Redemption - Leon Uris [30]
If my father could generate enough support in Ulster to turn back the Irish Home Rule Bill, he calculated it might bring about the downfall of the Gladstone government. This would put him in line for a high-ranking cabinet ministry in the new government as well as making him the leader in Commons. Thus he would be first in line to become the next prime minister.
The Orange Order, a fanatical Protestant fraternal lodge, and my father’s ally, the Unionist Party of Ulster, were there to greet us at Larne with a banner and band. We were to traverse Ulster in the private train of their leading industrialist, Sir Frederick Weed, a bluff bully of a chap but rather likable.
Onward we clickety-clacked over our loyal province…Portadown…Armagh…Dungannon…speaking to ever growing throngs of men wearing bowler hats and orange sashes, generally in a state of frenzy. It was at Lurgan that Lord Randolph pressed their nerve with the battle cry, “Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right.”
Our finale was a great hall in a stately home outside Londonderry belonging to the Earl of Foyle and his son Roger Hubble, the Viscount Coleraine. Londonderry was the sacred city of the Protestants, a sort of Rome, Mecca, and Jerusalem rolled into one.
On this occasion at Hubble Manor my father went beyond himself. “You gallant comrades in Western Ulster stand on the forwardmost rampart of our great imperial adventure and you must not falter. I dare you to hold these walls as your ancestors held them three centuries ago. There are two Irelands in spirit, in religion, and in reality. The Ireland which is loyal to the Crown must remain in the Empire.” And then it came…Rudyard Kipling’s latest…“Sail on, oh ship of state, sail on, oh Union great…Shall Ulster from Britain sever? By the God who made us, never!”
I shall remember this speech for gentler things. Roger Hubble was also the son-in-law of Sir Frederick Weed, having recently married his daughter, Caroline. Even at my young age, standing in short trousers and school cap, I felt my first understanding of male passion. I had never seen so exquisite a woman.
For myself, at the age of twelve, I was privy, for the first time, to the private dialogue and strategies of men of great influence. Hearing my father’s words and watching their effect upon the crowd…playing with cadence and key phrases was a lesson long remembered.
This was my introduction to the private and public use of power.
Although I loved my father, we spent little time together. This trip to Ulster, where he played his famous “Orange card” was to be our longest visit. He was a strange and erratic aristocrat, driven to seek power. Most of the other times we shared as father and son were strange, yes bizarre, little tours through the fleshpots of London where he seemed to receive deviant thrills watching freak shows, many of weird sexual content.
On our overnight trip from Belfast back to England he felt a strong desire to come to my cabin and explain to me the meaning of Ireland in the life of England. I was playing with my box of toy soldiers, which always accompanied me, setting up a tactical exercise while Lord Randolph was in his usual posture of finishing up his whiskey.
“The English people has made its mark on mankind as a great people. Through exploration, conquest, the plantation of loyal subjects in our colonies, trade and spreading our cultural benefits and legal superiority have made us the greatest nation in mankind’s history.”
There was nothing there to disagree with at the age of twelve.
“England is an island,” he continued, “and in order to maintain our greatness we are dependent on our seafaring power, both commercially and militarily. Our sea lanes are our blood lines.”
He asked me if I understood, and when put the way he stated it, it was quite clear to me.
“Ireland is a mass of destitute rocks. Its only importance is vis-à-vis England. Well then, we cannot allow