disraeli, the conservatives, and the government of ireland: part 1, 1837–1868*

Parliamentary History, Vol. 18, p t . 1 (1999), pp. 45-64

Disraeli, the Conservatives, and the Government of Ireland: Part 1, 1837-1 868.*

A L L E N W A R R E N University of York

Historians have long used Ireland as a frame for the study of Gladstone’s career; they have done so much less for Disraeli. Also a man of the 1830s, his political career was similarly set by the conflicts over Ireland in the 1840s; the social condition of the country in 1843 and 1844, the Maynooth grant a year later, and the defeat of Peel over Irish coercion in 1846. During the minority Conservative politics of the following decade and a half. much of Disraeli’s energy was devoted to capitalizing on the outfall &om the papal aggression of 1850 and Russell’s ecclesiastical titles leglislation. In Ireland, the results looked impressive, with the Conservative party gaining a majority of seats in the country in the 1859 general election. But this success did not lead to an overall Conservative majority. In the 1860s Ireland was also to feature prominently, as Disraeli tried to fashion a popular Conservative politics around the comprehensive Protestantism of the national church; and in which arguments over the established status of the Church of Ireland were a critical component. Linked to this was a belief that the Conservatives’ success in Ireland could be main- tained by winning the support of moderate catholic opinion. When both elements of this strategy unexpectedly failed in the 1868 election, Disraeli’s domestic politics were in ruins, resulting in an ineffective opposition to Gladstone’s own Irish legislation between 1869 and 1873. As a result, Disraeli did not create an active Irish executive on taking ofice in 1874, and it was not until 1879 that he found himself again forced to re-engage seriously with Irish issues as another dissolution approached. The outcome was his electoral letter to the duke of Marlborough, in which he tried to place the question of ‘who governs Ireland’ at centre stage. Again, as in 1868, this failed in the short term, although in the final year of his life Beacons- field (as he had become in 1876) did suggest, at least in outline, a new Conservative

The author would like to acknowledge his gratitude to the British Academy for a small grant re- ceived in 1989-90, which enabled much ofthe archival work for these two articles to be undertaken. He would also like to thank the following institutions and individuals for allowing him to consult material in their custody: The British Library; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the Public Record Office at Kew, London; the National Library of Ireland, Dublin; the Public Record Office of Northern Ire- land, Belfast; the Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh; the County Record Offices of Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire, West Sussex, Suffolk; the City of Liverpool Record Office; Churchill College, Cambridge; the duke of Marlborough, the marquess of Salisbury, the earl of Harrowby, and Mr James Lowther. Finally, he would like to thank Peter Biller and John Wolffe for their comments on an earlier draft.

40 Allen Wanen

Irish politics founded on the defence o f the propertied basis of the constitution and the maintenance of the Union.

I n spite of this near continuous (if largely unsuccessful) involvenient in the atXiirs of Ireland, its politics and government, there is n o volume with the title Disraeli md t h c ~ frish Nation, nor even a periodical literature. Historians have used other explanatory maps for Disraeli’s career. In his authoritative biography of 1960, Robert Blake largely dismantled the earlier scholarly and popular image of Ilisraeli, by showing how slight was the connexion between the Young England frondeur and the later opportunist politician. N o other acadeniic historian has attempted a comprehensive biography since. Alniost immediately after Blake’s biography was published, Sir Isaiah 13erlin suggested a different approach. In a characteristically elegant comparison of Ilisraeli and Marx, he portrayed Disraeli as clothing hiniselfin the ‘play of transforming phantasy’, a g a n e n t made up from anglican doctrine, a reading ofBurke, and a romantic sensibility. Berlin also reminded his readers of Disraeli’s jewishness, a thenie persuasively taken LIP

by Paul Smith and more recently by popular biographers. John Vincent, on the other hand, reminds us that llisraeli remained very much a man of the 1830s. but leaves open the question ofwhether his whole career was more than a collection of‘enforced poses’. l3y contrast, Peter Ghosh and Richard Shannon, in their re-examinations of the earlier writing o f Blake and Smith, tend to emphasise the working politician in Disraeli’s policy making. None has devoted any extended attention to Ilisraeli and Ireland.’

Almost the only treatment is by the idiosyncratic colonial governor and fornier catholic tory Irish member of parliament, Sir John Pope Hennessy. In an article ap- pearing in The Nineteenth Century in October 1884, and entitled ‘Lord Deaconsfield’s Irish Policy’, Pope Hennessy asked whether Ilisraeli had always followed the policy of ‘Cromwell and emigration’, as shown in his letter to the duke of Marlborough, four years earlier. H e recalled for his readers the then less-remembered fact of I h s - raeli’s 1844 speech, in which he had characterised Ireland’s ills as, ‘a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, an alien church; and, in addition, the we‘ikrst Executive in the world’. Disraeli had also been reminded of this speech in the debates o n Irish reform in the 1860s, and Pope Herinessy (incorrectly) claimed that i t had been removed from a later edition o f his collected speeches. Despite possible enihx- rassnient, Disraeli had explicitly drawn attention to his earlier Irish opinions in the introduction to the collected edition of his novels, published in 1870. Even after electoral defeat in 1880, when attacking Forster’s Compensation for Ilisturbance Bill, he had reminded the peers o f the comprehensive programme o f land reforni brought forward by Napier in Derby’s short 1852 niinistry. Nor did Ilisraeli abandon the historical framework within which he had positioned his Irish views in the

’ Icobert Blake, Disrarli (1966); Isaiah Berlin. ‘Benjamin Disraeli and K x l Marx and the Search h r Identity’, Against fhr Currcnf. Essays in the Hislory qfldras, ed. I lenry Hardy (1979), pp, 2S2-M. o r i p nally puhl. Transutfions offheJewish Historical Socirfy of-Etigland. XXll (IOOX-9); Paul Smith, ‘I hvaeli’s Politics’, Transacfions ofthe Royal Historical Soriety, 5th ser., XXXVll (1087). 65-86; John Vincent, IIb- rarli (1990); Richard Shannon, The Axe ofDisrarli, 1868-81. The Risr o/Tory Drmorracy (1992); 1’. I< Ghosh, ‘1)israelian Conservatism: A Financial Approach’. E. H. K., XClX (19x4). 268-96; i i h , ‘Style and Substance in Disraelian Social Kefonn, c . 186(k80’. Politics and Sotiul Chatrp in Modem Brit,Jin Essayspresenfed fo A. F. Thompson, ed. 1’. J. Waller (1987). pp S9-90. See also. Bruce C:olenian, Comw vatism and ihe Conservative Party in Ninrteetifh Century Brifnin (19XX); Ian Machin, Disrarli (I0‘)S).

Disraeli, Conservatives and Ireland 47

1840s. These had had at their centre an interpretation o f t h e seventeenth century in which Irish ecclesiastical relations, and Anglo-Irish relations more generally, were seen as in harmony in the 164Os, prior to the intervention ofCromwell and the curse of puritanism. In 1868 Disraeli had returned to this theme, seeing the events o f 1688-9 as leading to the establishment of a corrupt political Whig domination in the form of the ‘Venetian oligarchy’. As for Ireland itself, Disraeli had portrayed the fig- ure of Patrick Sarsfield as a national hero, somewhat to the einbarrassment of his Ulster protestant allies. Ilisraeli, Pope Hennessy concluded, had been ‘The only English Prime Minister w h o had identified Irish policy with Irish history’, a claim he supported by quoting Disraeli’s own speech of 16 March 1868, ‘But, Sir, Irish policy is Irish history, and I have n o faith in any statesman w h o attempts to remedy the evils of Ireland w h o is either ignorant o f the fact or will not deign to learn from it.’ Even so, Pope Hennessy found it difficult, given this early commitment to Irish reconstruction, to explain why so little had been achieved during Disraeli’s years of real power between 1874 and 1880.’

More than a hundred years later, the interpretative problems remain. First, ifit is true that llisraeli largely put aside his early opinions in attacking Peel, why did he continue to trail them at times when they brought little obvious political advantage? Secondly, what is one to make of Disraeli’s contribution to the three minority Derby governments between 1852 and 1868, and to his own brief first ministry prior to the 1868 election? Finally, was the policy followed between 1874 and 1880 more than ‘Crom- well and emigration’, and was the apparent pursuit of a rapprochement with the Roman Catholic church after 1876 a return to the strategies of the 1850s. as well as the thinking o f t h e 1840s? In short, is there anything in the argument, suggested in general terms by John Vincent, that in his approach to Ireland, Disraeli was attempting (albeit unsuccessfully) to fight one political culture with another?3

In trying to answer these questions, i t is useful t o divide Disraeli’s career into dis- crete sections. First, there is the period from his entry into parliament in 1837 until the defeat o f Peel’s second governnient in 1846. Secondly, there follows the niinor- ity politics o f Uentinck and Derby, including the short ministries o f 1852 and 1858-9. Thirdly, there is the phase from the early 1860s during which the question of reform, political and ecclesiastical, conies to dominate the parliamentary and popular agenda; a development culminating in the re-ordering of the British political system between the death ofl’almerston and the general election of 1868. Finally, in the face o f the defeat o f the first Gladstone government over the Irish universities in 1873, there is the second Disraeli government, its defeat in 1880, and Beaconsfield’s final responses to Parnellite nationalism and the Land War.

