Irish Tories and victims of whig persecution: Sacheverell fever by proxy

• Autores: D.W. Hayton
• Localización: Parliamentary history, ISSN-e 1750-0206, Vol. 31, Nº. 1 (February), 2012 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Faction displayed : reconsidering the impeachment of Dr Henry Sacheverell / Mark Knights (ed. lit.)), ISBN 9781444361872, págs. 80-98
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Although the trial of Dr Sacheverell attracted considerable public attention in Ireland, and a great deal of the pamphlet literature generated in England was reprinted in Dublin, there is little explicit evidence of the invocation of Sacheverell's name by Irish tories, in parliament, at elections, or in the indigenous press culture. On the surface, this seems hard to explain, even though Irish protestants were naturally more sensitive than their English counterparts to any challenge to the legitimacy of �Revolution principles�, for at the same time the protestant Irish �political nation� was bitterly divided by a conflict of parties on the English model, and, indeed, regarded their own struggles as an extension of the warfare of whigs and tories in England. This article seeks to account for the non-appearance of Dr Sacheverell in Irish political discourse by emphasizing the presence in Ireland of two surrogates: Francis Higgins, the roaring anglican controversialist who, like Sacheverell himself, courted �persecution� by bishops and whig governments, and Sir Constantine Phipps, lord chancellor of Ireland 1710�14, who turned himself into a tory champion in Ireland by using some of Sacheverell's methods of self-promotion. The fact that both were closely associated with the Doctor � Higgins as a chosen replacement for Sacheverell in the pulpit in 1710, Phipps as a defence counsel at the impeachment � infused both with reflected glamour and enabled Irish tories to express their support for Sacheverell indirectly, without calling into question their loyalty to the Williamite settlement.