Royal Agency and State Integration: Ireland, Wales and Scotland in a Monarchical Context, 1840s–1921

Abstract

This article assesses the utility of the British monarchy as a hegemonic institution consolidating the British state from the mid- nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. It does so by examining its relationship with the ‘Celtic’ regions—Ireland, Wales and Scotland. It was a relationship that fluctuated over this period. While a close personal as well as constitutional relationship existed between the monarchy and Scotland during the reign of Queen Victoria, as against her more distant—even antagonistic at times—relationship with Ireland and Wales, the personal dimension to monarchical allegiance underwent significant change under Edward VII and George V, with Ireland and, to a lesser extent, Wales, a closer focus of royal attention as these regions apparently posed serious threats to state stability in the early twentieth century. The article demonstrates how the monarchy's relationship with the ‘Celtic’ regions was shaped by a variety of interacting factors—historical, socio-economic, constitutional, political and personal—that illustrated its strengths and weaknesses. Thus a combination of reform and royal conciliation could function to unite Ireland with Scotland and Wales in defence of King and country in 1914, while the troubled post-1916 period posed problems royal influence had greater difficulty addressing. Nevertheless, the monarchy was a central institution in the constitutional settlement of 1921, which served to maintain, if in changed circumstances, its relationship with the three ‘Celtic’ regions.

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to Paul O'Leary of Aberystwyth University for his critical assessment of an earlier draft of this article, and to the referees whose suggestions improved the present version.

Notes

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Vernon, Politics and the People.

See Lant, Insubstantial Pageant, 26–33; Kuhn, Democratic Royalism, 39–47.

Lant, Insubstantial Pageant.

See Directorate of Intelligence, Survey of Revolutionary Feeling, 4–5; Report on Revolutionary Organisations in the United Kingdom, 30 March 1920, National Archives, Kew: CAB24/103/CP1009.

Bagehot, The English Constitution.

Ibid., 82–120.

O'Leary, ‘Languages of Patriotism in Wales’, 546.

Morgan, Wales in British Politics, 8.

This was particularly true of Lord Spencer, one of the most noteworthy occupants of the office in this period (1868–74, 1882–85).

Chapman, Gaelic Vision in Scottish Culture, 13; Kidd, ‘Rehabilitation of Scottish Jacobitism’, 58–76.

Davies, ‘Victoria and Victorian Wales’, 13–14. Davies does, though, record some republican sentiment among radicals.

McDonagh, English King, 69; Rolleston, Myths and Legends, 105.

McDonagh, English King, 14; O'Leary, ‘Languages of Patriotism in Wales’, 540–41; Morgan, Wales in British Politics, 68–70.

Loughlin, British Monarchy and Ireland, 130.

Longford, Victoria R.I, 403–04.

Davies, ‘Victoria and Victorian Wales’, 14–15.

Provoked by harsh Poor Law conditions, tithe exactions, unjust treatment by local magistrates and excessive toll-gate charges. Evans, History of Wales, 139–44.

Jones, Rebecca's Children, 316.

O'Leary, ‘Languages of Patriotism’, 535.

Morgan, ‘From a Death to a View’, 93.

For the English influence in regard to public statuary, see Hill, ‘Ideology and Cultural Production’, 67–68, and, for popular opinion as reflected in the press, Legg, Newspapers and Nationalism, 25–28, 64.

Jones, Rebecca's Children, 323–24.

Pickering, ‘“The Hearts of the Millions”’.

Tyrrell and Ward, ‘“God Bless Her Little Majesty”’, 117–18.

Williams, When Was Wales?, 220–21; O'Leary, ‘Languages of Patriotism in Wales’, 546.

Ibid.

McDonagh, ‘Last Bill of Pains and Penalties’, 136–55; The Times, 25 May 1869.

Evans, History of Wales, 268–69.

Loughlin, British Monarchy and Ireland, ch. 2.

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O'Leary, Recollections of Fenians and Fenianism, vol. 1, 131.

On the themes of localism, socio-economic improvement and respectability in mid-century Ireland, see Cullen, ‘Union and Display’, 121–23; Hill, ‘Ideology and Cultural Production’, 67–68; Hoppen, Elections, Politics and Society in Ireland, viii.