As John Vincent has pointed out, I h r a e l i could well have chosen a predomin- antly literary career a t any time before 1846, and it is not surprising that his early opinions on Ireland should have been as much imaginative as political. Before his

’ J. Pope Hennrssy, ‘Lord haconsfield’s Irish Policy’. 7 7 1 ~ Nincfeotfh Ccttftrry. XVI (1 884), 663-80. SirJohn Pope HKnnKSSy (1834-91), Cons. M.P. (King’s County) 1859-65, Anti-I’amrllite (Kilkenny North) 1890-1 ; governor of the Windward Islands (18754) . Hong Kong (1877-82), Mauntius (1 883-9). ’ Vincent, Disraeli. p. 48.

48 Allen Warren

election for Maidstone in 1837, he seemed to be reformist by inclination. He had supported catholic emancipation in 1829, he had spoken in favour of church reform at Wycombe in 1834, and (before a notorious quarrel at Taunton in 1835) had described O’Connell to his sister as ‘The man of greatest genius’. But with his deepening association with Lyndhurst from 1834, Disraeli’s thinking moved increasingly in an anti-Whig direction, a development given most articulate expression i n his Vindication ofthe English Constitution (1 835). In that tract, Ilisraeli placed conterri- porary political debate firmly within a seventeenth-century explanatory context, portraying the Cromwellian popular experiment as leading inexorably to the tyranny of eighteenth century whiggery. From this perspective, and drawing on his individual reading of Bolingbroke, the tories became the national and the Whigs the anti-national party. As a radical tory in the Commons, Ilisraeli attacked the Whigs’ Irish municipal corporations legslation in 1838 and 1839 on the basis that Ireland, unlike England, needed to be governed on centralized principles, and not on those of local d e v ~ l u t i o n . ~

The need for a strong Dublin executive is the most persistent of Disraeli’s Irish opinions before 1845, featuring prominently in his speech in 1844 on the state of Ireland. Reform in Ireland had to begn with the establishing of ‘a very comprehending and per- vasive Executive’. Such a body, presently ‘the weakest in the world’, needed to effect what revolutions achieved by force, but first it had to create a much closer rapport with the leading classes and characters in the country. Informed by his view ofseventeenth- century Ireland, in which the puritan spirit had inspired the whiggsh penal laws and the marginalizing of the national Church of Ireland, Disraeli portrayed the tories, historically, as the true friends of Ireland. But this relationship could only be renewed if Peel stopped introducing essentially Whiggish policies in a foolish attempt to create identical institutions in the two countries. Such an approach, Disraeli continued, was based on 311

inherent contradiction, given that the union of Church and state was opposed by the majority ofthe Irish people. Only a strong Irish executive could change the state of Ire- land. Once just administration and a rather unspecific ecclesiastical equality had been established, order would be restored and economic improvement would follow. What this meant in terms ofpractical leglislative or executive action Ilisraeli left unclear.’

In attacking Peel in February 1844, Disraeli was following up an earlier onslaught in August 1843 on the government’s proposed Irish arms legislation. At that time he had been closely associating with Lord John Manners, George Smythe and other Young England enthusiasts, and also writing Coningsby, the first ofhis trilogy of political novels. I t is now widely accepted that Disraeli was less central to the emergence ofYoung Eng- land than was previously assumed. Richard Faber has shown how Manners and Smythe had come together in the late 1830s, stimulated by their contact with Frederick Faber,

‘Ibid.. p. 4, William Flavelle Monypenny and George Eark Buckle, 7hr Lije qfBertjurnirr Disrurli. First Earl ojBeaconsfield (new edn., 2 vols.. 1929). I , 133, 273; Benjamin Disraeli, Vindiraticrti ufrlie E t t ~ ~ l i d i Consrimtion in a Lprrer to a Noble atid Learned Lord (1835). On O’Connell,Botjarnitt Dirraeli Lpfrtw, ed.

J . A. W. Gunn.John Matthews, Donald Schurnian and M. G. Wiebe (6 vols., Toronto, 1 982-), I , 320: Disraeli to Sarah Disraeli, 16 June 1834. ‘ Hansard, Par/. Debs. 3rd ser., XLIII, 514; XLVI, 181; LXXII. 1007: 1 June 18%. 8 Mar. 1830, I6

Feb. 1844.


and were by the early 1840s wishing to express their enthusiasm for medieval ecclesiology in terms of public policy. Peel’s approach to Ireland gave them their opportunity. For Manners, in particular, church questions were pre-eminent, and his views on seventeenth-century Irish history found common ground with those of Dis- raeli. But whereas Disraeli owed his vision largely to his father, Isaac D’Israeli, Manners drew his fiom Faber and the Oxford movement. Manners attacked Peel’s policy as one which was trying to buy off the papacy through concessions to Catholics. Such an approach was historically flawed for Manners as the Irish Church had only acquired its papal character with the invasion of Henry 11 and the subsequent Synod of Cashel in 1171-2. Manners also saw the reformation in Ireland as being conducted for its first 30 years through the historic Church of Ireland, its catholic character only later submerged by the Ulster settlements and the actions ofCromwell and William 111. Looking at contemporary Ireland, Manners hoped (naively) that historic religious antipathies were softening as the Church oflreland became less Calvinist, and as the idea ofrestored diplomatic relations with the Vatican was explored, at least as a possibility. Manners outlined his ecumenical vision when supporting an increase in the Maynooth grant in April 1845, concluding that in time, ‘we and they shall kneel before the common altars of our common faith’.‘

These ecclesiological concerns were not shared by Disraeli, who showed little interest in the lessons to be learned from the middle ages. His perspective was more obviously political. Anchored in his interpretation of the seventeenth century, it had been given an anti-utilitarian twist through his reading of Carlyle. Not surprisingly in what was principally an attack on Peel’s government, Disraeli concentrated on questions of executive authority, and what he saw as the unprincipled expediency of Peel’s Irish policies. Using images of seventeenth-century Ireland as misty as those of Man- ners, Disraeli was able to criticise Peel as betraying historic tory principles. As a result, through weakness of vision, and the pursuit of opportunist and second rate policies, Peel could be held personally responsible for the contemporary social and economic crisis. The advantage of such an approach was that Disraeli had no need to suggest immediate practical remedies, quick measures being no solution in ‘really penetrating into the mystery of this great misgovernment’.’

Disraeli’s later opposition to increasing the Maynooth grant, and by implication to any policy of concurrent endowment, was an almost entirely opportunist move in his personal vendetta against Peel. I t represented, as John Wolffe has pointed out, a decision to align himself explicitly with the cause of popular Protestantism. By so doing, he not only separated himselffrom Manners and Smythe, but also carved out a position distinct from that ofhis later aristocratic patrons, Bentinck and Stanley. Disraeli did not disguise his motive. Nevertheless, he did begin his attack on Peel in the Maynooth debate by an

kchard Faber, Young England (1987); idem, Eeaconsfeld and Eolitigbroke (1961). For Manners on Ireland, Hansard. Pad. Debs, 3rd ser., LXX, 919; LXXIX, 823: 19 June 1843, 16 Apr. 1845; also Let- ters, ed. Gunn el a / . . 11, 1519: Manners to Disraeli, 30 Sept. 1846. For Isaac D’lsraeh’s wntings on the seventeenth century, A n Inquiry into the Literary and Political Character ojjamer I(1816); Commentaries on the Ljfe and Reigti of Charles 1 ( 5 vols., 1828-30). (a second edition of which was published by Disraeli in 1851). ’ Hansard, Parl. Debs, 3rd ser., LXXI, 430: 9 Aug. 1843.

