England’s Stand For Union

 The Irish Question

In the period known as “The Dark Ages” the islands of Britain and Ireland were occupied by tribes, organised to a greater or lesser extent for the purposes of trading, or fighting, with each other. Whereas the tribes in Britain eventually coalesced into the nations of England, Scotland and Wales, Ireland remained divided. During the course of one of the wars between the Irish petty kingdoms, one of the kings invited a group of Norman knights from Wales to fight for him as mercenaries. They were so successful at this that they overthrew the Irish king and set themselves up as rulers of the land. King Henry II of England was their feudal overlord, and he was determined that they should not set themselves up as an independent power in their newly-won territories. He went to Ireland in 1171 and forced the Norman barons to acknowledge their allegiance to him. Thus, Ireland came under the rule of the King of England.

Throughout most of the Middle Ages the Kings of England did not assert their power in Ireland. During the English dynastic struggle known as the Wars of the Roses the FitzGerald family, the most powerful family in Ireland, had offered support to the Yorkist faction. This worried the Tudor monarchs who were thus prompted to establish their power in Ireland on a more systematic basis than ever before. At the same time the Reformation which took place throughout europe led to wars of religion in many parts of the continent. The premier Roman Catholic power, Spain, led the attempt to crush the newly-emerging Protestant states, to whom England was giving both material and moral support.

After the failure of a Spanish attempt to invade England, the Spanish decided to give military support to Irish rebels against the Tudor monarchy. The Spanish-Irish alliance was defeated at the Siege of Kinsale in the first days of 1602, but in later years Irish disaffection with English rule meant that England’s enemies would often seek to foment and support rebellions in Ireland. After the rebellion of 1798 the British Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, conceived the idea of a union between the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. It was hoped that this would bring better government to Ireland and allow Ireland to benefit from closer commercial links with Great Britain. The Act of Union came into effect on 1st January 1801.

Within a few years there was a great campaign to remove various legal disabilities from those citizens of both islands who did not adhere to the established church. The Roman Catholic protest was led by an Irish politician called Daniel O’Connell, and the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act was passed in 1829. Not satisfied with this, O’Connell moved on to agitate for the repeal of the Union. O’Connell did not achieve this, but after his death a Protestant barrister named Isaac Butt founded a movement that eventually became the Irish Nationalist Party. This party campaigned for the election to the Imperial Parliament at Westminster of MP’s who would argue for repeal of the Union. The General Election of 1874 was the first election where members of this party were returned to Westminster.

At the same time that Irish Nationalists were seeking to use parliamentary methods of securing Repeal there was, in many rural parts of Ireland, a form of banditry and terrorism pursued by organisations which were often oath-bound and secretive. They attempted to attack the established order through methods such as arson, the slaughter of cattle, and even assassination. It was often felt by those who opposed Repeal that the Irish Nationalist MP’s were too close to these gangs to be considered valid democratic representatives.

Throughout the 1800’s various British politicians sought to address Irish Nationalist grievances in the form of education, tenant rights, and local government. None tried harder than William Ewart Gladstone, leader of the Liberal Party, to appease Irish Nationalism. The disestablishment of the Protestant Church of Ireland was one such measure, by an Act of Parliament brought about by Gladstone in 1869.

1886: Gladstone’s First Home Rule Bill

Towards the close of 1885 there was a General Election the result of which left Gladstone and the Liberals as the largest single party, but dependent on the Irish Nationalists, now led by the aggressive Charles Stewart Parnell, for a majority. It seemed likely that Parnell would demand a high price for his support.

It was just as likely that any weakening of the Union would be resisted by the Conservative Party, led by Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, the third Marquess of Salisbury. At the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, held on 9th November, he had said, “The traditions of our party are known. The integrity of the Empire is more precious to us than any possession that we can have. We are bound by motives not only of expediency, not only of legal principle, but by motives of honour, to protect the minority, if such exist, who have fallen into unpopularity and danger because they have followed or been the instruments of the policy England has deliberately elected to pursue. Within these lines any English government is bound to do all that it possibly can to give prosperity, contentment and happiness to the Irish people.”

On 17th December 1885 a letter from Gladstone’s son, Herbert, was published in The Times. In it, he said that “with safeguards for the unity of the Empire, the authority of the Crown and the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament” his father “was prepared to take office with a view to the creation of an Irish Parliament to be entrusted with the management of all legislative and administrative affairs, securities being taken for the representation of minorities and for an equitable partition of all imperial charges”. The Prime Minister may not have been aware that his plans were going to be made so public, and he was worried that a premature disclosure of his intentions towards Ireland would make his task far more difficult. He announced that “the statement is not an accurate representation of my views and is, I presume, a speculation upon them”.

A fast-rising star of the Conservative Party was Lord Randolph Churchill, who saw an opportunity of mobilising Protestant opinion in Ulster and Lancashire to block any Home Rule measure by Gladstone. Churchill spent Christmas 1885 in Howth, consulting his Irish contacts. One of these arranged a meeting between Churchill and Major (later Colonel) Edward James Saunderson, MP for North Armagh and a prominent leader in the Orange Order. Churchill had on one occasion referred to “those foul Ulster Tories”. Saunderson responded by telling Churchill that “there is one member of Her Majesty’s Government we don’t trust, Lord Randolph, and that is yourself”. Nevertheless, the two recognised the need to make common cause. By the time the Home Rule crisis had run its course there were to be many more drastic political realignments.

On 30th December, Saunderson predicted armed resistance and a civil war if Gladstone should offer the Irish Nationalists a deal on Home Rule for Ireland. On 21st January Churchill approached Saunderson about undertaking a speaking engagement in Ulster, and by early February plans had been finalised for Churchill to visit Belfast. There were many features of the struggle over the First Home Rule Bill which recurred on subsequent occasions. Saunderson, for instance, on 29th January 1886, at Chester, said that it was the British people who “could finally settle this question”. Opponents of subsequent Home Rule measures were to repeat the insistence that these bills should be put before the British electorate for a final decision.

The Chester meeting was organised by Saunderson in conjunction with the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union and the Duke of Westminster in order to “find out how far the Whigs will go with us”. At this meeting Conservatives combined with representatives of both the Whig and Radical wings of the Liberal Party to present a display of Unionism that transcended party. Between the meeting at Chester and Churchill’s visit to Belfast, Saunderson spoke in Sheffield and Edinburgh.

Meanwhile Gladstone formed his government on 1st February. He announced that he would “examine whether it is or is not practicable to comply with the desire … for the establishment … of a legislative body, to sit in Dublin and to deal with Irish as distinguished from imperial affairs”. In order to allay any suspicions of his true intent he hinted that this would be no more than a development of local government in Ireland. It may be that the opposition he was worried about came not so much from the Conservative Party, but was within his own Liberal Party.

At this point a sectarian note was introduced by William Joseph Walsh, the newly-installed Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin. Walsh was known to hold extreme Nationalist opinions and, in his promotion of Roman Catholic education in Ireland, was perceived to be threatening the position of Trinity College, which had a Protestant ethos.

On 13th February 1886, Lord Randolph Churchill spoke at Paddington and Walsh was squarely in his demonology. Churchill said, -

England will not leave the Protestants of Ireland in the lurch …They are essentially like the English people, a dominant and an imperial caste. It  was only Mr Gladstone – it was only the insanity which was engendered by the monstrous and unparalleled combination of verbosity and senility – it was only Mr Gladstone who could for a moment imagine the Protestants of Ireland would yield obedience to the law, would recognise the powers  or would satisfy the demands of a parliament in Dublin – a parliament of which Mr Parnell would be the chief speaker and Archbishop Walsh the chief priest.

Churchill accused Gladstone of harbouring a policy of Repeal which would force the Protestants of Ireland into a civil war where they could only be “conquered by force of arms”. Churchill said that, in his forthcoming visit to Belfast, he would assure the Protestants that “there were hundreds of thousands of English hearts, and also hands, ready when the moment of real trial came”.

Churchill was subsequently criticised for these statements by a Roman Catholic Conservative peer at a meeting at the Carlton Club on 19th February. Saunderson sprang to Churchill’s defence, saying, “All Protestants might now be considered to be ranged on one side of the question, and all Catholics on the other”. Churchill subsequently wrote a public letter to a Roman Catholic worried about the introduction of sectarianism into the debate, saying that, in Ireland, Roman Catholics had full freedom and that “all vestiges of Protestant ascendancy have been swept away”. But he alleged that religious differences had been inflamed by the alliance between Archbishop Walsh and the Nationalists. Churchill went on to say that Repeal would mean “the most bitter and terrible oppression of Protestants by Catholics”, and, “What wonder that I as a Protestant should cast in my lot with my co-religionists in Ireland?”

Walsh may have been trying to stir up religious strife. On 17th February, along with several other Roman Catholic bishops, Walsh pronounced in favour of Home Rule, along with land nationalisation and the suspension of all evictions. At the end of February the Duke of Norfolk, England’s foremost Roman Catholic layman, addressed a meeting of the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union at which he said that the action of the Irish bishops had caused him “special grief and shame”.

Meanwhile, Churchill continued his preparations for his trip to Belfast. On 16th February, he wrote to his friend Lord Justice Fitzgibbon, “I decided some time ago that if the GOM (Gladstone) went for Home Rule, the Orange card would be the one to play. Please God it may turn out the ace of trumps and not the two”.

On the same day Churchill had been host to a dinner with Salisbury at which the party leader expressed himself as forcefully as Churchill had done. After dinner Salisbury said “No doubt the blow will have to be struck, and if so the sooner it is struck the better.” Sir Henry James, a former Liberal Attorney-General, asked what “the blow” meant, to which Salisbury replied, “Oh, both in the House and out of it.” James said: “That means civil war”, to which Salisbury answered, “I think not, but if it does, I cannot help it. We must not desert the loyal people of Ulster. No doubt much has been done we may all regret, but it is not too late yet to save the battle.” James observed that Salisbury had clearly adopted a “put-your-foot-down-policy” on Ireland.

The following day Salisbury delivered a speech, his first as Leader of the Opposition, at the Hotel Metropole on Northumberland Avenue, to a large dinner given for the four Hertfordshire Conservative MPs. Salisbury told the gathering that his ministry had fallen because they were about to insist upon “a strict obedience to the law and of exterminating every organisation that pretended to set up its authority

against the Queen’s government”. He predicted that the Home Rule Bill would “bristle with securities” for the Protestants, but that these would be no more than a “paper barricade” because “once set up a legislature at Dublin … will make an independent nation”. Going further he said that, “In time of war you will have on your western side an island controlled, filled, possibly prepared and equipped, by a Government that hates you bitterly.” He said that the Loyalists of Ireland were threatened with “absolute slavery” under a Parnell government, and that they faced ruin because, “they had the folly to

take your side”. It was not a question of loss, embarrassment or perplexity “which we have to meet. We have to meet something that is infinitely more dreadful, and that is dishonour”.   

Encouraged by Salisbury’s unambiguous stand, Churchill commenced his visit to Ulster on 22nd February when he landed at Larne where, it is said, he was “welcomed like a king,” and first used the phrase “Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right”. He departed for Belfast by rail and his train stopped at Carrickfergus where the crowd gathered to greet him was so large that they filled the platforms and spilled over on to the railway lines.

At Belfast, more cheering crowds met him at York Street Station, and a reporter described him “looking quietly at the crowd, forming his own impression of what he saw”. In the evening he addressed a packed Ulster Hall for an hour and a half. Chairs had been removed to accommodate the large numbers gathered, and several local speakers spoke first. Churchill reminded his audience that his great ancestor, the first Duke of Marlborough, had been a general of William of Orange.

Churchill once again attacked the Roman Catholic threat to Trinity College. He reminded his audience of the massacres of Protestants in 1641, and accused Parnell of wanting to establish a dictatorial and unrepresentative regime. He was careful to avoid accusing all Roman Catholics of being disloyal. He said he did not wish to stir up religious strife and that, “from an English point of view” resistance to Home Rule did not depend on adherence to any creed, but he did challenge all loyal Roman Catholics to oppose their clergy’s support of the National League. If, he said, loyal Roman Catholics would not stand with their Protestant allies, then he would have no alternative but to confine his hopes to the latter, “and essentially to the Protestants of the great province of Ulster”. If the fate of Ulster’s Protestants was to be left in their own hands, they should remember “no surrender”, and give practical meaning to the “forms and ceremonies” of Orangeism. The crisis may pass, and for the moment they may confine themselves to orderly demonstrations; but “if my calculations should turn out to be wrong, then I am not of the opinion, and I have never been of the opinion, that this struggle is likely to remain within the lines of what we are accustomed to look upon as constitutional action”.

His speech swelled to a climax, -

Her Majesty’s Government hesitates … Like Macbeth before the murder of Duncan, Mr Gladstone asks for time. Before he plunges the knife into the heart of the British Empire he reflects, he hesitates…Diligence and vigilance ought to be your watchword; so that the blow, if it does come, may not come upon you as a thief in the night and may not find you unready and taken by surprise … If it should turn out that the Parliament of the United Kingdom … was to hand over the Loyalists of Ireland to the domination of an Assembly in Dublin which must be to them a foreign and an alien assembly … I do not hesitate to tell you most truly, that in that dark hour there  will not be wanting to you those of position and influence in England who would be willing to cast in their lot with you and who, whatever the result, will share your fortunes and your fates.

He ended his speech with a paraphrase of Hohenlinden : 

The combat deepens; on ye brave, 

Who rush to glory or the grave                                                                                                                  

Wave, Ulster, all thy banners wave,                                                                                                                

And charge with all thy chivalry.

This elicited a huge roar of applause from his audience. That was not the conclusion of the meeting. Saunderson evoked memories of the Battle of the Boyne, and William Johnston MP pledged to fight in a Protestant army.

On 9th May Churchill wrote a public letter to a Glasgow Liberal Unionist and repeated the phrase he had first used in Larne: “If political parties and political leaders … should be so utterly lost to every feeling and dictate of honour and courage as to hand over coldly, and for the sake of purchasing a short and illusory parliamentary tranquillity, the lives and liberties of the loyalists of Ireland to their hereditary and most bitter foes, make no doubt on this point; Ulster at the proper moment will resort to the supreme arbitrament of force; Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right.”

Around this time there was a campaign in the Liberal press to have Churchill arrested for incitement, but bellicose talk was becoming common currency in the Home Rule debate. By May, Ulster leaders were preparing to raise a force of 100,000 men, and there were rumours that Viscount Wolseley, one of Britain’s premier soldiers, would bring over 1,000 British officers to lead them. Admiral Lord Charles Beresford declared that he would resign from the Royal Navy rather than act against Ulster. An exchange of correspondence between Saunderson and Colonel Lewis Dabney hinted that the latter was mobilising a loyalist militia in Yorkshire.    

Unionists contemplating recourse to physical force methods of resistance to Home Rule did so only as a last, extreme, line of defence. As early as the end of January Unionists from both the north and the south of Ireland were co-operating in extending to Great Britain a vigorous propaganda campaign on behalf of the union and against Gladstone and Home Rule. They distributed literature, addressed conservative associations, and spoke on behalf of conservative candidates at by-elections, largely organised by The Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union.

Meanwhile the “big guns” of Unionism kept up a barrage of speech-making across Great Britain. After his speech in Belfast, Churchill was deluged with requests to speak at Conservative meetings. One such was in Manchester on 2nd March, where he coined the term “the Unionist Party” to cover all the groups opposed to Home Rule, and this term rapidly gained a wide usage. The next day Salisbury spoke at a dinner of 1,300 at the Crystal Palace, where he said, “the worst government in the world is the government by priests”, and described the Roman Catholic Church has having, “wantonly descended” into the political arena, despite the presence at the dinner of the Duke of Norfolk. Salisbury was referring to the support for the militant National League by a number of Roman Catholic priests, and it is probable that, given what he had already said, the Duke of Norfolk was not likely to have disagreed.

Gladstone carried on working on the preparation of the Home Rule Bill. Aware of mounting opposition within his own Liberal Party, he drafted the bill with minimal consultation. When Harcourt finally saw it on 7th March he called Gladstone a “criminal lunatic”. It was only on 13th March that the cabinet was allowed to see an outline of the bill. A Land Bill was presented, which called for £120 million to buy out landowners. Joseph Chamberlain, the President of the Local Government Board, immediately asked what kind of authority was envisaged to manage the fund, and Gladstone replied, “a separate Parliament with full powers to deal with all Irish affairs”. On 15th March Chamberlain and Trevelyan tendered their resignations, but were persuaded to withhold them until the details of the Bill would be made known, which came at a Cabinet meeting on 26th March.

Chamberlain leaned forward and put four questions to Gladstone:

1. Was Irish representation at Westminster to cease ?

2. Was the power of taxation, including customs and excise, to be given to the Irish legislature ?

3. Was the appointment of judges and magistrates to vest in the Irish authority ?

4. Was the Irish legislature to have authority in every matter not specifically excluded by the Act constituting it or only in matters specifically delegated to it by statute ?

Gladstone answered, “Yes” to every question. “Then”, said Chamberlain, “I resign”, and immediately walked out of the room, accompanied by Trevelyan, the Secretary of State for Scotland. Harcourt described this cabinet meeting as “by far the most disagreeable (he had) ever seen”.  

Significantly, Chamberlain hurried round to Churchill’s house at Connaught Place to give him the details of Gladstone’s bill ! The Conservatives had become aware that Chamberlain had stubbornly set his face against Home Rule, and Churchill had been the go-between to ensure that a cross-party opposition to Home Rule would be co-ordinated. Chamberlain had become one of the most prominent and influential politicians in Britain, he had built a political base in Birmingham that was unrivalled for its level of organisation, and he had been the standard-bearer of the Radical (or left-wing) faction in the Liberal Party. Churchill had a similar role in the Conservative Party, though he carried far less weight than Chamberlain. Churchill had placed himself at the head of a group within the Conservative Party that had such an independence of thought and action that it had been termed “the Fourth Party”, and, as a leading proponent of “Tory Democracy”, he had more common ground with Chamberlain than a more traditional landed, aristocratic Tory would have had.    

Co-operation between Unionists of all parties became more and more organised. Contemplating the procedure a Home Rule Bill would have to go through in Parliament, both Chamberlain and Hartington, both major figures in the Liberal Unionists, wanted to follow Gladstone in the House of Commons debate immediately after the Prime Minister had spoken. Churchill, with an instinctive feel for the mood of the Commons, wrote to Salisbury on 7th April, -

 … from my knowledge of the House of Commons under the Gladstone spell, if the Angel Gabriel was to follow the GOM tomorrow nobody would report him or care a damn what he said. By Friday morning all the glamour will have disappeared and the Hartington brandy and soda will be relished as a remedy for the intoxication of the previous evening… 

On the 8th April Gladstone introduced his Bill to the House of Commons. That very morning Salisbury and Chamberlain met in the Turf Club to discuss tactics.

In the afternoon Gladstone drove from Downing Street to Westminster, cheered by enthusiastic crowds who were undeterred by pouring rain. The chamber was “crammed to suffocation from floor to ceiling”. Gladstone spoke for three hours and twenty-five minutes and was at the very height of his powers and spoke brilliantly. His supporters became more and more excited, while the spirits of the opposition sank, particularly the Liberal Unionists. Churchill’s assessment had been correct.

Gladstone’s opponents had plans for a co-ordinated opposition. In the early stages of the debate dissident Liberals weighed in first. Hartington, Goschen, and Sir Henry James all spoke against the Bill on the grounds that it would mean the end of the United Kingdom and weaken the ties that bound the Empire together. By far the most effective speaker was Joseph Chamberlain, who had ambitions to make the British Empire a single unit for both commerce and government. Having developed his plans for an imperial federation to such an advanced stage he was able to illustrate persuasive alternatives to Gladstone’s plans.  

As the debate went on the Conservatives began to speak up. Hicks Beach said,   

When all other countries in the world are consolidating their resources, when our most remote Colonies are endeavouring to draw together in closer Union with the Mother Country, we should be asked to take the first step in splitting up the very kernel around which our great Empire is formed, and dividing, for legislative and administrative purpose the two islands that have been so closely associated hitherto. That is a step backward in the history of this country.

Anticipating the “west Lothian question” of more recent times he went on, “Irish Members are to be absolutely deprived of all that in which certainly they have hitherto a very intelligent and powerful interest, and to which, I must say, they have quite as much right as the inhabitants of any other part of the United Kingdom.”

Although the contest had now moved to the House of Commons it continued in the country at large. There was a huge struggle going on for the heart and mind of the Liberal Party. Chamberlain was able to preserve his power base in Birmingham, where he won an overwhelming vote of confidence on April 21st, but outside the city the Liberal Federation seemed to be rallying to Gladstone, passing numerous resolutions of unbounded confidence in their leader.

In view of the necessity to keep up the pressure on Gladstone Unionist rallies continued throughout the country. One such took place at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London’s Haymarket on 14th April. It seemed that all the leading figures of London Society were there, with the Duchess of Marlborough and Lady Randolph Churchill taking parties to their private boxes. Salisbury, Hartington, and Lord Cowper spoke but Churchill was unable to be present. His letter extending his apologies for his absence was read out, and the resulting cheers were a demonstration of Churchill’s popularity. Salisbury spoke again at St James’s Hall on 15th May. Responding to a call for “three cheers for Lord Salisbury, and three cheers for Ulster”, Salisbury said that Irish loyalists would be justified in using violence to defend themselves.

Gladstone sensed he was losing support within his own party and summoned a party meeting at the Foreign Office on 27th May. He sought to persuade his hearers that the vote on the second reading would be merely to establish the principle of the measure; the Bill would then be withdrawn and the more controversial sections amended. In the prevailing atmosphere such meetings soon became known to the opposing side, and Churchill thought that Gladstone’s ploy might very well win back some of the less committed Liberal Unionists. To counter this he persuaded the Conservative Party to force a debate in the Chamber. After questions, Hicks Beach rose to move an adjournment to consider the Government’s intentions on the Bill. When the Speaker asked for the necessary forty Members in support of the motion, every Conservative rose to his feet amidst cheering and laughter.   

Hicks Beach began by accusing Gladstone of asking the House to pass an indefinite measure which amounted to nothing more or less than a “continuance in office” bill. Gladstone had, and still has, many admirers, but nobody admired him as much as he admired himself. His egotism was now to lead to his undoing, as Churchill had planned that it would. Gladstone rebuked Beach for the tone of his attack and, amidst mounting uproar on both sides, said,

   … The Right Honourable Gentleman says that we are going to give an indefinite vote and that the Bill is to be remodelled. I think that happy word is a pure invention. I am not aware that there is a shadow or shred of authority for any such statement.   

Lord Randolph Churchill: Reconstructed.

Mr Gladstone: The noble lord says “reconstructed” was the word. It  is quite true that the word “reconstructed” was used.

There was a roar of laughter from the Conservatives who derided Gladstone for trying to construct an argument on the difference between “remodelled” and “reconstructed”. This stung Gladstone to further heights of self-righteous pomposity, -

Mr Gladstone: What confidence the gentlemen who use these means of opposition must have in the rectitude of their own cause and the far-seeing character of their own statesmanship ! (Home Rule cheers) The word “reconstructed” was used. Does the noble lord dare to say it was used with respect to the Bill ?

Lord Randolph Churchill: Yes.  

Mr Gladstone: Never ! Never ! It was used with respect to one particular clause of the Bill. (Cheers, and cries of “Oh”.) This grand attack, founded upon the fact that our Bill was to be remodelled therefore fails. What a woeful collapse! It it not the Bill that is to be remodelled, it appears, after all. (Home Rule cheers and laughter) …

Gladstone’s plan to win back the wavering Liberals had thus been destroyed by his own words, goaded from him by Churchill’s brilliantly conceived ambush. The waverers were won back to the Unionist fold, the Conservatives were exultant, and Lord Randolph sat across from Gladstone with a huge grin on his face. Gladstone realised his mistake and began to lose the thread of his argument. When he concluded his speech Churchill rose to deliver the coup de grace.

Churchill claimed that the House was being “jockeyed”, and mocked the “noble motives” of Gladstone as “Vote for anything you like; you are committed to nothing”.

“Oh no,” said Gladstone.

“What ?” said Lord Randolph, with theatrical incredulity, “Then they are committed !”

“Certainly,” said Gladstone, who was now thoroughly nettled.

Churchill had conceived, orchestrated, and delivered the Parliamentary demolition of Gladstone’s first Home Rule Bill. Late on the evening of 7th June Gladstone rose to wind up the debate. When he had finished the House immediately divided. Ninety-three Liberals voted against the Bill, and it was defeated by 343 votes to 313. Gladstone’s Government fell, precipitating a General Election.

Churchill’s election address to the electors of Paddington was published on 20th June. He pulled no punches, -

Mr Gladstone has reserved for his closing days a conspiracy against the honour of Britain and the welfare of Ireland more startlingly base and nefarious than any of those other more numerous designs and plots which, during the last quarter of  a century, have occupied his imagination … 

Gladstone’s failed Bill was described as, -

… this design for the separation of Ireland from Britain … this monstrous mixture of imbecility, extravagance, and political hysterics … furnished by its author with the most splendid attributes and clothed in the loftiest language …this farrago of superlative nonsense … The united and concerted genius of Bedlam and Colney Hatch would strive in vain to produce a more striking tissue of absurdities …

There was a convention that peers should play no part in elections to the House of Commons. Salisbury deemed the situation to be so dangerous that he disregarded this convention. He began his campaign by addressing a crowd of several thousands at Hatfield. He worked closely with Hartington, a leader of the Liberal Unionists, and on 14th August they appeared together at Her Majesty’s Theatre in the Haymarket. There was such a large attendance that the doors were opened half an hour early. Lady Ponsonby, a Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen, attended and discreetly had her carriage parked some way from the theatre. Salisbury once again conjured up the spectre of a threat to the Empire, and said that “there is no middle term between government at Westminster and independent and separate government at Dublin”. Lady Ponsonby’s report to the Queen must have been very favourable as Victoria soon after threw constitutional caution to the winds and ordered Salisbury to arrange many more such “admirable” events.  

