FAUN ELL 



28, IM 1 ' Hi- father liolonged to an old Cheshire 

 family, which purchased an estate in Ireland under 

 Clmiles II., and from which had sprung Thomas 

 1'arnell the poet and Sir Henry Brooke I'arnell, 

 d Baion Ciingleion in IMI. lli~ xreat grand- 

 father was that Sir John I'arnell who vva.s long Chan- 

 cellor of the Irish K.xchequei, and an active sup- 

 iioiicr ni t ii.ittan in his struggh- against the Union : 

 Ins grandfather, William I'arnell. sal for County 

 \\ icklow, and published in ISM) a foolish |H>liii.-al 

 novel, anything but Irish in sentiment : 'iis mother, 

 IMia Tiidor Stewart, was daughter of Admiral 

 Charles Stewart of the United States navy. He 

 was educated at Yeovil and elsewhere in England 

 under private masieis. ami was for some time a 

 memld-r of Magdalene College, Cambridge, but 

 took no degree. In Is74 he Ix-came High SheriH' 

 of ( 'ounty \\ icklow ; next year he coin. -sled < 'ounty 

 Dublin without success, hut in A|nil l*7-~> 

 returned a.s an avowed Home Ruler for County 

 Heath. He attached himself to Joseph Biggar, the 

 inenild-i for ( V an. who was the first to discover the 

 value of delilwrate olistruction in parliamentary 

 tactics, and during l>77 and 1878 he gained great 

 |Hipulaiity in Ireland hy his audacity in the use 

 of the new engine. There were many scenes of 

 violence and excitement, and the new horror of 

 all-night sittings Ix-came familiar to the House 

 of Commons. Throughout the struggle I'arnell 

 showed equal audacity and coolness, and acquired 

 a masterly knowledge of parliamentary forms. 

 Mr Butt, the lii-h leader, disapproved of this 

 development of the in-lii-f or (distinctive policy, 

 but his influence quickly gave way lx_-fore. I'arnell n, 

 and in May 1*7:1 In- died. The year liefore I'arnell 

 had licen elected president of the English Home 

 Rule A---., i.ition. He now threw himself with 

 energy into agrarian agitation, gave it its watch- 

 word 'Keep a firm grip of your homesteads' 

 at \Ve-t|Mirt in .Inn.-, and in October was elected 

 j. n -si. lent of the Irish National Land League, which 

 had Ix-en founded by Michael Davit-t. Mr I'arnell 

 next visited the United Stales to raise funds for 

 tin- cans'-, was allowed like Lafayette and Kossutll 

 to address congress itself, and carried home i'70,000. 

 At the general election of ISSO he was returned for 

 the counties of Meathaiid Mayo and for the city 

 ol i oik. and chose to sit for the last. He was 

 now formally elected chairman of the Irish parlia- 

 mentary parly -by twenty llnee votes over eighteen 

 for Mr Shaw. Meantime the agrarian agitation 

 grew, and in a s|x-ech at Enni-. September 19, 

 1830, lie formulated the melhidl of Uivcot 



as an engine for punishing an unjiopnlar 



individual. Mr Gladstone's govcini it now came 



to the conclusion that tl lijccts of the Land 



League were contiaiv to the law, and in December 

 put P.uncll and several other memlx-is of the 

 itivc on trial, but the jury finally failed to 

 agr. .n the goveinment brought in 



a Coercion Bill, which Mr I'arnell oi.|Mised 

 vig.noiislv. In lie- the struggle lie 



-I fiotn the H.IU-I-. after a slormy scene, 

 her with thirty four of his followers. February 

 :t. lss| Mr l.ladstoiie next carried his famous 

 Land Bill, hut this Pamell refused to accept aa a 

 final settlement until the result of certain test , 

 Is-fore the new Land Court wan seen. On the 13th 



i Mi Gladstone sent him lo Kilmainhain 

 ganl, and there he lay till released on May _', IS.SL'. 

 after -ome private negotiations with the govern- 



condiieied through the medium of Captain 



-i Mr I igiil the Irish seer. 