5 0 Allen Warren

explicit opposition in principle to the state endowment of religion, portraying the richly endowed Church ofEngland, not as the product ofstate policy, but as the organic creation of historic circumstances. From this point of view, paradoxically, any endowment of the Roman Catholic church in Ireland would produce disharmony, not reconciliation, through stirring up an increased demand for the separation of Church and state. More to the point, in this attempt to find an intellectual justification for his political opportunism, was Disraeli’s later comment to Manners that the one thing Peel’s Irish policy had shown was the crucial importance of party, and that without party any leader had no followers.H

Disraeli continued to bend to the protestant wind, finding, even so, that he came under pressure from his more extreme supporters among the Buckinghamshire electors in 1847. He was able to combine these protestant sentiments with support for full civil rights for jews by arguing that the Church of England represented the historic national Church, not a Church created by acts ofstate policy. Writing to Daniel Baxter Langley in 1847, a month after his address to his electors, he argued that the state endowment of religon was inherently latitudinarian, essentially French and leading to religous indif- ference. In outline, it was the argument that he was to use 20 years later in defence ofthe established status ofthe Church of Ireland, at the same time as supporting its operational reform.9

Inevitably these ecclesiological arguments were overwhelmed by the famine in Ire- land, and by the political outfall from Peel’s defeat in June 1846. While consolidating his protestant credentials, Disraeli remained very much Bentinck’s junior partner until his leader’s sudden death in September 1848. O n Irish affairs, he supported Bentinck’s enthusiasm for the state construction ofrailways as the means of remedying distress and facilitating reconstruction. As the late Angus Maclntyre showed, this policy was very much Bentinck’s own, helped by railway ‘experts’ like Hudson, Laing, and Stephenson. In backing Bentinck’s ideas, Disraeli did not refer to his speeches of 1843 and 1844; there was no mention ofthe need for a strong executive, no comment on the land system nor any analysis ofhow the landed classes might be brought into closer association with the governing system. Kather, Disraeli chose to characterise Russell’s government as being in thrall to political economy and the Manchester school, and that Ireland’s problem was no longer one of government but how to feed its people. Later, he attacked the government’s proposed rate-in-aid, advocating proposals which would not be a burden on Irish property owners, and declaring his support for the loyal protestant class. As the younger Stanley commented in his journal, it was widely held that Ihraeli had no defined opinions of his own.”’

” Ibid., LXXIX, 555: 1 1 Apr. 1845; Lrffers , ed. Gunn ef a/., I , 1519: Disraeli to Manners, 19 Sept. 1846; on 1)israeli and popular protestantism, John Wolffe. 7 I e Protestant Crusade in Great Britain, 182% 1860 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 65-106. Both Manners and Sniythe voted in favour ofthe increase in the Maynooth grant as did Lord George Bentinck, Stanley voted against. ’ Letters, ed. Gunn ef al., 11, 1551, 1573A: Disraeli’s address to the electors of Buckinghanishire, 22

May, Disraeli to Daniel Baxter Langley, 24 June 1847; Wolffe, Protestanf Crusade, pp. 2 2 5 4 . I ” O n lnsh railways, Bentinck, Hansard, Parl. Debs, 3rd ser., LXXXIX, 773: 4 Feb. 1847; Disraeli.

ibid., 1410; XCIII, 1033: 5 Feb. 1847. 28June 1847; on the rate-in-aid. Disraeli. ibid., CIV, 190, 513: 2, 19 Apr. 1849; Angus Maclntyre. ‘Lord George Bentinck and the Protectionists: A Lost Cause?’, 7ransartions d’fhe Royal Hisforiral Sodefy, 5th ser., XXXlX (1989), 1 4 1 4 6 . It is easy to become


By 1850, therefore, Disraeli’s Irish opinions had gone through a number of trans- formations. Beginning as an lrish reformer and an enthusiast for O’Connell, he had quickly moved rightwards in the 1830s, and, picking up some of the enthusiasms of Young England, he had used them to corrosive effect in opposition to Peel from 1843 to 1845. For the same opportunist reasons he had moved sharply in a protestant direction over the Maynooth grant in 1845, distancing himself from the political im- plications of the catholic ecclesiology of his friends. As second string to Bentinck, he had supported his leader’s ideas on social reconstruction in Ireland, while retaining his protestant credentials. From one perspective, the picture is monochrome: an op- portunistic politician on the make. From another it is more subtle, for in the pursuit of political advantage Disraeli chose to use a repertoire of arguments, at least partly connected. In the first place, his approach to Ireland appeared to be anchored in a particular view of Ireland’s past, especially the events of the seventeenth century, and he also seemed committed to his anti-Whig interpretation of that century as a whole. Secondly, under the pressure of events in the 1840s, he put together an interpretation of the Church of England, which emphasized its historic identity with the nation, its non-erastian character, and its rather unfocussed Protestantism, views distinct from both the high churchmanship of the Oxford reformers and the enthusiastic Protestantism of Exeter Hall. Some of these concerns were highlighted in the earlier sections of Tancred. Finally, he remained firmly hostile to utilitarianism, political economy and the Manchester School. Stanley may have been right in seeing Disraeli as having no firm opinion of his own, but, in opposition at least, Disraeli did have an ideological and rhetorical map within which his opportunism and ambition could comfortably operate.”

Russell’s Durham letter of 7 November 1850 immediately made the political impli- cations of Disraeli’s protestant enthusiasm much more complex. Until then, Disraeli and the elder Stanley had seen any possible political advantages of catholic endowment in Ireland as more than outweighed by outraged protestant sensibilities at home. Rus- sell’s letter was seen as a rival bid for the protestant interest, but one which had largely forgotten the lrish dimension. This was something immediately noticed by Lord Naas on his return to Ireland, just five days after Russell’s intervention. Naas, already the Conservatives’ manager and expert in Ireland, saw the difficulty in balancing a continuing appeal to protestant feelings with an attempt to woo outraged catholic sensibilities in Ireland. In the new electoral environment created by the lrish Franchise Act earlier in the year, Naas was well aware personally of the sensitivities, representing, as he did, a constituency with a significant catholic electoral presence. By alienating catholic members Russell had also created an opportunity for the opposition to destabilize the

I“ (cuntinued) confused at this penod between the Stanleys, father and son. Edward Stanley (1799-1869). later 14th earl ofDerby (succ. 1851) had sat in the house oflords since 1844, after assuming his father’s barony as Baron Stanley of Bickentaffe. His eldest son, Edward Stanley (1 826-1893), later 15th earl of Derby, sat in the Commons as member for King’s Lynn from 1848 (first as the Hon. Edward Stanley, and then as Lord Stanley from 1851) until succeeding his father as earl of Derby in 1869.

I ’ Benjamin Disraeli, Tancred or 7‘hc New Crusade (Bradenham edn., 1927). pp. 75-8. O n Tancred, see Vincent, D i m e l i . pp. 96-102; Monypenny and Buckle, L@ c$Disraeli. I , 848-70; Blake, Dismeli, pp. 201-5.

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ministry. Stanley, in the Lords, appreciated the potential opportunities, while Disraeli, characteristically, seemed to anticipate a complete reordering of domestic politics, at least in outline. Stanley’s son records him as wishing to break the historic connexion between Irish toryism and Orangeism, presenting it as a recent growth, and claiming that the first Orangemen had been Whigs. Disraeli continued that the real political battle in Ireland was between town and country. In this situation, the Tories should have the advantage, representing the agricultural interest as they did, in contrast to the Whigs, whom he saw as dominated by the ideoloby of the Manchester school. Two months later, Stanley again reported Disraeli’s frustration that his father would not do more to undermine the support for Russell’s government by wooing catholic opinion. The tensions between the immediate needs ofthe parliamentary game and the wider nature of the Anglo-Irish relationship were not simplified by the recently elevated Derby fomi- ing a minority government in February 1852, prior to an anticipated dissolution.’2

In discussing Ilisraeli’s Irish attitudes and actions in the 1850s and 1860s (including as they did three minority governments), we need to make two important but straightfor- ward points. The first is that Disraeli remained very much the junior partner in his relationship with Derby, in essence acting as his manager in the house of commons. While later commentators might be impressed by Disraeli’s political energy, contem- poraries understood from Derby’s seigneurial style where real political authority lay. The Irish executive in the three Derby ministries of Eglinton and later Abercorn as viceroy, with Naas as chiefsecretary, communicated regularly and directly with Derby, who set the general political tone, something which proved irritating to Ilisraeli in his tactical search for immediate political advantage. The second point is that a new political dimension was added inevitably by the presence of tones in Dublin Castle. In his speeches on Ireland in 1843 and 1844 Disraeli had particularly emphasized the need for a strong Irish executive. In forming his first ministry, Derby created an effective and harmonious team in Eglinton and Naas, who saw the challenge of governing Ireland from Dublin Castle rather differently from the way in which that relationship was viewed from either Westminster or Knowsley. llisraeli did not always like what they said.

