift." Carteret"s egotism and selfishness were diluted by a sense of humour that enabled him to tolerate Swift, his unofficial jester.
[Sidenote: Lord Carteret retires]
The Lord-Lieutenant was reappointed in 1727, when George II. ascended the throne and the Hanoverian succession a.s.sured; but his last appearance in Dublin was in 1729, and his successor did not arrive until two years later. In 1728 the new Parliament building was erected on the site of Chichester House. From all accounts, Carteret was a success. It was no disadvantage to him that he was a heavy drinker--had more viceroys taken to drink, Ireland might have escaped some of the consequences of their greater follies--and without imitating the example of Wharton, he was broad-minded enough to see no {144} harm in the lax condition of Dublin society, which was then following the lead set by London. It is no exaggeration to ascribe Carteret"s lack of failure to his cynical indifference to Irish affairs; he quite believed that Ireland was a nuisance, but a nuisance that had to be endured. The so-called Parliament must have ministered to his sense of humour. Its English prototype was bad enough, but to call the collection of retained nincomp.o.o.ps and Castle hacks a Parliament was to degrade the word to the lowest depths. Ireland never had a Parliament, unless the generous historian grants that t.i.tle to Grattan"s. In Carteret"s time the "Parliament" no more represented Ireland than it did the land of the Chaldeans.
The successor to the late viceroy was Lionel Sackville, Duke of Dorset--a courtier whose ambition it had been for years to represent the king in Ireland. It is significant of the progress Ireland, and especially Dublin, was making that a great English n.o.bleman such as Dorset was should exert all his influence to secure the reversion of Carteret"s post. Not many years previously an Englishman of position would have accepted the viceroyalty under compulsion only.
[Sidenote: Four great n.o.blemen]
Sackville resigned the post of Lord Steward to go to Ireland, and he arrived to open the Parliament of 1731, staying until the early part of the following year. He visited the country again in 1733 and 1735, in accordance with the custom that rendered it imperative for the viceroy to preside at the opening of Parliament. Beyond {145} that his duties did not extend, and Dorset found the viceroyalty greatly to his liking.
He drew a large salary, executed several profitable deals in the shape of sales of offices, and took the money with him to England.
"Uneventful" best describes his term of power, but to a man of his disposition it was all he desired. When, therefore, in the latter part of 1736, he was informed that he was to be replaced by William Cavendish, third Duke of Devonshire, he hotly resented his supersession, but could not prevail against the ministry, which placated him with the post of Lord President of the Council. But his experience of Ireland had been too congenial to make him satisfied with his position in London. The loss of the great revenues, the sudden change from an almost regal position to one of mediocrity in a society where he had few equals and many superiors, and the ridiculous ease whereby the "work" of his administration was accomplished, kept Dorset dissatisfied until his reappointment to Ireland in December, 1750.
Meanwhile, however, three other viceroys played their parts in making the history of Ireland. These were William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire (1737-44), Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield (1745), and William Stanhope, Earl of Harrington (1746-51).
Of these, it is obvious that the Earl of Chesterfield was the most remarkable. The name of Devonshire suggests a yawn, and the third duke was characteristic of it. His viceroyalty was more apparent than real, and seems to have been {146} conducted on the principle that Ireland and Irish affairs were a bore, the journeys to Dublin intolerable, and the Irish Parliament "impossible." The duke, however, clung to the office until 1744, content to leave administration to the Lords Justices, and pocketing the salary readily--the only point of unanimity amongst the holders of the office in the eighteenth century.
[Sidenote: Lord Chesterfield]
The great Earl of Chesterfield was Viceroy of Ireland for eight months only, and his life, therefore, belongs to the history of his native country; but he left his mark on Dublin, and in a few months accomplished more to raise the name of Englishman there than the seven years of Devonshire and the eight of Dorset. It is unnecessary to recapitulate all the main facts of Chesterfield"s life, while, as his "Letters" do not concern Irish affairs, they are no part of this history. At the time of his appointment to the viceroyalty in 1745 he had just pa.s.sed his fiftieth year, and had left behind him many full years. Before he was twenty-one he was a member of Parliament, and by the time he succeeded to the peerage in 1726 he had gained much of that renowned knowledge of the world which provided the inspiration of the famous "Letters." Chesterfield appears to have had a pa.s.sion for the unconventional, but he carried it to such an extent, and so successfully, that it almost became conventional. Brought up in the society of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II., he discovered in maturity that it is not wise to put faith in princes. Chesterfield was the prince"s henchman in all his escapades, {147} and when Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk, became the prince"s mistress, Chesterfield was the chosen friend of both. This meant, of course, that the princess, better known as Queen Caroline, exerted all her influence to bring about an estrangement between her husband and the earl, and she succeeded, as she always was certain to do.
Chesterfield, however, was too powerful a man for even the King of England to ruin, and although George II., after the inevitable quarrel, sought to keep the earl out of public life, he had to agree to his nomination to the emba.s.sy at the Hague. He was very popular there, but his sojourn in Holland, while it is remembered by the Dutch by reason of the fortune Stanhope lost at cards, is only famous because it was at the Hague that the English Amba.s.sador made the acquaintance of Madamoiselle du Bouchet. To the son that was born to them Chesterfield addressed his "Letters." Returning to England impecunious but as debonair as ever, Stanhope, nevertheless, realized that it was imperative that he should marry money. The heiress of the day was Petronilla Melusina von der Schulenburg, the natural daughter of George I. by the notorious d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal, the heroine of Wood"s halfpence.
Petronilla, who was Countess of Walsingham in her own right, was not exactly a beauty, but she possessed a fortune of 50,000, and in addition an annuity of 3,000 payable out of the Irish treasury. At the time of her father"s death in 1727, the countess was thirty-four and unmarried. The king had kept her guarded jealously, and {148} George II., mindful of the fact that if Lady Walsingham married, her husband might make awkward inquiries about her estate, continued the policy of his father. Chesterfield, however, was not averse to offending George II. There had been a great coolness between them, and the earl must have realized that Queen Caroline would make it utterly impossible for them to renew the friendship of early days. He therefore courted the countess, who was his senior by a year, and the reputed wittiest and handsomest man of his time had little difficulty in capturing the hand and fortune of the illegitimate daughter of his king"s father. They were married in 1733, unknown to King George, and when the inevitable discovery came, the king, though pa.s.sionately angry, could do nothing beyond uttering threats. The marriage was entirely one of convenience--Chesterfield wanted money; the countess required a deliverer from the thraldom of the court. Cynically indifferent to the opinions of the world, they lived in separate houses, but tried to humour Mrs. Grundy--who was born the day the serpent entered Eden--by taking houses next door to one another!
His monetary affairs freed from embarra.s.sment, Chesterfield entered once more into the life of the town, careless of the king"s anger, oblivious of the queen"s spite. When he had looked into his wife"s affairs he sent George a bill for 40,000, due to her from the royal estate, and on the monarch ignoring the hint, the earl promptly began an action in the Courts for the recovery of the money. {149} The king eventually compromised by paying 20,000.