Salisbury used all of his authority in the Conservative Party to ensure that all but six of the ninety-three Liberal Unionist MP’s had no Conservative candidate running against them in their constituencies. In the General Election the Liberals who supported Gladstone were reduced to 192 MP’s, with Irish Nationalists at 85, a total of 277 for Home Rule. Conservatives, meanwhile, had 316 MP’s returned, and with the support of 77 MPs returned as Liberal Unionists there was a total of 393 in favour of preserving the Union.

The story of the campaign against the first Home Rule Bill has several very clear strands running through it. Although the campaign was to preserve Ireland as a whole from being lost to the Union, the position of Ulster had already started to look rather unique. There were preparations to raise a force of 100,000 men to resist the Bill, by force if necessary, and there were supporters in Great Britain prepared to assist in the arming of that force, or even going to Ulster to fight themselves. This clearly foreshadowed later Home Rule crises, but this aspect of Unionism did not develop to the extent it did later because the political strength of Unionism was sufficient to kill the Bill within a few months.

Although the Unionists of the south of Ireland did not have the numerical strength of their Ulster colleagues, they were wealthy, well-connected, and able to mount a very effective propaganda campaign to put over the Unionist cause in Great Britain. The Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union was primarily a body of southern Unionists, and was very effective in arguing the Unionist cause in Britain. In 1886 the ILPU prepared and circulated one million copies of 164 leaflets, half a million copies of larger publications – posters, pamphlets and maps, - and 91,500 copies of a weekly bulletin of Irish affairs, Notes from Ireland. In the General Election the ILPU had 43 speakers in 86 of the most important English and 12 of the most important Welsh constituencies. A separate staff of 10 speakers worked in the Scottish constituencies. Edward Saunderson appreciated the need for a vigorous propaganda campaign in Britain, and worked tirelessly there. He called on the resources of Unionists from all parts of Ireland in that campaign, which he orchestrated with great skill.

The southern Unionists were, to a great extent, inter-married with the aristocracy of Great Britain so that they formed a single class. At a time in history when the aristocracy still had great political influence, this was a source of strength for the Unionists. As an example we may consider Spencer Crompton Cavendish, the eighth Duke of Devonshire (1833-1908). Cavendish had first been returned to the House of Commons as a Liberal MP in 1857 and he served in several Liberal governments, including the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland between 1870 and 1874. In 1883 his father owned 198,572 acres in the UK, including 32,550 in county Cork and 27,483 in county Waterford. His Irish residence was Lismore Castle in county Waterford. His younger brother, Lord Frederick Cavendish, had been cruelly butchered by Irish Nationalist terrorists in 1882. This family tragedy reinforced his opposition to Gladstone’s Irish policy, which smacked of appeasement. As the Marquess of Hartington he took a prominent part in the opposition to Gladstone’s first Home Rule Bill. He succeeded as Duke of Devonshire in 1891 and moved to the Lords.   

There was no shortage of Unionist sentiment in Great Britain. The Marquess of Salisbury was the hugely authoritative embodiment of the Conservative Party’s Unionism. So long as he was in charge there would be no surrender there. Within the Liberal Party there were many of the Whig faction, such as Hartington, who opposed Gladstone’s policies, but the most influential of Gladstone’s Liberal opponents was the Radical Joseph Chamberlain. Chamberlain had built a very successful political career trying to improve the lot of the poorer people in Britain. He sought to do this through modernising measures applied to government at local and national level, and he wanted to extend this to Ireland to improve the lives of the people there. He was advocating better government for Ireland, not independence. He was also formulating a policy of federation for the entire British Empire, which would have been blown of course by a centrifugal measure such as Gladstone was proposing.

There was also Lord Randolph Churchill, Ariel to Salisbury’s Prospero. He was the essential conduit through which Salisbury and Chamberlain communicated when they were putting the Unionist alliance together, and his tactics and interventions in the Commons in the summer of 1886 wrecked Gladstone’s plans.   

An Uneasy Pause, 1886 - 1892

In 1931 Gwendolen Cecil wrote a biography of her father, “The Life of Robert, Marquess of Salisbury.” In this work she wrote of her father’s Unionism, “The original and determining personal factor in Lord Salisbury’s opposition to Home Rule was his overmastering sense of an honourable national obligation towards the minorities in Ireland – landholding, Protestant, and loyalist – who depended on English protection. Considerations of imperial security or of Ireland’s economic solvency came later.”

There were aspects of the Union which meant that its defence was of utmost importance to many of those who took an active interest in politics at the time. These included loyalty to the Crown, the Constitution, and the established Church; the defence of the British Empire; the maintenance of property rights; and a commitment to the preservation of social stability. These were cherished principles for many in Victorian Britain, and they were perceived as being under attack from all sides. Irish Home Rule was one such attack, and this meant that the defence of the Union struck a powerful chord with many.

In England the southern Irish Unionists were very popular. Colonel Sir Thomas Montgomery-Cuninghame, the 8th Baronet, described them thus: “though they have acquired much of the surface gaiety of the Celts, have not lost the sense of logic and proportion which they owe to their Scandinavian ancestors. Just enough of fancy to please, without the distortion of fact that is so bewildering.”

The Unionists were well aware that Gladstone was not likely to drop his commitment to Irish Home Rule. He was convinced he was a man of destiny, and he was determined to fulfil that destiny. This awareness meant that they were resolved not to drop their guard, or allow the disintegration of that alliance of interests that had served them so well. In the Government led by Salisbury between 1886 and 1892 the Liberal Unionists initially declined to take the positions offered to them. They continued to sit on the opposition benches, though supporting the Conservative Government. When, in December 1886, Churchill suddenly resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer, the position was offered to Goschen and he accepted. 

Saunderson made sure that the Unionists in Ireland did not forget the need to keep up their ties with their colleagues in Great Britain, placing great reliance on the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union to achieve this. From 1886 their representatives toured Britain distributing pamphlets and broadsheets and holding meetings, which were often enlivened by lantern slides. In 1891 the ILPU was superseded by the Irish Unionist Alliance.

Saunderson acquired a London home in Deanery Street, off Park Lane, and networked tirelessly in the House of Commons, strengthening old alliances and seeking to make new ones. In 1888 he spoke in at least fourteen different locations in Britain, ranging from Edinburgh to Brighton and from Cambridge to Bangor: the number of speeches which he delivered must have been several times this figure.

Saunderson took the trouble to get to know the English and understand what they responded to. He was a very popular speaker in England, as was shown when, in April 1890, Lord Mountedgcumbe, representing the National Union of Conservative Associations in Cornwall, wrote to the Chief Whip, “Our County Union of Conservative Associations is very anxious to get Colonel Saunderson to come down … will you kindly ask him about this”.

The flow of speakers was not all one way. Dublin Unionists held successful rallies on at least an annual basis. In 1887, for instance, Lord Hartington and George Goschen visited Dublin. As ever, one of the most conscientious Unionists was Joseph Chamberlain, who made several visits to Ulster, delivering speeches in Belfast and Coleraine. These enabled him to forge strong links with a number of highly talented Liberal Unionists in the Province, such as Thomas Sinclair, Thomas Andrews, and Robert Mageagh.

Largely at Chamberlain’s prompting, Conservative Central Office and the Liberal Unionist Association formed a Unionist Joint Committee. This organisation created an Irish Registration Department under the leadership of John Boraston, one of Chamberlain’s most trusted lieutenants. The Registration Department’s primary task was to improve Unionist electoral organisation in Ireland and make sure the Unionist vote could be maximised at elections. It was very well-funded and directed resources into Irish constituency associations, but oversight from the centre was thorough enough to ensure that the money was spent effectively. Visitations were carried out for this purpose and in May 1889 Boraston himself visited Ulster constituency associations where he audited their accounts and checked the adequacy of their registration work.

Senior Unionist figures continued to raise the issue of Home Rule, determined to keep it in the minds of the British electorate. Salisbury made a speech to a Conservative meeting in Exeter in April 1892, during which he once more voiced his belief that the Union was essential to the continued security of the Empire.

What is it that gives to this little island its commanding position ? Why is it that fleets from every nation, from every quarter of the globe, come into your ports; that the product of countless regions are subject to your industry; and that the manufactures which the industry of your people complete are carried to the furthest corners of the globe ? What is it that gives you this privileged position? It is that your flag floats over populations far more numerous and regions far vaster than your own and that upon the dominions of your sovereign the sun never sets (loud cheers). 

But when they see that, under the pressure of Irish disaffection, you have lost the nerve, or the fibre, or the manliness to uphold the integrity of your Empire, will they not apply the lesson to themselves and many of them say, “Now is the time for us to shake off this connection and stand alone and independent in the world”. Remember, there are vast regions and vast populations over which you rule by force, because your rule is mild and gentle, and over which you would not rule if your force was not believed in (cheers). I cannot conceal the deep apprehension with which I look to any falling or flinching on the part of this people during the trial which destiny has appointed to them. We are now at a point where, if we show qualities by which our ancestors attained the Empire, we may be thought worthy to retain it and hand it on.

But if we are deceived, if we allow ourselves to be deceived by hollow sentimental follies which are in reality only excuses for weakness and want  of courage, the day of our power will be set, and slowly we shall recede from that great position that was handed to us. If you fail in this trial, one by one the flowers will be plucked from the diadem of Empire and you will be reduced to depend on the resources of this small, over-populated island.”

Saunderson was spending so much time in London, cementing the Unionist alliance, that he risked being criticised by his constituents who felt neglected. He had to write to them on 7th June 1892 that,

“I am doing better work over here than I could be doing in Ireland. I should much rather be with you but I could not throw over the meetings on this side without very bad results.”

Saunderson was wise. A General Election took place during the summer of 1892. Irish Unionists campaigned vigorously in Great Britain for Unionist candidates, and Arthur Balfour, Salisbury’s nephew and Conservative MP for Hertford, made an uncompromising speech in Scotland. On 21st June 1892, D. L. Sprake, Conservative agent in the Accrington division, wrote to the Irish Unionist Alliance asking for help in his constituency, though in this case the majority was small and the Unionist defence was unsuccessful.

268 Conservatives and 45 Liberal Unionists were returned, giving a total 313 MPs for the Union. The Liberals returned 272 and, with the support of 81 Irish Nationalists, Gladstone could once again form a government, and once again he was dependent on Irish Nationalists to do so. Once again their price would be a Home Rule Bill for Ireland.

1892 - 1893: Gladstone’s Second Home Rule Bill

In anticipation of any move by Gladstone to bring forward another Home Rule Bill, the Unionists of Ulster staged a massive demonstration on 17th June 1892, a meeting too large even for the Ulster Hall, and which required a specially constructed pavilion to house it. This was followed on 23rd June by a convention in Dublin of the Unionists of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught.  

Gladstone formed his government in August 1892. The Unionists knew that he would introduce another Home Rule Bill at an early stage, and stepped up their opposition. Saunderson was ill, but still threw himself into the controversy with undiminished enthusiasm. Having gone to Bath with his wife to take the cure, he made a speech there. He then spoke in Glasgow and at the Non-Conformist Council in London. On 20th December he was back in Ireland, speaking at Lurgan, and on 16th March 1893 he was in Liverpool to address a large and enthusiastic gathering of his Orange brethren.

Salisbury foresaw that the relative strengths of the parties in the House of Commons meant that Unionists would have to place great reliance on the House of Lords to be their main line of defence. The Liberals would then be in the position of making Home Rule an issue of “peers versus people”. Salisbury began to prepare a defence of the House of Lords’ blocking powers. On 28th October 1892 he said to Alfred Austin,

The object I have in view is to make it evident either that the House of Lords has all the independent right necessary to a second chamber – if it is too weak for that, then to force men to face the fact that a stronger body must be substituted. What I dread is that the House of Lords should be bullied into allowing its independent right to become atrophied, while the name of the  second chamber remains to it – thus leaving the House of Commons in unchecked supremacy.

Salisbury contributed a long article entitled “Constitutional Revision”, for the November 1892 edition of the National Review. He derided Gladstone’s “motley” majority of thirty-eight as being dependent on the votes of a mere 765 electors scattered over the marginal seats, … “The decision therefore, in favour of Home Rule, has been given by 765 electors out of an electorate of 4,800,000,” and this was not enough to justify “the supreme abandonment” of the Irish Protestant community. He wrote that he would not allow Gladstone to force “the surrender of a race who … assumed their present position of danger to do our bidding, and whom we are commanding to exchange their present allegiance … for a new, untried, sinister jurisdiction which they abhor and despise. We are to cut our country in two and, in the smaller portion, we are to abandon a minority of our own blood and religion to the power of their ancient enemies, in spite of their bitter protest against the debasing and ruinous servitude to which we propose to leave them.” He argued that other democracies had written constitutions to check sudden, radical constitutional change, but in Britain only the House of Lords could oppose the Commons when a majority of MPs was determined to force through a controversial measure.

The First Reading of the new Home Rule Bill was moved on 13th February 1893. Gladstone had made changes from the last Bill, but it was still riddled with inconsistencies that its opponents were happy to point out. Since his glory days of opposition to the Bill of 1886 Lord Randolph Churchill had fallen out with his party, and had begun to show signs of serious illness. Of late he had been rehabilitated by Salisbury, and he threw himself energetically into the fight against the latest Bill. In early 1893 he embarked on a series of speeches against Home Rule, but on 17th February 1893 he rose to speak in the debate and the extent of his illness was soon obvious. His hands were shaking, he looked prematurely aged, and he had difficulty articulating his words. MPs on both sides of the House, who had known him in his prime, were horrified. Newer Members showed less respect, some walked out of the Chamber and others began talking loudly amongst themselves. Tim Healey, an Irish Nationalist and an opponent of Churchill’s, was so moved at the plight of an old adversary whom he nevertheless respected that he called out “Order ! Order !” to silence the disrespectful. Churchill turned weakly to Healey and said, “I thank the Honourable Gentleman.”

Although the Unionists had thus lost one of their champions, another was rising in his place. During the General Election campaign, on 27th June 1892, at a Conservative rally in Birkenhead, the young and precocious Frederick Edwin Smith was introduced as the son of his recently deceased father, who had been a pillar of the local Conservatives. Smith immediately made his mark. Referring to the Liberal candidate he said, -

Mr Lever, at any rate, was emphatically in favour of Home Rule. Mr Gladstone, not quite a generation ago, had emphatically said that Home Rule was a “path through crime and bloodshed to the dismemberment of the Empire”, but though Mr Gladstone had changed, Home Rule had not in the least degree changed. (Cheers, and some uproar.)

In Ireland, new organisations were coming into existence to meet the challenge of Home Rule. In February 1893 the Unionist Clubs movement was started, largely the work of the fourth Viscount Templetown, with the object of mobilising support at grass roots level. By the following May some 200 clubs had been formed in Ireland, and it was decided to extend the organisation to Great Britain.

Templetown led by example, and in June 1893 he visited London and Yorkshire. He spoke to the committee of the City Carlton Club and reported the “enthusiasm and sympathy of the members with the unionist cause in Ireland … highly gratifying”. The Balham and Upper Tooting Conservative Club played host to him and passed a “huge” vote of sympathy with Ulster Unionists, and they made Templetown a vice-president of the club. A luncheon party was held at Stepney, with several well-known MPs in attendance, and Templetown was given a “magnificent union jack … as a token of sympathy from the unionists of Stepney, in public meeting assembled”. A meeting of North Islington Conservatives promised help for the Unionist Clubs movement, and this may have sowed the seed of an idea in Templetown’s mind which he developed later; that of “twinning” Unionist Clubs in Ireland with Unionist associations in Great Britain. Templetown was guest at the Merchant Taylor’s dinner, replying to the toast of “The visitors”. He afterwards described his statement that the “Unionists of Ulster declined to be separated from the Queen and the union, or our civil and religious liberties,” as being “received in the only manner worthy of loyal Englishmen”. When, later, speaking to the Yorkshire Council of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations, he secured “most cordial promises” of help. Very soon the Unionist Clubs were sending a steady stream of Unionist speakers from Ireland to address their co-Unionists in Great Britain. At a meeting of the Unionist Clubs Council at the Central Hall, Belfast, on 8th August, Templetown was able to deliver a very encouraging report on the progress of the movement.

Another organisation, formed in March 1893, was the Ulster Defence Union. This was a more militant body, which prepared for armed resistance to Home Rule and under whose aegis Ulster Unionists began drilling and some rifles were imported. This organisation also found support in Great Britain, among retired army officers prepared to go to Ulster and join any fight that took place. One holder of the Victoria Cross said that “though now sixty-two” he would “be glad to join any mounted corps”. Salisbury had an aide named McDonnell, an Ulsterman, who himself volunteered to return to his native province to join this force. This must have impressed upon Salisbury the resolve of the Unionists, particularly those in Ulster.

Unionist preparations for armed resistance to Home Rule were not an impulsive rush to arms. Rather, they were preparations of a very last line of defence if all else failed. Concurrently, Unionists made full use of constitutional means. The leadership held a series of meetings across Great Britain to mobilise the Unionists in that part of the United Kingdom against Gladstone’s Bill.

Joseph Chamberlain spoke in London on 30th March and, on 29th April, in the Chamberlainite citadel of Birmingham, to the city’s Liberal Unionist Association. He advised the Ulstermen not to take up arms but to refuse to pay taxes levied by a parliament in Dublin.

The Duke of Devonshire spoke in Derby on 25th April and was similarly cautious about armed resistance, saying only that the Ulstermen would be “quite justified” in offering “passive resistance” to a Dublin parliament. Instead, he argued that Home Rule ought not to be enacted without another General Election in which the electorate would be fully informed of who stood where on Home Rule.

He also spoke in Glasgow on the 27th May, while the Duke of Argyle reciprocated by speaking to a Unionist meeting in Leeds on 15th June.

Whereas such speeches by Liberal Unionists like Chamberlain and Devonshire seemed to eschew armed resistance, Salisbury seemed much more militant. Addressing the Grand Habitation of the Primrose League at Covent Garden on 6th May he told his audience that, although Parliament had the right to govern the people of Ulster, it had no right to sell them into slavery. He went on to say that he did not believe in the unrestricted power of parliaments any more than he believed in the unrestricted power of kings. He then reminded his audience of the reign of James II and how that monarch had exceeded his constitutional powers, and said that if there were similar abuses of power on the part of a parliament or a king he did not believe “the people of Ulster have lost their sturdy love of freedom nor their detestation of arbitrary power”.

This was no isolated speech. On 18th May, at the Conference of the National Union of Conservative Associations at Hastings, he once again alluded to the Glorious Revolution, telling his audience to remember “Those men in the north of Ireland – their ancestors won your freedom for you by their own sacrifice of their blood and their treasure”, and their descendants were being threatened with domination by their “hereditary and irreconcilable foes”.

On 22nd April there was a huge Unionist demonstration at the Albert Hall in London, where 8,000 English Unionists welcomed 1,200 of their Irish kin. Henry FitzAlan Howard, the fifteenth Duke of Norfolk and England’s leading Roman Catholic layman, was on the platform, prompting the Church of Ireland’s Bishop of Derry to draw attention to Roman Catholic Unionists: 

Our Roman Catholic friends are, as a general rule, entirely on our side … We have instances of it, I am thankful to say, upon this very platform. The farmers who have large farms are in many cases coming forward. They have written letters in the Irish papers, and have placed their names at the bottom of them … All the religions in Ireland are represented on this platform … Loyalty has, thank God, ceased to be a sectarian word … Noble-minded Roman Catholics are as loyal to the Queen and Constitution as we are. 

The Duke of Norfolk was a tireless supporter of the Unionist cause and spoke from many platforms, some of them arranged by the Orange Order. He became known as “the Orange Duke”.

Banquets were subsequently held at various locations in London in honour of the Irish Unionists, and two days later the Marquis of Salisbury welcomed 1,600 Irish Loyalists to Hatfield, his family seat. The occasion was marked by speeches from Salisbury, Devonshire, Balfour and Chamberlain. The Ulstermen carried Chamberlain shoulder-high around the south court of the house.

There were many other demonstrations against Home Rule across Great Britain: 11th April at Perth; 12th May in both Birmingham and Manchester; and 26th May in Bradford. On 5th August there was a demonstration of 30,000 people in Liverpool’s Abercromy Square, organised by the city’s Conservative Working Men’s Association.

The Unionist leaders spoke at many meetings throughout Great Britain in order to rally their support there. Another part of their tactics was to go to Ireland, especially Ulster, to address Unionist rallies there and demonstrate to them the extent of the support they could call on in Great Britain. On Easter Tuesday 1893 Balfour reviewed a parade of 100,000 Loyalists in Belfast, followed by a rally in the Ulster Hall in the evening. Here he said:

 I shall go back to my work in the House of Commons strengthened by the strong convictions I have obtained today of what Ulster is, and what Ulster means. And depend upon it, that if the British people can only have it brought home to their minds what Ulster is, and what Ulster means, not all the forces arrayed against you can prevail against righteousness and justice in the end.

He condemned the Home Rule Bill as “the pernicious proposal of separation now before the House of Commons”.  Balfour also addressed a rally in Dublin where he left no doubt about the lengths to which Ulster would be entitled to go if the Bill should be passed, “Ulster can at all events fight: the last refuge of brave men struggling for their freedom cannot be denied them”.

Salisbury himself visited Ulster, landing at Larne on 23rd May 1893 and being welcomed by a large crowd of supporters. On 25th May he addressed a rally in the Ulster Hall, where he described Home Rule as “the insane eccentricity of one old man” which would put “the most prosperous, the most thrifty, the most advanced province of the United Kingdom under the government of those less advanced and less successful”. Salisbury hailed Ulster as “a rampart of the Empire, to beat back the waves of iniquity and darkness”. On 26th May Salisbury was in the Guildhall in Londonderry where he warned a gathering of the Apprentice Boys of Derry against “that ancient, arrogant, hostile, lawless spirit which often hides itself behind a blackened garment and sometimes masquerades in ecclesiastical garments”.

Meanwhile the Home Rule Bill was making laboured progress through the legislative process. On 21st April it passed its second reading in the Commons by 347 votes to 304. Balfour and Chamberlain in particular fought the Bill clause by clause. By the end of June only four clauses of the Bill had been dealt with in committee, and the Government began to guillotine the debate. At the Junior Constitutional Club, on 7th July, Salisbury attacked the “reckless application of the party screw,” which was converting “the ancient privilege and power of the House of Commons … into the subtle instrument of the caprices of a single man”. On the day that the Committee passed the clôture resolutions, the Commons erupted into a brawl on the opposition benches where the Conservative MPs and the Irish Nationalist MPs both sat.

The Bill passed its third reading on 2nd September with a majority of thirty-four. The House of Lords wasted no time. On 8th September 1893 they threw the Bill out by 419 votes to 41. The Duke of Devonshire, leader of the Liberal Unionists, had planned a visit to Ulster to take part in the opposition to the Bill. By the time he was able to keep the engagement, on 8th November, the Bill had been defeated, so his visit took the form of a celebration.

A by-product of the Unionist campaign was that Fred Crawford, later to be the celebrated UVF gun-runner, met and married an English girl, Helen Wilson, second daughter of Robert Wilson of Acre House, Normanby-le-Wold in Lincolnshire. The Earl of Ranfurly had recruited Crawford in late 1893 to act as Unionist agent in the north-east of England. In November 1894 Crawford went to Brigg in Lincolnshire to work in a by-election, and it was here that he met Helen. They were married at St Andrew’s Parish Church, West Kensington, on 20th February 1896. This episode demonstrates, in a prosaic way, the close connections that then existed between the Unionists in Great Britain and those in Ireland, even to the point of intermarriage.

Following the defeat of his Bill, Gladstone retired in March 1894. He was succeeded by Lord Rosebery, who was much more pragmatic than the messianic Gladstone. Rosebery saw no reason to destroy his party in pursuit of a grand destiny and a place in the history books.

In 1895 a General Election took place between 12th July and 10th August. The Conservatives had 340 MPs returned, together with 71 of their Liberal Unionists allies. Only 177 Liberal MPs were returned, with 82 Irish Nationalists, giving Salisbury’s new administration a majority of 152.

There were many similarities between the campaigns of 1886 and 1893. Once again the solidarity between the gentry in Great Britain and in Ireland, to the point of intermarriage, had caused them to have a remarkable unanimity of outlook. Salisbury and Balfour had spoken to Conservatives in both islands alike, and Chamberlain and Devonshire had rallied Liberal Unionists throughout the United Kingdom. The Liberal Unionists in Ulster, in particular, had projected their cause with great flair. Unionist umbrella organisations existed for the purpose of co-ordinating activities on both sides of the Irish Sea, and they had considerable success in doing so. The Unionists in the south of Ireland argued their case with great skill, and the wealthier of them gave generously to the cause. The position of Ulster had been enhanced among Unionists since 1886. The struggle over the Second Home Rule Bill was more prolonged than that in 1886, so that preparation of armed resistance in Ulster achieved more concrete form than before.

1895 - 1911: Resting on Laurels

The defeat of the Second Home Rule Bill, the retirement of Gladstone, and the electoral successes of the Conservatives and their Liberal Unionist allies seemed to have dealt death blows to the Home Rule project. Perhaps even more importantly, the Liberals, when in government, saw no reason to revisit an issue that had been a disaster for them. Rosebery’s short-lived government had no wish to. The Irish Nationalist Party was itself split after the scandal and fall of its leader, Parnell.

This seemed to be a golden age of the Union, but at such times it is easy to imagine that what is now will always be, and it may be said that the Unionists began to drop their guard against any recovery of the Home Rule project. At the general election of 1900 the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists returned 402 MPs, the Liberals 183 MPs, and the Irish Nationalists 77MPs, with a further 5 Independent Nationalists. This gave the Unionists a majority of 134. Salisbury retired on 11th July 1902, and died on 22nd August 1903. He was succeeded by his nephew, Arthur James Balfour. On 13th July 1906, Joseph Chamberlain suffered a stroke that ended his political career. Some saw Joe’s son Austen, who became an MP in 1892, as being the standard-bearer for his father’s ideals. Although Balfour and Austen Chamberlain were both very capable men, they lacked the essential steel of their great forebears.

