THE GREAT GOVERNING FAMILIES OF IRELAND.
WITH a few points of resemblance, there are many striking differences in the histories of the Governing Families of Scotland and Ireland. They have indeed an Anglo-Norman element common to both, and in both predominant. In this respect they stand similarly related to the Norman conquerors of England, and they somewhat resemble one another in a fre- quently doubtful position as respects allegiance between the two nations, and in a tendency to intrigue for their own private inter- ests with, or at the expense of, each kingdom alternately. In some degree also the geographical isolation from the seat of the national executive, producing as its result a large amount of independent authority, was similar both in Scotland and in Ireland, and
produced similar social features in each aristocracy. But with this any resemblance between the two almost entirely ends. To begin with, the establishment of the present great families of Scotland was, as we have seen, almost entirely due to individual adventurers wholly disconnected from each other in the time and occasion of their achievements, not the vanguard or main body of a great invasion, but the fortunate recipients of Royal favour obtained by strictly personal services, and with little or no common element. In Ireland, however, we find that the great majority of the governing families owe their founda- tion to successive waves of conquest and appropriation which swept over the country, and left these lasting memorials of their course. First we had the Anglo-Norman expedition of Richard De Clare, the Earl Strongbow of history, which gave Ireland her Fitz-Geralda and Fitz-Maurices from Wales, followed speedily by those who marched under the Royal banner of Henry IL— the Butlers, the De Burghs, the De Courcys, the Nugents. Then comes the tide of Tudor conquest, leaving us for Henry VIIL's reign, among others, the Brabazons and the Skeffingtons from Leicestershire ; and for that of Elizabeth a host of names, among which are the Herefordshire Boyles, the Devonshire Hills and Chichesters, the Moores of Kent, the Oxfordshire Caulfeilds, the Brownes of Sussex, the Dawsons and Lambarts of Yorkshire, the Annesleys of Notts and Bucks, the Joneses from Lanca- shire and London, the Wingfields from Suffolk and Hampshire, and the Scotch Maxwells. This great wave is followed by the planters of James I.'s reign, the Forbeses from Scotland, the Lanesborough Butlers from Huntingdonshire, the Devonshire Fortescues, the Loftuses of Yorkshire, the Beresfords of Stafford- shire and Kent, and the Burtons of Yorkshire, and the Scotch Conynghams whom they absorbed, and whose name they took. Lest of the great waves of appropriation come the Cromwellian soldiers, of whom the Picard Ponsonbys from Cumberland are the most notable names, but who are found far more extensively in the gentry than among the noble landowners and the essentially governing families of Ireland. Independently of these tides of English conquest, we find some direct offshoots from Scotland, such as the MacDonnells of the Isles and Argyll in the fifteenth century, and the Stewarts of Castle-Stewart in the same century and the reign of James I. There are a few straggling and solitary adventurers, such as the Percevals from Gloucester- shire and Somerset in the reign of Henry III., and the names which the periods since the Restoration have added to the roll of nobility, such as the Anglo-Scotch Knoxes at the close of the seventeenth century, and the Jocelyns from Essex and Hertfordshire in the reign of George I., and other similar families "of the robe" under the Hanoverian dynasty, too frequently mere memorials of Orange ascendancy. Add to these the Irish families of homespun Celtic origin, those who were great before the Anglo-Norman conquest, now scarcely represented by more than the O'Briens, and the Dillons, and the Plunkets, who were in county Louth in the eleventh century, and lay claim to a descent from the Ostmen or Danes, and we have a tolerably com- plete representative list to illustrate the history of the Irish aristocracy, which at once distinguishes it broadly from that of the sister kingdom of Scotland. In the latter the individual accessions of foreign extraction were absorbed almost imperceptibly in the nation of which they became the adopted sons, while in the former they were for centuries, if not always, connected in the national mind with some great aggressive or repressive movement on the part of an alien and dominant race, and entered the social and political system of the country as a new and distinct class, rather than as mere individuals. The result was that in the case of Scotland we had the formation at an early period of a jealous national spirit, in which the new-comers (with all their selfish shortcomings and intrigues) emulated in zeal those whom they displaced or supplanted, while in