Ultra-protestant opinion had high expectations of a tory government, and Eglinton’s appointment appeared to confirm them. Eglinton had established his own credentials in

For Russell’s Durham Letter, the Ecclesiastical Titles legislation, the formation ofthe Derby niinistry and the 1852 General Election, see G . I . T. Machin, Politics and die Churches in Great Brifairi, 1832 to 1868 (Oxford, 1977). pp. 210-51; Wolffe, nie Profesfant Crusadc, pp. 243-6; on the impact of the Ilurhani letter on the Irish members. J. H. Whyte, The Itrdepetrdcnt Irish Parfy, 1850-9 (Oxford, 195R). pp. 17-30, 39.5 t r7 ; on changes in the Irish electoral system following the Irish Franchise Act (1850), and on Irish Conservatism in particular, K. Theodore Hoppen, Elecfiunr, Politics atrd Society iti Ireland, 1832-1885(0xford, 1984). pp. 16-19,278-332. See also, Bod., Beaconsfield M S S , Dep Hughenden 9W2, 6. I , 0: Naas to Disraeli, 12 Nov. 1850, 1 1 Jan. 1851; Disraeli, Derby and the Consmafive Party. Jutrrnals and Mi.rnoirs qf Edward Henry, Lord Stanley, 184%6Y, ed. John Vincent (Hassocks, Sussex. 1978), pp. 39-41, 52, 61-2: 8, 16 Feb.. 9 Mar., 15 Apr. 1851.


February 1848 through leading the attack, as a protectionist whip, on the idea ofrestor- ing diplomatic relations with the Holy See. Arriving in Dublin with a fat purse and a protestant reputation, he seemed to set the tone early on. Despite wearing a huge sham- rock in his button-hole on his ceremonial progress into Dublin, his first levee was seen as more indicative, with vast numbers attending, but not a single catholic bishop or dig- nitary. Eglinton had also gone to Ireland charged personally by Derby with the task of making the national school system acceptable to the Church of Ireland. For his part, Naas quickly became the defarto political manager of the Conservative cause in Ireland, a vitally important role given the transformation of the electoral system effected by the Irish Franchise Act and the improving economic state of the country. The government would have to tread a delicate path on protestant issues, if they were to gain maximum advantage from a period of office by winning over moderate catholic opinion. Conse- quently, ministers did not give way to pressure from protestant ultras like Newdegate and Spooner with their call for the immediate abolition of the Maynooth grant. They also tried to dampen the hysteria associated with questions ofthe precedence afforded to catholic bishops on public occasions. Eglinton similarly felt fearful about the effect of Orange marches in the north of Ireland as the dissolution approached. O n land issues Napier (the Irish attorney-general) began preparing a raft of leglislation as an indication ofgood intent, and as an alternative to the proposal ofshaman Crawford and the Ten- ant League. Such conciliatory gestures could easily be blown offcourse, and in June the home secretary, Walpole, undid much ofthe earlier good work by speaking out against Roman Catholic priests saying mass or wearing their habits in public. Walpole’s actions were quickly followed by sectarian riots in Stockport which led, according to J. H. Whyte, to an anti-government reaction in Ireland in the election. Even Naas had to decamp from Kddare to the relative safety of C01eraine.l~

For their parts, Eglinton and Naas found governing Ireland more taxing than they had imagined. Eglinton, in particular, discovered the religious atmosphere startling in its extremism. He did not welcome Cullen’s attack on the moderate catholic party, and described the people’s enthraldom by the priests as the country’s besetting weakness, sentiments shared by Derby in London. O n the other hand, he was simply amazed by the popular Protestantism ofthe north, writing to Derby, ‘I do not think the most fertile imagination of the most ardent English Protestant can conceive the amount of blackguardism, blasphemy and atrocity practised by their friends.’ As a result he reluct- antly became reconciled to the fact that he would have to content himself with a parliamentary enquiry into the workings of the national educational system, rather than

For Eglinton on papal relations, Hansard, Pad. Debs, 3rd ser., XCVI, 876: 1 1 Feb. 1848; for his Dublin reception, The Times, 12, 18 Mar. 1852, p. 8a; on the national school system, City ofLiverpoo1 R.O., Derby MSS, 920 DER (14), 148/2: Eglinton to Derby, 25 Mar. 1852; National Library of Ireland, Mayo MSS, 11031: Eglinton to Naas. 26 Mar. 1852; for the debate on the Maynooth grant, Hansard, Pad. Debs, 3rd ser., CXXI, 501: 1 1 Mar. 1852; and earlier comments, Bodl., Beaconsfield MSS, Dep Hughenden 109/1, f. 129: Derby to Disraeli. 5 Feb. 1852. For questions of episcopal precedence, land legislation and sectarian disturbances, see the regular correspondence between Eglin- ton and Derby, Derby MSS, 920 DER (14). 148/2, and Scottish R. O., Eglinton MSS, G D 3/5/53: the letters flowed more freely from Eglinton’s than Derby’s pen, with the latter apologsing on more than one occasion for the delay in his reply, which in some cases was up to a month. Derby did, however, instruct Eglinton on 12 May to cut down the liberality of his entertaining, which he thought unnecessary for a provincial court. For Walpole’s ga& Whyte, The Independent Irish Parry, pp. 57-61.

54 Allen Waneti

making concessions to the Church party directly. As he sardonically coniniented. though Roman Catholics might not be receiving a good religious education from his point of view, they were at least getting a good ‘liberal’ education which might enable them to see the excesses ofpopery more clearly. By September 1852, after the election, lkraeli was also less sanguine about being able to ride the sectarian and denominational storm, writing to Sir Henry Bulwer after Naas’ expulsion from Kildare, that it would be difficult not to follow an anti-Catholic policy. Napier was able to introduce his land legislation in November, but in London it was regarded largely as window dressing in response to Sharnian Crawford, an attitude which annoyed Eglinton. I t was sent to a select committee along with Shaniian Crawford’s bill, and largely forgotten by ministers in London for over a decade. Derby in any case was uneasy about tampering with the Irish land laws, commenting to Disraeli that, ‘ifwe lose the landed gentry of Ireland, especially in the north, we are gone’. By the time ofthe defeat oflhraeli’s budget on 16 December and the fall of the government, little had been achieved. Admittedly, the government had not wholly given in to the demands of the protestant extremists, because such an approach would have made Ireland ungovernable, and life at Westminster impossible. But little of political substance had been gained from the publication of the Ihrham letter as Conservative politicians, throughout the electoral system, tried to ride the storni of sectarian politic^.'^

2

The years which followed Derby’s first attempt to create a solidly-based Conservative politics were equally frustrating to Disraeli, as he continued to try to balance protestant enthusiasm with a sympathy for catholic feelings in order to win Irish support. O n each side there was instability and unreliability. Little trust could be put in Irish nienibers, whose attitude to any governnient was regarded as largely opportunist, while I>israeli complained how difficult it was to secure attendance from tory members in the hunting season, adding that frost in February could cost 20 members. For the most part, he continued to urge the desirability of conciliating catholic opinion, a stance which made Ilerby uneasy, and he re-affirmed his support for Napier’s land bills. O n the other hand, he made noises which suggested hostility to the continuance of the Maynooth grant, and, in a debate raised by Spooner, he urged Russell to affinn the protestant nature of the constitution; for the moment making himselfa protestant hero. Stanley found such a stance perplexing in the light of his posture since 1852. By 1855 the high tide of

“ For Eglinton’s regular commentary on Irish business, see letters to Derby quoted above. a l to his correspondence with Naas, Nat. Lib. Ireland, Mayo MSS, 11031. Ihraeh’s speech maintaining the Maynooth grant, Hansard, Par/. Debs, 3rd ser., CXX, 85: 25 Mar. 1852, and the report on the later debate initiated by Spooner, referred to on l l May above, Ariritral ReXisrrr (I852), p. 96. For Ihraeli’s depretsion at the election results, Vincent, Derby, D is rad i arid f/ir Cori.wrvatiiv Party. p. 70: 21 July 1x52; Whyte, Thc Indcpanderir Irish Parry, pp. 82-6; on changes in rehgous temper. Monypeiiny aid Buckle. Dixrapli, 1 , 1215-7: Disraeli to Sir Henry Hulwer, n.d; on maintaining the Irish gentry, I3odl., I k a c o n - field MSS. Dep Hughenden 109/1: Derby to Ikraeli. n.d. [ 18521; arid o n ‘IlbCrdl’ e d i i ~ d t i ~ i i . L I V K ~ ~ O O ~ R.O., Ilerby MSS. 920 DER(14). 14812: Eglinton to Ihrby. 21 Oct. 1852.