Having been elected with such a comfortable majority, the Unionists were now faced with the task of actually governing Ireland. The approach they took was to try to demonstrate that good government from London was preferable to the unknown quantity of self-government from Dublin. If the United Kingdom could govern Ireland in the interests of all Irishmen, without favour, the demand for Home Rule would become redundant.   

The measures which were enacted included reform of local government in Ireland, and also a reform of land tenure. In particular the latter measure involved offering tenants the finance to purchase land from their landlords. Some Unionists were uneasy about these measures, which they saw as being appeasement of a faction in Ireland who were characterised by their disloyalty. This needn’t have been an insurmountable problem if the Conservatives had demonstrated any measure of ability at party management. Sadly, this was not the case.

George Wyndham was appointed Chief Secretary in 1900, and at first his appointment was welcomed by Unionists who remembered him as Balfour’s assistant when Balfour had been Chief Secretary. This good will continued for some time, but in 1902 Sir Antony MacDonnell was appointed as Permanent Under-Secretary for Ireland. MacDonnell was an Irish-born Roman Catholic, and although this need not have been a problem he was also known to be a Liberal and sympathetic to Home Rule.

MacDonnell seemed to take delight in showing his disregard for the Irish Unionists. Had he confined himself to the traditional role of an Under-Secretary, which was purely administrative, he may have done rather well, as his record in India suggests, but from the outset he sought to take the initiative in formulating policy. George Wyndham was not the man to keep him under control. Wyndham seemed happy enough to give MacDonnell a free hand.

In 1904 a group known as the Irish Reform Association produced two reports calling for the devolution of some powers to an Irish legislative and financial council based in Dublin. The Unionists saw this as the thin end of a Home Rule wedge, and denounced it with vigour. Shortly, it became known that MacDonnell had at least been consulted in the compilation of the reports. He said he had acted with the full knowledge and support of Wyndham, which Wyndham unconvincingly denied. The Unionists saw the whole affair as evidence that Government was doing dirty deals with the Nationalists behind the scenes. Confidence in Wyndham and MacDonnell evaporated, and there was a real danger of a breach in the Unionist ranks. Wyndham resigned in 1905 and was replaced by the staunchly Unionist Walter Long, who quickly brought MacDonnell under control.

This episode was not an isolated incident. Balfour’s leadership of the Unionist Government was less than inspired. He seemed to personify a sense of drift and irresolution at the very top of the Government. At this time the Conservative and Unionist Party was bitterly split over the issue of Tariff Reform, and Balfour became exhausted by trying to hold the party together. He resigned in December 1905 and, at the subsequent election, the Conservative and Unionists were reduced to a mere 156 MPs. The Liberals had 397, assisted by 29 Labour MPs. The Irish Nationalist Party had 82 MPs. This was a devastating defeat for the Conservatives and Unionists. The only ray of hope available was that, with such a huge majority, the Liberals did not need the Irish Nationalists to form a government and, in the event, that did mean that Home Rule did not re-emerge as an issue for the rest of this Parliament. Nevertheless, the Unionists realised the need to mend their fences.

The perceived removal of the Home Rule threat had produced a lack of preparedness in Ireland as well as in Great Britain. In Ulster, in the political realm, “Russellite” candidates, (so called from their leader, T. W. Russell), split the vote and their MPs moved towards the Liberals at Westminster. Equally significant was the creation, in 1903, of the Independent Orange Order, which gravitated towards the labour movement. Such fragmentation of Unionism suggests that, even in Ireland, many Unionists thought that the threat of Home Rule had passed.

The Irish Unionist Alliance had maintained its activities, but its support had fallen away because too many people thought that Home Rule was a dead issue. Another Unionist organisation was founded by Walter Long, and was known as the Union Defence League. Walter Long’s family came from Wiltshire on his father’s side and from Wicklow on his mother’s side. His wife was the daughter of the 9th Earl of Cork, and he had briefly served as Chief Secretary for Ireland between Wyndham’s resignation and Balfour’s resignation. At this time he was MP for South County Dublin.

The Union Defence League had the financial backing of prominent British sympathisers, and was designed to revive Unionism in British constituencies. In putting the League on a firm basis, Long had the assistance of Lord Londonderry, and in November 1906 they began building up the organisation. They met with some disapproval from the likes of Lords Balfour of Burleigh, St Aldwyn, and Jersey, all of whom seemed to favour the devolutionist approach that had proved so disastrous when Wyndham was Chief Secretary. Balfour of Burleigh declared “I am anxious not to be connected with … the extreme ‘Orange’ position”. The Duke of Devonshire was hostile. Undeterred, Long and Londonderry kept hard at work, and received some encouragement from the Earl of Cadogan who believed that the Union would be “in better hands. Between ourselves the Irish Unionist Alliance and the Ulster Unionist Council are not to be relied upon”, though this did little justice to the work of those bodies. In due course Long was able to say “my League is doing very well indeed … people seem really pleased”. Although the League was to do good work, Long found himself too busy to conduct its business on a day-to-day basis, and delegated that task to Ian Malcolm. 

On 7th December 1906 Austen Chamberlain addressed a Unionist meeting in the Rotunda in Dublin.  The room was decorated with red, white, and blue drapes, together with flags and banners bearing mottoes such as “No Home Rule”. The audience was entertained by a band playing “Rule Britannia” and “Hearts of Oak”, and the audience of several hundred, not to be outdone, sang the National Anthem and “Soldiers of the Queen”. Chamberlain received a prolonged standing ovation, and afterwards told his step-mother “as a Unionist demonstration it was a great success. The Rotunda was crowded. So was the overflow and many were turned away, unable to get admission to either. It has given the unionists there the tonic they needed and I hear they are all very happy and pleased.” Although Chamberlain himself was unhappy with his speech, he said “its reception was all I could desire”.

Although Chamberlain may have been satisfied with his trip to Dublin, in the same year, 1906, he commented that “just now, for an Englishman at any rate, a speech on Home Rule is like flogging a dead horse”. Chamberlain was not alone in feeling nervous about the British electorate’s indifference to the threat of Home Rule. Lord Londonderry, who had given such strong support to Long in the founding of the Union Defence League complained that, “political memories are very short … their friends on the other side of the channel were dead to the danger because they believed Home Rule was dead. It was therefore the duty of their friends to state that the reasons put forward in the past still held good and it should be their privilege to warn the English people with regard to the danger that confronted them. They had been lulled into a false sense of security …” S. H. Butcher, an MP for Cambridge University, though born in Dublin and the son of the Bishop of Meath, voiced similar concerns: “at this moment the English democracy was preoccupied with hopes and fears of its own, but it was all the more necessary that before the next general election that democracy should be instructed on the Irish question. England was partly ignorant and partly forgetful of Irish affairs.” Londonderry and Butcher were both concerned, though both were convinced that the correct response was to redouble their efforts and not lapse into anguished defeatism.

Determined to try harder, Unionists considered their position and decided that the multiplicity of Unionist organisations threatened duplication of effort and was a poor deployment of resources. The Irish Unionist Alliance took the lead and, in conjunction with the Ulster Unionist Council, set up the Joint Committee of the Unionist Associations of Ireland. It was acknowledged that a new generation had grown up in Great Britain that had no memory of the earlier struggles against Home Rule, and no knowledge of the intolerant nature of much Irish nationalism. The UAI originally consisted of six members from the Irish Unionist Alliance, five from the Ulster Unionist Council, and one from the Ulster Loyalist Union. The secretaries of the first two organisations would serve as joint secretaries to the Committee, which was to meet alternately in Dublin and Belfast. The UAI was to enable southern and Ulster Unionists to co-operate more effectively in organising propaganda work in British constituencies. It exercised no control over the policies of its constituent bodies.

The Unionist Associations of Ireland first met on 19th December 1907. On 22nd January 1908, at a public banquet following the annual meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council, the launch of the UAI was announced to the public. The UAI declared its first campaign at a public banquet in Dublin on 20th March 1908. The plan was to organise a series of public meetings throughout March and April 1908 in Bristol, Cheltenham, Reading, Colchester, Lincoln, Scarborough, North Shields, and Glasgow. The significance of North Bristol staging the first meeting was that it was the constituency of the Liberal Chief Secretary for Ireland, Augustine Birrell.

The campaign was conducted with the assistance of the Union Defence League, and the local Unionist constituency associations were closely involved. Finance was channelled through the UAI, and was provided by Unionists both in the north and in the south of Ireland, with the latter contributing slightly more. The inevitable teething troubles were soon overcome and the UAI became a model of smooth working and efficient use of resources. Meetings were supplemented by the production of posters and handbills.

On 3rd April 1908 the UAI held a meeting in Colchester, which has been cited as an example of the way the campaign was conducted. At the General Election of 1906 the Liberals had held Colchester by 310 votes. The meeting had been organised by Richard Carden, secretary of the IUA, and Richard Dawson Bates, secretary of the UUC, in conjunction with the secretary and agent of the local Unionist association. Union flags were flown from the homes of local Unionists, and the Conservative Club flew the Union flag and the Irish ensign with the motto “Cead mile failte”. The two visiting Irish speakers were the third Baron Oranmore and Browne and Captain Bryan Cooper, and in the afternoon they met with Unionist prospective Parliamentary candidates and deputations from constituencies from all over the east of England.

The evening meeting was held in the Corn Exchange, which had been lavishly decorated by the Women Workers’ League. Red, white, and blue electric lights were hung over the platform, with flags at the back. Along the walls the Irsh harp had been worked in laurels, with evergreen wreaths tied with red, white, and blue ribbon. Long before the meeting was due to start, the room was packed. Local artistes presented a selection of songs and orchestral music with an Irish theme. When the speakers appeared on the platform they received a standing ovation, and they gave a rousing performance. Oranmore asked, “Would we be justified in handing over one-third of the population of Ireland – our loyal fellow subjects whose hearts throbbed with ours, and who wept when we wept, and rejoiced when we rejoiced – to the tender mercies of those who hated the very name of England ?” The prospective Unionist candidate for Ipswich proposed the vote of thanks, and said that English Loyalists would never desert the loyal and law-abiding citizens of Ireland. The Chairman, Laming Worthington-Evans, who won Colchester for the unionists in 1910, closed the meeting by saying that British electors

“would go all the way in the defence of the Union and would never throw over the loyal Irish”. After the meeting there was another reception, allowing the visiting speakers to meet more local Unionists.

The Conservative Party had felt very keenly their political impotence after their crushing defeat in the General Election of 1906. Another General Election was held between 15th January and 10th February 1910. The Conservatives were desperate to reverse the defeat of 1906 and, with their Liberal Unionist allies gained 116 seats, the Liberals losing 123, but this was not enough. The Liberals, now led by H. H. Asquith, still held two seats more than the Conservative and Unionists, and could also count on support from the Labour MPs and the Irish Nationalists. Another General Election was held in December 1910, but the parliamentary strengths of the parties scarcely changed. In both elections the Conservative and Unionists had polled more votes than the Liberals, and now they felt cheated.

During the General Elections of 1910 the Unionist Associations of Ireland increased their efforts in Great Britain, to try to secure a Conservative and Unionist Government. In January the UAI provided 45 clerical speakers, 155 lay speakers, and 124 canvassers. 3,783,000 copies of eleven leaflets were put into circulation, and many large coloured posters were displayed. In December, 381 canvassers and speakers, including 83 clerical speakers, worked in 202 constituencies in England, 75 in Scotland and 5 in Wales. The posters were dropped as being too expensive, but over three million copies of 18 new and 27 revised publications were circulated. Although the Liberals remained in government, the UAI had learned valuable lessons about campaigning in Great Britain. As Dawson Bates wrote,

I regret that our speakers’ reports show gross incompetence and indifference on the part of many English and Scottish agents. This does not apply particularly to the Home Rule question but to the general working of the elections including the distribution of literature, and in my opinion unless the Central Office takes certain steps to reorganise the working of several of the constituencies, it would simply be a waste of time and money to send our speakers to these constituencies again, if they had to work under the same conditions … The reports show extraordinary ignorance of the Home Rule question on the part of the electorate, and to counteract this I would suggest that a limited number of constituencies should be selected after careful consideration of the reports, and picked men suitable to the existing conditions in  each constituency should be sent there as soon as possible. They could be moved  about from place to place and travelling expenses would thereby be saved.          

Asquith’s Government now attacked the power of the House of Lords and, with the passing of the Parliament Act which received Royal assent on 18th August 1911, the Lords had lost the power of veto on legislation. After the Parliament Act they could only delay legislation for two years. King Edward VII had died in May 1910, to be succeeded by his son as King George V. The new king was new to the job and unsure of himself, therefore unable to provide the stabilising influence that his father and grandmother had often exerted.

Many Conservatives were furious with Balfour over what they thought was his weak leadership. Everyone knew Balfour was a man of great experience and intelligence, but he seemed to have lost stomach for the fight at a time when most of his party thought a constitutional crisis was brewing. The discontented Conservatives began to form groups to campaign for his removal as leader. One of these was the Halsbury Club, formed by around fifty Lords and MPs and named after Hardinge Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury, who had been one of the most doughty defenders of the House of Lords.

Another group was the Reveille Group, formed in October 1910, by about fifty Unionist MPs led by Henry Page Croft and Richard Verney, 19th Baron Willoughby de Broke. This group described itself as a “forward” movement intending to “steel” the party leadership against “the new hare of local and imperial devolution”, which included any notions of federalism as a possible solution to the Irish Question. This was significant, as the Halsbury Club, by 18th October, had announced its intention “to become a fighting body for the furtherance of Unionist policy” and “in particular stress is laid upon the necessity of the position in Ulster being made clear to the electorate”. Thus it is clear that the groups looking to revive the Conservative Party and make it a more effective force considered the Union to be a key issue on which to fight. The seeds of the campaign against the Third Home Rule Bill were planted in the campaign to remove Balfour, who resigned as party leader on 7th November 1911.

The leading candidates to replace Balfour as leader were Austen Chamberlain and Walter Long. Chamberlain was a man of great abilities, but he never seemed to get out of the shadow of his more famous father. He was also thought to be too malleable on the Union, where he had appeared to show some interest in the idea of a federal United Kingdom, known as “Home Rule all round”. The Irish Unionists’ favoured candidate was Walter Long, who was known to be absolutely unbending on the Union, though he has been described as “almost ten years older than Chamberlain, volatile in his behaviour, an undistinguished debater and not renowned for his intellectual gifts or quick wits.” There was also a suspicion that Long was inconsistent and prone to distraction.

There was a prospect of a damaging fight for the leadership, causing long-lasting splits in the Conservative Party. A compromise candidate was looked for and, for a while, Sir Edward Carson, the charismatic MP for Trinity College Dublin, was considered. Carson declined, wisely knowing his own limitations. The next choice was Andrew Bonar Law, MP for Bootle. Although Law had family connections with Ulster, his political reputation was largely based on his strong support for Tariff Reform.

1911 - 1914: The Third Home Rule Bill

Bonar Law made his first speech as leader in his own constituency of Bootle in December 1911. He made it clear that he was determined to fight the Government with every weapon at his disposal. Turning to the subject of Ireland he said that:                                                                   

“The attempt of the Government to carry this measure in a Parliament where the majority was obtained on other issues is one of the most dishonest things which has ever been done by any political party in this country . . . My Irish policy is to treat Ireland precisely as I treat England, Scotland and Wales. That was the truth, but not the whole truth. We have treated Ireland far more generously than we have ever treated any other part of the Kingdom … What Ireland needs and what we have given her is less politics and more industries. What our opponents, led by Mr Redmond and his band, are promising to Ireland is more politics and less industry.”

His closing remarks gave fair warning of the strength of his determination:

Now, I have spoken as I always try to speak, with restraint, but restraint does not mean weakness … I speak, as I believe I am entitled to speak, not only for myself but for the Unionist Party in the House of Commons – that when the time comes there will be no shirking from any action which we think necessary to defeat one of the most ignoble conspiracies which has ever been formed against the liberties of free-born men …

If Asquith and his ministers thought that this was mere sabre-rattling, they were to be proved wrong. Throughout the ensuing struggle Bonar Law was to repeat many times his conviction that Home Rule was “an ignoble conspiracy” hatched among conniving and dishonest politicians.

On 26th January 1912 Bonar Law made a speech at the Albert Hall where he again accused the Government of dishonesty and of entering into a corrupt deal with the Irish Nationalists. As the Liberals had won less than half of the votes at the last General Election he taunted them:

If they really seriously attempt to carry out their programme when at least half of the nation is against them, it will not be representative government – it will not be government at all; it will be the tyranny of a revolutionary Committee. If they make the attempt they will impose a strain upon our Parliamentary institutions which I am sure these institutions cannot bear.

He contrasted the Government’s dishonesty with the Unionists’ stand on principle:

We who represent the Unionist Party in England and Scotland have   supported, and we mean to support them (the Ulstermen), not because we are intolerant but because their claims are just.

Bonar Law was leading the Conservative Party by example, and the Party began to respond. Between October 1911 and January 1912, Carson toured Scotland and Walter Long spoke in Manchester. At the party conference in Leeds on 17th November 1911 Long moved a resolution against Home Rule. Long shared a platform with F. E. Smith in Manchester and Smith spoke in Glasgow. On 22nd and 23rd January there were meetings throughout Lancashire. The Times reported meetings in Altrincham, Birkenhead, Dukinfield, Frodsham, Great Harwood, Hindley, Knutsford, Little Lever, Manchester, Morecambe, New Brighton, Ormskirk, Pemberton, Radcliffe, Swinton, Ulverston, Warrington, Whitworth, Wigan, Wilmslow, and Winsford. In Preston, Walter Long attracted an audience of 5,000.

Also in January, Carson shared a platform with F. E. Smith in Liverpool. The following evening Carson was in Manchester, speaking at the Free Trade Hall.

In the campaign against the Third Home Rule Bill the Unionists were fortunate to have one of the very best political tacticians of recent times. This was Captain James Craig, who had earned considerable wealth as a whiskey distiller and who sat as MP for East Down. Craig revived the forces of Unionism that had been allowed to decay. During 1911 he spoke at meetings in Bellshill, Bannockburn, Oldham, Camberwell, and Hemel Hempstead. On 23rd September 1911 he had arranged a huge Unionist demonstration at Craigavon, his home outside Belfast. It is estimated that 50,000 took part, drawn mostly from Orange Lodges and Unionist Clubs. Contingents of sympathisers from Great Britain were also present, including a deputation of miners from Merionethshire. Previously, Unionist demonstrations had usually been held indoors. The Craigavon demonstration had an outdoor setting, making it easier to cope with large numbers, but also to have those attending parade in disciplined ranks. This gave a visual image of Unionists drawing together in indivisible ranks to resist their enemies.

In previous campaigns the Ulster Unionists may have remained content to have made their point in their homeland. Craig, however, wanted to go further. He saw the advantages of holding more such rallies, and at the same time extending them to Great Britain.   

Another huge demonstration was held at Easter 1912, but this time Bonar Law was present along with seventy of his MPs. Bonar Law had travelled to Ulster on Easter Sunday, 7th April, and had been given a tremendous welcome at Larne and Comber. On 9th April Bonar Law and his seventy MPs, together with the Church of Ireland Primate of All Ireland and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, attended the rally at the Royal Agricultural Society at Balmoral. Over the platform waved a Union Flag measuring forty-eight feet by twenty-five, possibly the largest ever made, while underneath the platform party joined the crowd of 100,000 in singing the Nineteenth Psalm like good Calvinists. In addressing the huge audience Bonar Law drew deep from the resources of Unionist history:

Once again you hold the pass, the pass for Empire. You are a besieged city. The timid have left you; your Lundys have betrayed you; but you have closed your gates. The Government have erected, by their Parliament Act, a boom against you, a boom to cut you off from the help of the British people. You will burst that boom. That help will come and, when the crisis is over, men will say of you, in words not unlike those used by Pitt, “You have saved yourselves by your own exertions, and you will save the Empire by your example.”    

The timing of this demonstration was impeccable. The Government introduced its Home Rule Bill on 11th April. Asquith’s opening speech was described as “eloquent”, but when Bonar Law replied, on 16th April, he spoke with all the authority bestowed on him by the Balmoral rally:

                                I said earlier it is impossible to grant Home Rule. That is my opinion.                                                    I think it is impossible. The opposition of Ulster, or if you do not like                                                         to hear it called Ulster, of the North-East Corner of Ireland, makes it                                                                impossible … The Nationalists of Ireland as compared with the whole                                                     of the United Kingdom are about a fifteenth of the population. In                                                            Belfast and the surrounding counties – where the feeling is overwhelmingly                                         Unionist – they are a million of people – something like a fourth of                                                              the whole population of Ireland. If, therefore, there is any ground                                                        upon which you can say that the Nationalists of Ireland are entitled                                                         to separate treatment as against us, the ground is far stronger for                                                              separate                 treatment of Ulster … As the House knows, I was present                                                         last week at a gathering of these people … I have been present at                                                       many political demonstrations, perhaps as large as have been held                                                                 in this country in recent years. This gathering was not like any of them.                                                It really was not like a political demonstration. It was the expression                                                      of the soul of a people – as I believe a great people. They say they                                                      will not submit except by force to such a Government … I do ask                                                    Hon. Members to believe this – I think I am saying nothing that is                                                          not literally true – that these men believe and are ready in what they                                                       believe to be the cause of justice and liberty to lay down their lives.

He then went on to put to the Government the blunt question of how they would face down Unionist resistance:

                                Do Hon. Members believe that any Prime Minister could give orders                                                      to shoot down men whose only crime is that they refuse to be driven                                                                out of our community and deprived of the privilege of British citizenship?                                        The thing is impossible. All your talk about details, the union of hearts                                                 and the rest of it is a sham. This is a reality. It is a rock, and on that rock                                               this Bill or any Bill like it will inevitably make shipwreck.

The Unionists had now opened up several fronts against the Government. As Bonar Law displayed on 16th April, there would be a cogently argued case made in Parliament as the Bill made its way through the legislative process. Simultaneously, Unionist speakers from both Ireland and Great Britain would address rallies held on both sides of the Irish Sea, while all the time workers from the Unionist Associations of Ireland laboured night and day to educate the British electorate at a constituency level.

Speaking in the House of Commons on 18th June 1912 Bonar Law said:

                                They know that if Ulster is in earnest, that if Ulster does resist                                                                 by force, there are stronger influences than parliamentary majorities.                                                                 They know that in that case no government would dare to use their                                                                 troops to drive them out. They know as a matter of fact that the                                                          government which gave the order to employ troops for that purpose                                                       would run a greater risk of being lynched in London than the loyalists                                                    of Ulster would run of being shot in Belfast.

On 10th May he had addressed the Primrose League, and said Ulster “shall not trust us in vain”. He carried on affirming his readiness to support Ulster’s resistance to Home Rule saying, “we shall take any steps – whatever steps seem to us likely to be effective – to put and end to the conspiracy which is directed against them”.

Meanwhile the Unionist workers in the constituencies maintained their efforts. By-elections were an excellent opportunity for them, and at the St Rollox by-election in February 1912, ten canvassers and two agents were assigned to the constituency, though without success on this occasion.

Nobody worked the constituencies harder than James Craig. Convinced of the need to rally Unionists in Great Britain, Craig was prepared to address any meeting, no matter how small. He was particularly popular in the West Country. Walter Long expressed his gratitude to Craig for agreeing to assist in a Wiltshire constituency, “My dear Jim … the seat is none too safe, and a speech from you will help immensely”. In March 1912 Craig spoke at Ilfracombe, Totnes, and Plymouth. In Salisbury, in April, Walter Long spoke to the New Sarum Habitation of the Primrose League and, at the end of the meeting, 4,000 people took part in a torchlight procession through the town. In June Craig addressed a meeting of “many thousands” at the ground of Bristol City Football Club. In the north east of England, Lord Percy, heir to the Duke of Northumberland, organised meetings in Corbridge and Gateshead, while Long spoke at meetings in Middlesbrough and Hexham. 

Unionist speakers were addressing meetings all over the United Kingdom. Irish Unionists toured Great Britain, speaking at meetings all over the island, and Unionists from Great Britain addressed meetings in Ireland. Sir Edward Carson was the most popular speaker, but a close second was F.E. Smith. On 12th July, his fortieth birthday, Smith was the principal speaker at a major Orange demonstration at Cloughfern on the outskirts of Belfast. Smith on a platform was forceful, witty, eloquent, and charismatic. The crowd loved him. From the beginning of his speech he identified himself with the Loyalists of Ireland:

                                You compose a section of the community of which even your                                                                  opponents have never denied that it is prosperous, law-abiding                                                             and loyal. You have, it is true, avoided the method of calling                                                                               attention to your grievances which for generations has distinguished                                                       your political opponents; you have maimed no dumb animal,                                                                   you have shot no woman, you have stabbed no Sunday School                                                         child (cheers). Your claims, therefore, on the present Government                                                     are obviously small in comparison with those of the men who                                                                  dictate Mr Asquith’s policy; and yet, as compared with them,                                                                   you ask very little. You only ask to be allowed to sit, as heretofore,                                                                in a Parliament which, amid all the vicissitudes of party politics,                                                      has not failed to retain your confidence.

 Smith attacked Asquith as being utterly cynical in his dealings over the Union. Asquith had recently announced that he was considering an amendment to the Home Rule Bill to exclude Ulster, but Smith condemned this as being a mere hypocritical pretence, as John Redmond, leader of the Irish Nationalists, would never agree to it and would not permit Asquith to agree to it. Smith used the telling phrase, “What indeed, has Home Rule to offer him and his friends, with no-one to tax and no-one to persecute?”

