There were, of course, the usual political agitations, and although the Smith O'Brien rising had collapsed ignominiously, a new force in Irish affairs came into existence about the time that Lord Carlisle was concluding his first viceroyalty. The Irish in America had begun to take a practical interest in Irish affairs. They subscribed large sums of money to aid the cause of Irish independence, and for six years, beginning with 1858, great preparations were made for the striking of the decisive blow. James Stephens and others founded the Fenian organization described by Mr. Gladstone as having its root in Ireland and its branches in the United States. During the latter months of Lord Carlisle's viceroyalty there were one or two small attempts on the part of the Fenians to make themselves prominent, but it was not until Lord Wodehouse was in power at Dublin Castle that English ministers realized the gravity of the new situation created by Stephens and his friends. Lord Carlisle's resignation was brought about by ill-health, and in October, 1864, he left Ireland, to die before the close of the year. It illustrates the viceroy's position in social and literary circles to recall the fact that when the country celebrated in 1864 the tercentenary of the birth of William Shakespeare, Lord Carlisle should be selected to preside over the festivities at Stratford-on-Avon. {261} CHAPTER XVII The viceroyalty of Lord Wodehouse brought him an earldom in the year he retired from office--1868--but it would be an exaggeration to say that he was conspicuously successful. Until his appointment to Ireland, Wodehouse had had experience of under-secretaryships only, at the Foreign and Indian Offices, and Lord Palmerston's selection came as a surprise. It may have been due to the fact that Lord Wodehouse's wife was a daughter of an Irish peer, the last Earl of Clare, and there have been selections for the viceroyalty based on even more frivolous and cynical reasons. There was, of course, a great deal of anxious and dangerous work for Lord Wodehouse to do, and within a few months of his arrival in Dublin he was coping night and day with the Fenian rising. At first all the viceroy's energy and the underground activities of his subordinates seemed helpless against the efforts of the latest society for bringing about separation from England, but Lord Wodehouse was not dismayed, and he met murder with execution and assassination with the rope. The Fenian movement culminated in 1867 in a series of shameless murders that once more drew the {262} attention of the English nation to the disturbed condition of Ireland.