It is significant of the tactics of Mr. Gladstone that he was secretly striving to influence the Vatican against Home Rule. A Mr. Errington, an Irish Catholic, but a Whig member of Parliament, had been sent to Rome with a letter of recommendation from Lord Granville. Mr. Gladstone had also written about him through Cardinal Manning, who was opposed to the mission. His business was at first to work for a Papal reprimand of priests who engaged in Land League agitation. He succeeded finally in engineering a rescript, dated May 11th, 1883, calling upon bishops to restrain priests from taking part in the Parnell testimonial. Willie was very anxious that Mr. O'Hart (O'Hart's Irish Pedigrees) should be granted a pension from the Civil List. Mr. Gladstone had already declined to include him in the List of Beneficiaries. Now at Willie's urgent request I most reluctantly asked Mr. Gladstone to reconsider his decision as to Mr. O'Hart, and on September 19th, 1884, received a snub for my pains. I had told Gladstone that Lord Spencer was credited with having expressed the opinion that Parnell had some connexion with the Phoenix Park murders. Gladstone {182} now said he was sure that Spencer did not really believe this. In October, 1884, Mr. Trevelyan ceased to be Irish Secretary and entered the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The vacant post was offered to Mr. Shaw Lefevre, but on hearing that Lord Spencer intended to seek for the renewal of the Coercion Act when it expired in September, 1885, he refused the offer. Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Campbell-Bannerman became Chief Secretary on October 24th. During 1884 Parnell kept quiet, and my negotiations on his behalf with Gladstone were intermittent. In the early part of the year, however, a document of tremendous import was submitted--none other than "A Proposed Constitution for Ireland," drawn up by Parnell, which was as follows:-- An elected Chamber with power to make enactments regarding all the domestic concerns of Ireland, but without power to interfere in any Imperial matter. The Chamber to consist of three hundred members. Two hundred and six of the number to be elected under the present suffrage, by the present Irish constituencies, with special arrangements for securing to the Protestant minority a representation proportionate to their numbers; the remaining 94 members to be named in the Act constituting the Chamber. The principle of nomination regarding this proportion of members to last necessarily only during the duration of the first Chamber. The number of elected members, suffrage, and boundaries constituencies for election of succeeding Chamber to be capable of alteration by the preceding Chamber, excepting those special arrangements for securing to the Protestant minority a proportionate representation, which arrangements shall be fixed and immutable.