 Smith expanded on this theme by attacking the Nationalists:

 You are asked why you distrust the members, and why you are so                                                           convinced that the establishment of a Home Rule Parliament would                                                   be disastrous both to Ulster and the Empire. You answer that is                                                       because you know these men; it is because you have studied their                                                           history (cheers); it is because you choose to believe them over a                                                              sustained period when they had every inducement to speak the truth                                                         than over a limited period in which they have every inducement to                                                  deceive; it is because you know that the spirit of ascendancy, of                                                              sacerdotalism and persecution is as active and virulent in their ranks                                                      as it was active and virulent when your forefathers met and drove                                                    theirs in rout at the Battle of the Boyne (cheers). It is because you                                                 know that these men are in their hearts inexorably committed to                                                              the policy of complete separation from England.   

 Smith continued, -

 If I were an Ulster Protestant I would rather be ruled from                                                                         Constantinople by the Sultan of Turkey, than by a politician like                                                         Mr Devlin … Hatred of Ulster breathes in every one of Mr Devlin’s                                                              speeches … The inclusion in an Irish executive of such a man would                                                      be sufficient exposure of its spirit, its character and its motives.

 He then went on to warn his audience both of the need to prepare their resistance, though not to descend into disorder:

 Your course, at any rate, is clear, and it becomes you from now                                                               henceforth to prepare silently, steadfastly and constantly for the                                                       gravest crisis which has tested the men of your race for more than                                                       two centuries (cheers). Above all I would most earnestly press                                                                                 upon every man who listens to me the vital necessity of maintaining                                                       that impression of self-restraint and reserve force which has already                                                               so powerfully and so favourably influenced opinion in the English                                                     constituencies. Let there be no premature or isolated appeal to force                                                                … You will not lose, you will gain immeasurably, by the exhibition                                                      of a composure which is in harmony with the example of your forefathers                                            and your own former practice. And when the hour comes, as it has                                                                come to others, when you are called upon to put everything you hold                                                            dear to the hazard, you will go forward to face that future which the                                                       inscrutable purpose of the Almighty has in store for you with the                                                             quiet confidence of men who have patiently endured until endurance                                                               became treason to their race (cheers). You are sometimes asked whether                                  you propose to resist the English Army. I reply that even if this                                                                 Government had the wickedness (which, on the whole, I believe) it                                                        is wholly lacking in the nerve required to give an order which in                                                             my deliberate judgement would shatter for years the civilisation of                                                   these islands.  

                                But I note with satisfaction that you are preparing yourselves by the                                                       practice of exercises, and by the submission to discipline, for the                                                                 struggle which is not unlikely to test your determination. The                                                                              Nationalists are determined to rule you; you are determined that you                                                                 will never be ruled by them (loud cheers). A collision of wills so                                                             sharp may well defy the resources of a peaceful solution. Should                                                             these fail you will, in my judgement, be entitled to forget the                                                                          community which has driven you forth, and to combine in opposition                                                        to the community which claims your allegiance as the fruit of a                                                               corrupt and abominable bargain. You will have regained the discretion                                                 of free men. 

 These last remarks led Smith close to advocating Ulster separatism, which was clearly not his party’s policy, but in closing he came back on message.

 I do not underrate the gravity of this statement; still less do I underrate                                                  the responsibility which I undertake in making it. I and my friends                                                                have considered this matter deeply … On this we are all of us agreed:                                                      that the crisis has called into existence one of those supreme issues                                                     of conscience amid which the ordinary landmarks of permissible                                                             resistance to technical law are submerged (cheers). We shall not                                                              shrink from the consequences of this view, not though the whole                                                         fabric of the Commonwealth be convulsed, and we shall tread with                                                    you the path of your destiny, knowing that whether it leads to freedom                                                  or disaster, it is the only road which does not lead to dishonour (loud cheers).

Smith closed his speech triumphantly and, amid cries of “Orange Smith”, FE was ceremoniously presented with an Orange sash by his hosts.

 On 19th July Asquith made a speech in which he announced that he intended forcing his Bill through with no attempt to find any accommodation with Ulster. Part of Asquith’s tactics was to goad the Ulstermen, because it was thought that if frustrations in Belfast turned into violence the standing of the Ulstermen in the rest of the United Kingdom would collapse. Bonar Law constantly sought to preserve Unionist discipline to avoid falling into Asquith’s carefully-prepared trap.

 On 27th July 1912 the Unionists staged their first major demonstration in England at Blenheim Palace, the home of the Duke of Marlborough. Spirits were high because, the day before, there had been a Unionist victory at a bye-election at Crewe. This event was intended to be not just a rally but also a spectacle, with the Unionists borrowing heavily from the Primrose League in style and presentation. The thousands who attended were shown around the Palace and walked around the grounds, even boating on the lake, to the accompaniment of music provided by the military band of the London Philharmonic. Luncheon was provided in a marquee measuring 300 feet by 100 feet, and consumed 2,000 lbs of beef; 1,000 lbs of lamb; 850 veal and ham pies; 700 lbs of galantine of chicken; 1,000 lbs of pressed beef; 500 lbs of York ham; 12,500 sausage rolls; 550 cottage loaves; 160 lbs of butter; 12,000 assorted pastries; 100 gallons of pickles; 150 lbs of cheese; 500 gallons of hock cup; 500 gallons of claret cup; 600 gallons of beer; 100 gallons of lemonade; and 100 gallons of ginger beer.

 Following the meal, the Duke of Marlborough, accompanied by Bonar Law and Carson, processed to the platform that had been erected in the Palace courtyard. 120 MPs and 40 peers were present including, once again, the Roman Catholic Duke of Norfolk, giving his support to the Unionist cause. The crowd, by now, numbered 10,000 to 15,000 people. Bonar Law’s speech was uncompromising, and he denied that the Government had any right to force through its Home Rule Bill without submitting to a General Election first.   

 We do not acknowledge their right to carry such a revolution by such                                                     means. We do not recognise that any such action is the constitutional                                                               Government of a free people. We regard the government as a revolutionary                                   committee which has seized upon despotic power by fraud. In our                                                           opposition to them we shall not be guided by the considerations or                                                          bound by the restraints which would influence us in an ordinary                                                          constitutional struggle. We shall take the means, whatever means                                                     may seem to us most effective, to deprive them of the despotic power                                                    which they have usurped and compel them to appeal to the people                                                          whom they have deceived. They may, perhaps they will, carry their                                                    Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons but what then ?                                                 I said the other day in the House of Commons and I repeat here that                                                       there are things stronger than parliamentary majorities … Before I                                                          occupied the position which I now fill in the party I said that, in my                                                        belief, if an attempt were made to deprive these men of their birthright                                                      – as part of a corrupt parliamentary bargain – they would be justified                                                                in resisting such an attempt by all means in their power, including force.                                                 I said it then, and I repeat now with a full sense of the responsibility                                                       which attaches to my position, that, in my opinion, if such an attempt                                                is made, I can imagine no length of resistance to which Ulster can go                                                     in which I should not be prepared to support them, and in which, in my                                                          belief, they would not be supported by the overwhelming majority of                                                     the British people.

 On the following day Craig told his wife that it had been, -

 … the greatest possible success. The speeches were most comforting                                                     to me; I never hoped for such a strong lead from Bonar Law. Carson                                                                was grand, and F. E. came out splendidly about the Nationalists. The                                                                meeting rose to their feet over and over again when good hard hits

were made. You will have read everything and easily understood                                            what a relief it is to have our leaders’ blessing on what we do, no                                matter how far we go … It really does put heart into one after such                                              a very encouraging day for Ulster. 

 Having received this information, his wife entered in her diary, “I never hoped for such a strong statement from Bonar Law, it really does put heart into one.” The raising of Unionist morale was one of the objectives of the Blenheim rally, and it was very successful.

 Meanwhile, the work in the constituencies was carried on by the Ulster Unionist Council, the Irish Unionist Alliance, and the Union Defence League. By September 1912, after a full year’s work, over 91 constituencies had been visited, 2,178 meetings addressed, and 517,119 voters canvassed.

 The Unionists had planned another mammoth demonstration for September 1912. Over a period of ten days a series of meetings was held throughout Ulster, starting in the west and moving east until they reached a climax in Belfast. Carson spoke at six of the meetings, and F. E. Smith at five. James Campbell, Lord Charles Beresford, Lord Salisbury, Lord Hugh Cecil and Lord Willoughby de Broke also spoke at several of the meetings.

 The climax in Belfast came on 28th September with the signing of the Ulster Covenant. This was another of James Craig’s ideas, in which Unionists were invited to sign their name on the document which read,

                                                                                                                                                                                                                BEING CONVINCED in our consciences that Home Rule would                                                          be disastrous to the material well-being of Ulster as well as of the                                                       whole of Ireland, subversive of our civil and religious freedom,                                                               destructive of our citizenship, and perilous to the unity of the Empire,                                                    we, whose names are underwritten, men of Ulster, loyal subjects of                                                               His Gracious Majesty King George V, humbly relying on the God                                                            whom our fathers in days of stress and trial confidently trusted, do                                                             hereby pledge ourselves in solemn Covenant, throughout this our time                                                   of threatened calamity, to stand by one another in defending, for                                                             ourselves and our children, our cherished position of equal citizenship                                                            in the United Kingdom, and in using all means which may be found                                                               necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule                                                                 Parliament in Ireland. And in the event of such a Parliament being                                                          forced upon us, we further solemnly and mutually pledge ourselves                                                        to refuse to recognize its authority. In sure confidence that God will                                                    defend the right, we hereto subscribe our names. And further, we                                                            individually declare that we have not already signed this Covenant.

 This document was modelled on the “Solemn League and Covenant” which had been drawn up by the Scottish Covenanters in the seventeenth century. The Covenant of 1912 was signed by Unionists all over Ulster, at places large and small, but by far the largest assembly was in Belfast where the document was signed in the City Hall. The procedure took all day and, at the end, 218,206 men had signed. Simultaneously there was another document, “The Declaration”, being signed by 228,991 women.

 The Covenant was signed outside Ulster as well. In Dublin, two thousand Ulstermen signed the document. In Edinburgh the document was signed on the “Covenanters’ Stone” in the old Greyfriars churchyard, where the original National Covenant of Scotland was signed. Signings took place in Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, York, Bristol and London. In all, outside Ulster, 19,162 men and 5,055 women had signed, and the grand total of signatories was 471,414.

 On its own this would have been a great success, but there was more to come. After the signing of the Covenant, Carson went to Belfast harbour to board the SS Patriotic. Huge crowds saw him off, singing “Rule Britannia”, “God Save the King”, and “Auld Lang Syne”. Carson was accompanied by F. E. Smith, and they were bound for Liverpool.

 Liverpool was a Conservative stronghold, based on the Liverpudlians’ attachment to Protestantism and the Union. The Conservative Party in Liverpool was run by Archibald Salvidge through the Working Men’s Conservative Association. This body had 8,000 members spread over the city in 26 local branches, and members were required to be “a sound Protestant”. Salvidge was Chairman of the WMCA from 1892 to 1927. Parallel to the WMCA, and overlapping it to some extent, was the  Orange Order which, in 1910, had 90 male lodges, 38 female lodes, and 55 junior lodges within the city. It could also call on support from neighbouring areas such as Wigan and Bootle.

 Carson arrived in Liverpool at 7.30am on a Sunday morning in pouring rain, yet the crowd assembled to meet him was vast. A figure of 150,000 is often given for the size of it, and as in Belfast they were singing the familiar battle hymns such as “O God, our help in ages past”. Salvidge was the chief organiser of the demonstration, having mobilised the thousands of members of the WMCA and the Orange Order and their many friends and supporters. Now he was present at the Pier Head to welcome the disembarking Unionist leaders, and he presented to them a formal address:

 We gratefully acknowledge your magnificent efforts to preserve                                                             the integrity of the empire and to save from the tyranny of a                                                                                 Nationalist Parliament our fellow-Protestants and fellow Loyalists                                                       in Ireland. The devotion which you have again and again shown                                                                 in the cause of Ireland and the unity of the Empire are nowhere                                                               more appreciated than in Liverpool … we, the Unionists of                                                                      Liverpool, are equally resolute. We Unionists of the Port which                                                       is connected with Belfast in so many ways, stand by Ulster in this                                                     great struggle for political justice, Imperial unity, and religious liberty.

 Salvidge then presented Carson with an illuminated copy of the address. Carson protested that, “I am nothing in this fight. It is the cause that matters, and it is the cause the men of Liverpool now, and at all times, have sustained.” The pair then shook hands, Carson saying, “I shake hands with you across the sea … I bring a message from the democracy of Belfast to the democracy of Liverpool. All that they ask is to be allowed to stay with you, and I do not think you will permit them to be driven out.”

 Carson and his party, which included Salvidge, F. E. Smith, Lord Londonderry, and Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, were to be taken to the Conservative Club in Dale Street in procession, in horse-drawn carriages. Their supporters revived an old tradition, by unharnessing the horses and drawing the carriages, and their occupants, themselves. It is said that an enthusiastic supporter said to him, “It’s been marvellous, sir. Nothing like it has been seen at Liverpool landing-stage since Crippen was brought back from America!”

 The next evening, Monday, there was an even larger rally at Shiel Park. The Daily Post guessed the turnout to be 150,000, though would not have been surprised if there were as many as 200,000. Carefully-marshalled crowds assembled in various parts of the city, some brought in by specially chartered trains, and set off for Shiel Park. The first contingent arrived in the park at about a quarter to eight, and for the next hour more came in, swelling the numbers. There was a huge input to the demonstration from the Orange Order, with Salvidge having the support of John Holden, the Provincial Grand Master of the Liverpool lodges. Many of those in the crowd wore Orange regalia, most of the bands providing the musical accompaniment were from the Orange Order, and the Orangemen were past masters in organising such skilfully-choreographed public demonstrations. One of the contingents entering the park was headed by one of the Junior Orange members dressed as King William and riding a pony, accompanied by child courtiers. Pastor George Wise, a Protestant minister in Liverpool whose Bible-classes numbered 5,000 working men, arrived at the park and was given an enthusiastic-welcome. Just before nine o’clock the Unionist leaders arrived to a tumultuous reception. The party consisted of Salvidge, the chairman, Carson, Smith, Beresford, Londonderry and Viscount Templeton. The crowd sang “Rule Britannia” and the National Anthem, and when the party ascended the platform fireworks were set off. A huge Union Flag was unfurled, and the whole spectacle was illuminated by brilliant arc lamps. Eventually there were about fifty people on the platform, which included a contingent of Orangemen from Barrow-in-Furness.

 When Salvidge commenced the proceedings he said that if Irish Nationalists wanted to take Belfast they would, “have the men of Liverpool to reckon with”. Carson rose to speak and immediately the

crowd sang “Auld Lang Syne”. Carson paused while they finished, and doubtless the expectation rose. When the crowd fell silent Carson said, “Well done Liverpool”, and someone in the crowd shouted, “Well done Lancashire.” Carson launched a withering assault on the Liberal Government, who he

accused of saying to Ulster, “damn your ideas of religion and damn your ideas of loyalty, out you go.” He finished his speech by saying, “If there is a row, I’d like to be in it with the Belfast men, and I’d like to have you with them. And I will,” which brought forth huge cheering. Londonderry spoke briefly, and then Smith began to speak. He said that he had, that very day, been speaking to three large Liverpool ship-owners who told him, “if and when it comes to a fight between Ulster and Irish Nationalists, we will undertake to give you three ships that will take over to help Ulster in her hour of need 10,000 young men of Liverpool.” Smith then asked the crowd, “If the cattle maimers are marching on Belfast, and you can get the ships to take you there, will you come?” “Yes!” roared the crowd, and “what about Charlie Beresford for Admiral ?” 

 Possibly in response to the last remark, Beresford rose to speak, and the crowd sang “Boys of the Bulldog Breed”. When the crowd fell silent again, Beresford told them that Liberal politicians had said that the English were apathetic about Home Rule, but if that were true, “he had never seen so many apathetic people in his life”.

 The Grand Master of the Grand Orange Lodge of England, William Watson Rutherford MP, told the crowd, “he had a mandate from the whole of the Orange Lodges in England to say they would stand by Ulster in her time of trial.” Sir Charles Petrie closed the meeting by moving the following resolution: “This meeting of Liverpool citizens, representing all ranks of the Unionist Party, solemnly pledges itself to unite with Ulster in resisting Home Rule.”   

 The Unionist leaders were then taken by carriage to the Conservative Club, with Carson standing up in his carriage brandishing a blackthorn stick he had been given in Portadown. As the parade passed through the streets, crowds of cheering supporters lined the pavements and leaned from windows. The only opposition came from a few drunken Irishwomen who were ushered out of the way by the police. When the party reached the Conservative Club at eleven o’clock they took up position on a platform at the front of the building. The Club was covered in Union Flags and slogans saying, “We Stand By Ulster” and “We Will Not Have Home Rule”. The leaders had been followed from the park by thousands of supporters who paraded past the front of the Club, four deep. Many banners were carried, but the one that attracted most comment was a “beautiful white silk emblem” belonging to the West Toxteth Conservative Women’s Association, which had the legend, “Unionism means Prosperity”. Over 40 bands took part, mostly Orange and including a pipe band from Edinburgh with a placard saying, “Midlothian For Ulster”. Other contingents came from Bootle, St Helens, Widnes, Birkenhead, Wallasey and the Wirral. The demonstration came to end eight minutes before midnight with the singing of the National Anthem. Carson said, “You have lit the torch of Empire,” to a reporter from the Liverpool Courier. “Yes”, said the reporter, “and by Heaven it shall never be extinguished by the hands of traitors.”

 At the close of the proceedings, Carson travelled to Glasgow, where he spoke to many thousands of supporters in St Andrew’s Hall. After his triumphs in the bustling cities of Belfast, Liverpool, and Glasgow, Carson returned, on 4th October, to the quiet little town of Rottingdean in Sussex, which he had made his home. Even here he was feted when he was welcomed home by the whole village, who escorted him to his home at Northgate House in a torchlight procession. He was met by his wife and children, and was presented with an illuminated address by the local Unionist Association. He thanked the townspeople for their kindness and their support, saying, “As you know, I came to Rottingdean not for politics. I came to it as a place I have learned to love, and where I might rest.”

 The massive rallies in Liverpool were a great breakthrough for the Unionists in terms of propaganda. Up to that point the Unionist campaign against Asquith’s Home Rule Bill had been under-reported, and some of the Unionist leaders were becoming frustrated at the difficulty of getting their case across in the face of media indifference. After the Liverpool demonstrations this was no longer a problem. They took place in England, and were too large to be ignored. The people of Great Britain were becoming aware of the resistance to Home Rule and a groundswell of support for Ulster was building. The Unionists saw this and took heart.

 One of the English supporters of the Union was Rudyard Kipling, who wrote the poem “Ulster 1912”, which appeared in the Morning Post, -

                                                The dark eleventh hour                                                                                                                                      Draws on and sees us sold                                                                                                                                              To every evil power                                                                                                                                            We fought against of old.                                                                                                                                   Rebellion, rapine, hate,                                                                                                                                      Oppression, wrong, and greed                                                                                                                           Are loosed to rule our fate,                                                                                                                                         By England’s act and deed.

                                                The faith in which we stand,                                                                                                                             The laws we made and guard,                                                                                                                  Our honour, lives and land                                                                                                                                Are given for reward                                                                                                                                           To murder done by night,

                                                To treason taught by day,

                                                To folly, sloth, and spite,

                                                And we are thrust away.

                                                The blood our fathers spilt,

                                                Our love, our toils, our pains,

                                                Are counted us for guilt,

                                                And only bind our chains.

                                                Before an Empire’s eyes,

                                                The traitor claims his price.

                                                What need for further lies ?

                                                We are the sacrifice.

                                                We know the war prepared

                                                On every peaceful home,

                                                We know the hells declared

                                                For such as serve not Rome –

                                                The terror, threats, and dread

                                                In market, hearth, and field –

                                                We know, when all is said,

                                                We perish if we yield.

                                                Believe, we dare not boast,

                                                Believe, we do not fear –

                                                We stand to pay the cost

                                                In all that men hold dear.

                                                What answer from the North ?

                                                One Law, one Land, one Throne,

                                                If England drive us forth

                                                We shall not fall alone.

 Although the Unionists were able to stage highly successful public demonstrations, they did not neglect the Parliamentary battle, where tempers were rising. The Unionists’ tactics in the House of Commons put the Government and its Members under great strain. It has been suggested that the Government’s position was made worse because their Chief Whip, Percy Illingworth, was inexperienced. On 11th November Sir Frederick Banbury, a skilled Parliamentarian, put forward a surprise amendment on a finance resolution to the Home Rule Bill. The Government was taken by surprise and lost the vote by 228 votes to 206. Two days later, on 13th November, Asquith came to the House and declared that the Government’s defeat did not represent the considered judgement of the House, and that the Government would be resorting to the guillotine to get the Home Rule Bill through the rest of its course. Sir William Bull, MP for Hammersmith, rose and shouted “Traitor” at the Prime Minister. He was asked to withdraw the remark, but he refused and walked out of the chamber. From the Unionist benches came the chants of “resign, resign” and even “civil war, civil war”. Government speakers could not make themselves heard, and The Speaker adjourned the House.      

 The sitting resumed an hour later, but the adjournment had done nothing to cool tempers. Sir Rufus Isaacs was shouted own, and The Speaker suspended the sitting for the rest of the day. Winston Churchill began taunting the opposition MP’s, causing Ronald McNeill, Unionist MP for East Kent, to throw a bound copy of the standing orders at Churchill, hitting him on the head. Churchill wanted to retaliate, but was restrained by his colleagues. Next day, McNeill made a full apology, which Churchill accepted.

Unionists were angry. Asquith and his Government were felt to be violating Parliamentary norms in their determination to force through Home Rule. One Unionist wrote to a friend on 13th November, “Every standing order of the House is to be overridden – and I do not see what is to be left as a weapon against tyrannical Govt. except sheer force.” In this climate, militancy began to spread in Unionist ranks.

 There was much in the Home Rule Bill that was illogical, if not absurd. It was envisaged that a Home Rule Parliament would be established in Dublin and that the Government in Westminster would have no jurisdiction over matters that were devolved to the Dublin Parliament. Meanwhile, Irish MPs would continue to be returned to Westminster with the ability to vote on matters affecting England, Scotland, and Wales and, more importantly, hold the balance of power in future Parliaments. F.E. Smith ruthlessly exposed such inadequacies. When it was made known that an Ireland with a devolved administration would pay less for British armed forces and the National Debt, but still be eligible for the full measure of British benefits, Smith damned this by saying that everyone was expected to pay for Home Rule except those who wanted it. On 30th October Smith wrote to The Times pointing out that the Government’s options on Ulster were now limited to three: to impose Dublin rule on Ulster by force of arms, to exclude Ulster from the scope of the Bill, or to drop the Bill altogether. He concluded that, “there would appear to be much convenience in selecting the present moment to decide between the two remaining”.

 In January 1913 the Bill returned to the Commons for the debate on its Third Reading. Smith tore into the Government: “Does the Government suppose the Opposition enjoys talking about civil war, or the prospect of taking part in it, for which obviously many of us are unsuited ? … A shifty, groundless, and irresponsible hopefulness, exercised at other people’s expense, is political cowardice and a public danger.” Although the Bill was approved by 367 votes to 257, when Smith and several other Unionist MPs left the Houses of Parliament they were met by thousands of boisterous supporters who swept them up Whitehall to the Constitutional Club in Northumberland Avenue. Craig and Smith went out on to the balcony and made impromptu speeches. Craig told the crowd “that they in Ulster looked to London in her hour of need. They would always remain – he asked them to believe it – absolutely true to the same constitution as they in London did. He knew they would not look in vain.”  Smith said that Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill had been referred, by the House of Lords, to the British people, who rejected it at the subsequent election. If, he said, the House of Lords no longer had that power, there was a force in Ulster strong enough to kill the Bill.

The Unionists were fighting the Bill with their full energies in Parliament, but in the full knowledge that the Liberal-Nationalist alliance in the Commons could always summon sufficient members to keep the Bill moving forward, and since the 1911 Act the Lords could do no more than delay it. The Unionists were, therefore, making great efforts to win the argument in the country by appealing directly to the people of Great Britain. This campaign, which had started with extensive use of literature and public meetings, was now supplemented with massive public demonstrations. This was very expensive, and money had to be found to pay for it. The Sir Edward Carson Fund had been launched as early as 1911, but needed to be extended. A committee of five was appointed to explore possible fresh sources

of income. In February 1913 the Irish Unionist Alliance sent a deputation to Great Britain to raise money from sympathisers there. Money began to come in, and the Ulster Defence League was to play an important role in fund-raising for the Unionist campaign. With the rise of Unionist militancy the money would soon be spent on stronger measures than pamphlets.

Unionist leaders kept up their speaking tours, and not all meetings were in the large cities. So eager were they to mobilise Unionism in Great Britain that they addressed meetings even in relatively small towns. In January 1913 Craig spoke at Shepton Mallet and in February in Dulwich, where there was a huge banner with the slogan “Dulwich supports Ulster”.

Carson went to Scotland in June 1913 to address large meetings of his supporters there. As was now routine, these meetings were superbly choreographed. On his way to Glasgow, however, his train stopped briefly at Rugby, Crewe, and Carlisle. At each of these stops he was met by large crowds of supporters who assembled at very short notice to present him with loyal addresses and cheer him on way. After speaking in Glasgow and Edinburgh, Carson took the train south, this time down the east coast line. His train stopped first at Berwick, the constituency of Sir Edward grey, the Foreign Secretary. Again, he was met by a large crowd of well-wishers. The train stopped next at Newcastle, where local Unionists again turned out to support him. Further stops, and welcomes, took place at Darlington and York.

