XVII Earl Temple’s Viceroyalty and the Question of Renunciation, 1782-3

Abstract

When, in the 1850s, the second duke of Buckingham was editing the correspondence of his grandfather, the second Earl Temple and first marquis of Buckingham, he was clearly puzzled by what was revealed by that part of it which related to Temple’s vice-royalty in Ireland and the issue of ‘ renunciation ’ He wrote of the ‘ curious struggle ’ in the cabinet, ‘ the immense disproportion between cause and effect ’ and the ‘ clamour and misunderstanding ’ which he confessed it was ‘ difficult to understand ’, Today there is still some confusion about renunciation as an issue in English politics and it is the primary object of this article to dispel it. That it has secondary objects is solely the result of the discoveries, suggestions and conclusions of the many historians who have contributed to our understanding of Anglo-Irish relations in the later eighteenth century. It is now clear, for example, that Ireland was one of the most complex theatres in Britain’s external affairs in that period. To some extent this was due to the close geographical and mental proximity between the two countries which enabled politicians to travel and correspond easily from one to the other, a circumstance which led to policies being in a continuous state of formulation and, equally, under continuous scrutiny—in contrast to Britain’s foreign and colonial relations where language and more considerable geographical problems gave policy makers more time to deliberate, and incidentally, reduced the number of interested parties around Whitehall. Similarly there was a contrast between the quality and effectiveness of the official procedures that were adopted for the arrangement of Anglo-Irish relations and those which were followed in other spheres of Britain’s external affairs. Viceroys enjoyed a higher status than ambassadors and sometimes imagined they possessed an almost complete control over their domain. As a consequence they were often not subjected to detailed written instructions as was Earl Fitzwilliam in 1795, and in some cases managed to construct policies without the knowledge or concurrence of the official spokesman for Irish affairs in the cabinet (the home secretary), as did the marquis of Buckingham during the regency crisis in 178g.