Ireland there ensued an heterogeneous collection of distinct interests and traditions, among which a common national instinct was faint and intermittent, while its name was abused by each in turn for the furtherance of its own selfish or limited views. Again, in Scotland there was an established and recognized executive, which, however feeble its action in remoter districts and in the ordi- nary affairs of life, was at any rate sufficiently strong to place in the hands of individual adventurers large districts of country with- out serious opposition, and to maintain them there without inces- sant struggles, so that even where marriage had not ensured the continuity of the links of clan attachment to the new chiefs, and placed them in the line of traditional homage, they imperceptibly succeeded to the hereditary respect paid to the ancient lords of the soil. In Ireland each adventurer had not only to win for himself the lands and authority he held nominally from the English Crown, but he had to maintain himself for centuries by the strong hand, in the face of undying hostile memories on the part of the native population ; nor was the distinct and alien origin entirely forgotten even in the case of those who most identified themselves with native feelings and prejudices, and sought to make themselves the representatives of native aspirations. A Fitz-Gerald might be a thorough Irishman in the eyes of England, but to the native Irish there was never the force in his appeal to the spontaneous native affections which there would have been in the case of an O'Brien or an O'Neil.
Another great and most important difference between the position of the Scotch and Irish aristocracies was the non- residence of the Sovereign in the case of the latter. In any country, and among any population, this must have been an un- favourable feature, but in Ireland, and with a Celtic race, the social drawback was indefinitely increased. " There appears to be in the Celtic race," observes Mr. Goldwin Smith, in his admirable little work on Irish history and character, " a strong tendency to what is called imperialism, as opposed to the constitutionalism to which the Teutonic races tend. The Teuton loves laws and parliaments, the Celt loves a king," and he illustrates this in the first place by a reference to Celtic France. " The Irish," he continues, " have hitherto shown a similar attachment to the rule of persons, rather than that of institutions. So far as willingness to submit to governors is concerned, they are only too easily governed. Loyalty is the great virtue of their political character. Its great defect is want of independence, and of that strong sense of right by which law and personal liberty are upheld." With a national character such as this the personal presence of the Sovereign lay at the root of all settled government, and yet this has been with persistence and almost incredible fatuity denied to Ireland. " The thing," remarks Mr. Goldwin Smith, " which was most fatal both to the political prosperity of the Pale and to the extension of the English dominion beyond its bounds, was the absence of the King. In the feudal system there were two forces at work, that of the monarchy and that of the aristocracy. The combined action of the two was attended by perpetual jarring and discord between them; but both were necessary to the production of that ordered liberty which we enjoy under the Constitution. The monarchy preserved the principle of government and the common interest of the State, the aristocracy preserved the principle of liberty and the interests of personal independence. Without the monarchy there would have been a Polish anarchy, without the aristocracy there would have been an Oriental despotism. In either case poli- tical progress would have been arrested. The Anglo-Irish were practically without a king, and the chronic anarchy of an un- controlled aristocracy was the inevitable result. The same circum- stance was, if possible, still more injurious to the native race. The Irish were and long remained in that stage of political development when an object of personal loyalty, such as a clansman finds in his chief, was essential in order to engage their present allegiance, and train them for a higher form of political life. The talisman of the Royal presence has never been tried on their hearts without effect, but the talisman has been too seldom used. Henry II., John, Richard, James IL, and George W., all were welcomed in a manner which none of them except the first deserved. The Irish are expected to be loyal, yet it is difficult to imagine how loyalty can be kindled in the heart of a rude clansman or an ignorant peasant who seldom hears- of and never sees his King." This unfortunate deprivation of so important an element in the Government was connected with the very origin of English ascendancy in Ireland. " It was an unto- ward circumstance