Carson left the train at Leeds and was taken to the Great Northern Hotel in a carriage accompanied by 200 members of the Leeds Junior Unionist Association and a brass band. A meeting took place in the Town Hall in the evening, where Carson said, “I cannot bring myself to believe that Leeds, which in the old fight against disintegration stood so valiantly by the Loyal Irish, who have ever upheld the flag, that Leeds is going to desert us in hour of trial.” The crowd leapt to its feet shouting “We won’t !”

Carson addressed an overflow meeting at the nearby Albert Hall, at the close of which there was a procession to Victoria Square. Here a crowd of opponents of various kinds attempted to disrupt Carson’s progress, which caused Carson’s supporters to surge forward to drive them off. Mounted police restored order, though some people were slightly injured.

After resting in London for the weekend, Carson went next to East Anglia. He stopped briefly in Ipswich, where he again received an enthusiastic welcome, and then moved on to Norwich. Carson spoke at the Agricultural Hall where 2,000 tickets had been reserved for the people of Norwich, 2,000 for those who had travelled from Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds, and 500 from Yarmouth. After the meeting Carson and the other Unionist speakers went to the marketplace, where a crowd of 15,000 had assembled. These were divided between Carson’s supporters and his opponents, so the crowd grew very rowdy and the speakers were unable to make themselves heard.

Carson next travelled to Bristol, his train stopping at Devizes and Bath where well-wishers again met him briefly at the stations. In the evening Carson spoke to 5,000 at the Colston Hall. At all the meetings in the summer of 1913 Carson was accompanied by most of his parliamentary colleagues, who also spoke at the meetings. Carson, however, was the man that the crowds turned out to hear. Only F. E. Smith enjoyed anything like the same popularity. Carson possessed tremendous charisma. Not only was he a great orator, but he was also a great showman. He seemed to possess an instinctive understanding of the English and how to appeal to their innate patriotism. 

On 14th September 1913 Carson visited Durham and addressed an open-air meeting in Wharton Park. The local Orangemen were very evident, and before the speeches the crowd was entertained by “the Lay Clerks of Durham Cathedral.” The crowd numbered about 8,000. On 29th October there was a further meeting at the Wallsend ice rink. This building was full to its 15,000 capacity, though 30,000 applications for tickets had been received. On this occasion Carson was accompanied by Bonar Law. Around this time there was much talk of the discussions Bonar Law had been having with Asquith, ostensibly with the aim of finding a solution to the political impasse. Bonar Law’s speech attempted to confront these issues. He criticised Lloyd George’s Land Campaign, and cast doubt on the Liberals’ motivation for starting it: “What is the meaning of their wonderful Land campaign? What is the meaning of springing it on the country now, just when the Home Rule question is becoming critical ?” He dealt with the danger of Unionist splits by warmly endorsing Sir Edward Carson, who was sat with him on the platform: “I happened to read a few weeks ago … the first duty of the Unionist Party was to express its disapproval of ‘Carsonism’ in Ulster. This meeting at which Sir Edward Carson and I speak from the same platform is the best answer I can give to that suggestion.”

Bonar Law usually acted on the dictum that attack was the best from of defence. He said of Asquith: “Asquith can always be trusted to speak like a statesman; but to act like a statesman – well, that is different”. He dealt with the prospect of negotiations with Asquith: “If he (Asquith) does mean to extend to us an invitation … then we shall not decline to respond to it and we shall carefully consider any proposals he may make to us and consider them with a real desire to find a solution, if a solution be possible”, but he left the audience in no doubt where he stood: “ … the pledge which I made at Blenheim still holds good … If the Government try to drive the people of Ulster out of the Union … before they obtain the sanction of the electors … the whole Unionist Party will support her in her resistance.” Bonar Law’s fighting display at Newcastle did much to reassure nervous Unionists. Each speaker addressed the crowd for one hour, and then left the rink at 9.30pm. They were then driven away with the accompaniment of a torch-light procession headed by a band.

 The overwhelming majority of Unionists realised that, at times like this, they were fortunate to have a leader like Bonar Law. J.S. Sandars wrote to Lord Stamfordham:

                                The simpler methods of Bonar Law, his neat and incisive style;                                                               his familiarity with, and his use of the modern and unpolished                                                                            weapons of political combat attracted the fighting elements in the                                                      Unionist ranks. He tripped occasionally but he was quickly on his                                                           feet and was quickly forgiven. His speeches that (were) lacking in

                                literary finishes were fighting speeches. His courage was undoubted.                                                     He had the great virtue of being very unacceptable to his opponents                                                            in the House of Commons. It was the hour, and he was the man.

 The Unionist opposition won victories at by-elections at Linlithgow and Reading on 7th and 8th November. Walter Long had been distracted by Lloyd George’s Land Campaign, but the by-election victories caused him to re-focus on Home Rule and he drew great comfort from the results, feeling that the Unionists’ hand had been greatly strengthened: “I have seen a great many of our most reliable men and their unanimous opinion is that if Asquith makes any overtures and we accept them the result would be absolutely fatal to our party”. Two days later he re-iterated his concern, “if we come to any arrangement with the Government we shall run grave risks of splitting, even smashing, our party”. He took comfort that the party leadership would be less likely to feel the need to compromise because the results “will show them (the Tory leaders) the feeling against any agreement. The general view seems to be ‘give them no quarter and drive them out’ ”. Leslie Wilson, victor at the Reading by-election, said the results proved “that the country will not have this Home Rule Bill”.

 The Anti-Home Rule movement in Great Britain was gathering strength and demonstrations were being held by local Unionists. The Orange Order was one of the most experienced groups in organising demonstrations. On 28th September 1913, for instance, 7,000 Orangemen and their bands mustered in various parts of Liverpool and marched to the Sun Hall. Here there was accommodation for only 5,000 of them. They were addressed by J. Gage Dougherty, Deputy Grand Chaplain of the Loyal Orange Institution of Ireland, and Sir Robert Anderson, a fervently evangelical Christian, and at one time Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard having made his reputation tracking down Fenian terrorists.

 Carson, meanwhile, continued to tour the country rousing the forces of Unionism. At the end of November 1913 he addressed a large meeting at the Hippodrome in Birmingham, with Bonar Law and Austen Chamberlain sharing the platform. After returning to London briefly he then resumed his travels. He addressed a crowd of 6,000 in Sheffield at the Norfolk Drill Hall and then travelled to Manchester, where the meeting at the New Theatre was chaired by Lord Derby. Here Carson spoke of the people of Ulster:

No conspirators they (cheers), no plotting in the dark against king                                                           and constitution (cheers), no mean methods (cheers). You will not

                                find Ulstermen shooting from behind a hedge (cheers) … We are                                                            your countrymen, let us bide with you.”

 After the meeting Carson took part in a procession of several thousand supporters. Nottingham was Carson’s next stop, where he spoke to an audience of 3,000 in the Albert Hall.

 Once again Carson returned to London for a few days and then, on 7th December 1913, he set off again, this time to Plymouth. Once again, when his train stopped briefly in Exeter he was met by a large crowd of well-wishers. Another large crowd greeted Carson when he reached Plymouth, among them being Waldorf Astor the local MP. Carson spoke next day in The Drill Hall, which could hold 10,000 people. 40,000 had applied for tickets. This meeting was described as “one of the largest and most enthusiastic meetings he (Carson) has yet attended.” Carson next went to Truro, where he was met at the station by a large number of supporters who formed a motorcade, headed by a band, to take Carson to the Red Lion Hotel, where he held an impromptu meeting and addressed the crowd. The meeting proper was held at the Market Hall to a crowd of 3,000.

 Such an itinerary must have exhausted Carson, but he drove himself on and took great encouragement from the levels of support he was receiving all over England. Meanwhile, other speakers were active. Craig spoke in Scunthorpe and Lord Percy spoke at Longframlington and Stamfordham. The people of Fenstanton were addressed by their own MP, Oliver Locker-Lampson. By the end of 1913 the tide was moving strongly in favour of the Unionists. The Nationalist Tim Healy wrote to his brother, “Carson’s bluff will win, and then the Tories will be in office before twelve months.”

 In earlier Home Rule crises, some Unionists in Ulster had prepared for a last-ditch resistance by drilling and arming. Because these crises were of relatively short duration these plans never came to full fruition. The crisis engendered by the third Home Rule Bill was more drawn out and, as a result, preparations for armed resistance were much more fully developed. Some men were drilling as early as 1911, and the huge “march-pasts” at Craigavon and Balmoral encouraged the participants in this direction. They wished to impress upon friend and foe alike that they were grimly determined to meet the threats in a disciplined but forceful manner. In January 1913, at a meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council, it was decided to bring the various groups together. Thus was born the Ulster Volunteer Force.

 By this time Loyalists in Great Britain were moving in step with their colleagues in Ireland. In the same month that the UVF was formed, Lord Willoughby de Broke decided to form a group in Great Britain. On 27th March 1913 a letter in London newspapers announced the creation of the British League for the

Support of Ulster and the Union, with an office at 25 Ryder Street, St James’s. “It is clear,” said the letter, “that the men of Ulster are not fighting only for their own liberties: Ulster will be the field on which the privileges of the whole nation will be lost or won.” Willoughby de Broke was Secretary, the Duke of Bedford was Chairman, and Sir Basil Peto MP was Vice-President. In all, membership included 120 MPs and 100 peers many of whom were members of earlier Conservative groups like the Halsbury and Reveille Clubs, such as the Duke of Northumberland, F. E. Smith, and Sir Thomas Comyn-Platt.

 The Morning Post published a “Call for Service”, on behalf of the BLSUU. “We call on our able-bodied fellow countrymen who think that the Ulstermen are arming in a righteous cause to enrol themselves.” It continued, “those who rely on the belief that the crisis can be relieved by a process of bargaining … are building on a very slender chance and indeed are helping the fatal policy of drift”.

 Carson responded in a letter published on 28th March 1913, in which he thanked Lord Willoughby de Broke and the new group on behalf of the Irish Unionists, saying, “I always felt certain that our determination to resist Home Rule would have behind us all those who were not prepared to sacrifice their friends for the purpose of placating their enemies.”

 At an early stage the BLSUU began to raise much-needed funds for the Unionist cause, using their many contacts in society, but their support was not financial alone. In a speech to the House of Lords Willoughby de Broke said that his supporters would, “wish to see this matter fought to a finish in a General Election, but if that means of settlement is denied to us, then we must fall back on the only other means at our disposal.” Basil Peto said, “there were in this country many men who did not desire to see Ulster fight her battle alone if the Government carry the Home Rule conspiracy to the bitter end.” On 27th May 1913 Willoughby de Broke wrote to The Times, explaining that the League intended, “to stand by (Ulster) until at least we have had an opportunity of voting against the repeal of

 the Union”. The League established branches all over Great Britain, and had 10,000 members by November. Able-bodied members were taught to drill and were trained for active service in Ulster.

 The BLSUU built up its branch network through 400 agents working in the country. One of them, William Nightingale of Birmingham, said “the time for mere talk is about over”, and he set himself the task of raising “1,000 soldiers of civil and religious liberty”, largely among military reservists.

 In Ulster the UVF grew in numbers and confidence. The members were highly-motivated men and women, but they felt a need for more men who had military experience to strengthen the officer cadre. Colonel Thomas Edgecumbe Hickman, the MP for Wolverhampton South and a prominent member of the BLSUU, agreed to seek the advice of Lord Roberts of Kandahar, one of Britain’s most distinguished soldiers of the period. Roberts came from Protestant and Unionist stock from the south of Ireland. The UVF needed a commander with a great deal of military experience, and Roberts was asked to suggest someone suitable. On 4th June 1913 he wrote to Hickman from “Englemere”, his home near Ascot:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                Dear Hickman,                                                                                                                                                                I have been a long time finding a senior officer to help in the                                                                            Ulster business, but I think I have got one now. His name is                                                                      Lieutenant-General Sir George Richardson, KCB, c/o Messrs                                                                   Henry S. King & Co., Pall Mall, SW. He is a retired Indian                                                                       officer, active and in good health. He is not an Irishman, but

                                has settled in Ireland … Richardson will be in London for                                                                         about a month, and is ready to meet you at any time.

                                I am sorry to read about the capture of the rifles.                                                                                          Believe me,                                                                                                                                                                Yours sincerely,                                                                                                                                                   Roberts

 Sir George Lloyd Reilly Richardson had been born in 1847, into a family with a long tradition of service in the Army in India. His grandfather had been a captain in the East India Company, and his father had fought in the Mutiny. In 1866 he had joined the 38th Regiment of Foot (1st Staffordshires) and had transferred to the Indian Army in 1869. He served on the North West Frontier, in almost constant campaigning against the warlike tribes of that region, for the next forty years, until his retirement in 1909. Richardson had served with distinction under Roberts in the Second Afghan War, 1878-1880, and in 1900 had taken part in the Boxer Rebellion. He was at the head of the cavalry force that stormed the Temple of Heaven in Peking.

 Hickman himself had a distinguished military career, and retained many contacts in the British Army. Using these contacts he was able to recruit half-pay and reserve officers from England for the UVF, eventually numbering more than 150, between seven and nine of whom served in either the UVF HQ of the Belfast regiments, where the shortage of officers was particularly acute. Lieutenant R. C. Orr of the 3rd Somerset Light Infantry was in Ballymena in July 1913, and Captain A. F. Penny of the 5th Royal Fusiliers was with the Belfast Division of the UVF by July 1914.

 Hickman’s military service had been mostly in Egypt, and he seems to have recruited some of his old comrades from that time. Colonel George William Hacket Pain had been Assistant Adjutant General in the Egyptian Army, and became Richardson’s Chief of Staff in the UVF. Captain R. L. Moore, a regimental officer in the UVF, had served on secondment with the Egyptian army between 1901 and 1908. British Army officers were especially valuable in providing staff experience. Colonel G. H. H. Couchman, DSO, once commander of the Somerset Light Infantry, took over the Belfast Division with Captain J D Scriven as his Chief Staff Officer. Colonel J H Patterson was assigned to the West Belfast Regiment, Major Tempest Stone to the South Belfast Regiment, and Captain Malone to the North Belfast Regiment. Richardson’s staff was housed in The Old Town Hall in Belfast.

 Of all the British Army officers who served in the UVF, historians have given most attention to Captain Wilfrid Bliss Spender. When he was only one year old his father and two older brothers were drowned in a sailing accident in Whitesand Bay in Cornwall. He was educated at Winchester and went through the Staff College at Camberley. Most of his active service was on the North West Frontier of India, and in 1911 he became the youngest officer on the General Staff. While helping to shape plans for Home Defence he became aware of the strategic importance of Ireland, and this led him to take an interest in the Home Rule controversy. In 1912 he signed the Covenant in England, which incurred such displeasure that he was sent back to India. In April 1913 he returned to England. He had a meeting with Colonel Seely, the Secretary of State for War, who told him that his military career was over unless he withdrew his support for the Unionists. This he refused to do. There followed a drawn-out dispute between Spender and the authorities which ended on 7th August 1913, when Spender was allowed to retire from the Army with a pension. Spender was then invited to Belfast by Carson, and offered a place on the UVF HQ Staff. Spender had just got married and travelled to Belfast straight from his honeymoon. Once settled in Belfast, Spender was made a member of the Central Authority of the UVF, and also Secretary to the committees concerned with supply, equipment, and transport. He was often working seventeen hours a day.  

 The officers recruited from the British Army brought great experience to the UVF and ensured that intelligence, maps, plans, mobilisation timetables, communications, transport, armaments, and medical provision were better than in many armies of the time. Spender’s wife, Alice, was a member of the UVF Nursing Cops.

 As early as May 1913 the BLSUU set itself the task of compiling lists of “the actual number of able-bodied men in Great Britain who will be willing and able personally to join the loyalists of Ulster at the last emergency”. At a later date, three men applied for commissions in the 36th Ulster Division on the grounds that they had been members of the “English Ulster Volunteers”. They were H. M. Allom of South Kensington, Eric Crawley from Blackheath, and Frank Quicke from Hounslow. These men may have been in the BLSUU or they may have been members of the Ulster Volunteer Force itself. UVF units were formed in Dublin, Leitrim, Glasgow, Liverpool, and London. The Volunteers in Dublin had 2,000 members and were organised in two battalions. In the event of war, their families were to be taken to England. The Ulster Volunteer Force and the British League for the Support of Ulster and the Union were so close that it would not always be possible to say where one ended and the other started.

 The presence of UVF units in Dublin and Leitrim testifies to the strength of opposition to Home Rule outside the province of Ulster. The BLSUU was recruiting from amongst Southern Unionists also. Gerald Madden of Monaghan was approached by the League in June 1913, and A. A. Somerville, a master at Eton, informed J. C. Madden of the Monaghan Regiment that he was committed to serving in Southern Ireland, but that he was prepared to supply the pay and expenses, for one year, for a captain in the Maidenhead National reserve, who was a South African War veteran who had fallen on hard times, to serve in the Monaghan Regiment.

 Unionists drilling and training in Ireland and Great Britain was evidence of the deadly earnest with which they were preparing to resist Home Rule. They felt that Asquith’s Government was being duplicitous in its approach to the issue. They had been disturbed by the Budget of 1909, which they felt to be confiscatory, but they were enraged by the neutering of the House of Lords in 1911. Their view was that the Lords was an indispensable element in the British Constitution, preventing dictatorship by any Government which enjoyed a temporary majority in the lower house. Two General Elections in 1910 had failed to deliver a majority to the Liberals, but they had obtained one by their unholy alliance with the Irish Nationalists. The Nationalists had demanded Home Rule as the price of their support. The Unionists maintained that such a major constitutional change as Home Rule could not be passed without being first put before the electorate in a General Election, and in 1910 the Liberals had not included it in the programme they had in their manifesto. The Unionists now wanted an election to be called so that the matter could be decided by the British people. Repeatedly they said that they would abide by any decision reached by that election, but Asquith would not call it. It may be that the success of the Unionist campaign against Home Rule was so successful that Asquith did not dare to call an election he had a good chance of losing.

 The current view of Asquith is that he was a Victorian gentleman who was rather out of his depth in such rough politics as was the case before 1914. Recent research suggests that he was, in fact, a crafty tactician, quite capable of playing as low a game as anyone else. Asquith was persistently provocative in his dealings with the Unionists over Home Rule. Initially, he refused to make any concession and gave no indication that he was even giving consideration to the many objections that the Unionists raised. An essential part of the Unionist position was that they were a hard-working, loyal, and law-abiding section of the British people. Asquith sought to destroy this position by pushing the Unionists, particularly those in Ulster, to such a sense of despair that they would lash out at the Nationalists living among them. Belfast in particular had a history of inter-communal rioting, and Asquith hoped that similar outbreaks would cause a fatal loss of support for the Unionists. Although the Ulster Volunteer Force was formed to defend Ulster should any attempt be made to coerce the province into subjection to a Dublin parliament, there was, as a secondary objective a wish to bring Ulster Unionists into a disciplined body that would eschew sectarian violence.   

 On 14th January Carson received information from someone in the household of a junior minister that the Government were intent on “procrastinating until the patience of the hooligan element in Belfast is exhausted and they begin to riot. This is the moment when troops … will step in and crush the riot”. Bonar Law was aware of this and decided to confront it head on. He made a speech at Bristol in which he warned his audience: the Government … are looking forward to the possibility of the                                                               seething passions of Ulster boiling over, of their doing something                                                           which will put them in the wrong and that then they may be able,                                                        without alienating the sympathy of this country, to put them down                                                          by force.

 Bonar Law accused Asquith of being prepared to offer concessions which were merely designed to improve his own tactical position, and of pushing any resolution of the issue beyond anything that Parliament could achieve.

 We shall not be beaten in that kind of game for this reason, that                                                               we shall play no game … in my belief we are drifting rapidly to                                                       civil war which will shatter to its foundation the whole fabric of                                                     our national existence … we must now assume that it is their                                                                   (the Government’s) present intention to carry out their policy to                                                              the bitter end and on that assumption it becomes our duty … by                                                       every means in our power to prevent them from committing what                                                 … we believe would be a great crime.

This speech greatly heartened the Unionists. Leopold Amery called it “marching orders” for the Unionist Party, and Willoughby de Broke told Bonar Law the speech “was the best, the very best, you have ever made”.

If the Government had been hoping for an outburst of violence to discredit the Unionists, then much of this hope must have been placed on undoubted sectarian tendencies giving rise to that violence. The Unionists were aware of this possibility. Some of their support in Great Britain certainly was of a religious nature. During one of the election campaigns The Church Defence Committee and Protestant Alliance issued a joint statement calling for “Immediate action in support of candidates” in their “several districts whose Protestantism is above reproach.” A west country newspaper reported that, “Mr E. Singleton, one of the leading Nonconformists in south Somerset, has announced his intention of supporting the Unionist candidate because as an Irishman he feels that Home Rule will be Rome Rule.”

 The Unionist leadership could not deny that most of their supporters were Protestants, but at the same time they had no wish to alienate Roman Catholic Unionists. As early as December 1911 Bonar Law had said, in a speech at Bootle,

 I am not fond of talking about religion. When I came down here                                                              as your candidate I was told that I must not talk politics, that I must                                                      abuse my Roman Catholic fellow-subjects. I do not believe it.

 In a letter to Lady Ninian Crichton Stuart, a Roman Catholic, on 7th October 1912, Bonar Law expanded on this:

 I have read your letters with the greatest interest, and I think I can                                                           sincerely say that there is no one who less likes to arouse religious                                                  bigotry than I do,                 and I do not think that I have said a word in any                                                      of my speeches which would be open to the charge that I attacked                                                          your religion … The real reason why, in my opinion, the Ulster point                                                     of view must be kept to the front is that, whether the cause be                                                                       religious or not (and I do not think it matters), the population there                                                              is homogeneous and determined to be treated in the same way as the                                                             citizens of the UK. In my opinion, from every point of view, they                                                           have the right to take that attitude … Perhaps the clearest way in which                                                                 I can show you how I feel in regard to the matter would be by reversing                                          the picture. Suppose three-quarters of Ireland were of the exact class                                                          of which the Ulster minority is composed, and suppose that in the rest                                                         of Ireland there were one-quarter of the population who looked with                                                      horror upon the idea of being governed by Orangemen and claimed                                                        the right to continue under the control of the British Parliament. In                                                              that case, whatever the reasons, I should think their claim was              just;                                                        and in the same way, whether the reasons which actuate the people of                                                   Ulster are sound or not, I think that their claim is one which this                                                              country cannot without dishonour disregard.

 One of the reasons that the religious issue never came to the fore was that so many Roman Catholics were strong Unionists. When the men of the British League for the Support of Ulster and the Union were drilling and training to fight for Ulster, should the need arise, there were Roman Catholic Unionists in their ranks. In the south of Ireland Roman Catholic Unionists spoke up for their beliefs, even at severe risk of physical attack.

 On 17th October 1913 the Protestant Dean of Chester attempted to bring this to public notice in a letter to the Daily Express:

 Neither Lord Ribblesdale nor the average elector takes into consideration                                             that the people of Ireland are sharply divided, not merely between                                                      Protestants and Romanists, between those who are loyal to the Crown                                                               and those who hate everything English, but also between Churchpeople                                                 and Presbyterians, and between educated Romanists and the rabble                                                         who to a man support Home Rule avowedly because they are told                                                    and believe that they will get a house and a bit of land for nothing,                                                    while the educated who have some stake in the land or in commerce                                                      dread the thought of Home Rule. It is appalling to think of the loyalists                                                 who are scattered through the South and West … To adopt a phrase                                                                from one letter – “Ulster may be able to defend themselves, but we,                                                  isolated as we are, wait in mute despair either to be driven from our                                                                 homes or to be shot if we stay.”

 The Roman Catholic Duke of Norfolk was a very outspoken Unionist, and he too wanted the British people to know of the gallant stand taken by his Unionist co-religionists in the south and west of Ireland, often at great cost to themselves. In a speech at Norwich on 12th November 1913 he said:

 We know that an effort is being made to hand over the destinies of                                                         Ireland to those who have never made it any secret that they abhor     

                                the connection with Great Britain. We know, moreover, that owing                                                        to the action of the Government, those who have always been                                                                              supporters of the connection … now find themselves very much at                                                   the mercy of those who have always been opposed … I think you                                                           will feel that this is an act of gross betrayal and one against which                                                           we ought to protest most strongly.

 Both comments display great foresight, being made some years before the ruthless IRA pogroms against Protestants and loyal Roman Catholics in the south and west of Ireland were unleashed in their full bestiality.

 The Duke of Norfolk was a veteran campaigner against Home Rule, having been a leader of Unionism in the previous struggles against Gladstone’s bills. Now in his sixties his energies showed no sign of abating. Speaking in Leeds on 13th June 1914 he said:

 … we especially wish to protest against the whole possibility of                                                              the armed forces of the Crown being used to force the loyalists                                                   of Ireland out of the British Empire to which they are proud and                                                       happy to belong … We are determined to support the men of Ulster.      

 Lord Edward Talbot was another prominent Roman Catholic who supported the Union, contributing generously to Unionist funds. He told James Craig, “if I find it is bring used in an attack on orthodox, and not Hibernian, Popery, I shall have to come over and study the best means of incendiarism on Craigavon.”

 Asquith’s tactical manoeuvrings included offers of discussion and compromise but these were, initially at least, designed to split the Unionists and to make them seem intransigent by refusing compromise. In order to mobilise the maximum number of supporters, the Unionist leaders had constructed a very broadly-based movement. Asquith sought to drive wedges between various groups. Some Unionists were more ready to contemplate some measure of devolution than were others. This led to the idea of federalism, or “Home Rule” all round, to receive some consideration. Others wanted, “the Union, the whole Union, and nothing but the Union”.

 The Unionists had initially placed an emphasis on Ulster’s resistance to Home Rule as a tactical move. The Nationalists wanted a Dublin parliament to have authority over the whole island, and would settle for nothing less. Ulster would not consent to being placed under the authority of such a parliament, therefore Nationalist progress towards their goal was in check. The emphasis on Ulster’s resistance, however, led inevitably to the northern province being considered a special case, and Southern Unionism began to receive less attention.

