CHAPTER XVI

THE REGENCY QUESTION

Insanity of George III: Different Views on the Regency.-Towards the close of 1788, George III became so decidedly insane that it was evidently necessary that some other person should discharge the duties of sovereignty in his place. That this person should, in actual fact, be his eldest son, George, Prince of Wales, was generally agreed, but in what way and under what conditions the prince should enter on the office of Kingship was a point on which two different theories were entertained. The Whigs, led by Charles James Fox, held that he should take up the reins of Government as of right, and exercise the full powers of sovereignty in the same way as if his father were actually dead. The Tories considered that while the King lived no other person had an inherent right to rule. If circumstances rendered it needful that anyone else should do so, that person should be selected by Parliament, and by it endowed with whatever powers it thought fit to confer. As regarded Ireland this latter theory, which found most favour in England, presented difficulties. It either empowered the British Parliament to select a ruler for Ireland, and so violate its own express renunciation of all power over that country, or, by leaving the choice in the hands of the Irish Houses, it incurred the risk that a different Regent would be selected by them from the one chosen in London, so that the sole tie which now bound the two countries together would be severed. The alarm expressed lest this contingency should arise was for the most part not genuine. It must have been perfectly well known that, because of the obvious impropriety of passing over the heir-apparent to the throne, the choice of both Parliaments would fall on the same person, the Prince of Wales.

Action of the Irish Houses: Recovery of George III.-The view of Fox had more adherents in Ireland than that of the Tory party. To allow to the English Houses the choice of a ruler for Ireland would have seemed to the Irish Parliament unbearably humiliating. Still, to proceed on one theory, while England proceeded on another, would involve them in many difficulties, as it would place the Regent in a different position with regard to his rule of each of the two countries. Finally

it was decided that no adherence to either view should be expressed, but that an Address should be presented to the Prince of Wales, asking him in the name of the Lords and Commons of Ireland, to take up the government of the country. The Address was voted, but when it was conveyed to the Lord Lieutenant, Buckingham, he absolutely refused to transmit it. The Irish Houses pronounced an official censure on the Viceroy for this, and then proceeded to appoint a deputation to wait on the prince and personally present to him their Address. The Commissioners were graciously received by the prince, but before the matter could proceed further, the recovery of the King rendered all consideration of a Regency unnecessary (February, 1789). The affair was thus ended, and were it not for the use afterwards made of it, might well have been forgotten.

Use Made of the Regency Dispute.-Its importance lay in the frequency with which, when the question of a legislative union between Ireland and England came to be discussed, those who favoured the measure alluded to it as an example of the danger which might arise of the separation of the two countries in the event of a Regency, owing to the selection of different rulers by the Parliament of each. If, however, the question is viewed in the light of reason and common sense, it will appear that, in actual practice, any danger of this kind was little likely to arise, and could, at any rate, be guarded against by means much simpler and less drastic than the amalgamation of the legislatures. A Regency is not, in the history of most countries, of frequent occurrence. In the event of its becoming necessary, owing to the incapacity or minority of the sovereign, to appoint a Regent, some one person would be generally available, as there had been in this instance, whose claims would be so strong as to make it in the highest degree unlikely that either the English or the Irish legislature would ignore them. Should, however, a positive safeguard have appeared desirable, it would have been perfectly easy to extend, by a short Bill passed through the Irish Parliament, the Act of 1541, which decreed that the sovereigns of England should also be sovereigns of Ireland, so as to provide that, in the event of a Regency, the de facto Regent of England should be Regent of Ireland also. Such an Act was, during the debates on the Legislative Union, proposed by a member of the Opposition, but was opposed by the Government, on the ground that it would be an insufficient remedy for an evil which only the amalgamation of the Parliaments could really cure.

CHAPTER XVII

THE CATHOLICS

THE general amelioration in the condition of the Catholics after the first three decades of the eighteenth century had passed has already been mentioned (Chapter VIII). Long before any of the Penal Laws had been actually repealed, many which did not directly interfere with the interests of the Ascendancy had been suffered to become practically a dead letter. No actual change was, however, made by Act of Parliament in the Catholics' favour till the third George had been eleven years on the throne. Even then, the permission accorded them (1771) to hold leases of bogland for sixty-one years, on condition of reclaiming it, cannot have benefited a large number.

Gardiner's Relief Bills.-The first Catholic Relief Bill of general importance was that introduced into the Commons by Luke Gardiner (afterwards Lord Mountjoy) (1778). The Catholics, since the foundation of the Catholic Committee in 1757, had begun to show more spirit. The Government appears to have realised that concession was necessary, and the introduction of Gardiner's Bill was not seriously opposed. This Bill proposed the removal of several crying injustices under which the Catholics suffered in regard to the holding of land and to inheritance. It permitted a Catholic to take a lease of 999 years, released him from the necessity of "gavelling" or dividing his estate amongst his sons, and withdrew the advantages hitherto conceded to a wife or child who embraced the Reformed faith. The Irish Houses passed the measure by fair majorities, both in Lords and Commons (July, 1778). Less than two years after (March, 1780) the Irish Parliament, mainly in consequence of pressure brought by the Volunteers, abolished the Test, by which all officials were obliged to take the Sacrament according to the rites of the Established Church, thereby admitting the Protestant Dissenters freely to offices. The policy of the Relief Bill of 1778 appears to have been generally approved of in Ireland by both members of the Established Church and Dissenters.