at the outset that the foundation of the Nor- man dominion in Ireland was laid by private adventurers, instead of being laid in a more comprehensive spirit under the auspices of an able King. Mere self-interest, rapacious and irresponsible, was the guise in which the English connection first appeared on Irish soil." Henry U., when jealous of the independent progress of these aristocratic conquerors, made his personal appearance is Ireland, and produced by it for the time a remarkable effect- " Had he remained to complete the conquest, and organize it with the same statesmanship which had restored order to England after the anarchy of Stephen, one of the darkest leaves might have been torn from the book of fate." But domestic turmoils recalled him, and the golden opportunity was for ever lost. One of the most lamentable results of this Royal absenteeism, and the consequent absence of the tie of loyalty between the people and the head of the State, was seen in the crisis of the great religious Reforma- tion. In England the King ushered the nation on the path of religious innovation, in Scotland the nation forced the Crown to become its leader in the same direction; in both cases the result was that the mass of the nation moved forward on the same course, the minority had to yield, and the religion established became to all intents and purposes national. In Ireland, where Protestantism had escaped the bitter ordeal of persecution to which it was subjected in England and Scotland, with no King to lead and no loyal national spirit to follow, it became merely a fresh badge of an alien ascendancy and a new barrier to the consolidation of the Empire. A Protestant " connec- tion" was added to an Anglo-Norman Pale, and a Puritan coloniza- tion and a Cromwellian confiscation paved the way for Orange lodges, Ribbon societies, and Fenian anarchists. It was in the midst of this feudal and social disorganization, that the English Govern- ment tried to assert the paramount authority of the absentee Kings of England as "Lords of Ireland" through the medium of Lord- Deputies, Commissioners, and Lord-Lieutenants, and this mock monarchy, deficient in nearly all the important social and political influences of the reality, and too frequently marked by some of the worst faults of an undefined executive, without the strength or claims to respect of an independent despotism, exercised a great and disastrous influence on the history of the great governing families of Ireland. Too feeble to assume the absolute control and real government of the great houses, and constantly threatened by the aggressive spirit of the native and nearly indepen- dent Irish chiefs, the Irish Deputy found himself obliged to purchase the support of one or more of these great feudatories at the expense of the rights of the others, and generally of the rest of the nation. When one family enjoyed this invidious favour, its rivals fell back for defence on rebellion and native support, until they in their tarn were bought oft' and recom- pensed for their turbulence at the expense of a third family, or from the spoils of their displaced rival. Sometimes the English Crown dropped the formality of a puppet ruler thus necessarily dependent on a great family, and placed the head of the family himself in the seat of authority, usually, however, with indifferent success. These semi-native satraps coquetted far too much with the idea of independent sovereignty to be long palatable to the jealous race of princes by whom the experiment was tried, and recourse was again had to the balancing system, with the ordinary result of political disgrace, though possibly pecuniary aggrandize- ment to the governing or misgoverning Deputy. It was only when some strong hand such as Wentworth's or Cromwell's, re- presenting respectively the highest and most statesmanlike types of personal and patriotic ambition, grasped the helm of govern- ment that some faint gleam of a national administration dawned on unhappy Ireland, though in the one case the injustice insepa- rable from the • advocacy of a bad cause, and in the other early prejudices and the necessities of a transitional and irregular state of affairs, marred to some extent the beneficial effects of a firm andfar-sighted administration. In later years, and while the shadow of a great tragedy, which no special pleading, however ingenious, can obliterate from the page of history, was interposed between Irish loyalty and English justice, there arose a system of government placed more and more entirely in the hands of a select number of families, generally neither noble in blood nor worthy in purpose, which over-rode the legitimate influence of the great families, and exposed Ireland to all the evils of a bureaucracy, animated by the narrower prejudices of creed and race, and feeding alike on sectarian prejudices and the most discreditable backstairs cabals. It cannot