 Every sub-group within Irish Unionism was replicated in Great Britain. Asquith, therefore, saw an opportunity to divide the Unionists by setting one sub-group against another. When Bonar Law was invited to take part in confidential discussions he felt bound to accept, otherwise he would be portrayed by the Government as intransigent and unreasonable. He must be seen to be giving all due consideration to all manner of proposals that were deemed to be sincere attempts to reach a settlement before violence broke out. When Bonar Law entered into discussions, however, some of his supporters grew worried that he might make too many concessions. Bonar Law had a tightrope to walk. In addition, Lloyd George had commenced a “Land Campaign” partly in an attempt to win over working-class Unionists, particularly Liberal Unionists, by reviving radical politics.

 When Willoughby de Broke formed the British League for the Support of Ulster and the Union his primary objective was indeed to support the Union, and particularly the Ulster resistance. A secondary objective, however, was to send a strong message to the party leadership that they were in no mood for compromise. He sought an assurance that reports that “negotiations are succeeding between you and the Government” were untrue. He approached Lord Salisbury with an invitation to join the BLSUU, and assured Robert Cecil that “those who are acting with me think that the stronger the forces arrayed against Home Rule the more likely the Government are to avoid the extreme touch and to appeal to the constituencies.”

 One major effect of these events was to bring Alfred Milner, the 1st Viscount Milner, back into active politics. Milner played a major part in helping the Unionists defuse the Land Campaign and, having taken alarm at the thought that the opposition might be about to climb down over Home Rule, placed his considerable skills at the disposal of the Unionist cause.

 On 24th October 1913 Milner wrote to Bonar Law advising that attempts to reach a deal with Asquith would undermine the success of the campaign for Ulster: “Ulster holds the field and if only Unionists can succeed in keeping public attention concentrated on that subject as our supreme injury, they must win the game”. He was convinced that the Government’s overtures were a trap, (“all these vague expressions of sympathy are merely playing with the question”) and that the opposition should concentrate its efforts on the position of Ulster: “That is the weak spot in the enemy’s line, where they are already beginning to run, and against that point all the attacking forces should be directed”.

 Milner had been in self-imposed political exile since being the object of a Liberal censure motion in the House of Commons in 1906. He had detested the passing of the Parliament Act of 1911, and thought that Britain was set on a course of decline. He told Colonel Denison “We are, of course, extinguished as a political force. We were perhaps bound to be extinguished any way. The choice was between a painless, gradual but inglorious extinction and a sharp fierce struggle, in which there was just a chance of victory and in any case an honourable death”. The fight for the Union revived his spirits:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                It seems to me very probable that the Ulstermen, if they are real                                                         Diehards and not sham ones, like our noble selves, will bring                                                                              about an impasse. And a deadlock is just now, in my opinion,                                                                  the one thing that can save us. The party game is for the moment                                                            played out - its old rules are all broken to pieces and if we are to                                                          have constitutional Govt at all, we simply must put our heads                                                                              together and agree to some rules that everybody will respect. Of                                                                 course if Ulster collapses, this log-rolling business may go on for                                                            a while longer. But I don’t think Ulster will collapse.                

 On 23rd October he told Oliver “there is only one word of salvation for Unionists just now and it is to shout ‘Ulster, Ulster’ all the time”, and he was thinking in apocalyptic terms:

 If the Government do ultimately go through with their scheme                                                                                 un-modified, and war results, I for one shall not feel satisfied to                                                    wave my arms impotently in the air and cry “how dreadful”, and                                                     I fancy there are a great many people on this side of the water in                                                              like case. And I think the Government ought to be made to realise                                                           the determination of Ulster. Moreover, if anything effective is to                                                    be done six months hence it will have to be thought out beforehand.                                                                You may hope the worst will not happen but if it does happen it                                                                 ought not find us unprepared.

 The increasing emphasis being placed on the position of Ulster eventually led to the consideration of excluding that province, or at least a part of it, from the provisions of the Bill. Carson wrote to Bonar Law on 20th September 1913:

 As regards the position here I am of opinion that on the whole                                                                 things are shaping towards a desire to settle on the terms of                                                                         leaving “Ulster out” – the difficulty arises as to defining Ulster,                                                           and my own view is that the whole of Ulster should be excluded,                                                            but the minimum would be the 6 plantation counties and for that                                                             a good case could be made. The South and West would present a                                                         difficulty and it might be that I could not agree to their abandonment,                                                              though I feel certain that it would be the best settlement if Home Rule                                                       is irresistible. Probably some more generous treatment could be dealt

                                out to safeguard their interests, but with British rule in Ulster I don’t                                                      think there would be so much to fear …

 Carson hated the idea of making any concessions on the position of the Unionists of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, but he was compelled to recognise the logic of his position. It is interesting that he made the mistake of confusing which six counties were “plantation counties”. Armagh, Cavan, Donegal, Fermanagh, Londonderry, and Tyrone were the counties that were “planted”, and Monaghan was subject to a plantation of a different order, but Antrim and Down, the most Protestant counties in Ulster, were not part of the Jacobean plantation. Carson initially held out for the exclusion of the whole nine-county province of Ulster but gradually the idea of excluding Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, and Tyrone began to take root with everyone but John Redmond, the Nationalist leader. He continued to demand that a Dublin parliament should have jurisdiction over the whole island and, consequently, probably missed his best chance of achieving his objective. Asquith initially offered a six-county exclusion for a limited time period only, but Carson scorned this as a mere “stay of execution”.

 Milner’s appearance on the scene was to raise the Unionist campaign to an entirely new level. At the same time, however, the painstaking campaign in the constituencies, which had been carried on for several years by now, was maintained with increasing levels of efficiency and sophistication. When considering the Unionist campaign, the actions of the major protagonists such as Bonar Law, Carson, Smith and Milner catch the eye; but the sheer hard slog of the indefatigable constituency workers must never be overlooked.

 The work in the constituencies was composed of the production and distribution of literature, (leaflets, pamphlets, posters, and maps), canvassing, a “follow-up” service, and the organising of demonstrations. Between September 1911 and July 1914 an estimated six million leaflets, pamphlets, and booklets were distributed throughout Great Britain.

 Canvassing was originally concentrated on marginal constituencies. Between September 1911 and July 1914, 1,246,225 voters were canvassed in over 200 constituencies in England, and 205,654 voters were canvassed in Scotland. Assistance was given in 23 English by-elections and 10 Scottish by-elections. The Unionist Associations of Ireland worked through agents sent to England and Scotland, with Wales being the preserve of the Union Defence League. Initially there were five agents in England, one each

for London and the Home Counties, the east, the west, the north, and Lancashire and Cheshire. Scotland was divided into east and west. They were required to set up office in a convenient city or town in their area, and make contact with the Unionist agents in constituencies chosen by the Joint Committee of the UAI. On receiving a favourable response they would arrange the distribution of literature, canvassing, and meetings. They would also make themselves useful to friendly organisations in order to build up their network of contacts.

 Initially, each agent had six assistants, usually paid ten shillings a day. The first assistants came from Ireland but, over time, some assistants came from Great Britain. By the summer of 1914 there were, in England, 20 canvassers from Belfast, 11 from southern Ireland, and 1 from Manchester. One of them was a Jew, working in Leeds and Sheffield. He was able to present the Unionist case to his fellow Jews through canvassing, meetings and debates. This system was very flexible. Attention could be switched from an unresponsive constituency to one that showed more promise quite easily and, at busy times, extra workers could be sent. The “follow-up” service consisted in supplying literature, including Irish unionist newspapers, to individuals identified by the canvassers.

 Among the most effective workers were the ladies of the Women’s Ulster Unionist Association, led by Lady Londonderry. They gained a well-deserved reputation for hard work and efficiency, and often the men suffered by comparison. Among their other duties they frequently supplied speakers for the meetings.

 At the end of 1912 the Union Defence League began using two motor vans equipped with projectors, or “magic lanterns”, and these proved tremendously popular. The UAI was initially sceptical about the use of motor transport. The east of England agent was given, first, a hired bicycle, then a motorcycle, and only then a hired car, even though he had to cover a large area which was poorly served with public transport. In Scotland a motor car was supplied by a supporter. By the summer of 1913 the UAI had been won over, and three vans were acquired for England and one for Scotland. The costs were covered by reducing the number of agents employed, by two in England and one in Scotland. Some of the assistants were also dropped.

 The vans were manned by a driver and one or two speakers who had received special training. Open air meetings were the preferred deployment for the vans. The very act of setting up the van, opening the doors and setting up the screen, followed by the showing of pictures of popular subjects, was often enough to attract a curious crowd. The speakers gave a lecture of about an hour, followed by questions. The UAI sent some members to these meetings unannounced, to gage their effectiveness. One of these members reported, “at each of the meetings I attended, the lecture was listened to with much interest and attention by the crowd … and in each case the lecturer might well be complimented for delivering a connected address illustrated by these pictures and not merely explaining a series of pictures”.

 Although this activity went on all the time, it was particularly intense at by-elections. As soon as a by-election was called the local UAI agent would contact the local constituency agent and offer help, though sometimes the constituency agent took the initiative. Whenever the invitation was taken up the UAI agent would establish an office in the constituency and, without cost to the local organisation, would organise literature, canvassers, meetings, and visits by the vans. Extra workers could be drafted in when required. The UAI workers were usually experienced in such work and consequently effective. Often they were more effective than the local workers. In 1914, at a by-election at Grimsby, the UAI workers found that the local association’s registers were very out of date, and they set to work to correct this. It was said afterwards that they had identified a further 600 voters for the Unionist candidate.

 In the early months of 1914 there were three by-elections in South Buckinghamshire, Poplar, and South-West Bethnal Green. At South Buckinghamshire the UAI arranged committee rooms and brought in thirty Irish workers. Nine of these were ladies, seven from Ulster and two from the south. Miss Kingsborough, an Ulster Lady Despatch Rider, went out with one of the vans. Three ladies rose at 4.30am every morning to go to Slough railway station to canvass the commuters leaving for London, and they were there again in the evening when the commuters returned home. At the vote, the Unionist candidate was returned with 9,404 votes against 6,713 for the Liberal candidate.

 In Bethnal Green the Liberal candidate was CFG Masterman, who had recently been promoted to the cabinet and, as was customary at that time, offered himself for re-election by his constituents. He was defending a majority of only 184. The UAI sent 14 canvassers, 8 speakers, and two vans. One of the canvassers was the Jewish agent from Manchester, who proved to be invaluable in presenting the Unionist case to the Jewish community in the east end of London. Masterman was defeated by 24 votes. In Poplar the effort was not comparable as it was not deemed to be fertile ground for Unionism.

 In North-East Derbyshire a by-election was called when the sitting member died. He had been a Labour MP and had held the seat with a majority of 1,750, owing to a deal between the Labour and Liberal parties. At the by-election the pact broke down, and both Liberal and Labour parties put forward candidates. The UAI sent 8 speakers and a van. The van was employed at five meetings which had an average audience of 300 per meeting. The constituency had a large mining element, so the large number of canvassers sent included a group of “Belfast workingmen”, many of them trade unionists. These gentlemen were able to get an audience with the Derbyshire miners when many other canvassers would not. In the event, the Unionist candidate won by 6,469 votes against 6,155 for the Liberals and 3,669 for Labour.

 In May 1914 there was the by-election at Grimsby already mentioned. The UAI, assisted by the Union Defence League, opened an office in nearby Cleethorpes, and at this office signatures were taken for the British Covenant. It was said that the entire crew of one trawler went to the office and signed the Covenant before setting sail. F. E. Smith made a visit to the constituency, and the Unionists held the seat. In the same month there was also a by-election in Ipswich. Home Rule became a major issue in the campaign and, by the time polling day came on 23rd May, there was much excitement. Six hundred signed the British Covenant during the course of the campaign. Turnout was to be 91 per cent. On polling day, Carson and F. E. Smith both visited the city. They toured the city in a cavalcade of thirty cars and addressed four meetings during the course of the day. Carson closed his final address with the words, “peace, peace, God give us peace, all we ask is to be left alone.” The Government was so worried by the Unionist campaign that they sent Lloyd George to the constituency on polling day. Lloyd George was possessed of oratorical gifts that were at least as great as Carson’s, and his speech was well received, but the Unionists took the seat.

 The Unionists in Ireland, north and south, organised tours of Ireland for MPs, journalists, and other opinion-formers where they were taken around Ireland. In the south they were introduced to local Unionists, some of them Roman Catholics, to demonstrate that the south was by no means a Nationalist preserve. The tours were also shown examples of deprivation to illustrate the inefficiency of Nationalist local councils, and were sometimes introduced to Unionists who were suffering physical intimidation. Afterwards, they were taken to Ulster to be shown examples of Unionist industry and efficiency. The Unionists became quite skilful at organising these tours and, from the beginning of 1914, tours were organised for parties of working men from Great Britain. The tours were organised by a professional travel agency in England. Lord Selborne and Harold Smith MP opened a bank account at Parr’s bank in Warrington, through which to channel funds to finance these tours. Tours lasted about a week and parties numbered a dozen or so. They usually ended with a reception at Belfast’s magnificent City Hall, organised by the Lord Mayor personally. By July 1914 touring parties of between ten and fifteen electors were arriving weekly.

 According to written accounts, these tours seemed to have brought about a large number of conversions to the Unionist point of view. A Mr Hinde, vice-president of the Olney Liberal Club, was one such. On his return home he gave a talk on his experiences to the Newport Pagnell Conservative Working Men’s Club. By August 1914 1,250 people had been on tour, from 116 British constituencies. 

 Michael M’Cann, of Newtownforbes in County Longford, was a Roman Catholic Unionist, and was the County Longford representative on the general council of the Irish Unionist Alliance. With his wife, he was described by the Secretary of the IUA as having, “done as much as anybody in Ireland to convert the radical visitors.” M’Cann and his wife had welcomed many of the tours to his home and fed them at his own expense, for which he was boycotted by the Nationalists. Henry Valentine Macnamara, of Ennistymon House in County Clare, was Honorary Secretary of the Clare branch of the IUA. He was described as having made “admirable arrangements for the reception of tours in Ennis” and doing “splendid work in county Clare during the last year.” As he lived in “one of the worst districts in Ireland”, he was commended as having showed “the very greatest pluck”. Such men as this devoted much of their time and large amounts of their own money to make the tours a success. In predominantly Nationalists areas this could be very dangerous.

 In January 1914, Carson began another series of large public rallies, the first of which was in Chester, where 8,000 people met at a skating rink, among them the Bishop of St Asaph and the Duchess of Westminster. Carson spoke for an hour and, once again, was escorted from the meeting by a torchlight procession. The next meeting took place at the Corn Exchange in Lincoln, which was also packed to capacity. In the same month James Craig addressed meetings in Jarrow and St Helens in the space of seventy-two hours.

 Bonar Law and the other Unionist leaders had pinned their hopes on being able to force a general election on the subject of Home Rule before the Bill was passed. Asquith’s obduracy forced the Unionists to contemplate more unorthodox measures of opposition. For a time in the early part of 1914 Bonar Law considered using the Unionist strength in the House of Lords to force amendments to the Army Act, on the basis that any such move would make it very difficult for the Government to use the Army to coerce Ulster. Throughout the course of the crisis Bonar Law exhibited a very sure touch. On this occasion at least it seems to have deserted him. The project was unpopular among many Conservatives. Ian Malcolm, the Secretary of the Union Defence league, was so opposed that he threatened resignation. When Bonar Law saw the dangers threatened he dropped the idea in March.

 Although Bonar Law abandoned his plans to amend the Army Act the Army was, nevertheless, drawn into the Home Rule Crisis. As the Unionist leaders in Belfast began to develop the UVF to resist the imposition of Dublin Rule, Asquith and the Liberal Government began to consider the use of the Army to face down any such move. The Unionists were made aware of this from the considerable number of supporters they had in the Army. As we have already seen, Colonel Hickman used his considerable network of supporters among officers both serving and retired to find a commander for the Ulster Volunteer Force.

 Bonar Law, Carson, and Milner developed their contacts with Lord Roberts, who was hugely influential within the Army, and also with Sir Henry Hughes Wilson, a native of County Longford and Director of Military Operations at the War Office.

 Milner discussed with Roberts the likelihood of a Government attempt to use the Army to impose Dublin Rule on Ulster, and what the Army’s reaction was likely to be. Milner said, “If they tried to do so, I really don’t know what we over here, who think the Ulstermen are perfectly right, would do. One thing is evident to me and that is that we would not allow them to be coerced without doing something to help them more than talking”. Roberts replied, “You are quite right, we could not allow the Ulstermen to be coerced without doing something to help them …”.

 As British officers were getting involved in aiding the organisation and training of the UVF some thought was given to providing them with assistance in the event that the Government refused them a pension. R. King Stephens wrote to Carson suggesting that a guarantee fund should be set up to support “officers in the Army who decide to resign rather than violate their consciences”, and consequently forfeited their pensions. Carson discussed this with Milner and a fund was set up. Sir Marcus Samuel pledged £10,000.

 Spender went to London to attend the annual dinner of officers who had passed through the Staff College, with the intention of sounding out his brother officers on their attitude to the coercion of Ulster. He found that most of them were strong supporters of Ulster. After the dinner General Reed VC invited him to the Army and Navy Club to discuss matters further. Spender was informed that the Government was likely to send the Army into Ulster to suppress Unionist resistance on the pretext that they were putting down civil disorder between Protestant and Catholic, but that the Army would be reluctant to take part in any such operation if it could be shown that the Unionists were trying to defend their position in the United Kingdom. It was essential, therefore, that the Unionists did not allow themselves to be put in a false light as oppressors of Catholics, as the Government would attempt, but that they were prepared to fight to stay British. Spender returned to Belfast and made Craig and Richardson aware of these conversations, which persuaded the Unionist leadership to step up attempts to ensure that the UVF would be properly armed against such eventualities.

 The Army’s reluctance to be involved in the coercion of Ulster was made manifest on 20th March 1914, when officers based at the Curragh informed their superior officers that they would rather resign their commissions than move against Ulster. The Government backed down and announced that there were no plans to march on Ulster, and that the whole thing was a misunderstanding. At around this time Lord Esher, President of the London Territorial Association, said publicly that, if the Government ordered troops to Ireland, “we shall be faced with the resignation of 50 per cent of the officers and men of the London Territorial Force.” There were rumours that two companies of the Dorset regiment had been ordered to march to the home of Colonel Chichester, a UVF officer, but that the soldiers had thrown down their rifles and a sergeant had shouted, “We will not have Home Rule !”

 The Unionist leadership in Belfast were convinced that the Government had indeed been about to order the Army into Ulster, and gave this the name of “The Pogrom Plot”. The Ulster Unionist Council initiated an inquiry into what had gone on. Walter Long used his extensive range of contacts in the Union Defence League to make enquiries and, on 26th March, he wrote to tell Carson, “We are convinced here that (a) warrants were signed for the arrest of political people, such as you and me, and (b) that a deliberate plan was arrived at to attack Ulster on Saturday last with a considerable force. The news that I cabled you to this effect last week came from an absolutely reliable source and is, I know, trustworthy”.

 Although the Unionists were relieved that the Curragh Incident had dashed the dagger from the Government’s hand they were not inclined to believe that nothing similar would be tried again. Beside any recurrent threat from the Government there was also, by this time, the National Volunteer movement in Nationalist Ireland. Although this was largely a reaction to the forming of the UVF, and was led by men who were largely supportive of Redmond and his party, there was from an early stage infiltration by the extreme Irish Republican Brotherhood and a hard core of the National Volunteers were to prove themselves quite willing to resort to violent measures. The Ulster Unionists therefore felt themselves under physical threat, with a consequent need to be able to defend themselves. In March 1914, Craig said that the time had “now arrived when £10,000 would be a thousand times better spent on rifles than education”.

 The Ulstermen had been acquiring arms for some time. On 29th November 1913 Colonel Hickman had stated publicly that he was buying rifles for Ulster and that same day he had interviewed twenty-six army officers in London, all of whom wanted to go to Ulster, without pay and at their own expense, to help defend the Province. Predictably, Hickman’s statement caused uproar and he had to explain that the officers were retired.

 Not all the attention attracted by Hickman’s imprudent announcement was unfavourable. The Government had issued a proclamation forbidding the importation of arms into Ulster and, on 4th December, an English supporter wrote to Hickman:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                The object of this letter is to suggest to you a means by which the                                                    surveillance of the Home Office may be avoided, and of eluding                                                      the Customs altogether, in the very probable case of further supplies                                                      of arms being interdicted by the Home Office.                                                                                              We are the owners of a small salvage steamer … and our business                                                               is the purchase and salving of wrecks. If you could give us a contract                                                              for gun-running we would buy a small wreck on the Ulster coast and                                                                 another on the English coast. We would be able to hoodwink the                                                             authorities who, if any suspicion were aroused, would suppose us to                                                       be employed on the wreck or moving from one to the other.                                                                          Arms and ammunition could be ferried to us by night whilst lying at                                                            anchor by our English wreck, and ferried again by night to the Ulster                                                     coast whilst we were lying at the Ulster wreck.                                                                                             This letter you will understand is written in strict confidence to you                                                                 as a man of honour, but in case the matter needs discussion with any                                                              of your colleagues, please show it to the department concerned”.

 Hickman passed the letter to the Unionist Council in Belfast.

 Charles Clements, fifth Earl of Leitrim, was commander of the UVF in County Donegal. In February 1913 he discussed with his chauffeur, a Londoner named Stephen Bullock, a plan to ship arms to the Volunteers in Donegal using the SS Ganiamore, a small steamer owned by Leitrim. Bullock proved an enthusiastic accomplice, and bought a four-ton Dennis lorry in Belfast. Two days later he drove it into a factory in Birmingham where he was met by someone described as “the manager of a well-known Donegal hotel”. A consignment of arms was loaded and Bullock drove it to Workington. The lorry was conspicuous in Workington, being an unusual sight at that time, and a former employee of Leitrim’s recognised Bullock and reported him to the police.

 Following this setback, Bullock moved his operation to Renfrew, where he rented a timber yard and took care to employ only sympathetic Scotsmen for loading. Bullock, assisted by David McElhenny, made a weekly trip to Renfrew, a round trip of 600 miles. The arms were loaded onto the Ganiamore at Renfrew, and the little steamer then sailed to Portrush, Londonderry, and Mulroy Bay in Donegal. This operation was successful until, one night, a crate broke open and rifles could be seen inside. A neighbour reported this to the police, and a policeman visited the yard and advised Bullock that the police would raid the following night.

 Bullock next based himself at an engineering works at Clydebank. Rifles were packed in furniture crates or steel cylinders labelled “filters” and shipped to Londonderry. The .303 ammunition was loaded in barrels of pitch, petrol tins, and drums of carbide. For a time the operation worked smoothly, but eventually Leitrim and Bullock’s activities attracted attention. In July 1913 a case of 2,000 rifles was loaded onto the Ganiamore, but just after the loading two Customs officers boarded the steamer

 and announced that they would be sailing with the ship. The crossing was a rough one and the Customs men joined Captain Morrison in the chartroom. The case of rifles was dropped in the sea off Ballycastle, but with a float attached to mark the spot. The local UVF recovered the rifles the following day. When the Ganiamore reached Portrush the case was not listed in the manifest and a search of the ship failed to find it. The Captain said he had no knowledge of such cargo. Although the Customs men persisted until the ship reached Milford in Donegal, they eventually had to give up. The Donegal Volunteers were said to be the best equipped regiment, through the enterprise of Leitrim and Bullock.

 Leitrim’s gun-running was a piece of private enterprise, but the man to whom the Ulster Unionist Council turned to acquire arms in large numbers was Major Frederick H. Crawford, a man of great daring and determination. Crawford met with Sir William Bull, MP for Hammersmith and one of Ulster’s staunchest supporters in Great Britain. Bull’s brother-in-law, Captain H. A. Budden, obtained use of an old stables and yard in King Street, Hammersmith, adjoining the Windsor Castle Hotel, and began trading under the name of “John Ferguson and Co”, and began storing and dealing in second-hand scientific instruments and antique furniture. Bull’s chauffeur, a man named Foyer, set up a firm called F. M. Foyer & Co Ltd as motor body builders. For a time this operation worked very well. Not only did thousands of rifles reach Ulster by this route, but also six Vickers machine guns.

 By the beginning of June 1913 several thousand Italian Vetterli-Vitali rifles had been collected in the stables and were being prepared for movement to Ulster. On 3rd June the Customs in Belfast seized and opened eight cases marked “high class electrical plant” that had just arrived from Manchester and were found to contain rifles and bayonets. The City Commissioner and the principal Customs Officer in Belfast were present at the seizure, which indicated that the action was intelligence-based and not merely random. Press speculation mentioned “an elaborate plan for the supply of firearms to the Ulster loyalists”. On 6th June a furniture van was stopped at the North Wall in Dublin. It was on its way to Lord Farnham in County Cavan from “John Ferguson & Co” of London and was found to contain several hundred Italian rifles. The Evening Standard reported that a large quantity of rifles, bayonets, and ammunition had been found “in a suburb of London” and the Special Branch was making enquiries. The Metropolitan Police raided the stables at 7.00 am on 10 June, found several thousand rifles, and placed a guard on them. No one was there at the time of the raid, and no arrests were made.

 Subsequently, Crawford was to allege that Budden had been the source of the leak, though around this time weapons travelling by other routes were also being intercepted. Crawford also had 400 Vetterlis stored in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. On 14th June he sent four cases of a hundred rifles each by rail to Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, and Fleetwood. On arrival in Belfast they were promptly seized by the Customs and displayed at the Custom House. Following this setback, Crawford advised the committee that the importation of rifles was becoming so difficult that it would be best to bring arms in by a single massive delivery.  

