No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
‘If we wish to maintain the Act of Union we must abide by the conditions of the Act of Union.’
Lord Randolph Churchill 1883
‘It is rather in these old speeches that we find instruction than in anything said at the present day.’
Lord Randolph Churchill 1883Controversy has always surrounded the Irish policy of Lord Randolph Churchill. In particular, he played an important part in opposing Gladstone’s home rule bill of 1886, when he ‘played the Orange card’. But despite this episode there has been much varied speculation about his real attitude towards home rule. Was he a sincere and consistent opponent of home rule, as his son and his friend, Rosebery, claimed, or was he, as Wilfred Blunt alleged, a secret sympathiser with home rule? Alternatively, did Churchill merely adopt an opportunist attitude towards home rule as Robert Rhodes James has implied? In their recent book, entitled The Governing Passion, A. B. Cooke and J. R. Vincent have produced a new and idiosyncratic interpretation of Churchill’s involvement with Ireland and home rule in the period 1885-6. The purpose of this enquiry is to re-examine these interpretations, especially Cooke and Vincent’s.
I wish to thank A. D. Macintyre, of Magdalen College, Oxford, for His comments on an earlier draft of this article and for stimulating my interest in Irish history.
1 The Times, 21 Dec. 1883.
2 Both sides of (he home rule question: two speeches by Lord Randolph (Churchill and John Morley at the Oxford Union (Oxford, 1888), p. 19.Google Scholar
3 Churchill, Winston, Lord Randolph Churchill (2nd ed., London, 1907), pp 470—1.Google Scholar Rosebery, Lord, Lord Randolph Churchill (London, 1906) pp 21—2.Google Scholar Churchill, Randolph S., Winston S. Churchill, ii. companion part i (London, 1969), p. 491.Google Scholar
4 James, Robert Rhodes, Lord Randolph Churchill (London, 1969), p. 211.Google Scholar
5 Cooke, A. B. and Vincent, John, The governing passion: cabinet government and party politics in Britain 1885-6 (Brighton, 1974), hereafter cited as Cooke and Vincent.Google Scholar
6 Ibid., p. 18.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid., p. 39.
9 Ibid., p. 47.
10 Ibid., p. 76.
11 Ibid., p. 75.
12 Marlborough to Disraeli, 22 July 1876 (Hughenden House, Buckinghamshire, Disraeli papers, B/xii/A/138).
13 Magnus, Philip, King Edward the Seventh (London, 1964), pp 140—150.Google Scholar
14 The Times, 29 Jan. 1895. Cornwallis-Wst, Mrs G., Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill (London, 1908), pp 78—9.Google Scholar
15 Cooke & Vincent, p. 18.
16 See Lord Randolph Churchill papers, Churchill College, Cambridge, (hereafter cited as RCHL).
17 Cooke & Vincent, p. 75.
18 Beach to Northcote, 1 June 1877 printed in Thornley, David, Isaac Butt and home rule (London, 1964), p. 355.Google Scholar
19 Both sides of the home rule question, p. 18
20 Memories of Father Healy of Little Bray (London, 1896), pp 274—86.Google Scholar
21 Cooke & Vincent, pp 74—5.
22 Ibid., p. 39.
23 Ibid, p. 76.
24 Hansard 3, cxciii, 35.
25 Jackson’s Oxford journal, 20 Oct. 1881.
26 Memoirs and correspondence of viscount Castlereagh, second marquess of Londonderry ed. Vane, Charles, marquess of Londonderry (London, 1848), i, iii.Google Scholar
27 Marlborough to the editor of an unstated newspaper, 1 Jan. 1886 (RCHL 1/xi 1310).
28 Escott, T. H. S., Randolph Spencer Churchill (London, 1895), p. 98.Google Scholar
29 The Times, 23 Feb. 1886.
30 Cooke & Vincent, p. 448.
31 Ibid. pp 447—9.
32 Hansard 5 (lords), xiii, 636.
33 Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 22 Sept. 1877.
34 Churchill, Winston, Randolph Churchill pp 73—5.Google Scholar
35 Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 22 Sept. 1877.
