It was doggedly obstructed at every stage, and on one occasion the debate was only brought to a close, after lasting for forty-one hours, by the Speaker's claiming to interpret the general sense of the house and resolving to put the question without further dis cussion. The rules of procedure were then drastically amended, and as soon as the bill was passed Mr. Gladstone introduced a new Land Bill, which occupied the greater part of the session. Parnell accepted it with many reserves. The Land League at his instiga tion determined to "test" the act by advising tenants in general to refrain from taking their cases into court until certain cases selected by the Land League had been decided. The government treated this policy as a deliberate attempt to wreck the working of the act. On this and other grounds—notably the attitude of the League and its leaders towards crime and outrage—Parnell was arrested under the Coercion Act and lodged in Kilmainham gaol (Oct. 17, 1881).
Parnell in prison at once became more powerful than he had ever been outside. Moreover imprisonment gave him rest which his nervous temperament badly needed. Several of his leading colleagues followed him into Kilmainham, and the Land League was dissolved, its treasurer, Patrick Egan, escaping to Paris and carrying with him its books and accounts. Before it was formally suppressed the League had issued a manifesto, signed by Parnell and several of his fellow-prisoners, calling upon the tenants to pay no rents until the government had restored the constitutional rights of the people. Discouraged by the priests, the No-Rent manifesto had little effect, but it embittered the struggle and exasperated temper on both sides of the Irish Channel.
A modus vivendi was desired on both sides. Negotiations set on foot through the agency of Captain O'Shea—at that time and afterwards a close agent of Parnell—resulted in what was known as the Kilmainham Treaty. Parnell and two of his friends were to be released at once, the understanding being, as Gladstone stated in a letter to Cowper, "that Parnell and his friends are ready to abandon 'No Rent' formally, and to declare against outrage ener getically, intimidation included, if and when the government announce a satisfactory plan for dealing with arrears." Parnell and his friends were released, and Cowper and Forster resigned.
The Phoenix Park murders (May 6, 1882) followed. (See IRE LAND: History.) Parnell was prostrated by this catastrophe. In a public manifesto to the Irish people he declared that "no act has ever been perpetrated in our country, during the exciting struggle for social and political rights of the past fifty years, that has so stained the name of hospitable Ireland as this cowardly and unprovoked assassination of a friendly stranger." Privately
to his own friends and to Mr. Gladstone he expressed his desire to withdraw from public life. A new Crimes Bill was introduced and made operative for a period of three years, and England was exasperated by a succession of dynamite outrages organized chiefly in America, which Parnell was powerless to prevent. The Phoenix Park murders did more than any other incident of his time and career to frustrate Parnell's policy.
For more than two years after the Phoenix Park murders Par nell's influence in parliament, and even in Ireland, was only inter mittently and not very energetically exerted. His health was bad, his absences from the House of Commons were frequent and mysterious, and he had already formed those relations with Mrs. O'Shea which were ultimately to bring him to the divorce court. His nervous and passionate temperament found relaxation in the society of Mrs. O'Shea and in his laboratory where he carried out intricate experiments in assaying. He became a figure more remote and mysterious than ever. The Phoenix Park murderers were arrested and brought to justice early in 1883. Forster seized the opportunity to deliver a scathing indictment of Parnell in the House of Commons. In an almost contemptuous reply Parnell repudiated the charges in general terms, disavowed all sympathy with dynamite outrages, their authors and abettors, declined to plead in detail before an English tribunal, and declared that he sought only the approbation of the Irish people. The Irish people responded by a subscription known as the "Parnell Tribute," amounting to £37,000, presented to Parnell, partly for the liquida tion of debts he was known to have contracted, but mainly in recognition of his public services. The Irish National League, a successor to the suppressed Land League, was founded in the autumn of 1882 at a meeting over which Parnell presided, but he looked on it at first with little favour.
The Crimes Act, passed in 1882, was to expire in 1885; in May notice was given for its partial renewal and the second reading was fixed for June 1o. On June 8 Parnell, with thirty-nine of his followers, voted with the Opposition against the budget, and the government was defeated by 264 votes to 252. Gladstone resigned. Salisbury undertook to form a government, and Carnarvon became viceroy. Carnarvon sought an interview with Parnell, explicitly declared that he was speaking for himself alone, heard Parnell's views, expounded his own, and forthwith reported what had taken place to the prime minister. In the result the new cabinet refused to move in the direction apparently desired by Lord Carnarvon.