 Crawford was not entirely correct in his assessment, as other routes continued to operate. The Glen Printworks in Newtownards was a family business run by Samuel Johnston, who sent his eldest son William to run the Manchester branch in August 1913. For the next year, working with Crawford, he was able to send three million rounds of .303 ammunition and 500 rifles to Ulster, packed in barrels of bleaching powder.

 On the evening of 4th February 1914, Crawford travelled to Darlington to meet Major F. T. Tristram, a sympathetic Englishman and an officer in the Territorials. Tristram was a cement manufacturer with factories in several cities in the north of England, and he owned a disused cement works in West Hartlepool which covered about five acres. There were several buildings on the site and a large pond in the middle of it. Large quantities of .303 rifle and machine gun ammunition were moved from London to Bedford, where the boxes were marked “Cement Manufacture”, then sent on to Rugby and finally to the cement works in West Hartlepool. At the cement works the ammunition was packed into bags of cement, 500 cartridges to a bag, and taken to the small harbour of Haverton Hill. From there they were loaded onto a small schooner which Crawford had purchased, and shipped to Belfast. It is estimated that, by June 1914, more than a million rounds of .303 ammunition had been sent to Ulster by this route.

 At the dock the instructions were to check the cement bags and remove any lumps that had formed. When one of the labourers did this he found cartridges in the bag. Some of the labourers were Irish Roman Catholics, who correctly guessed that the ammunition was bound for Ulster and stopped work. The foreman stevedore was called for and he then went to call the police. The foreman, however, was sympathetic to the Unionists and he ensured that the ammunition bags, thirty tons in all, were unloaded and replaced by genuine bags of cement. The Customs arrived the next day.

 In the meantime, one of Crawford’s assistants, named Adgey, had returned to Newcastle having received a telegram from Tristram. Adgey used 5-ton lorries to remove about half of the ammunition and hid them with a friendly farmer outside Darlington, and they managed to make another run before the Customs arrived. Adgey arranged for the ammunition to be taken to Manchester, but he left some behind to give the Customs the impression that they had found all the ammunition, which would enable the gunrunners to transport the rest.

 Adgey went on to the cement works and ordered that all the remaining ammunition there be loaded into barrels which were marked as bleaching powder from Manchester. Some remaining cartridges were dumped in the pond. By the time that the police arrived at the cement works it was deserted and empty. Meanwhile, the ship on which the genuine bags of cement had been loaded sailed to Belfast, where it was searched by Customs officials who expected to discover large amounts of ammunition. All they found was cement.

 The major success enjoyed by the Unionist gunrunners took place overnight between 24th and 25th April 1914. 25,000 rifles and 5 million rounds of ammunition, bought in Hamburg and brought to Ulster by sea, were landed at Larne, Donaghadee, and Bangor. The landings took place entirely undisturbed by the authorities who had been lured away by a decoy landing at Belfast. Within hours a fleet of motor vehicles had spirited the armaments away. The finance for the purchase of such a large amount of armaments was raised largely by the Union Defence League. After Milner involved himself in the resistance to Home Rule the campaign had hugely increased in efficiency and effectiveness.  

By the beginning of 1914 the Home Rule issue was causing great partisanship in Great Britain, to the point where supporters of the two sides could not bear each other. Lord Londonderry asked his sister Lady Allendale, who was married to a Liberal whip, not to call at his house any more. He also refused an invitation to stay at Windsor for the Ascot Races as it may have brought him into too close a proximity to Liberals such as the Chesterfields and the Granards. At one reception he was just about to be introduced to the hostess, Millicent Sutherland, when he turned about and walked away. He had seen the Liberal Lord and Lady Lincolnshire ahead of him. The Duchess of Abercorn was staying at a house party, which included the King, when she refused to sit next to Lord Crewe even though they had formally been great friends. In April 1914 a Parliamentary golf tournament was abandoned because there was such ill-feeling between the two sides of the Home Rule argument. It is said that there were fierce arguments on commuter trains, each passenger’s allegiance identified by the newspaper he was reading.

 The preparations now being made for Ulster’s resistance were in deadly earnest. Craig arranged for sympathisers in Glasgow and Liverpool to send supplies of flour, meal, tinned beef, tea and sugar to Ulster to break the blockade he expected the Government to try to impose. As early as July 1913 plans had been laid for the evacuation of women and children from Ulster to England and Scotland in the event of conflict, and were now in a very advanced stage. The original idea seems to have come from the Unionist Party constituency agent in Warrington, who raised the idea with Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland, the Chairman of the Conservative Party. The idea received the support of Craig and Harold Smith, FE’s brother, and the Primrose League also gave it enthusiastic backing. Specific groups who were to be evacuated were women and children from districts where Unionists were an exposed minority, and the wives and children of members of the UVF’s Special Force, which would enable those men to serve wherever they were needed without worrying about their dependants. UVF Headquarters had lists of people to be evacuated with refugee officers to look after them. Transport had been arranged to take refugees to designated and prepared areas. One such was Eaton Hall, the home of Hugh Grosvenor, the 2nd Duke of Westminster. By August 1914 the “Help the Ulster Women and Children League” had received £17,000 in donations and promises of accommodation for 8,000 women and children.

 Sir Phillip Sassoon, MP for Hythe, told the Folkestone Battalion of the National Reserve that, should hostilities break out in Ulster, he personally would pay for a vessel to take the battalion to Ireland, an offer which was met with loud cheering. Edward Turnour, Lord Winterton and MP for Horsham, advertised in sympathetic newspapers for men “of courage and determination” to “undertake a desperate task”. From those who responded Winterton formed a group, most of whom had gained military experience in South Africa, or even Latin America, to fight in Ireland should that be necessary to save the Union. In 1953 he wrote:

 The number of us was greater, and the extent to which we were                                                               committed larger, than was known at the time or has been disclosed                                                            since. For instance, I formed what would now be described as a                                                         Commando which was ready to give physical assistance to Northern                                                      Ireland and the Ulster Volunteers if the need arose.

 In October 1913, an Ulsterwoman living in London, Miss Constance Bloomfield, had written to the UVF medical board that she proposed to raise an ambulance corps in London, and extending to the provinces if necessary, “with the intention of coming to the assistance of the sick and wounded in Ulster should there be civil war in Ireland”.

 In January 1914 the Duchess of Somerset wrote to Carson:

                                This is to assure you of our unfailing support and to implore you                                                             to take all care of            yourself – so as to save Ireland …                                                                                   The day that the first shot is fired in Ireland – I shall have my complete                                                  ambulance started and ready – 2 medical men, 2 surgeons, 6 trained                                                                 nurses and 32 orderlies - I have also undertaken to house 100 women                                                     and children from Ulster – The Duke and I will both come over to

                                give all the help we can … This little letter is just a note of                                                                        encouragement for I know how depressed you must be at times                                                            but in such a noble cause ! it is worth while and it’s the weakness                                                        of our rulers at the present time who have helped the Traitors and                                                           little Englishmen to bring their evil doings to this impasse … the                                                            country will follow you now and we shall all help you to see this                                                   thing through and this vile government will go out and perhaps a                                                       reign of peace will come …

 Even in rural Derbyshire, Lady Florence Duncombe was busily collecting for medical supplies for the UVF. By spring 1914 the BLSUU had 5,000 volunteers in Liverpool.

 This was the climate of opinion Milner was working in, and which he had already begun to engender. He had always had an ability to identify and recruit talented young men, as he had demonstrated during his time as High Commissioner for South Africa, and since late October 1913 he had been bringing together just such a group to assist him in defence of the Union. This group included Lord Winterton, Comyn Platt, and Leopold Amery. In December 1913 he wrote to Carson:

 47 Duke Street, SW                                                                                                                                             December 9, 1913                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Very Confidential                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                My Dear Carson,                                                                                                                                                        It seems an awful thing to suggest, to a man who must be so                                                                    overwhelmed as you are, but I should immensely value 10 minutes                                                  quite straight and confidential talk with you.                                                                                                 Let me quite briefly explain my position. For all ordinary purposes,                                                        I have done with politics. But the business we have been brought                                                           face to face with goes far deeper than ordinary party struggles.    

                                I am completely in accord with you about Ulster, and what I want to                                                      know is whether there is not something which men like myself, who                                                     disbelieve in mere talk at this juncture, can do to help you.                                                                              I don’t think the Government are serious in their advances. I think                                                                 they are just passing the time. If they are not serious, there must very                                                     soon, certainly in less than a year, be what would be technically a                                                           “rebellion” in Ulster. It would be disaster of the first magnitude if                                                     that “rebellion”, which would really be the uprising of unshakeable                                                          principle and devoted patriotism – of loyalty to the Empire and the                                                         Flag – were to fail ! But it must fail unless we can paralyse the arm                                                        which might be raised to strike you. How are we to do it ? That requires                                             forethought and organisation over here. You may say, “Why can’t                                                   you make a plan for yourselves ? I have surely hay enough on my                                                           fork”. Quite, quite true. And I don’t want to waste your time or add                                                        to your burdens in any way. Indeed I think people over here had better                                                                act, in appearance at any rate, independently of you. But I, for one,                                                               can’t even make a plan without knowing a little more than I do of the                                                                probable course of affairs on your side. And volumes of correspondence,                                              for which you have no time, would not enlighten me as much as a                                                           single interview. Please realise                                                                                                                     (1) that I am speaking entirely for myself,                                                                                                                 (2) that this thing goes very deep with me.                                                                                                     I can honestly say there is nothing I personally desire except retirement.                                                I am getting old, I am not very well, and I am dead sick of party politics.                                               But if I can see my way to being of any real use in this matter, no personal                                       consideration shall be allowed to count.”

Carson suggested that Milner ought to visit Belfast to see for himself the situation there, but Milner replied on 1st January 1914, “for the moment I think I am of more use here. I have got a little bit of a move on, and I don’t want to go away from London more than I absolutely must, till I see that this thing has some momentum of its own.”

When the two men met Milner offered to take Carson’s place should he be arrested. The Unionists certainly thought that the Government was contemplating such a course, and that they would be likely to move against any viable replacement in order to ensure that the Ulster resistance was decapitated.

On 8th January Milner told Amery, Conservative MP for South Birmingham, “we have no time to lose in thinking how we are to implement our promise to ‘support’ Ulster in the last resort. We must be getting ready for that detestable contingency, and it must be by doing something over here.” Evidently, Milner thought that resistance in Ulster may well be insufficient and that, to be effective, a parallel effort of equal strength would have to be developed in Great Britain.

 Milner was wise enough to avoid re-inventing the wheel. Instead of setting up yet another Unionist organisation in Great Britain, he began with those already in existence. On 6th January Willoughby de Broke invited Milner onto the council of the British League for the Support of Ulster and the Union, though Milner initially declined. Amery argued that the existing structures were worth building on, and Milner spent 11th January “thinking out plans for the support of Ulster”. He then lunched with Lady Londonderry, who may well have influenced his thinking. On 12th January Milner and Amery met the BLSUU’s committee and persuaded them “of the necessity of expanding their organisation on our lines”. Willoughby de Broke then invited Milner to take charge of the BLSUU and Milner accepted.

 On 19th February Milner met the Council of the Union Defence League, following which the UDL placed its entire staff and organisation, including its ruling council, at Milner’s disposal. The council included Lords Crawford, Harrowby, Oranmore, and Westmeath, with the redoubtable Ian Malcolm as Secretary. Milner was now at the head of most organised Unionism in Great Britain, and could ensure that membership and branches throughout the country could be used to maximum effectiveness, and galvanise support including finance.

Immediately Milner created a new ruling body and brought onto it such men as F. E. Smith, Basil Peto, McNeill and Bedford, all existing members of the BLSUU, and Long, Amery, Hugh Cecil, Mark Sykes, and Lord Lovat. Milner told Lord Selborne, “I want the stalwarts, to begin to have some sort of rudimentary organisation, not to leave everything to the last moment”. Lord Roberts was made President, and his endorsement was to be hugely beneficial to the cause.

At the beginning of 1914 the Unionist campaign was running short of funds. There was an energetic, and successful, fund raising campaign. £30,000 came from Lord Astor; £25,000 from Sam McCaughly; £10,000 each from Lords Bedford, Iveagh, and Rothschild; £5,000 from Lord Portland; £4,000 from E. Cassell; £30,000 came from Kipling at the end of March.

Milner, with Amery as his tireless assistant, began to plan a British Covenant “analogous to the signing of the Ulster Covenant which was the first step in the organisation of Ulster for resistance”. Amery believed that, “What was wanted was an organisation which would be effective in paralysing the Government’s action before it reached Ulster, and which would, above all, be concerned with the defence of the Union, and with Ulster only in so far as coercion of Ulster precipitated that issue.” The British Covenant would be a step in a gradual and planned escalation of resistance in Great Britain. Lord Roberts was informed of the plans on 5th February, and Roberts promised his support. Amery had spent a weekend with Roberts at Englemere, with Sir Henry Wilson also present, to discuss the Covenant. Shortly afterwards, Amery went to Ulster to consult with the Unionist leaders there.

Some of the Unionist leaders had reservations. Initially Bonar Law had written to Lord Lansdowne that such a move would need to receive an overwhelming response. Milner told Amery, “It will be a bore if Bonar Law tries to turn the thing down. But I mean to go on with it”. In the event, Bonar Law put aside his doubts and gave his backing to the project, although he advised that it should not be made to look like a mere adjunct of the Conservative Party. He gave a speech at Bristol from which the Covenanters took great encouragement. Robert Cecil had been one of those who had expressed doubts about the project, but Amery told him that Bonar Law’s Bristol speech “practically appeals to the Unionist Party to strengthen the hands of its leaders”. Cecil was persuaded and gave his support.

Milner prepared the ground by talking to the editors of The Times, The Morning Post, The Observer, and The Spectator to ensure that the impending launch of the Covenant would be greeted favourably in the press. He also spoke to friends in the City, while Amery, a Fellow of All Souls, went to Oxford to secure support among the academics.

On 3rd March there was an announcement in the press informing the public of the intention to launch a British Covenant:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                The time is fast approaching when the evident intention of the                                                                              Government to pass the Home Rule Bill into law, without giving                                                     the nation, either by means of a general election, or a referendum,                                                           an opportunity of pronouncing judgement upon it, would plunge                                                             this kingdom into civil turmoil without parallel in living memory.

Those who opposed the Government’s plans were invited to sign the following declaration, composed by Amery:

                                I … of … earnestly convinced that the claim of the Government to                                                         carry the Home Rule Bill into law without submitting it to the judgement                                          of the Nation is contrary to the spirit of our Constitution, do hereby                                                      solemnly declare that if that Bill is passed I shall hold myself justified                                                   in taking or supporting any action that may be effective to prevent it                                                      being put into operation, and more particularly to prevent the armed                                                  forces of the Crown being used to deprive the people of Ulster of their                                                               rights as citizens of the United Kingdom.

Amery had laboured long over the wording of the Covenant. It was couched in general terms so that signatories were pledging themselves to support “the people of Ulster”, whilst not committing

themselves to the exact nature of that support. This enabled the Covenanters to claim the widest possible support, and it also assuaged the anxieties of some of those leaders who had, at first, been doubtful.

On 13th March the British Covenanters made a presentation to Carson of a sword and an illuminated book, in a manner which presaged the award of the Sword of Stalingrad in 1943. Francis Cochrane, the Canadian Minister of Railways and Canals, was said to have been present.

The Covenanters were anxious to secure the support of officers in the army, both regular and territorial. Ian Malcolm was tasked with obtaining this support but, initially, found that, even though sympathetic, they were reluctant to sign. He told Milner “territorial objections to signing are even more widespread than I thought among the officers … I need hardly say they are all ready to be persuaded by a good argument”. He suggested that Lord Roberts be approached to make that good argument. Roberts had already drafted a letter for the newspapers, approved by Bonar Law and Carson, saying, “It is a soldier’s duty to obey, but if and when Civil War breaks out no ordinary rules will apply. In that case a soldier will reflect that, by joining the Army, he has not ceased to be a citizen, and if he fights in such a quarrel he will fight on the side he believes to be right.” Although this letter was never published its sentiments became well known. Roberts also helped by utilising his network of contacts in organisations such as the National Service League. Sir Charles Hunter was also useful in this respect. He was Conservative MP for Bath, an officer in the Reserves, and held the rank of Major in the Territorials. He was also a member of the UDL Council. These events tended to deepen the growing ties between the Unionists and the Army.

Milner set up offices at 64 Victoria Street and Philip Cambray was made Secretary. The first signatories besides Milner himself included Lord Roberts; Lord Balfour of Burleigh; the Duke of Portland; Viscount Halifax; Admiral of the Fleet Sir Edward Hobart Seymour; Rudyard Kipling; Sir Edward Elgar; Professors A. V. Dicey and H. Goudy; and Dr Herbert Warren, the President of Magdalen College, Oxford. Elgar was a Roman Catholic, as was Lord Lovat, 23rd Chief of the Clan Fraser, who also gave generous support.

On April 3rd a new League of British Covenanters was launched at a meeting at the Caxton Hall where Milner reported that signatures were coming in at the rate of thirty thousand a day. The next day, the 4th April, a huge demonstration took place in Hyde Park, where the crowd was estimated at nearly half a million. The meeting was called “Against British Forces being used to shoot Ulster Loyalists.” Carson, Long, Milner, Lord Londonderry, Austen Chamberlain, A. J. Balfour and many other Unionist leaders, though not Bonar Law or Lansdowne, addressed the crowd from fourteen separate platforms, formed in a great semi-circle stretching from the Serpentine to the Bayswater Road. Processions converged on the Park from twenty-two separate mustering points. Some contingents came from the City and from the London clubs, making a “sombre and dignified parade of silk hats and black coats.” Bands played patriotic tunes, flags were everywhere, and most of the crowd wore badges with the motto “Support Loyal Ulster”.

At the start of the proceedings the crowd sang “O God our help in ages past” and the National Anthem. The following resolution was put to the crowd:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                We protest against the use of the Army and Navy to drive out by                                                 force of arms our fellow subjects in Ireland from their full heritage                                                                 in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. And we demand that the                                                         Government shall immediately submit this grave issue to the people.

Carson asked, “Are you going to allow your Army and your Navy to shoot down your own kith and kin?”

Hickman’s volunteers were now drilling regularly, and a parade was held in Chelsea at the end of March. This was described as a muster of the men of “No.1 area”, which comprised Westminster, Kensington, Chelsea, Fulham, Hammersmith, and Battersea. Quite a few of those on parade were Roman Catholics. Around the same time there was a meeting in London of the Ulster Aid Ambulance Corps, which now consisted of four companies, each with a surgeon in command. Lady Londonderry said there was hardly a Unionist woman who was not connected with a base hospital, clearance hospital, or volunteer aid detachment. Some feared that the growing Loyalist forces might not confine their action to Ireland alone. T. M. Healey said he had been told that “there would be civil war in England as well as in Ireland, and that Willoughby de Broke and his men would ride up to London and attack Asquith, and that the soldiers would not resist”. A memorandum found in Milner’s papers indicates that he may have been contemplating such action: “In the last resort the same organisation which has been created for the purpose of demonstration could be used to furnish a really effective resistance to the action of the Government … an organised and immediately successful national uprising”.

At the end of July 1914 the UDL decided to take no further signatures to the Covenant. Walter Long said that two million people had signed. The Covenanters began to produce a magazine called The Covenanter, the motto of which was “Put your trust in God and keep your powder dry”. Carson, Amery, Kipling, and Milner were all contributors. In the edition of 24th June 1914 there appeared a drawing by Briton Rivière, a noted artist who was born in London of Huguenot descent. It depicted a British lion asleep while its Ulster cub faced a pack of wolves, and carried the caption, “Will the old lion sleep and forget its cub ?” There was also a poem entitled “One Flag” by Sir Bartle Frere:

                                Britons of old their shuttles flung across the texture of the world                                                              And wove the pattern of a Flag that traitors cry must now be furled.                                                  Oh weavers, sitting at your loom, draw tighter still the threads that bind,                                          Think not you easily may change the pattern that you once designed.                                                      Full close together, pledge afresh the Union that has made you one                                                         Again unanimously prove you will not have your work undone.                                                          Accurst is he who turns aside from children calling for his help;                                                             Watchful, amid the circling foes, the Lion guards the Lion’s whelp.

The Covenanters now stepped up the pace of public meetings. In May 1914 there was a meeting of Covenanters in Coventry. 4,300 met at the Drill Hall to be addressed by Balfour and Milner. Forty press correspondents were present, which is indicative of the level of interest the Unionist campaign now commanded. On 18th May there was a large demonstration in Royal Tunbridge Wells. A body of 4,000 men paraded through the streets, accompanied by men on horseback with lances. They made their way to the common, where another 1,000 people were waiting, and the meeting opened at 5.00pm with the singing of “O God our help in ages past.” Several MPs were on the platform, but the main speaker was the poet Rudyard Kipling. Meetings were also held in Oxford, addressed by Milner, and at Surbiton, addressed by Lord Winterton, both organised by the Covenanters. On 28th May Carson went to Wales to address a crowd of 12,000 at the Great Pavilion at Mountain Ash, Lord Selborne spoke to over 3,000 at Bath, and Milner spoke to 2,500 at Rothwell in Northamptonshire.

Also at this time F. E. Smith spoke to 2,000 at the Victoria Hall, Sunderland, and to meetings at The Tyne Theatre and The Pavilion Theatre in Newcastle on 6th June, both venues holding 5,000 people. These meetings were chaired by Viscount Ridley who said that, as a former soldier, he had enlisted, “to fight the King’s enemies, and I think I know who the King’s enemies are now.” Milner and Selborne addressed a meeting of at least 10,000 at the Corporation Field in Hull. The Duke of Devonshire convened an anti-Home Rule rally of 10,000 at Compton Place, his residence near Eastbourne, where Lord Charles Beresford was the principal speaker. There was a demonstration of 30,000 Covenanters in Leeds, where the participants marched out of the town to Woodhouse Moor to be addressed by the Duke of Norfolk and Sir Mark Sykes MP, both of whom were Roman Catholics. This fact seems to have been particularly infuriating to a group of Irish Nationalists, who tried to disrupt the meeting by violence until they were cleared away by the police.

Carson spoke to 15,000 people in Blackburn and then, on the same day, to a similar number in Bolton. As he was driven from one meeting to the other Carson passed through smaller towns, notably Darwen, where crowds turned out to cheer him on. At the close of the Bolton rally Carson had a meeting in nearby schoolrooms with local Orangemen, one of whom said, “a disciple of Jesus Christ wishes you victory, and God be with you.” Carson next spoke at Herne Hill in Surrey. This gathering was notable for the appearance of many young men who escorted Carson to the platform with military precision.

On 13th July 1906 Joseph Chamberlain had suffered a stroke that effectively ended his political career. By the end of June 1914 he was obviously dying. He told Amery, although obviously speaking only with great difficulty, “Amery … if I … were the … House of Lords … I would … fight”.

Carson was due to address a mass meeting in Birmingham around the same time. He was accompanied by Austen Chamberlain and they stayed the night at Joe’s house. Although in the very last hours of his life he had lost none of his fight. He spoke to Carson, asking him, “You – know – what – I – would – do ?”

“I do not, sir,” said Carson.

Chamberlain was sitting in his chair and speaking with great difficulty. For emphasis he thumped his stick on the floor as he forced out the words, “If – I – were – you – I – would – fight – it – out – to – the – end.”

On 2nd July Joseph Chamberlain died in his wife’s arms.

1914 - 1923: War, Rebellion, and Division

On 28th June 1914 the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo by Serb Nationalists. After a month of consultation with their German ally the Austrians delivered an ultimatum to the Serb government, deliberately couched in terms so harsh that it could not be accepted. Although the Serbs offered to negotiate the Austrians attacked Belgrade on 28th July. This set off a chain reaction. Russia mobilised in support of Serbia, which prompted Germany to declare war on Russia. Germany’s war plan demanded that its army be at once directed against Russia’s ally France. As the German army launched its attack through Belgium this finally brought the United Kingdom into the war.

This changed the Government’s priorities completely. The Home Rule Bill was passed, which enraged the Unionists who thought that the whole procedure should have been frozen until the end of the war, but it was not put into effect.

Although few could imagine, at the outbreak of war, what demands would eventually be made of the whole country, it was at least clear that Britain would need to increase the size of its army. Lord Kitchener was made Secretary of State for War and, on 7th August 1914 he sent for Colonel Hickman. “I want the Ulster Volunteers”, said Kitchener and, eventually, he got them. The UVF formed the backbone of the 36th Ulster Division of the British Army.

The Irish Nationalists supported the war effort, hoping to demonstrate that their demand for Home Rule did not mean that they were antagonistic to Britain. Willie Redmond, brother of John, had been a firebrand in his time but he enlisted in the 16th Irish Division at the age of fifty-three and was killed in action on 7th June 1917 at the Battle of Messines. Willie Redmond had hoped that, by fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with his Protestant fellow-Irishmen, he and his comrades might lay the old animosities to rest. Stretcher-bearers of the 36th Ulster Division brought him back, but he died at the clearing station. The men of the Ulster Division formed a Guard of Honour at his grave, and donated £100 to a memorial fund.

Sadly for men like Willie Redmond, by the time of his death the situation in Ireland had been “changed, changed utterly” by the violent actions of men possessed by a vicious fanaticism. The Irish Volunteers had broken away from the National Volunteers to pursue a course that they hoped would lead to an Irish Republic. On Monday 24th April 1916 they rose in rebellion in Dublin, assisted by the socialist-oriented Irish Citizen Army. A ship-load of weapons was sent from Germany, but was intercepted by the Royal Navy. A week of fighting followed, at the end of which the rebels surrendered. Approximately 450 people were killed and more than 2,500 wounded, almost all of whom were Irish.