Loughlin, British Monarchy and Ireland, 126–27.

On this subject, see Hardie, Political Influence of the British Monarchy, chs 2–3.

Gosse, ‘Character of Queen Victoria’, 337.

Anderson, Imagined Communities .

Bolitho, Victoria, 69; Davies, ‘Victoria and Victorian Wales’, 7.

Loughlin, British Monarchy and Ireland, 15–16, 52–53.

Queen to Sir James Graham, 23 June 1843 in Hibbert, Queen Victoria in Her Letters and Journals, 72; Jones, Rebecca's Children, 258, 346.

Ibid., 258.

Whatley, ‘Royal Day, People's Day’, 170–88.

See Finlay, ‘Scotland and the Monarchy’, 21–23.

Longford, Victoria R.I., 357–59, 427–29.

Davies, ‘Wales and Ireland’, 8–10; O'Leary, ‘When Was Anti-Catholicism?’, 321–22, and ‘Religion, Nationality and Politics’, 90–91.

The best single discussion of the subject with reference to Ireland is Curtis Jr, Anglo-Saxons and Celts. For a reassessment, see Foster, ‘Paddy and Mr Punch’, 171–94.

See Wortman, ‘Moscow and Petersburg’, 268.

Victoria to Disraeli, 7 March 1868, in Hibbert, Life and Letters of Queen Victoria, 204.

Evans, History of Wales, 287–88; Hanham, Elections and Party Management, 177–78.

Chilston, W. H. Smith, 258; Douglas, Land, People and Politics, 97–99; Morgan, Wales in British Politics, 70; The Times, 13, 14, 16 Aug. 1889.

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Morgan, Wales in British Politics, 77–78, 80–81, 93–94, 194.

On Scottish politics from the 1830s to the 1880s, see Lynch, Scotland, 416–18.

Naylor, ‘Scottish Attitudes to Ireland’, 421, 433.

See Finlay, ‘Queen Victoria and the Cult of Scottish Monarchy’, 222.

See the debate on an Irish royal residence in Hansard 3rd ser., 192 (15 May 1868), cols 346–51; also Godkin, ‘Ireland and Scotland’, 319–20, 326–29; Morrison, ‘Ireland for the British’, 93–94.

See Naylor, ‘Scottish Attitudes to Ireland’, 440.

Morgan, ‘The Welsh in English Politics’, 239.

Davies, ‘Victoria and Victorian Wales’, 23.

Queen to Gladstone, 25 Feb. 1893, in Guedalla, The Queen and Mr Gladstone, vol. 2, 465.

Grigg, Young Lloyd George, 152, ch. 6.

Williams, When was Wales?, 226–27; Jones, ‘E. T. John’, 453–67.

Williams, When was Wales?, 288.

Morgan, Wales in British Politics, 179–80.

Denman, ‘“The Red Livery of Shame”’, 114–17.

Ellis, Investiture, 30.

Loughlin, British Monarchy and Ireland, 251–52.

O'Leary, Immigration and Integration.

Ibid., 256.

Gaffney, Aftermath, 127–28; Gregory, Silence of Memory, 199–201.

Biagini, British Democracy and Irish Nationalism.

On Nonconformist opposition to a Catholic university for Ireland, and to opening up the Irish viceroyalty to Catholic occupants, see Hammond, Gladstone and the Irish Nation, 638, 644–46; Loughlin, British Monarchy and Ireland, 232–33.

Ibid., 229.

See ‘The Old Flag and the New’ in National Union Pamphlets; Loughlin, British Monarchy and Ireland, 227, 236.

Entry for 4 Sept. 1892, in Esher, Journals and Letters, vol. 1, 161.

Fitzroy, Memoirs, vol. 1, 146. Fitzroy was clerk of the Privy Council.

Finlay, ‘Queen Victoria and the Cult of the Scottish Monarchy’, 223–24.

Davies, ‘Victoria and Victorian Wales’, 10–11.

McDonnell, Ireland, 173–74.