Protestantism, prompted by the papal aggression, was passing, and, asJohn Wolffe has pointed out, Derby’s failure to form a government in that year showed that the Conser- vative/protestant link alone was not a sufficient basis on which to establish an administration.

Even so, when Derby formed his second minority government in February 1858, the dilemma was still how to reconcile the catholic members’ vote with the retention of the protestant extremists. Evidence of the slackening of the protestant crusade came in the same month, when the regular Commons’ motion to abolish the Maynooth grant was defeated more heavily than usual. As in 1852 the fact ofbeing in government could also create tensions between London and Dublin, with Disraeli seeing the relationship largely in parliamentary terms. Eglinton still had dificulties in accepting the actual workings of the national school-system. He had introduced in 1854 a motion for an enquiry, following Cullen’s condemnation of the scriptural texts in use, and on his return as viceroy he again wanted to find means of reconciling the Church of Ireland to the system. Without some action from London, he felt that he might have to resign. He was also, as in 1852, preoccupied with the sectarian dis- order in the north of the country, urgmg the need for a new police bill, and becoming irritated when Disraeli suggested its abandonment in order to conciliate catholic opinion.“

Early in 1859 Disraeli raised the possibility ofgranting a charter to the Roman Cath- olic university in Dublin, as a means of wooing moderate catholic support prior to the anticipated election. Stanley responded coolly. H e feared that the university would fall into the hands of catholic ultras like MacHale, and that this would stir up their protestant counterparts, without any obvious educational or political gain. Even so, Disraeli gave a hendly response to a deputation on the question, at the same time making sympathetic gestures towards Irish opinion over the position ofcatholic chaplains in the armed forces, the Galway packet, and the hint of a possible land bill. Eglinton, on the other hand, opposed a university charter as merely antagonising the government’s Irish friends and driving the Whigs away. Both he and Naas became irritated at Disraeli’s constant pressure to make catholic gestures and appointments. Naas was keeping a care- ful eye on the electoral situation, and in early April 1859 was able to predict the tories

l 5 For the lack oftrust in the Irish Brigade see, Bod., Beaconsfield MSS, Dep Hughenden 11 1 / I f. 1214: Stanley to Disraeli, 28 Jan. 1853; and on tory members’ laxness, Vincent, Derby, Disraeli and the the Conservative Parry, p. 56: 9 Feb. 1853; and on Disraeli’s wish to mollify catholic opinion, ibid.. pp. 10@1: 1 . 7 Mar. 1853; on Disraeli’s reafirniing support for Napier’s legislation. Hansard. Pad. Debs, 3rd ser.. CXXXV. 203: 13 July 1854; but on his protestant opinions, ibid., CXXXV, 1269: 3 Aug. 1854, and Monypenny and Buckle, Disraeli, I , 136(&1; on the decline ofprotestant fervour, more generally, Wolffe, The Proresrani Crusade, pp. 273-4.

I b O n Eglinton’s opinions, Nat. Lib. Ireland. Mayo MSS, 11031: Eglinton to Naas. 20 Mar., 2. 5.6 June, 10, 11, 12 July 1858. For Eglinton’s earlier moving ofa select committee into the working of the national school system, Hansard, Parl. Debs, 3rd ser., CXXX, 783: 17 Feb. 1854; and his later condemnation of their subsequent report (Parlt. Papers, 1854, (525) xv) in which the members could come to no agreement, Hansard, Pad. Debs, 3rd ser., CXXXV, 439: 2OJuly 1854. O n Eglinton’s irritation over Disraeli’s attitude to the Police Bill, Scottish K.O., Eglinton MSS, GD 3 / 5 / 5 5 4 : Naas to Eglinton, 7, 10,11,16 July; Eglinton to Derby, 17 July; Derby to Eglinton, 17 Mar. 1858; on the Maynooth defeat. Wolffe. The Protcsranr Crusade, p. 279, and on the general political situation, Machin, Politics and the Churches, p. 290.

56 Allen Warren

taking over half the Irish seats. In this climate, the Dublin executive thought llisraeli’s narrowly parliamentary focus in trying to secure catholic appointments crude and simple-minded. Both Eglinton and Naas denied running an Orange regime, saying that they made moderate catholic or protestant appointments wherever possible. Naas added that making obviously pro-catholic appointments disillusioned their own supporters, long starved of patronage, with the result that the conservative electoral machine was weakened, just at the time when it seemed to be doing well. Naas’ upbeat predictions proved well-founded, and the 1859 general election was the most successful fought by the Conservatives in Ireland since 1832. But, as in 1852, Irish success did not provide a suficient parliamentary foundation for Derby’s government to c o n t i n ~ e . ’ ~

Ireland in the 1840s had been for Disraeli a means whereby he could mount an attack on Peel, using a language anchored in his views about the religous and political settlements of the seventeenth century. In the following decade Ireland and its changng national politics had provided a parliamentary forum for his attempts to fashion a stable Conservative ministry, and in a domestic political environment in which it would be difficult to reconcile Irish catholic aspirations with the prevailing protestant mood on the mainland. In these attempts Disraeli largely failed, not just because of the caution of his colleagues, but because he did not fully understand either the dynamic or the religous complexities of Irish constituency politics.

3

The formation of Palmerston’s last government in 185Y marks a low point in llisraeli’s Irish interests. The strategy pursued since 1852 of trying to ride the protestant tiger while suggesting flexibility in relation to Irish catholic interests had not succeeded, and Disraeli had very little to put in its place. In addition, Derby, and many other Consrrva- tives were not eager to force out a Palmerston government that did not act openly against their political interests and prejudices. As far as Ireland was concerned, the Dub- lin regime of Sir Robert Peel from 1861 appeared comical in comparison to that of Eglinton and Naas, and also insensitive to the growing assertiveness and self-confidence of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. In parliament, Irish Conservative members were mainly concerned to debate the condition of Ireland as evidenced by the continuing outflow of emigrants. They mounted an attack on Gladstone and the treasury for im- posing excessive financial burdens on the country, through the extension of income tax and the equalization of the liquor duties. More generally, it was dificult to foresee the

” O n the university question, Bod., Beaconsfield MSS, l k p Hughenden 1 1 1 /2 f. 1x3: Stanley to Disraeli. 10 Jan. 1859; Nat. Lib. Ireland, Mayo MSS, 11031: Eglinton to Naas, 8 Mar. 1850; also Whyte, 77ie Independent Irish Party, p. 152; for Eglinton on national education, Mayo MSS, 11031: Eglinton to Derby, 23 Jan. 1859; Eglinton to Naas, 19 Feb. 1859. O n electoral and patronage niatters. Bod.. Beaconsfield MSS, Dep Hughenden 9012, ff. 26.28; 126/2 f. 29: Naas to Dlsraeli, 2 Apr.; Eglin- ton to Ihraeli, 11 May; Naas to Disraeli, 17 May; Eglinton to Derby, 30 May 1859; Nat. Lib. Ireland, Mayo MSS, 11025: Disraeli to Naas, 20.21,26 May 1859; Scottish KO., Eglinton MSS, <;1>3/5/50: Derby to Eglinton, 18 May 1859. For the general election see, K . T. Hoppen, ‘Tories, Catholics and the General Election of 1859’. Historicaljoouniol. XIII, (l970), 4X-67.


future development of Conservative politics, and the place of Ireland within it, at least as long as Palmerston lived.’’

The years after 1859 are also among the least researched of Disraeli’s career. Blake, in his biography, presents them almost as an interlude between the parliamentary in- stabilities of the 1850s and the politics of reform after 1865. For Stewart, they represent the failure to organize successfully, while Machin sees them as punctuated by a series of religous and ecclesiastical issues, only loosely connected in an atmosphere of Palmerstonian political equipoise. Only Buckle eniphasised the re-emergence of a church party for the first time since the 1840s. He saw it as a collection of interests made more confident by the declining support for Trelawny’s annual motions to abolish the church rates, at the same time as the ties between the Liberals and Catholics were being put under strain by the events in Italy and Palmerston’s attitude to them. In the early 1860s it was not obvious that post-Palmerstonian politics would be shaped by the issues of political and parliamentary reform. Equally plausible was a scenario in which Church questions (church rates, religious tests, national education and the nature of the church establishment) would predominate. Disraeli’s reaction to these developments was to try and create a new tory politics centred on the defence of the established Church (as distinct from Protestantism per se), while making it clear that such a policy was neither inconsis- tent with better treatment for Catholics nor designed to humiliate dissenters. What Disraeli seems to have anticipated is a refashioning of the political language of church defence. This development emphasised the historically comprehensive nature of the Church of England, its identification with national history, and a hostility to ecclesiastical factionalism and expedient, superficial erastianism in state policy.