If it achieved nothing else, the rebellion had drawn attention to the existence of groups of Irish Republicans who were prepared to kill to achieve their aims, and who cared nothing for constitutional procedure. The Unionists had been aware of this dark side of Nationalism, and had often suffered at the hands of its adherents, but had not realised how well-organised they were. The Government thought that this realisation might make the Unionists more inclined to do a deal with the Redmondite party. The Nationalist Party was also alarmed by the rebellion, realising that they had rivals for the allegiance of Irish separatists. Here again, the Government saw an opportunity: the Nationalists might be more willing to accommodate Unionist fears in order to reach an agreement before the extreme Republicans could make any more ground at their expense. The Government, for its part, wanted to settle the Irish Question because it didn’t want a distraction from the war effort, it wanted continuing recruitment from Ireland, and it was afraid that trouble in Ireland might cause diplomatic trouble with the United States, with its large constituency of Irish Roman Catholics.

From 25th May to 31st July 1916 the Government entered into negotiations with the Unionists and the Nationalists. During the campaign over the Third Home Rule Bill the Unionists had begun by using the position of Ulster, with a majority against Home Rule, as a tactic to stop Home Rule for the whole of Ireland, feeling that Home Rule without Ulster would be impractical. Over the length of the campaign, however, this had led to the Ulster Unionists moving apart from the Southern Irish Unionists, the latter left wondering what would happen to them. This was particularly the case when the Government offered the Unionists the enactment of Home Rule, with Ulster excluded if only for a few years. Bonar Law, Carson, Smith, Amery, Middleton, Selborne, and Hugh Cecil had moved to a position where they were prepared to see the passing of Home Rule provided Ulster would be permanently excluded. Milner, Willoughby de Broke, Bedford, Stanhope, and Arran were still holding out for the whole Union and nothing but the Union. This division affected Unionists in Great Britain as well as those in Ireland, and offered the Government an opportunity to divide the Unionists.    

During the course of the negotiations Lloyd George, acting for the Government, promised the Nationalists more than he dare reveal to the Unionists, and gave assurances to the Unionists which he did not communicate to the Nationalists. Many, many times British Governments have attempted to construct agreements in Ireland which are based on the principle of telling different stories to different sides, with the result that everyone thinks that the Government is two-faced and not to be trusted and the attempt flounders.

This was the case in 1916. The Southern Irish Unionists in particular were opposed to the Government’s moves as they saw no account taken of their position as a minority in a three-province area governed by a Nationalist and Roman Catholic majority. By this time Asquith was heading a Coalition Government in which the Unionists were well-represented. The two members of the Coalition who were most sensitive to Southern Irish Unionist feelings were the Marquess of Lansdowne and Walter Long. The Southern Unionists lobbied the two ministers who then advised the cabinet that they could not support the scheme, with Long threatening resignation. Addressing the cabinet committee on Ireland on 1st June he said:

                                no settlement arrived at between Ulster and the nationalists could                                                           be regarded as complete, but that it would be necessary, in conformity                                                              with the decision of the government, to obtain also the assent of the                                                               unionists of the three southern provinces, not of course to the                                                                   abandonment of their opposition to home rule, but to their                                                                        willingness to accept a scheme which appeared to them to have                                                               some prospect of                successful operation.

At the end of July he told Asquith he had received “very painful letters from my own friends in my own quiet county of Wicklow, and broken hearted accounts from sick and wounded soldiers home on leave. Some pray to be sent back rather than listen to this sedition.” Shortly afterwards the Government dropped the scheme.

On 6th December 1916 Lloyd George became Prime Minister. The country had come to believe that Asquith lacked the necessary qualities to be a successful war leader and, although Lloyd George had long been a controversial figure, nobody denied that he had the necessary energies and forcefulness to be a war leader. Although he came to power to achieve a more successful prosecution of the war, Lloyd George did not forget Ireland. He convened an “Irish Convention”, drawn from as wide a spectrum of Irish life as could be had in the face of deliberate abstention by some. It was hoped that they would be able to come to an agreement on the form the government of Ireland should take. The first session opened on 25th July 1917. The Ulster Unionists spoke from a position of strength, knowing that they had the will and the means of keeping aloof from any all-Ireland solution they did not like. The position of the Southern Irish Unionists was very different. They had largely come to accept that some form of devolved government would come to Ireland, but they wanted safeguards for their position and they wanted to keep Ulster within the agreement as the strength of Ulster Protestantism would be vital to secure any safeguards that were offered. The Convention lasted until April 1918 and, although agreement sometimes seemed close, it eventually came to nothing.

The Great War came to a close on 11th November 1918. On 21st January 1919 a gang from the Irish Republican Army murdered two Roman Catholic Constables of the Royal Irish Constabulary, James McDonnell and Patrick O’Connell, in Tipperary. This was the start of a guerrilla campaign by the Irish Republican Army aimed at ending British rule in Ireland altogether. The first phase of the campaign was directed against the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police. By ambush, murder, and social and economic boycott the RIC were forced onto the defensive, withdrawing from many of the more isolated police stations.

Most IRA activity was in the south and west of the island. Known Unionists were often forced out of their homes, and sometimes were murdered outright. Southern Unionism was now split between the Unionist Anti-Partition League, led by Lord Midleton and looking for a settlement along the lines explored by the Irish Convention, and the Irish Unionist Alliance, which espoused a more traditional form of Unionism. Both sides saw the need to put their case in Great Britain. The APL openly stated that its aim was “vigorously to combat partition and to enlighten British and colonial opinion on the danger of a Sinn Fein state and the injustice to southern unionists”. Two committees were formed, one in Dublin and the other in London. The latter was composed of some of the Irish peers, Sir Robert Woods (MP for Trinity College), Walter Guinness (MP for Bury St Edmunds), and Colonel Wyndham Quin.

The IUA re-established a London office, at 25 Victoria Street, Westminster, and a committee was set up there including Southern Unionists living in London and Gershom Stewart, MP for the Wirral. The Government was now eager for an agreement on Ireland, so favoured the APL which was thought to be more amenable.

With the RIC under extreme pressure, the British Government deployed extra resources to combat the IRA’s murder campaign. Regular Army units were sent to Ireland, but in addition men were recruited in Great Britain for service with the RIC. These recruits became known as the Black and Tans, and many of them were ex-servicemen. A special force was raised, many of whom were ex-officers, and was named the Auxiliary Division of the RIC. Republican propaganda routinely accused every element of the security forces of atrocities, but they held a special hatred for the Tans and the Auxiliaries. Some people in Britain took up this cry, but in a debate in the House of Lords on 22nd February 1921 the security forces were vigorously defended by F. E. Smith, now Lord Birkenhead. To the Archbishop of Canterbury he said:

                                I agree with the most reverend Primate that we cannot cast out the                                                          devil by calling in devils; it is also unhappily true that we cannot                                                         cure the mischiefs existing in Ireland by uttering the sublime                                                                           admonitions of the Sermon on the Mount. These mischiefs can be                                                           cured only by the assertion of force in its most extreme and vigorous form.

Birkenhead condemned accusations against the security forces as “a gross and abominable libel” on British soldiers, though he conceded that a small number of them may have exceeded their duty under the most intolerable provocation:

                                The Government is now making, has made and will make the                                                                  strong arm of England respected in Ireland (cheers). I would rather                                                  have the Government odious in Ireland than a farce or a sham (cheers).                                                              That it is not a farce or a sham is largely due to those devoted men.

In 1920 the Government of Ireland Act was passed, with the intention of setting up two devolved parliaments for Ireland, one in Belfast to govern the six counties of Antrim, Down, Armagh, Londonderry, Tyrone, and Fermanagh, an area now called Northern Ireland, and the other parliament in Dublin to govern the rest of Ireland. The Act was successful in setting up the province of Northern Ireland, but by the time this act was passed it was already a dead letter in the south of Ireland, having been overtaken by the IRA terrorist campaign and the counter-measures adopted by the British Government.

The position of the Southern Unionists continued to deteriorate. During a debate on the Government of Ireland Bill in the Lords nearly all of the Irish peers spoke in favour of a settlement. Curzon was scornful of the Irish Unionist Alliance:    

                                I admit that everyone is not converted. Nothing will convert my                                                              noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke. He still remains a magnificent                                                        relic of the old guard, but the backwoods in which my noble friend                                                   ranged at the head of a formidable band some years ago are now                                                             relatively deserted, and his picturesque figure is seen stalking,                                                                  consoled only by Lord Farnham, amid the scenes that were once                                                             those of his adventures and triumphs.

Bonar Law had taken a less active role in politics due to failing health. In 1921 he resigned as leader of the Conservative Party and was succeeded by Austen Chamberlain. At this time the counter-terrorist measures taken by the British security forces in Ireland were bearing fruit and the IRA was in decline. This made them more willing to come to the conference table, and peace talks began in July 1921. On 21st June, Birkenhead made a speech in which he attempted to set out a strongly Unionist position in advance of the talks:

                                If I am right in saying that those who are carrying on the war in                                                               Ireland will be content with nothing less than … an independent                                                         Republic for Ireland, this is certain, that that is a claim which it                                                      will never be possible for this country even to consider, no matter                                                           how long the struggle may last (cheers)… if we should be forced                                                            to the melancholy conclusion that by force, and force alone, can                                                         this mischief be extirpated or prevented, it is a conclusion which,                                                        however sorrowfully we accept it, we shall not hesitate logically                                                             and completely to act upon.

Birkenhead took part in the negotiations with Sinn Fein. One of the contentious points was the British desire to retain naval bases on the south coast of Ireland for use by the Royal Navy, based on the lessons learned in the close-fought U-Boat campaign during the Great War. Arthur Griffiths, on behalf of Sinn Fein, argued that Britain’s position would be adequately protected by Irish neutrality. Birkenhead countered at once:

You say that a friendly neutrality would be better, but we are                                   advised that in order to safeguard ourselves we must have the                                                               permitted use of your harbours, but if you are neutral you cannot                                    give it to us. Therefore it would all go. I should like to know – if                                             it is true as Lord Beatty says he will not be responsible for keeping                                                this people alive unless we have a technical use of your harbours –                                    what would be the use of neutrality ? Because in those circumstances                                                 no country would recognise it.

Griffith had to concede the argument

                                On a point of international law I cannot say. You are an authority.                                                          In principle we make no objection to taking those safeguards that                                                       are necessary to your security. We agree in principle.               

During the course of the negotiations, however, Lloyd George began to toy with the idea of reneging on the pledge to Northern Ireland that it could stay outside any settlement in the south of Ireland. Lloyd George was Prime Minister only with the support of Conservative MPs. If he believed that Unionist sentiment in the Conservative Party had declined since 1914 he was to find otherwise. On 31st October 1921 a group of Conservative MPs, led by Colonel John Gretton, MP for Burton upon Trent, tabled a motion that was little short of a vote of censure, and which received the votes of forty-three members. Austen Chamberlain sought to defend the Cabinet and was met by outright hostility. 

Craig was standing his ground in Northern Ireland, and refusing to subordinate the province to a Dublin parliament. The pro-Government press put him under extreme pressure. The Daily Express carried an article “Ulster will be wrong”, in which it was suggested that “unless the Ulster cabinet abandons its uncompromising attitude it will be guilty of the greatest political crime in history”.

In this climate, Lloyd George met with Sir James Craig on 5th November and proposed to him that the new Northern Ireland Parliament should be subordinated to an all-Ireland Parliament in Dublin. Craig flat refused and immediately got in touch with Bonar Law. Bonar Law wrote to J. P. Croal, Editor of The Scotsman:

                                … I have made up my mind … If L.G. goes on with his present                                                               proposals I will oppose them. I shall try to get the Conservative                                                            party to follow me. If I succeed we will simply be back on the old                                                     lines. If I fail to get the majority, which means of course the control                                                       of the organisation, I will simply drop out … If the majority of the                                                          party go with me I think there would be fair chance of winning. On                                                 the other hand if I cannot carry the majority of the party it is obvious                                                                that I could not do anything effective now, and I am certainly not                                                            going to do what Disraeli did after the (repeal) of the Corn Law –                                                           attempt to build up a new Conservative Party. 

Bonar Law was no longer leader of the Conservative Party, and was suffering from poor health, (he was to die on 30th October 1923). He was obviously unsure if he still carried sufficient authority within the Conservative Party to force Lloyd George to change his mind, but he was determined to use whatever influence he still had.

On 10th November Lloyd George was obviously oblivious to any threats to his plans. On that day he told Sir James Craig:

                                The unity of Ireland would be recognised by the establishment                                                                of an all-Ireland Parliament upon which would be devolved the                                                               further powers necessary to form the self-governing Irish State.

He would not remain oblivious for long. On that day he dined with Bonar Law, who made his position clear. Lloyd George was Prime Minister with the support of Conservative MPs. If Lloyd George was to try and force Northern Ireland to accept the authority of a Dublin Government that support would no longer be forthcoming.

Bonar Law followed up on 12th November by giving an interview to a journalist from The Scotsman in which he said:

                                People say that Ulster has made no concession, won’t move an inch.                                                      As a matter of fact what is asked of them is not concession but the                                                    surrender of everything for which they have been fighting for 35                                                      years. That fight has been on one simple issue – that they will not                                                           be put under a Dublin Parliament without their consent. In my opinion                                                   the fact that they do not consent is enough. It is not for us to judge                                                                whether they are wise or foolish in refusing. They are part of the                                                            United Kingdom.

A few days later the annual party conference of the Conservative Party took place in Liverpool. Bonar Law did not attend, but made his position known through Sir George Younger. Lord Salisbury wrote to tell him that the 1,800 delegates were solid in their support of Northern Ireland. Colonel John Gretton was again at the head of a group of MPs who were immovably Unionist. Chamberlain, Birkenhead, Salvidge, and Worthington-Evans assured the delegates and the party at large that their support for Northern Ireland was absolute. The delegates expressed themselves content, the party leaders knew where they stood, and Lloyd George’s schemes died an ignominious death.

When the issue was debated in the House of Commons on 14th and 15th of December it was evident that Bonar Law’s influence had been felt. The Government had retreated, but Law fired a parting shot at them as they retired:

                                Let me say at the outset that I am in favour of this agreement …                                                              For a time it looked to me as though there might be an attempt to                                                   compel Ulster to go into an all-Ireland Parliament against her will.                                                   That would have seemed to me an impossible thing, and I am glad                                                          to see that the fear has turned out to be quite unjustified. For a time,                                                       however, it seemed to me a possibility – I will not go beyond that –                                                             that I might be one of those who would ask the country to condemn                                                              that policy.

This was received with great applause. Bonar Law had ensured that the Conservative Party would not tolerate any back-tracking by Lloyd George on the guarantees given to Northern Ireland. He was to intervene again, a few months later, in an equally decisive manner.

When the final British soldiers left the south of Ireland, and the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police were disbanded, the more extreme elements of the IRA, largely those who opposed the Treaty with the United Kingdom, ran amok. In many counties of Ireland murder gangs killed Protestants, Catholic Unionists, ex-soldiers and policemen. As a result of the killings many of those who remained left Ireland for the safety of Great Britain. In Britain they told their stories, and those Unionists who had supported the Treaty reluctantly began to feel betrayed.

On 22nd June 1922 Sir Henry Wilson was shot dead by two IRA assassins on the steps of his home in Eaton Place. He had just returned from unveiling a War Memorial at Liverpool Street Station and was wearing the uniform of a British Field-Marshal. The murder took place in broad daylight in the presence of a number of people. Austen Chamberlain visited Lady Wilson at Eaton Square to offer his condolences, but Lady Wilson called him “murderer !” She originally asked that no member of the Government attend the funeral, and only changed her mind when it was suggested to her that this might look like a slight upon the Crown.

Wilson’s murder crystallised the fears and anger of those who felt that the Irish Government was not acting with sufficient firmness to restore law and order, and that the British Government was content to let things drift. Bonar Law was determined to force the Cabinet to take a firmer line with Dublin, and he threatened to lead a revolt of Conservative MPs unless Lloyd George brought pressure to bear on the Irish Government.

A debate took place in the House of Commons on 26th June, only a few hours after Sir Henry Wilson’s funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral. Churchill made a very clear threat to the Irish Government:

                                If either from weakness or want of courage, or for some other                                                                  even less creditable reasons, it (the terrorist campaign) is not brought                                                      to an end, and a very speedy end, then it is my duty to say on behalf                                                    of His Majesty’s Government that we shall regard the Treaty as having                                                 been formally violated … and that we shall resume full liberty of                                                            action in any direction that may seem proper and to any extent that                                                     may be necessary to safeguard the interests and rights that are entrusted                                              to our care.

Then Bonar Law spoke:

                                I am not prepared to say that we ought to scrap the Treaty. But I                                                              confess that for many months I have been very anxious about the                                                        position in Ireland – very uncertain whether the Government were                                                                dealing with it in the right way.                                                                                                                        … I agreed with the Treaty, but I confess had I foreseen exactly                                                              what the position would have been today, I doubt whether I would                                                    have voted for it. That is not at all because of the anarchy in Ireland.                                                    It is not because of the murder of Sir Henry Wilson … I – certainly                                                                 not by any intention on the part of the Government – was entirely                                                           deceived, or I misunderstood two vital things in connection with the                                                       Treaty. They were both vital. I thought that those who signed the Treaty                                          … accepted the position that Ulster could never be brought in until                                                   they were willing to be brought in. Everything that has happened                                                            since has shown that I was wrong.                                                                                                                    The next point equally vital in which I was mistaken was that I                                                         assumed that the men who had signed the Treaty not only meant                                                     to keep it in good faith but meant to run risks, and all risks, in order                                                        to carry it out. I understood they meant to govern. We all know that                                                       they have not even tried …                                                                                                                            Just think of this … There is in Dublin a body which has seized the                                                              Four Courts – to make the irony complete it is the centre of justice                                                          in Ireland – and from these Four Courts, undoubtedly emissaries are                                                       going out, trying to carry out in Ulster precisely the same methods                                                             which they think succeeded in the South, and are instigating murder                                                                 in every direction. Is that tolerable for a moment? Suppose we found                                                                 that there was a body in Paris … openly subsidising murderers to                                                            come to this country and upset our Government. What would happen ?                                                  We should not make representations to the Government in Paris, and                                                           say, “We must make sure you do not approve of it.” We should say,                                                              “You must stop this, or there is war.”  

At this point Bonar Law had to pause because of the cheering that greeted his remark. He then concluded:

                                Now the position is clear. Much time cannot elapse before these                                                              grave matters – to quote a saying of the Colonial Secretary – are                                                          brought to the test. I for one say that I believe the Government                                                          means to see this through, but if they do not, I will be against them,                                                        and I hope the House of Commons will be against them too.

Within a few days the Government of the new Irish Free State moved against the anti-treaty forces. This led to a Civil War which lasted until May 1923, at the end of which there was a Government in Dublin which attempted to adhere to the terms of the Treaty. In the North the new administration in Belfast had similarly survived a terrorist campaign by IRA irreconcilables and settled down to the Government of Northern Ireland.

So the Republicans and Nationalists had a parliament in Dublin with the British connection reduced to a few symbols, and the Ulster Unionists had saved six of their nine counties to be a part of the United Kingdom, with a large degree of devolved power. The big losers were the Unionists of the south of Ireland. The London Branch of the Irish Unionist Alliance carried on, led by James Wilson, brother of the murdered Field-Marshal. They worked hard to bring to the attention of the citizens of Great Britain the desperate plight of many Unionists in southern Ireland, and they remained hopeful that the Irish Free State would collapse and the Union would be restored. In 1933 the name was changed to the Irish Loyalist Imperial Federation and they re-defined their aim as “to safeguard the constitutional rights and liberties of south Irish-born loyalists”. For some years afterwards Unionists moved from Ireland to Great Britain, often in extremely poor circumstances. In such cases the Federation attempted to provide some material support. 

Author’s Postscript:

“There were giants in the earth in those days” (Genesis Chapter 6, verse 4)

In 1922 Ronald McNeill wrote the book “Ulster’s Stand for Union”. It is in conscious imitation of this that I called this short work “England’s Stand for Union” because, in truth, many people stood for the Union during the successive crises from 1886 to 1923. They took their stand in England, Scotland, Wales, and in every part of Ireland. There were also enthusiastic Unionists in the wider British Empire. In some places these people were in the majority, in some places they were a beleaguered minority.

I have largely confined this work to the fight for the Union which took place in England. No slight is intended to Unionists in any other part of the United Kingdom and I hope that they, too, will receive due appreciation as the centenaries come round of the momentous events of 1912 and onwards. Indeed, it seems to me obvious that a campaign to save the Union could only have achieved any measure of success if it was fought in every part of that Union, otherwise it would have been merely a case of every man for himself.

It is a humbling experience to read the accounts of these great events, and to compare the men of that time with those of our present age. In the Unionist pantheon, men like Salisbury, Chamberlain, Bonar Law, Saunderson, Carson, and Craig deserve to be remembered with gratitude. It is also an instructive experience. These men fought battles very similar to those we have had to fight subsequently and, who can tell, may have to fight again. We should learn from them.

At every stage there was a hard core of resistance in Ulster prepared to resist the imposition of Home Rule by force if necessary. Likewise there were men, and women, in Great Britain who were prepared to arm that resistance, and even go to Ulster to fight if necessary. The forces raised in Ulster after 1912 were impressive in their size and their organisation, but also in their discipline. It would have suited Asquith very well if communal violence had given him the pretext to intervene, but Loyalist discipline never broke.

Any readiness to use physical force was only in the context that it was a last resort. Every means of arguing the Unionist case was used first. This was facilitated by organisations set up, both in Ireland and in Great Britain, which were happy to work with each other to that end. At no point was the fight carried on in isolation on either side of the Irish Sea. British Unionists spoke in Ireland and Irish Unionists spoke in Great Britain. The co-operation between these groups was practically seamless, exemplified by the way in which hard working activists from Ireland were prepared to labour tirelessly in British constituencies, particularly at by-elections. Nothing remotely comparable was achieved by the Liberal-Nationalist alliance. This was one of the greatest achievements of Saunderson, Carson, and Craig, that they never allowed the campaign to degenerate into parochialism, with Unionism dividing into small groups each one minding only their own backyard. They were demonstrating that the Union was a single people and not merely a single state.

The “twinning” of Unionist groups in Great Britain with those in Ireland, and the very successful tours of Ireland arranged by the Unionists kept everyone mindful of the fact that this was the struggle of one people never to allow itself to be divided. There were even many marriages of couples who first met

while campaigning for the Union, Fred Crawford being a case in point. Many exemplified the Union in their own families, having branches on both sides of the Irish Sea.

 It was of great benefit to Unionism that Conservatives, Liberal Unionists, and Unionists from Ireland north and south saw themselves as a single organisational entity. This meant that, for most of the period under consideration, Irish Unionism always had friends in Great Britain who were fully acquainted with their situation. The only time that this was forgotten was during the period from around 1900 to the passing of the Parliament Act in 1911. It looks very much as though Home Rule was thought to be dead never to rise, and that the luxury of divided Unionism in Ireland, flippant and inattentive government from Britain, and a neglect of the Unionist organisation could be indulged in.

 I personally find it a matter of deep regret that the southern Irish Unionists were left to their fate after 1922. The works of Peter Hart and Gerard Murphy are finally giving an insight into what really happened in the south of Ireland at that time. I hope that, as time passes, those elements in the south of Ireland who are distinguished by their warmth and generosity of spirit, and whose outlook is not clouded by a mythology of hate, may once again come to the fore and that due appreciation will be given to all those Irishmen who served loyally in the British forces, in the RIC and the DMP. Over the next several years many centenaries will be marked. Who knows but that 2023 may not see a return of the south of Ireland to her rightful place in the British family ?

 Finally I would like to direct anyone wishing to know more about this period to the list of recommended reading below. In writing this short work I consulted very few original sources: below is a list of those works I referred to, with gratitude to the authors.

SOURCES:

• SALISBURY: VICTORIAN TITAN by Andrew Roberts

• LORD SALISBURY by Robert Taylor

• LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: A POLITICAL LIFE by R. F. Foster

• LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL by Robert Rhodes James

• JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN by Enoch Powell

• THE GREAT CONVENTION by Gordon Lucy

• THE ULSTER PARTY by Alvin Jackson

• COLONEL EDWARD SAUNDERSON by Alvin Jackson

• HOME RULE by Alvin Jackson

• IRISH UNIONISM 1885 – 1923 ed. by Patrick Buckland

• IRISH UNIONISM 1885 – 1922 by Patrick Buckland

• ULSTER UNIONISM 1886 – 1922 by Patrick Buckland

• LINES OF MOST RESISTANCE by Edward Pearce

• THE HAND IS RED by Sir John Biggs-Davison

• THE CROSS OF SAINT PATRICK by Sir John Biggs-Davison and George Chowdharay – Best

• HIS MAJESTY’S LOYAL OPPOSITION: THE UNIONIST PARTY IN OPPOSITION 1905-1915 by David Dutton

• THE TORIES AND IRELAND by Jeremy Smith

• DEFENDERS OF THE UNION ed. by D. George Boyce and Alan O’Day

• THE ULSTER CRISIS edited by D. George Boyce and Alan O’Day

• THE ULSTER CRISIS by A. T. Q. Stewart

• CARSON’S ARMY: THE ULSTER VOLUNTEER FORCE 1910-1922 by Timothy Bowman

• FRED CRAWFORD – CARSON’S GUNRUNNER by Keith Haines

• POPULAR OPPOSITION TO IRISH HOME RULE IN EDWARDIAN BRITAIN by Daniel M. Jackson

• THE UNKNOWN PRIME MINISTER: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANDREW BONAR LAW by Robert Blake

• BONAR LAW by R. J. Q. Adams

• CARSON THE STATESMAN by Ian Colvin

• CARSON by H. Montgomery Hyde

• CARSON: THE MAN WHO DIVIDED IRELAND by Geoffrey Lewis

• SIR EDWARD CARSON: A DREAM TOO FAR by John Hostettler

• JAMES CRAIG by Patrick Buckland

• F. E. SMITH: FIRST EARL OF BIRKENHEAD by John Campbell

• CIRCE: THE LIFE OF EDITH, MARCHIONESS OF LONDONDERRY by Anne de Courcy