36 Hansard 3, ccxiii, 1233—4.
37 Churchill, Winston, Randolph Churchill, p. 828.Google Scholar
38 The Times, 1 Nov. 1881.
39 Ibid., 21 Dec. 1883.
40 Hansard 3, cclviii. 197.
41 Ibid., 610.
42 The Times, 21 Dec. 1883.
43 Churchill to H. H. Wainwright, 9 June 1884 (RCHL 1/3/424).
44 Hansard 3, cclxxxviii, 854, 862.
45 Hamilton, Lord George, Parliamentary reminiscences and reflections 1868-1885 (London, 1916), p. 249.Google Scholar
46 Hansard 3, cclxxxiv, 369.
47 The earl of Midleton, Records and reactions 1856-1939 (London, 1939), p. 61.
48 Churchill to Wainwright, 9 June 1884 (RCHL 1/3/424).
49 Hansard 3, cclxxxviii, 855.
50 Ibid., cclii, 1322.
51 Ibid., cclxxxviii, 855—7.
52 Sam Clark, The social composition of the Land Leaerue1, in I.H.S., xvii, no. 68 (Sept. 1971), pp 455—69.
53 The Times, 9 Oct. 1884.
54 Compare, for example, the duke’s speech in the lords (Hansard 3, ccxxxv, 1309—10) with his son’s speech in the commons (ibid., ccliii, 1651).
55 Ibid., eclvii, 363.
56 Ibid., eclxxiv, 613—4.
57 The Times, 21 May 1885.
58 Churchill’s memorandum on events in 1885, written c. 1889 and published in Winston Churchill, Randolph Churchill, p. 328.
59 The Times, 4 June 1894.
60 Gorst to Churchill, 28 May 1885 (RCHL 1/5/618).
61 Churchill’s memorandum in Churchill, Winston, op. cit., p. 332.Google Scholar
62 Ibid.
63 Cooke & Vincent, pp 74—5.
64 Blunt, W. S., Gordon at Khartoum (London, 1911), pp 429—30.Google Scholar
65 Churchill, Winston, Randolph Churchill, p. 436.Google Scholar
66 Blunt, V. S.. The land war in Ireland (London, 1912), p. 9.Google Scholar
67 The Times, 25 Oct. 1887.
68 Ibid., 21 May, 4 June 1885.
69 D. C. Savage, ‘The origins of the Ulster Unionist party 1885—6’, in I.H.S., xii, no. 47 (March 1961), p. 191.
70 Hansard 3, ccxcix, 116—117.
71 The Times, 5 Sept. 1885.
72 Salisbury to Churchill, 6 Sept. 1885 (RCHL l/7/860a).
73 Churchill to Salisbury, 1 Oct. 1885 (Hatfield House, Salisbury papers).
74 Cooke, A. B. & Vincent, J. R., ‘Ireland and party politics 1885—71 an unpublished Conservative memoir’, in I.H.S., xvi, no. 62 (March 1968), p. 163.Google Scholar
75 Cooke & Vincent, p. 479, note 112.
76 Churchill, Winston, Randolph Churchill, p. 831.Google Scholar
77 The Times, 8 Oct. 1885.
78 Hamilton, Lord George, Parliamentary reminiscences and reflections 1886-1906 (London, 1922), p. 20.Google Scholar
79 Hansard3, ccxcix, 1098—9.
80 Cooke & Vincent, p. 276.
81 Churchill, Winston, Randolph Churchill, p. 355.Google Scholar
82 Salisbury to Carnarvon, 22 July 1885, printed in SirHardinge, A., The life of Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, fourth earl of Carnarvon, 3 vols (London, 1925) iii, 170.Google Scholar
83 See, for example, the speeches by Marlborough (Hansard 3, ccxxxv, 1309, and the speeches by Spencer (ibid., cclif, 85—9 and ibid., cclxi, 389).