This was a new development on Disraeli’s part. Before the late 1850s he had devoted little attention to questions ofecclesiastical politics. True, The Vindication had contained some Burkean commonplaces about the identity of Church and state. But he had not shared the ecclesiologcal enthusiasms ofhis Young England friends, and the early chap- ters of Tancred contained some distinctly unflattering references to the contemporary Church of England, and a cruel caricature of Bishop Blomfield of London, as the episcopal version of ‘Arch-Mediocrity’. But from the late 1850s at the latest, Disraeli began to catch the wind ofchurch defence and ecclesiastical renewal in the country, nationally

In For the background to the politics of the early 1860s. Jonathan Pany, T h u Rise and Fall ofl iberal Government in Victorian Britain (1993); john Vincent, The Formation dthe Liberal Party, 1857-1 868 (1966); E. D. Steele. Palmerstori and Liberalism, 1855-1865 (Cambridge. 1991); Robert Stewart, The Foundation ofthe conservative Party, 183& I867 (1978); and Blake, Disraeli; Coleman, Comervatism and the Conservative Party; Machin, Politics and the Churches. Sir Robert Peel (1822-95), 3rd bt., eldest son of the Conservative prime minister, M.P. for Tamworth, 1850-80. After a pronlising parliamentary start, which led to his appointment in 1861 as chief secretary for Ireland (succeeding Cardwell), Peel’s political career proved to be a complete failure. An enthusiastic supporter of Italian liberation, he was not an ideal candidate for Irish office, undermining any credibility by his jaunty confidence that all was for the best in Ireland, and associating the Irish members with Fenians as ‘mannikin traitors’, prompting O’Donaghue, hiniselfa nian ofsome eccentricity, to challenge him to the last recorded political duel in England. Peel later became a Conservative member, 1884-5, most unusually then COIlVerting to Home Rule in 1886. but failing to secure a seat. For Irish Conservative members’ interest in the questions of Irish taxation and economic development, Parlt. Papers, 1864, [513] xv; 1865, 13301 xii, Taxation Ireland, Reports arid Minutes ./ Evidenre.

58 Allen Warren

and locally; something reflected in the proliferation o f ecclesiastical organisations, both clerical and lay. T h e revival of convocation (effectively sanctioned in 1852 by the minority Derby government), the emergence of church congresses, the pressure for the restoration of diocesan synods, the emergence of anglican pressure groups, most notably the Church institution (founded in 1859). all encouraged Disraeli to believe that the defence of the established Church as a national institution could be the means whereby the Conservative party might escape from its minority status. Whilst little might change as long as Palmerston lived, there was no doubt that the pressure for ecclesiastical reform would increase after his departure. O n the other hand, contempo- raries did not assume that dissent, reform and progress would inevitably become linked in the mind of the political nation. Disraeli hoped otherwise as he saw the parliamentary support growing for maintaining the system of church rates, with the result that Trelawny had to give up his annual motion for their abolition in 1804 and 1865, following its defeat in the previous year.’9

Disraeli’s politics of Church defence deserve more extended treatment than is possible here, and is to be found in his regular interventions on religious issues in the Commons, and in a series of speeches made in the diocese o f Oxford between 1860 and 1865. In parliament, he opposed the annual motions for the abolition o f church rates, resisted changes in the law in respect of dissenting burials, spoke strongly against changes in the Act of Uniformity, and also against any modification in the settlement of 1829 in relation to the parliamentary oath for Roman Catholics or in the position of the Irish lord chancellor. O u t of doors, most unusually, Disraeli put forward a clear programme o f ecclesiastical reform within a framework that reaf- firmed the positive status o f t h e established Church. H e criticised what he saw as the confused incoherence of the Church itself, its ecclesiological and theological factionalism, and its failure to meet the challenges posed by science. H e urged the whole Church, clerical and lay, to mobilize against the threat posed by politicised dissent from without, and the conspiracy of ritualists and Konianists from within.

Much of this speech-making might be seen as Disraeli simply defending the single most important interest group supporting the Conservative party in parliament and in the country, more generally. But it was more than that. T h e rhetoric which Disraeli used in his detailed attacks on those wishing to change the ecclesiastical settlement shows that he was trying to build a re-orientated Conservative politics. This would bring together a defence of the historically constituted national church, with an extended understanding ofits place in the national story, alongside a re-affirmation of the Christian underpinnings of the state.

It had five main elements. First, it was anchored historically in an anti-Whig view of the ecclesiastical politics of the seventeenth century, and a corresponding

I‘ For Church reform, Machin, Politics and the Churches; Owen Chadwick, 7he L’ictorirlti Church (1966); E. K. Nonnan, Church and Society in England, 1770-1970. A Historical Study (Oxford, 1976); M. A. Crowther, Church Embattled. Religious Controucrsy i n Mid- Virtorian England (Newton Abbot, 1970); J. P. Ellens, Religious Routes to Liberalism. The Church Rates Question and the Making i $ ~ h e Gladstonian State (1995); idem, ‘Lord John Russell and the Church K a t e Conflict: The Struggle for a Broad Church, 1834-1868’,)ournal cfBritish Studies, XXVI (19X7), 232-57; M. J. I). Koberts, ‘Pres- sure Group Politics and the Church of England: The Church Ilefence Institution, 1859-1 XYh’,Jwrnal of Ecclesiastical History, X X X V (19x4). 56(H2.

Disraeli. Conservatives and Ireland 59

enthusiasm for an identification of Church and nation with the tory party, a socio-religious rapport which Disraeli saw as the real foundation of eighteenth- century life beneath the corrupt political machinations of the ruling Whig oligarchy. Secondly, it re-affirmed the finality of the 1829 settlement of Roman Catholic claims, seeing the papal aggression as continuing evidence of the equivocal loyalty of the Roman Catholic community. Thirdly, it portrayed the Church as continuing to be a unique national institution, historically constituted, and with a legitimate mis- sion to all citizens (at home and abroad), a position which justified the imposition of church rates to aid its work among the unchurched. Disraeli believed dissenters would come to understand this, as would Catholics, who should be able to receive the consolations of their faith through the provision of chaplains in prisons and the armed forces. Fourthly, Disraeli made considerable play with an apparent paradox in the nation’s experience since the late seventeenth century: that religious toleration had been secured alongside the fact ofa nationally established Church. In his mind an established Church was the guarantee of continuing toleration and the foundation of all liberty; remove it and factionalism would increase as each denomination com- peted for the authority of the state. In this portrayal, disestablishment would not necessarily weaken the Church, but it would undermine the political consensus upon which the authority of the state was based. Finally, Disraeli repeated his total opposition to the idea of a secular state. Government had to continue to be founded on Christian principles, it had to be informed by purposes higher than those represented by the policeman or night watchman, and it had to be capable of being judged by such principles. Herein lay the dangers posed by atheistic science. What those de- fining principles should be was a matter for debate in a free society. But, Ilisraeli continued, churchmen were abusing that liberty of discussion through their arguments about greater theological comprehensiveness, and by their toying with the idea o f a separation of Church and state in pursuit of a narrow clerical self-interest. The people becatne confused in all this welter of debate and argument, the Church needed principles both familiar and comprehensible, and these were best represented by their historic formulation in the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Act of Uniformity. Three examples g v e the tone,

The Church of England is not a mere depository of doctrine. The Church of Eng- land is part of England - it is part of our strength, and part of our liberties, a part of our national character. It is the chiefsecurity for that local government which a Rad- ical Reformer has thought fit to denigrate as ‘an archaelogcal curiosity’. I t is the principal bamer against that centralising supremacy which has been in other countries so fatal to liberty. (Church rates 1861 .)

I prefer to stand as we are - 011 a Church which lives in the historic conscience ofthe country, which comes down with the titled deeds ofits great Liturgy which we can all understand because our fathers and forefathers have contributed to its creation. (Act of Uniformity 1863.)

In fact, society must decide between these [scientific discoveries] and the acceptance of that Divine truth of which the Church is the guardian, and on which all sound,

60 Alleri Warren

sensible, coherent legislation depends - the only security for civilization, and the only guarantor ofreal progress. (Speech to Association for Small Benefices 1862.)”’

