One friend of O'Connell was succeeded by another, and George William Frederick Villiers, fourth Earl of Clarendon, was sworn in as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland shortly after Lord Bessborough's death. It was understood that he was to be the last Viceroy of Ireland. He was then forty-seven years of age, twenty-seven of which {249} had been spent in the service of the country. At twenty he was an attache to the British Embassy at St. Petersburg; from 1827 to 1829 a commissionership of Customs took him to Ireland, where he studied the Irish question so effectively that the Lord-Lieutenant, the Marquis of Anglesey, was glad to have his advice. When he left Madrid, the Spanish Government struck a medal in his honour as a tribute to his successful occupancy of an embassy by no means the easiest in Europe. In 1838 he declined the Governor-Generalship of Canada: indeed, he made a habit of declining honours, amongst these being a twice-offered marquisate and two pressing invitations to govern India. In 1847, however, he accepted the post of Viceroy of Ireland, and with Lady Clarendon, who was a daughter of the Earl of Verulam, he entered upon his remarkable term of office. A year before he had presided over the Board of Trade, and this was his most onerous ministerial appointment until he went to Ireland. The strongest and wisest of men would have failed in Ireland during the period bounded by the years 1847 and 1852--the time covered by Lord Clarendon's viceroyalty--and the Lord-Lieutenant was by no means entitled to be considered above the average in strength and wisdom. He was a Liberal, and a Free Trader, and a friend of O'Connell, and he had numerous ideas that he hoped would fructify to Ireland's gain, but he never had a real chance. In succession he had to face the Young Ireland insurrection, the famine, Orange disturbances in several counties, the {250} ghastly economic problems created by the increasing emigration of the peasantry, and the consequent bankruptcy of the landlords. Clarendon laboured at the Castle and in London in a hopeless endeavour to restore order out of chaos. To defeat William Smith O'Brien and his followers was ridiculously easy, but it was another matter coping with a famine that threatened to wipe the peasant population out of existence. Ireland, ever the thorn in the crown of British statesmanship, drove Russell to distraction, and made Clarendon old before his time. Daily plots to assassinate him were duly reported to the police, and by them to the viceroy; Lady Clarendon was induced to spend most of her time in England, and eventually so virulent did the enemies of the Government become that for days the viceroy was placed in the humiliating position of being unable to go beyond the precincts of Dublin Castle. At viceregal parties a large percentage of those present consisted of spies and detectives. In the country blood was being shed--at the Castle lives were being worn out. Clarendon was