84 SirRoss Bt., John, The years of my pilgrimage (London, 1924), p. 177.Google Scholar
85 James, R. R., Randolph Churchill, p. 211.Google Scholar
86 Churchill to Fitzgibbon, 14 Oct. 1885 (RCHL 1/8/978).
87 Duchess of Marlborough to Corry, n.d. (Disraeli papers, B/xx/Ch/87.)
88 Churchill to Salisbury, Nov. 1885 (RCHL 1/10/1126).
89 Churchill to Morris, 7 Dec. 1885 (RCHL 1/10/1145).
90 Churchill to Salisbury, 10 Dec. 1885 (Salisbury papers).
91 Cooke & Vincent, pp 41— 2.
92 The Tunes, 7 Nov. 1885.
93 Churchill to Salisbury, 29 Nov. 1885 (Salisbury papers).
94 The Tunes, 15 Feb. 1886.
95 See, for example: The Times, 4 March 1886; also, Churchill to Salisbury. 17 April 1886 (RCHL 1/10 1480a) and Churchill to Hartington, 19 June 1886 (RCHL l/13/1537a).
96 Gooke & Vincent, p. 77.
97 Hansard 3, cciv, 1317.
98 Churchill, Winston, Randolph Chiurhill pp 858—62.Google Scholar
99 The Time, 15 Feb. 1886, and Churchill to Hartinijlon, 19 June 1886 (RCHL l/13/1537a).
l00 Churchill to the duchess of Marlborough, 17 June 1886 (RCHL 1/13/1532).
101 Churchill to Morris, 9 June 1886, printed in Wynne, Maud, An Irishman and his family (London, 1937), p. 115.Google Scholar
102 The Times, 4 Oct. 1886.
103 The Queen to Salisbury, 25 Nov. 1886, printed in The letters of Queen Victoria, third series, ed. Buckle, G. E. (London, 1930), i. 225—6.Google Scholar
104 Churchill to Akers-Douglas, 1 Jan. 1887, printed in Churchill, Winston, Randolph Churchill, p. 640.Google Scholar
105 Hansard 3, cccx, 288.
106 Churchill to Morris. 2 Jan. 1887, printed in Wynne, , An Irishman, p. 118.Google Scholar
107 Hansard 3, cccx, 289.
108 Hurst, M. C., Joseph Chamberlain and Liberal reunion: the Round Table Conference of 1887 (London, 1967), p. 256.Google Scholar
109 Ibid., p. 114.
110 Hansard 3, cccx, 289.
111 The Times, 16 Dec. 1887.
112 Churchill, Winston, Randolph Churchill, pp 862—3.Google Scholar
113 See, for example, The Times, 8, 15, 23 & 27 May 1893.
114 Cooke & Vincent, p. 162.
115 The Times, 23 Feb. 1886.
116 The Belfast News Letter, 24 July 1877.
117 Hansard 3, cxii, 464.
118 The Belfast Mews Letter, 25 July 1877.
119 Macintyre, Angus, The Liberator, Daniel O’Connell and the Irish party 1830-47 (London, 1965), Appendix D.Google Scholar
120 The Times, 27 Sept. 1883.
121 Ibid., 2—8 Oct. 1883.
122 Lang, Andrew, Life, letters and diaries of Sir Stafford Northcote, first earl of Iddesleigh (London, 1891), p. 375.Google Scholar
123 Churchill to Salisbury, 16 Nov. 1885 (Salisbury papers).
124 Quinault, R. E., ‘The Fourth Party and the Conservative opposition to Bradlaugh’, Eng.HisL Rev. ccclix (April, 1976), pp 332—3.Google Scholar
125 House of Commons Divisions, 11 Feb. 1884.
126 Fizgibbon to Churchill, 11 Oct. 1883 (RCHL 1/2/181).
127 The Times, 17 Oct. 1883.
128 Rossmore, Lord, Things I can tell (London, 1912), pp 240—9Google Scholar, Hill to Churchill, 15 Jan. 1884 (RCHL 1/2).