The problem for Disraeli in trying to create a popular Conservative politics around the future of the Church of England was that it could only remain partly under his control. Churchmen had their own agendas, widely differing in fomi and content. Church questions ofthe kind that Disraeli was interested in were only relevant in England (possibly only southern England), and Liberals at Westminster and in the country had different priorities which were likely to have an impact on local anglican interests in diverse ways. The future might look promising on the church rates question in the Commons, and in dioceses with vigorously reforming bishops like that of Oxford, but elsewhere the structures of the Church of England were too amorphous and diverse to be able to bear the strain of a call to political action.

As significant in the face of the declining enthusiasm for the church rates issue, was the fact that Whig, Liberal and dissenting interests changed the focus of their campaign- ing after 1864, away from church rates and onto the Irish Church. Disraeli recognized the challenge and saw how difficult it would be to mount a defence of the established Church centred on the Church of Ireland, gwen its unpopularity in Ireland and anomalous position if compared with the ecclesiastical settlements in Scotland and the colonies. Possibly as a result, he chose not to speak in the debate on Ilillwyn’s 1865 motion on the Irish Church, although this may have been to give Gathorne-Hardy the chance to score off Gladstone, whom he was already expecting to challenge for the representation of Oxford University at the coming election.

Like Disraeli’s politics of the early 186Os, the general election of 1865 also needs scholarly investigation. In particular, a study of the electoral politics of individual coii- stituencies would show the degree to which questions of reform, political and ecclesiastical, were engaging the attention of the electorate prior to Palmerston’s death. Ihraeli certainly hoped that Church questions would work in the Conservative interest, and in his address to the electors of Buckinghamshire in late May he gave a clear priority to the defence ofthe Church, something he followed by stating his firm adher- ence to the 1829 settlement of Roman Catholic claims in a speech in the house of commons a fortnight later. In this he was joined by Derby in the Lords. The vigour of both their statements was reported as producing alarm and despondency among the Irish Conservative classes as they faced the challenge of defending their own electoral position against the authority of the National Association.

As an electoral stratagem, the defence of the Church of England brought little com- fort to the Conservatives. In Scotland, Ireland and Wales (hardly considered by Derby

*I1 For Disraeli’s addresses and speeches on the Church, ‘Addresses to the Electors of Buckinghamshire’. The Times, 19 Mar. 1857, p. 9b, 22 May 1865. p. 5e; on Church rates, Hansard, Pad, Debs, 3rdser., CLXIII, 291; CLXI, 1039: 20Apr. 1860,27 Feb. 1861 (quotation col. 1045); to the rural deanery ofAmersham, 7 h e Times, 8 Dec. 1860, p. 10b; to the second meeting ofthe Oxford diocesan board ofeducation, ibid. , 15 Nov. 1861, p. 7a; to the Association for the Augmentation ol‘Snial1 Benefices. ibid., 31 Oct. 1862, p. 5a; on Buxton’s resolution on the Act ofUniformity. Hansard, Par/. Dt-bs, CLXXI, 642: 9 June 1863 (quotation col. 655); on the endowment ofsmall livings, 77ie 7imes, 26 Nov. 1864, p. 7d; on the Roman Catholic Oaths Bill, Hansard, Pad. Debs, 3rd ser., CLXXX, 52: 12 June 1865.


or Disraeli), the Conservatives lost ground. This began a process, in the case of Ireland, that was to continue inexorably and without intemption until 1885. Whilst the Con- servatives did make some six gains in English constituencies, these were more than outweighed by the 14 losses made in the other kingdoms. From the Conservative point ofview, this did not raise hopes that Church defence would be an easy route out ofmi- nority politics, whatever the shape and style of the future political world, once Palmerston had left the scene.2’

The uncertainty about the direction of national politics among the Conservative leadership was matched by similar anxieties about the political challenges coming from Ireland. For Derby, writing to Disraeli a few months after Palmerston’s death, and on Chichester Fortescue’s appointment as chief secretary, the most immediate threat was that posed to the Church of Ireland rather than that from a Russell reform bill. O n the Irish Church question particularly, Disraeli appeared more circumspect. In 1861 he had boasted hyperbolically to Stanley, in anticipation of a tory by-election victory in Cork, that a union of Conservatives and Roman Catholics had been his object for 20 years. Later in 1864 he studiously did not meet with Garibaldi on his feted visit to London, nor did he speak in the debate on llillwyn’s motion on the disestablishment of the Irish Church; this despite an injunction from Derby that he must break his parliamentary si- lence, given the emphasis he had previously given to Church questions. O n the other hand, Disraeli did speak strongly on the question of oaths a few weeks later - something which he was to repeat in a similar debate in March 1866 - reaffirming the principle of the Williamite protestant succession and only just failing to carry an amendment hostile to any idea of papal authority.22

An additional complication was that the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Ireland, increasingly self-confident in its aims, was pressing again for a reformed and re-invigorated catholic university. Even before Palmerston’s death, Whig ministers seemed willing to consider a charter for the existing institution on St Stephen’s Green within a federated university structure overall. Informal discussions between Irish catholic interests and the government had taken place during the summer of 1865. With Palmerston’s death and Chichester Fortescue’s appointment as chief secretary, Derby became alarmed that the government was coming to a concordat with the ultramontanes to create a state-endowed catholic university. This was a subject, which he thought Conservatives should not touch at all. As with Irish Church disestablishment, Disraeli expressed no opinion on this or on the idea of renewed land legislation. Naas led the opposition to Chichester Fortescue’s policies, rejecting the

For electoral details, McCalmonf ’s Parliamerrfary Poll Book, British Electoral Results, 1832- 1918, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn. with addtn. material, Brighton, 1971). p. 332b. For reactions to Disraeli’s address in Dublin, 7 h e Times, 25 May 1865, p. 9a.

** Disraeli on tory/Roman Catholic union, Vincent, Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative Party. pp. 167,228: 18 Feb. 1861,17 Feb. 1865; for Derby on Church questions, Bod., Braconsfield MSS. Dep Hughenden 11012. f. 100: Derby to Disraeli. 10 Mar. 1865; for Disraeli’s comments, Monypenny and Buckle, Disraeli. p. 160; for Gathome-Hardy on Dillwyn’s motion. Hansard. Par/. Debs, 3rd ser.. CLXXVIII, 402: 28 Mar. 1865; for Disraeli on oaths, ibid.. CLXXX, 52; CLXXXI, 1712: 12 June 1865.8 Mar. 1866, during which he also said, ‘I have never raised the cry of “The Church in Danger”, which has sometimes been imputed to me . . . I have often thought that if a severance took place between Church and State, the state would be in danger.’ (col. 1714).

62 Allen Warren

argument that the rise of Fenianism proved that Ireland still suffered from unremedied grievances, and claiming that the government’s friendliness to Ireland was simply political oppor t~nism.’~

The unexpected defeat of Russell’s government on 18 June 1866, and the formation of Derby’s third administration, dramatically altered the overall parliamentary political environment. But, in relation to Ireland, Disraeli was in much the same position as he had been in 1852 and 1858-9. First, Irish policy was dominated by the executive in Dublin, with Naas now in the cabinet and supported by Abercorn as viceroy. Disraeli expressed a w a r n confidence in the chief secretary, and, for the next two years until Derby’s own retirement, Naas fashioned the ministry’s approach to the interconnected issues of Irish university, land and Church. In many respects, Disraeli still remained pre- dominantly the government’s manager in the Commons, more than a little occupied with the manoeuvres associated with the drafting and passage of the reform of the parliamentary franchise. Secondly, any concessions to moderate Irish catholic opinion, as suggested by Naas or himself, were likely to be limited by Jkrby’s deep resistance to any change in the position of the Church of Ireland. Finally, given the government’s nii- nority position, any Irish policy would be critically affected by the opposition, and by Gladstone in particular. Only when the Liberals’ stance became clear, could Disraeli consider how the Irish Church could be defended in tactical terms, and with what amioury of argument. 24

4

The difference between the situation in 1866 and earlier Derby administrations was that Naas and Derby were apparently now prepared to take a more conciliatory line with the Irish Catholic hierarchy on education issues, with initial contacts being made through Lord Denbigh and Bishop Moriarty. Attention was not focussed on education exclusively, however, and Naas also developed new approaches to the land and railway questions. Much ofthe parliamentary action ofthe government in these areas was political posturing but, until Gladstone’s views on Ireland became clear, these were necessary activities, given that Cullen’s own terms for any possible rapprochement were similarly obscure. Naas described dealing with Irish questions as ‘like dancing on bro- ken bottles’. In the luxuriant undergrowth of Irish ecclesiastical and political negotiating, so fully outlined by Emmet Larkin, Disraeli played a relatively small part. In early 1867 he welcomed a greater openness on the part of the hierarchy when respond- ing to hostile questioning from Newdegate on Cullen’s presence at the lord mayor of Dublin’s banquet. But a fortnight later he derided Fenianism as the equivalent ofmedi- eval dancing mania. His friendly remarks about the hierarchy encouraged Archbishop

L’ For Naas’ attack on Chichester Fortescue, Hansard, Par/. Dth, 3rd ser., CLXXXI, 252; CLXXXIII, 222, 1053: 8 Feb., 30 Apr., 17 May 1866.