ship in consequence of the release, and next followed 

 the lenilde tragedy of Pho'iiix Park, of which I'ar- 

 nell in his place in the Hou-.- of t 'ommoiis expressed 

 his detestation. Tie ' \ct was now hurried 



through parliament ill spite of the strenuous oppo- 



sition of the Irish jmrty. Already the Land Ix-npie 

 had Is-en proclaimed a* aO illegal nssociat ion alter 

 the issue of i he 'No Kent' manifesto, Imt early 

 in IHS4 the Nationalists succeedeil in reviving it 

 under the name of the National League, and Mr 

 1'aniell was decied its president. The year Is'foie 

 the sum of t',V>,(HiO, mostly raised in America, had 

 been presented to him hy his admireis. After an 

 unsuccessful attempt to make terms with the Con- 

 senatives, in the course of which lie h:ul a famous 

 interview with Lend Carnarvon, the viceroy. I'.u- 

 nell 11 mix his vote now eixhty *i\ strnn<; since the 

 lowerinx of the franchise into the Liln-ral scale, 

 and so Draught about the fall of the short lived 1n-i 

 Salishury x m crnmcnt. Mr I'arnell nominnted the 

 Xicater numher of Nationalist candidates fur the 

 Irish constituencies, and the linn hand with which 

 he contiolled his party was x-en in the prompti- 

 tude with which he crushed a revolt of Mealy and 

 HijIX'ir nxaiiibt his nomination of Captain O'Shea 

 for G&lway, 



Mr tiladstone's view* on the question of Hume. 

 Rule ha<l hy this time undergone a complete 

 i-hanxe. and nccordinxly he introdiice<l a Home 

 Rule- Hill, which was defeated owinx to the defect ion 

 ol a larjte niimlKT of l.iheral memliere headed hy 

 Lord Harlinxton and Mr ChamU'ilain. Theenn- 

 sei|iieiil apoeal to the country (.Inly l v 

 Lord Salisbury a Unionist majority of over a 

 hundred votes, and threw I'arnell into n close 

 alliance with Mr Gladstone and the portion of the 

 LiKeral party that adhered to him. It was at this 

 period that the Timfi newspaper published its 

 series of articles entitled ' Pamellinn and Crime' 

 a tremendous indictment against the chief Nation- 

 alist leaders, the most stnrtlinx point in which as 

 a series, of letters puhlished in fac-.simile, one, sixned 

 hy I'arnell, expressing approval of Mr Hnrke's 

 murder. The public excitement occasioned led to 

 lli'- appointment of a Special Commission toini|iiire 

 into the whole matter. After an elaborate tiial 

 (Xtanding to I'JS days, and <-liisiiiL, r Novemlier J, 

 1889), the most sensational event in which was the 

 breakdown under eros., ex.iminalion, and the Ilixht 

 and suicide at Madrid, of I'ignt-t, the wretclied Irish- 

 man who had imposed niton the Times with forxeries, 

 Mr I'arnell wius formally cleared of the charxe of 

 liavinx IK-CII personally guilty of orxanisinx outrages, 

 but his party were declared to have been guilty 

 of incitements to intimidation, out of which had 

 grown crimes which they had failed to denounce. 

 I'mnell now raisi-d an action against the J'tmet, 

 which was quickly compromised by a pav meiit of 

 i">(KK). The 'uncrowned king' of Ireland had now 

 reached the summit of his power the heixht of 

 the wave was marked by the presentation of the 

 tie,., lorn of Kdinhiirxh, '.Inly :io. Issii. and the 

 banquet given him on his forty-fourth birthday, 

 lint his fall in public esteem was'quickly to follow, 

 A few months later hi~ frequent mysterious 

 alwences from his parliamentary duties were ex- 

 plained by his appearance, or rather his non- 

 appearance, its co respondent in a disgraceful 

 divorce ca-e brought by Captain O'Shea ngainst 

 his wife. After formal evidence was led by the 

 ]K'tiiioner, the usual decree v\a* x''"itcd with cu-ts 

 against I'arnell ( Noveml>cr 17, IWHI). The (ilad- 

 -i..nian parly in England now demanded his 

 retirement from the leadership of the cause, 

 and Mr Gladstone informed the Irish members 

 that they must make their choice between 

 I'arnell and himself. They met and rcappoinlcd 

 him their chairman, expecting, as the majority 

 explained later, that after this reciignition of his 

 past services he would voluntarily retire at least 

 for a time. Hut they had mil calculated upon the 

 characteristic obstinacy of his nature, and quickly 

 found that their leader had no mind to clla.ce him- 



