Gladstone then prevailed on Queen Victoria to dissolve the parliament and call another general election. The results gave an overwhelming rejection to Home Rule, as 316 Conservatives and 78 anti-Home Rule Liberals were returned as opposed to only 191 other Liberals and 85 members of the Irish party. The anti-Home Rule Liberals would ultimately be formally linked with the Conservatives in what would be called the Conservative and Unionist Party. The issue galvanized pro-unionist feelings among the Protestants of Ireland, especially those in northeastern areas. A leading Conservative, Randolph Churchill, played upon these sentiments when he visited Ulster and proclaimed "Ulster will fight; Ulster will be right." The strong resentment toward Home Rule was based on a variety of factors. They included apprehension among the business classes of Ulster, the more industrialized sector of Ireland, that a separate Irish parliament, regardless of restrictions on its power to impose excise or customs duties, would move toward some type of protectionism and impede the close economic ties with Britain on which Ulster had thrived. Others saw their careers entirely linked to the British connection, as a great number of Ulsterites served in the British army and the public service and feared these doors would be closed following any degree of Irish autonomy. But probably religion proved the greatest source of anxiety. Many remained committed to the old idea of the Protestant Ascendancy, which had been weakening and which definitely would be undermined with Home Rule, if not replaced by Catholic supremacy. Those in the Presbyterian or Calvinist tradition were especially fearful of the link between the Home Rule cause and the Catholic Church, as their historical vision was one in which the Catholic Church constituted the embodiment of tyranny and oppression, and, in the eyes of some, the virtual "anti-Christ." Within the province of Ulster Protestant and Catholic populations were about equal in numbers with Protestants decidedly predominant in terms of wealth and position, although there was also a substantial Protestant lower class drawn into severe sectarian rivalry with their Catholic counterparts.
In previous elections the parliamentary contingent from Ulster was generally divided between pro-Home Rule members of the Irish party, supported by the Catholics, and a mixture of Liberals and Conservatives, supported by the Protestants. Henceforth, there would be just two political groupings within Ulster, pro-Home Rule or pro-union (which meant Conservative-Unionist) as it would be the rare Protestant who would approve Home Rule. The same applied to the Protestants in the rest of Ireland. There, however, with the exception of parts of Dublin or the Trinity College representation, anti-Home Rule candidates had a minimal chance of success.
A Conservative government was formed under the Marquis of Salisbury and that party, with a short exception between 1893 and 1895, would exercise control for the next two decades. While ultimately it would bring substantial social and political reform to Ireland, its first approach was to strengthen coercion measures directed by the chief secretary, Arthur Balfour, who was the prime minister's cousin. His stern measures appeared partly in response to a renewed land agitation, called the "Plan of Campaign" that a new agricultural depression had provoked. Many farmers had found it difficult to meet even the rents reduced by the 1881 land act, while landlords found it difficult to grant reductions. While Parnell did not involve himself in it, colleagues in the party, such as John Dillon and William O'Brien, employed the National League in support of the movement, which called on farmers who were denied reductions in their rent to pay no rent but to deposit a reduced rent into a fund to aid those who were evicted. Interestingly, British diplomatic efforts to court the Vatican resulted in a papal condemnation of the Plan of Campaign, but leading Irish bishops, such as William Walsh of Dublin and Thomas Croke of Cashel, were able to draw theological fine points so as to make the condemnation irrelevant to most practicing Irish Catholics. Parnell had, a few years earlier, gained the adherence of the hierarchy in spite of his own Protestantism and even anticlericalism as the high clerics had agreed to leave the struggle for the advancement of distinctly Catholic education to the Irish party.
In 1887 the Times of London published sensationalist allegations linking Parnell with the Phoenix Park murders. Parnell insisted on a public inquiry, which in early 1889 vindicated him when it was discovered that the charges were based on forgeries. The forger admitted as much and shortly afterward committed suicide. Parnell's political position reached a new height with this clearance. The success of Liberals in a number of by-elections, which reduced the Conservative majority, raised expectations of an imminent victory for Home Rule. But at the end of the year, Captain William O'Shea sued his wife, Katherine O'Shea, Parnell's mistress and mother of his children, for divorce, naming Parnell as correspondent. For some years O'Shea had been tolerant of the relationship, even acting as political intermediary for Parnell with British political figures. But anxiety that a legacy might be endangered by his wife's adultery provoked the divorce. Parnell and Mrs. O'Shea did not contest the charges, and the divorce was awarded toward the end of the year with O'Shea even being given custody of the children fathered by Parnell.
Parnell assumed his conduct was that of a complete gentleman in that he had accommodated O'Shea in the course of the affair, including forcing the party to run him as a candidate for Galway. But he did not reckon with the moralist fervor of what had become an important component of the Gladstone Liberal political following—nonconformist or non-Anglican Protestant sentiment, particularly that of its clergy who played a role comparable to that of the Irish Catholic priests in stimulating voting behavior. Although originally given endorsement by the Irish Parliamentary Party, Parnell lost that when the members learned that Gladstone, whose support was essential if Home Rule was to have any chance, insisted that Parnell had to step down for the Liberal-Home Rule alliance to continue. Parnell refused and a majority of his party rejected him. In the following year Parnell used three by-elections in a search for public support against the parliamentary party majority, but his candidates lost in all three. The Catholic bishops were not long in following Gladstone in demanding his resignation and repudiation in the by-elections. In those elections Parnell lapsed into increasing militant nationalist oratory, while churchmen were unrestrained in commenting on his moral failings. In October 1891 his health gave way, and he died at the age of 45.
World History