129 The Times, 29 Ian. 1884.
130 Hansard 3, cclxxxiv, 370.
131 Ibid., 373.
132 Ibid., eclxxxviii, 858—9.
133 The Belfast news Letter, 21 May, 1884.
134 Savage, , ‘Origins of Ulster unionist party’, in I.H.S., xii, p. 191.Google Scholar
135 The Times, 5 Sept. 1885.
136 Churchill, Winston, Randolph Churchill, pp 356—7Google Scholar; James, , Randolph Churchill, p. 207 Google Scholar, Midleton, , Records and reactions, p. 64.Google Scholar
137 Hansard 3, ccxclx, 119—230.
138 Cooke & Vincent, p. 278.
l39 Ibid., p. 160.
140 Carnarvon to Churchill, 18 Sept. 1885 (RCHL 1/8/903).
141 Churchill to Salisbury, 16 Nov. 1885 (Salisbury papers).
142 The Times, 7 Nov. 1885.
143 Cooke & Vincent, p. 47.
144 Churchill to Salisbury, 16 Nov. 1885 (Salisbury papers).
145 G. Hamilton to Corry, 13 Sept. 1876 (Disraeli papers, B/xii/A/145).
146 The Times, 4 Oct. 1883.
147 Ibid., 2 April 1883.
148 Hansard 3, cclxxxviii. 862.
149 See RCHL 1/6/743 & 752—7. See also Savage, op. cit.
150 Cooke & Vincent, pp 296—7.
151 Lucas, Reginald, Colonel’Saunderson M.P. a memoir (London, 1908), pp 65-6.Google Scholar
152 Saunderson, Edward, Two Irelands, or loyalty versus treason (London 1883), p. 31.Google Scholar
153 Hansard 3, ccii 173.
154 Rossmore, , Things I can tell, pp 19, 38—9.Google Scholar
155 Hansard 3, ccii. 173.
156 Ibid, 167—8.
157 Lucas, Saunderson, pp 94—6.
158 Ibid., p. 96.
159 Cooke & Vincent, p. 77.
160 The Belfast News Letter, 16 Nov. 1885.
161 Beach to Churchill, 12 Feb. 1886 (RCHL 1/12 1376).
162 The Times, 22 Feb. 1886. Rossmore, , Things I can tell, p. 260.Google Scholar
163 The Times, 23 Feb. 1886 and 27 Nov. 1885. D.N.B., William Johnston (1829—1902).
164 The Times, 23 Feb. 1886.
165 Ibid., 16 Feb. 1886.
166 Ibid., 23 Feb. 1886.
167 Salisbury to Churchill, 24 Feb. 1886 (RCHL 1/12 1390a).
168 The Times, 23 Feb. 1886.
169 Churchill, Winston, Randolph Churchill, pp 478—9.Google Scholar
170 The Times, 8 May, 1886.
171 Martin, Ralph G., Lady Randolph Churchill (London, 1974), i. 29.Google Scholar
172 Cooke & Vincent, p 77.
173 Churchill, Winston, Randolph Churchill, pp 858—62.Google Scholar
174 Saunderson to Churchill, 25 June 1886 (RCHL 1/13/1549).
175 Churchill to Saunderson, 28 June 1886, printed in Lucas, Saunderson, pp 104—5.
176 Saunderson to Churchill, 10 Aug. 1886 (RCHL 1/14 1653).
177 Saunderson to Churchill, 12 Jan. 1887 (RCHL 1/19/2333).
178 Lucas, Saunderson, p. 120.
179 Ibid., p. 124.
180 Hansard3, viii, 1625—6.
181 The Times, 7 April 1893.
182 Churchill to Fitzgibbon, 30 April 1893, printed in Churchill, Winston, Randolph Churchill, p. 808.Google Scholar
183 Lack of space has prevented attention being paid to all aspects of Churchill’s policy. I hope to rectify this in a subsequent study.
184 Cooke & Vincent, p. xiii.
185 Ibid., p. 166.
186 Ibid., p. 161.
187 Ibid., p. 162.
188 Ibid., p. xiii.
189 Ibid., p. 438
190 Ibid., p. 431. The Times, 3 June 1886.
191 The Times, 4 June 1885.
192 Both sides of the home rule question, p. 27.