Contents

Introduction. Daniel O’Connell wrote in the spring of 1830: ‘in the annals of history there never was anything so undignified as the resistance of the Duke of Wellington to Emancipation, save and except the manner in which he yielded to it. Recollect his letter to Dr Curtis, his tin-case letter to the Duke of Leinster—above all, his letters to that gallant and excellent nobleman, the Marquess of Anglesey’.

The first letter below, from the acrimonious correspondence between Wellington and Anglesey, is one of a number of letters in which the Prime Minister complains about Anglesey’s conduct, and particularly his relations with members of the Catholic Association. Anglesey later made many of the letters public in his own defence. In one letter to Anglesey, Wellington had all but stated that he wanted to carry Emancipation as a government measure. Wellington went behind Anglesey’s back on 11 December when he wrote to Dr Patrick Curtis, the Catholic Primate stating that he was ‘sincerely anxious to witness a settlement of the Roman Catholic question …’, but stressed the difficulties that he faced and the need to ‘bury it in oblivion for a short time’. Curtis sent this letter to Anglesey.

Curtis had know Wellington for many years. While Rector of Salamanca in 1811 during the Peninsular War, he was arrested by the French as a spy, and it was only the entry of the British forces into the war that saved his life. This is when he first met Wellington, to whom (it is said) he supplied valuable intelligence. It is said, too, that Wellington had repaid him by recommending him highly to the Spanish authorities and by getting the Pope to make him Primate. Wellington did not begin the correspondence of December 1828; Curtis had actually written to him first. The contents of the letter also reveal no more than what Wellington had said in the House of Lords in June 1828. However, it does not excuse his treatment of Anglesey.

Wellington was well aware that only his personal authority, particularly with the Tory majority in the House of Lords, would get an Emancipation Bill through. Anglesey’s actions had provoked angry reaction. Anglesey’s reply to Curtis arguing that all constitutional means should be used to ‘forward the cause’ and its later publication led to his being ordered home immediately. Wellington had to drop him in order to dispel the illusion that Anglesey’s advice had influenced his decision. The French politician Talleyrand told Palmerstown that ‘he saw that the Duke had determined on conceding the Irish Catholic claims, and that he did not mean anyone else to have the credit’. Anglesey’s recall was being considered before the Curtis correspondence and Wellington’s letter to the Primate may well have been meant to calm the storm in Ireland if the popular Anglesey was recalled. Thousands lined the road to Kingstown [Dún Laoghaire] as Anglesey departed for London on 19 January 1829. Five days later, the Relief Bill was announced. The Curtis letter passed without a ripple in London, as had Wellington’s earlier declaration in the Lords.

Wellington’s letter to Curtis contrasts sharply with his brief non-committal letter to the Duke of Leinster. The situation had changed somewhat. The danger of disturbances arising out of Lord Anglesey’s recall to London had passed, and the risk that the King would refuse to allow Emancipation had yet to be got over.

The anti-Emancipationist, Archbishop Beresford took the unconstitutional course of asking the King to veto the Emancipation Bill. He seconded the motion of the archbishop of Canterbury in the House of Lords, arguing that the Bill would ‘transfer from Protestants to Roman Catholics the ascendancy in Ireland’. His speech on that occasion was printed in 1829. By his reference to the Privy Council in his letter to Beresford, Wellington presumably meant that Beresford and the other two archbishops had sworn the Privy Counsellor’s oath, part of which bound them ‘to do as a faithful and true servant ought to do to his Majesty’. Nevertheless, the Church of Ireland prelates presented their address to the King in person. The King ultimately gave the royal assent to the Emancipation Bill on 13 April 1829.

O’Gorman Mahon and Steele were prominent members of the Catholic Association, whom Wellington had wanted dismissed as JPs because of their political activities. Anglesey’s aide-de-camp, Baron Tuyll, and his son, Lord William Paget, had attended Catholic Association meetings.

Sources. Letters from the Duke of Wellington, London, to Lord Anglesey, 19 November 1828; to the Duke of Leinster, 12 January 1829, coldly acknowledging an Emancipationist address from various Irish Protestants; and to the Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, Lord John George Beresford, 1 April 1829, coldly declining to present to the King an anti-Emancipationist address from various bishops of the Church of Ireland. Belfast, Public Record Office, Northern Ireland (D.619/26C/32; D.3078/3/20/2; D.664/A/51).

… It is perfectly true that till I had occasion to write to you on the 11th instant respecting Mr Mahon and Mr Steele, I did not mention to you the King’s feelings upon affairs in Ireland. I did not do so because I was in hopes that in the progress of events the King might see reason to change his opinions, and because it is really very painful to notice matters which would be of a private nature if they had not a bearing upon public affairs. I might have at an earlier period expressed the pain I felt at the attendance of gentlemen of your household, and even of your family, at the Roman Catholic Association. I could not but feel that such attendance must expose your government to misconstruction, but I was silent, because it is painful to notice such things.

But I have always felt that, if these impressions upon the King’s mind should remain—and I must say that recent transactions have given fresh cause for them—I could not avoid to mention them to you in a private communication, and to let you know the embarrassment which they occasion. I may be blamed for not communicating sooner that they existed, but considering their continued existence and the renewed cause for them, I should be still more blamed if I did not mention them to you at all.

Ever, my dear Lord Anglesey,

Yours most sincerely,

Wellington

His Grace the Duke of Leinster

London

January 12th 1829

My Lord Duke

I have had the honour of receiving this morning your Grace’s letter of the 7th inst., and a tin case containing the declaration of certain Protestants in Ireland respecting what is called Roman Catholic Emancipation, and the list of the names of the persons who have signed the same. I have the honour to be, my Lord Duke, your Grace’s most obedient humble servant,

Wellington

London

April 1st 1829

My Lord Archbishop

I have had the honour of receiving your Grace’s letter of the 30th March, in which your Grace has enclosed a copy of the address which certain of the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland propose to present to his Majesty on Saturday.

By the last paragraph of that address, his Majesty is to be implored to withhold his royal sanction from the measures now under the consideration of parliament. Your Grace, the Lord Archbishop of Dublin and the Lord Archbishop of Tuam are Privy Counsellors in his Majesty’s Privy Council in Ireland, and must be the best judges whether it is fit that the advice that that paragraph contains ought to be given to his Majesty.

I cannot so far concur in and sanction this advice as even to be the channel of laying before his Majesty a copy of the address in which it is to be conveyed. I have the honour to be, my Lord Archbishop, Your Grace’s most obedient, humble servant,

Wellington

Tomás O’Riordan