Nicolson, King George V, 148. The Act, which replaced the power of the House of Lords to reject money bills from the Commons with a suspensor veto of two years, was prompted by the Lords’ rejection of Lloyd George's budget of 1909.

Williams, When Was Wales?, 233–34.

Prochaska, Royal Bounty, 170–72.

Kendle, Ireland and the Federal Solution, 112–27.

Nicolson, King George V, 148.

The major industrial crisis of the pre-war period in Ulster was the Belfast dock strike of 1907, which was effectively broken by an employers’ lockout and a campaign of sectarianism against the strike leader, James Larkin.

Garnham, ‘William Martin Murphy’, 391.

Jenkins, History of Modern Wales, 353–56.

See Ellis, Investiture, 32–33.

Blunt, My Diaries, 750; Loughlin, British Monarchy and Ireland, 277–81.

See Sir Edward Carson to Lady Londonderry, 27 March 1912, D2846/1/1/86, Londonderry papers, Public Record of Northern Ireland.

Blunt, My Diaries, 750.

The royal party thought their reception possibly outdid that accorded Edward VII in 1903: Prince Arthur to Princess Louise, 8, 12 July 1911, Royal Archives VIC/Add A/15/8687, 8689; RA/George V Journal, 8–10 July 1911. Material from the Royal Archives is used with the kind permission of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.

Loughlin, British Monarchy and Ireland, 280.

Glasgow Herald report cited in Freeman's Journal, 13 Sept. 1821; The Scotsman report cited in The Times, 4 Sept. 1822.

Western Mail, 11 July 1911 cited in Ellis, Investiture, 98.

Ibid., 37–40, 47; Cannadine, ‘Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual’, 120–32.

Ellis, Investiture, 72–73.

Ibid., 96–98.

See Naylor, ‘Scottish Attitudes to Ireland’, 74.

See Helland, ‘Embroidered Spectacle’, 95.

Kelly and Schuschard, Collected Letters of W. B. Yeats, vol. 3, 519, 540–41.

Ellis, Investiture, 67–69, 81.

Prochaska, Royal Bounty, 174.

Jenkins, History of Modern Wales, 350.

Baker, ‘Sociological and Ideological Role of the Monarchy’, 5.

Finlay, ‘Scotland and the Monarchy’, 17–18.

Lukes, ‘Political Ritual and Social Integration’, 56–64.

Jenkins, History of Wales, 356–57; Morgan, Rebirth of a Nation, 154–55.

Nicolson, King George V, 249. In 1917, however, when public sentiment had become critical of the Germanic origins of the British royal house, the rejection of Germanic titles and the adoption of the name Windsor was deemed necessary.

Robbins, Nineteenth-Century Britain,183–85.

Fleming, Head or Harp; Irwin, Betrayal in Ireland.

For Ireland's role, see Pennell, A Kingdom United, ch. 5.

Herbert Asquith to Venetia Stanley, 24 July 1914, in Brock and Brock, Asquith, 122; Gwynn, Life of John Redmond, 342. The talks were intended to resolve the constitutional crisis over Home Rule. See Fair, ‘The King, the Constitution and Ulster’, 35–52.

Asquith to Stanley, 25 Aug. 1914 in Brock and Brock, Asquith, 196: ‘the royal handwriting and his [the king's] … willingness to see R[edmond] … again may have some effect’.

T. M. Healy thought the price too high ‘for the kind of Home Rule that has been “granted”’. Healy to Maurice Healy, 19 Dec. 1914, in Healy, Letters, vol. 2, 553.

McNeill, Ulster's Stand for Union, 144–46.

On the ‘Curragh Mutiny’, see Jeffery, Sir Henry Wilson, ch. 7.

Roberts to Bonar Law, 5 Jan. 1914, Law papers, Box 27/31/2/16, House of Lords Record Office.

See Jackson, Popular Opposition to Irish Home Rule.

Belfast News-Letter, 21–22 July 1914.

See Hennessy, Dividing Ireland.

In 1904 Griffith published The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland. See Glandon, Arthur Griffith and the Advanced Nationalist Press in Ireland, 15–17.

Parnell pressed the theme strongly in the early 1880s.