fairly be said that the great Protestant houses of Ireland are re- sponsible for the state of affairs in Ireland under the earlier Hanoverian princes, for the class of politicians into whose hands the Government during that period for the most part fell had generally little hereditary claim to the leadership of Protestant Ireland. The nobler movements of that period in a patriotic direc- tion were generally headed by those of the bluest and best Anglo- Norman, Elizabethan, nay, Cromwellian blood, and but for the fatal effects of religious disunion and a quasi-colonial dependency, the real functions of a great territorial aristocracy might yet have been so performed, as to anticipate and provide against a century of political agitation and an indeterminate period of future ani- mosities. And even if Ireland had been exempt from these fatal incidents, any chance of such a national organization must have been (for the time at least) destroyed by the outbreak of the first French Revolution, which severed the aristocracy from the people in no country more completely than in Ireland, in which the latter fell easy victims to the spirit of sans-culottism, while the former were thrown back for protection on the English Government. The great Houses of Ireland have not been altogether unworthy of the name of a national aristocracy, though they have been met and thwarted at every stage of their existence by a train of disastrous occurrences in politics and religion. But territorial incumbrances stepped in to complete the evil work begun by national and religious feuds, and the pauper absentee landlords of Ireland were for a long period the disgrace and the bane of the Irish nation. Something has been done tomitigate this social evil, and the growing sense of justice and the increasing disposition to look at social questions from a point of view removed from party traditions will probably do still more, but a long time must elapse, even under the most favourable circumstances, before a really Irish landed proprietary will be found fulfilling the duties and insuring the results attached to that branch of our social institu- tions. One anomalous feature in the case is the extent to which the aristocracy of the sister kingdom has assumed its place in the terri- torial landownership of the country. The Abercorn Hamiltons, the Stanleys, the virtually English Petty-Fitzmaurices and Fitz- williams, and the other great families over which England has a greater claim than Ireland herself, can scarcely be accused of the sin of absenteeism, are really among the best landlords, and may form a valuable connecting link between the two countries, but neces- sarily fail in representing that sentiment of nationality which seems inborn in the very air of Ireland, though it can so seldom obtain a coherent or intelligent form of expression.
We must add a few words on baronial tenure and descent in Ireland, and we cannot do better than subjoin the clear summary supplied by Sir T. Banks in his Baronia Angelica Concentrate:- " The most ancient baronial titles in Ireland appear to have had their origin from the same foundation as the similar honours which were at that early period enjoyed in England, namely, either the possession of land or by writs of summons to Parliament. But the possession of land constituted the baronial dignity in the reign of Henry II., when the first invaders or adventurers went into that kingdom from England ; afterwards, as the constitution of Parliament became better regulated, and rendered conformable to the practice of assemblage in England, these great landholders had their writs of summons in similar form to those of the English barons, and were thereby called to legislate with the earls and great noblemen in their own kingdom. No creation of a baron in Ireland by patent is on record till the 2nd Edward IV. (1462), when Sir Robert Barnwall was created Baron of Trimleston by patent under the Great Seal of England, to hold to him and the heirs male of his body. The first earldom granted in Ireland was that of Ulster, to John De Courcy, but the charter, it seems, is not at this day extant. On his forfeiture the earldom was given to Hugh De Lacy, to hold to him et hereditati- bus sues,' similarly as it had been given to John De Courcy. The next earldom conferred was that of Carrick, to Edmund De Botiler (9th Edward II.), to be enjoyed by him and his heirs for ever. But although this earldom was so limited, yet in the same year (9th Edward H.) the title of Earl of Kildare was created in the person of John Fitz-Thomas, with restriction to him and the heirs male of his body, being the first instance of a creation to heirs male in Ireland. The next was that of the Earl of Louth, 12th Edward II., from which period Irish peerage honours, excepting baronies, were limited to the male line of succession."
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