24 For Disraeli’s confidence in Naas, Liverpool R.O., Derby MSS, 920 DER(l4) , 146/2: Ilisraeli to Derby, 27 Sept. 1866; for Derby’s feelings on the Irish Church, see h. 22 above. On Gladstone’s moves towards dsestablishment. Nomian, Church and Society in En&trd, pp. 282-352, Machin, Polifics and fhr Churches. pp. 335-79.


Manning to offer himselfas broker between Cullen, his colleagues and the government, a move which followed upon Manning’s St Patrick’s Day pastoral letter. As a result Dis- raeli met Bishop Woodlock, rector of the catholic university, on 12 May 1867, and listened to his views about a catholic university charter. At the same time Naas ac- knowledged in the Commons that the Queen’s Colleges had not won the confidence of the Irish people, while Derby accepted a modified version of Russell’s motion for a commission to enquire into the revenues of the Irish Church. A month later, Naas announced a royal commission into the national system of education, and spoke of the need for an enquiry into the state of the Irish railways. The government’s approach to Irish questions was therefore multi-stranded.”

There was little difference in the approach adopted by Ilisraeli who niadejust a single major speech on Ireland during the session on 26 July. O n that occasion, he poured scorn on the need for major Irish land refomi by pointing out that the presence ofUlster custom did not appear to stern the outflow ofemigrants from the province, so a general extension was hardly justified on those grounds. O n the other hand, he expressed a hope that the university question might be settled. Liberal members had also reminded him of his speech in 1844, and, in reply, Disraeli described it as a largely rhetorical response to the Irish orators of the day. In any event, he continued, it was now hardly relevant given the dramatic social and economic changes of the intervening years. He concluded by portraying Ireland’s future in terms of an improved agriculture, a more diversified economy and a fair consideration of the claims of the Irish people.26

Negotiations with the hierarchy continued throughout the autumn; Ilisraeli’s contacts with Manning and the bishops represented just one of the strands within a whole web of correspondence. As far as the government, and Derby in particular, was concerned, the chances of an acceptable accommodation became increasingly less likely. Disraeli made it clear to Manning, on 10 December 1867, that no university scheme would pass the Commons if it contained an endowment or excluded a lay element on the university’s governing body. The overall political position was rnade much more challenging on 19 December when Gladstone confirmed in a speech at Southport that his future programme would focus on a comprehensive Irish settlement, involving Church, land and education. By early January 1868 Derby had become alarmed, believ- ing the Irish bishops would not accept what it was possible for the government to offer:

25 On conciliation, Nat. Lib. Ireland, Mayo MSS, 1 1 144: Derby to Naas, 23 Oct. 1866; Liverpool R.O., Derby MSS, 920 DER(14), 15513-4: Denbigh to Derby, 31 Oct. 1866, Naas to Derby, 12, 14 Jan., 22 Feb. 1867 (&om which quotation taken); Bod. , Beaconsfield MSS, Dep Hughenden 90/2, f. 73: Bishop Moriarty (of Keny) to Denbigh, 20 Jan. 1867. Naas to Disraeli, 28 Jan. 1867; for Naas on land reform, Hansard. Par/. Dubs, CLXXXV, 530, 555: 18 Feb. 1867; for Disraeli’s part, ibid., 933, 1949: 25 Feb., 15 Mar. 1867; on Manning’s pastoral letter, Beaconstield MSS, Dep Hughenden 135/3, K 296,294,302-8: Manning’s letter, 17 Mar. 1867, Manningto Disraeli, 13 Apr., 4, 11,21 May 1867; for Irish ecclesiastical politics. Emniet Larkin, The Cor~solidaiion ojihe Romm Catholic Church in Ireland, 186& 1870 (Chapel Hill, 1987); for Manning’s relations with Disraeli, Edrnund Sheridan Purcell, The Li/e ofCardinalManning, Archbishop cf Weximinster (2 vols, 1896). 11,51619; Vincent Alan McClelland, Cardinal Manning, His Public L@ and I?fltcence, 1865- 1892 (Oxford, 1962). pp. 168-9; for Naas on Queen’s Colleges and the Irish railway system, Hansard, Pad. Debs, 3rd ser., CLXXXVII, 1439; CLXXXIX, 612, 908: 31 May, 1 , 5 Aug. 1867. Denbigh (1823-95), the 8th earl of, a prominent catholic convert (1850) and count of the Holy Roman Empire, ultimately buried in the habit of a Franciscan h a r .

2h Hansard, Par/. Debs, 3rd ser., CLXXXIX. 201: 26 July 1867.

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‘They are bent o n having in their own hands the exclusive control over the secular education of the country; and the laity, I am afraid, have not the nioral courage openly to repudiate their pretensions.’”

As the negotiations became more difficult, Manning tried to persuade Disraeli to make a bold move, reminding him rather unsubtly ofhis 1844 speech. Ilisraeli did not rise to the bait. H e knew that Derby had only accepted the schenie for chartering a catholic university from newly ennobled Mayo (Naas) with the greatest reluctance. On 19 February 1868, he asked Manning directly whether Chllen would accept a charter without any associated university endowment and with a lay elenient o n its senate. Cul- len, appreciating that the university question was likely t o be overshadowed by the wider debate over the future of the Irish Church, was prepared to trim on the details of any charter in return for positive government action. O n 3 March the cabinet agreed t o Mayo’s university plan, to establish a commission on the land question (‘the new I k o n ’ ) but only to approach the question of the Church with the greatest caution.’”

Nine days previously, Derby’s retirement had been announced to the cabinet. Throughout the previous two years, as the refomi question had unfolded, Disraeli had been establishing his clear right to succeed. But this had not altered his longstanding de- pendence on Derby. This had been particularly true in respect of Irish policy, with its inevitable links to religious questions and the future of the Irish Church. That policy had been alniost exclusively the work of Mayo with his desire to establish a political future for Conservatisni in Ireland by winning the support of moderate catholic opinion, both clerical and lay. Through Manning’s intervention, llisraeli had beconie involved in trying to find that common ground, but his role had been relatively modest. It remained to be seen if that would change on his assuming the premiership.”

7’0 be concluded

” On the negotiations, Larkin, T h e Cotisdidation o/dw Komati Catholic Church, pp. 493-532 (esp. pp. 505-6); Uodl., Ueaconsfield MSS, l k p Hughenden 135/3. f. 314; IlO/3, f. 133: Manning to I)isrxli, 20 Aug. 1867, Derby to Disraeli, 6 Oct. 1867; Liverpool R.O., Derby MSS, 920 DEK(I4), 15S/3: Mayo to Derby, 1 0 Oct. 1867 (although see inore optimistically, Nat. Lib. Ireland, Mayo MSS, 1 1 I SO: Derby to Mayo, 29 Oct. 1867); Gladstone’s Southport speech, 71w 7’imrs. 20 Ikc . 1807, p. Sf; fLr the government’s increasing difficulties on the univenity question arid Derby’s d a m , Derby MSS. 920 I)EK(14), 15514: Mayo to Derby. 26.29 Dec. 1867; Mayo MSS, 11 1 50: Derby to Mayo, 1 Jan. 1 868 (from which quotation taken).

Nat. Lib. Ireland, Mayo MSS, 11 150: Manning to IXsrasli, 2 Jan. 1868; Bod., Beaconsfield MSS, Dep Hughenden 135/3, f. 122: Manning to Disraeli, 15 Jan. 1868; for the Manning/l)israeli meeting, 19 Feb 1 868, Nomian, Church attd Soriefy iti I:u,&nd. p. 256. also, Larkin, Tlrr Cutisolidatiu~i o / t h Koniatr Clatholir Church, pp. 51 1-12: Manning to Ilisraeli. 22 Feb. 1868; for the cabinet, 2 Mar. 1868. Vincent, Disraeli, Derby atid fhr Conservative Party, p. 331.

?’ O n the Disraeli/Derby relationship, Liverpool ILO., Ilerby MSS, 920 D E R (14). 145/2: Disraeli to Derby. 27 Feb. 1868.

disraeli, the conservatives, and the government of ireland: part 1, 1837–1868*

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