The next important measures in favour of the Catholics were the Bills of 1782 (already alluded to in Chapter XII) which are known collectively

by the name of "Gardiner's Second Relief Bill," for to them also Luke Gardiner stood sponsor. Many of the repressive enactments which these proposed to repeal were, and some of them had long been, practically a dead letter. Of this sort were the prohibition of the residence of Catholic bishops, ecclesiastical dignitaries or regular clergy in Ireland; the requirement that secular priests should be registered and should reside within certain districts, not leaving them without permission; the regulation that no Catholic should possess a horse of a greater value than £5. Several clauses of these Bills, however, aimed at the redress of grievances still alive and acutely felt by the Catholic community. They permitted a Catholic to teach in a school or a private family, or to open a school himself, provided that he took the Oath of Allegiance, obtained the permission of the Protestant bishop of the diocese, and received only pupils of his own faith. The dying Catholic parent might now appoint any layman of his own creed to undertake the care of his young children's upbringing and education. As regards land, Catholics might purchase freehold property, inherit it and bequeath it in the same way as Protestants. The regulations forbidding Catholics to live in the cities of Cork or Galway were to be repealed.

As in the case of the Bill of 1778, the country in general appears to have been favourable to the policy embodied in these measures, and, as regards those clauses dealing with such matters as we have mentioned, the Parliament also showed little desire to obstruct their passage. The suggestion that any political power whatever should be given to the Catholics was, on the other hand, most strongly opposed in both Houses. Flood's attitude was uncompromising. Though he, like most of those who sided with him, was not prepared to say that the political servitude of the Catholics was, if considered from an abstract point of view, precisely just, yet he held it to be under the present circumstances not only expedient but absolutely necessary for the safety of the Protestant state.

The passage of the Relief Bills was celebrated in many parts of the country by rejoicings and festivities, in which Catholics and Protestants joined with the utmost friendliness.

Although some annoying restrictions, such as the prohibition of steeples on his churches, yet remained to remind him of his servitude, still, on the whole, almost all the enactments which had hampered the Catholic in the exercise of his religion and caused him pain and inconvenience in his family relations, as well as those which interfered with his purchasing, inheriting or bequeathing landed property, were now repealed.

From all public offices, public honours and political life generally he remained excluded. The great legal profession in both its branches was closed to him; so was the Army. He could, indeed, practise as a

doctor, but could not hold, however great might be his eminence, any University professorship in medicine or surgery, nor any professional, military post, nor a civil one under the State or under a Corporation.

When the first glow of satisfaction at their triumph had begun to cool, the Catholics again exerted themselves to ameliorate their condition. The renewal of the agitation dated from 1791, and the Catholic Question then entered into a new and stormy phase.

Views of the Irish Authorities and of the Irish Protestants generally on the Catholic Claims.-The Irish authorities, office-holders and corporations were, as a rule, far more opposed to concession than were the British Ministers. These indeed, inclined to the belief that, considering the dangerous state of affairs on the Continent, where the progress of the French Revolution had become a serious menace to all the neighbouring states, it was absolutely necessary to endeavour, by a conciliatory policy, to secure the tranquillity of Ireland. The Irish Ascendancy Party, further removed from the scene of disturbance and little concerned with foreign politics, clung with considerable obstinacy to its privileges.

Still, the general mass of the middle and lower class Protestants in Ireland were not, as far as they were interested in the question at all, particularly hostile to the granting of the concessions asked for, although the programme of the Catholic Committee included the abolition of practically all political disabilities.

The Lord Lieutenant (Westmoreland), however, was entirely opposed to the allowing of any political power to the Catholics. When it was conveyed to him in a semi-official letter that the English Government was inclined to favour the idea of granting to them the Parliamentary franchise, he wrote in the strongest terms, declaring that both he and the members of the Privy Council, whom he had consulted, considered that such a step would have the most disastrous results, and would be resisted with determination by both the Parliament and the whole Protestant community in Ireland.

Further Concessions Refused: The Catholic Convention.-Pitt, the English Prime Minister, could not be expected to know that what was confidently stated to be the opinion of the Irish Protestants in general was really the view of a few prominent but bigoted officials, such as John Fitzgibbon the Lord Chancellor; John Claudius Beresford and Sir John Parnell. Alarmed at the prospect of a serious misunderstanding with the community which hitherto had been regarded as the main support of the English power in Ireland, he modified his policy, and the result was Langrishe's Relief Bill, introduced in February, 1792, which removed certain grievances, but left the political restrictions of the Catholics unaltered. The Bill passed with little difficulty, although not entirely