Is it honourable to kill a tyrant?
I, Arthur McCready, was still at Trinity College Dublin when the Rebellion started. My older sister, Mary, was married to a member of the illegal Society of United Irishmen, a society dedicated to establishing a free Irish republic. My uncle, Cashel, was also a member. At sixteen, I was struck with the fever of rebellion that infected Dublin, but it was quickly crushed, along with my country and the people I loved. Trinity was a civil war of rebels and royalists, and I was close to so many of those young, talented rebels. Many took up arms against the British but were killed. Others were expelled, exiled, or had disappeared.
Mary’s husband was arrested and transported to Botany Bay, and we never heard from him again. Uncle Cashel was arrested for sedition, so my innocent father and sister were arrested too. The British went with the logic that rebel spirit runs through families. They resorted to torture to get the answers out of my father, half-hanging him until he collapsed. Mary was pregnant, so they left her alone, but the emotional torture was enough. I do not know what happened to them in the months they spent in Kilmainham Gaol, nor do I like to wonder. They ruined them.
No. The tyrant Lord Castlereagh, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, ruined them.
It was Lord Castlereagh who crushed the Rebellion. It was Lord Castlereagh who allowed my father and Mary to be tortured. It was Lord Castlereagh who oversaw the abolition of Ireland’s Parliament. Lord Castlereagh who acted so unjustly that a Trinity alumnus, Robert Emmet, led a failed insurrection against the British in 1803, before being tried and executed for treason at the age of twenty-five.
Emmet and I were friends from the Hist, Trinity’s historical society. On my first debate, I stumbled over my points and embarrassed myself. Emmet saw it all and taught me the art of oratory. He helped me battle my irrational fear of public speaking. Now he was dead. He would not be if Lord Castlereagh had not robbed Ireland’s of its rightful Parliament and crushed its justified rebellion.
I did not think it possible to hate a man to the point where I could not live in a world where he breathed. I decided I would see justice done for Emmet, Mary, Uncle Cashel, my father, my friends, Ireland.
I would kill Lord Castlereagh.
A year after resigning as Chief Secretary for Ireland, Lord Castlereagh had become President of the Board of Control, overseeing activities of the East India Company. I tracked his progress the moment I left Ireland to complete my studies in the Middle Temple. I visited the Viewing Gallery at Parliament, built connections, joined clubs. I followed him when I could, I familiarised myself with the routes he took home, and watched out for his name in the newspapers. In 1805, a year after I graduated from the Middle Temple, The Times advertised a position of a clerk to the Board of Control. They liked my letter of introduction and references, so invited me to an interview.
Castlereagh conducted the interview. I had worn my best clothes and styled my hair accordingly, but Castlereagh’s appearance made me feel like a pauper. He was devilishly handsome, and his warm smile and handshake infuriated me.
In response to the question of why I wanted the position, I explained that my expertise in the law and my confidence in public speaking would serve well when it came to diplomacy. I enjoyed visiting the Viewing Gallery and longed to be a part of the cogs and gears that made up His Majesty’s government, but it was my fascination with India that drew me to this department. I knew exactly what Castlereagh was doing when he asked me of my political views, but I was ready. I lied that I never participated in rebel activities at Trinity, that I detested the United Irishmen and their treason, and that the best thing for Ireland was the Act of Union.
Castlereagh had admired my performance in the interview, so took me on. My days were menial, sitting at a stool all day copying documents, delivering letters and dispatches across Whitehall, and fetching Castlereagh’s wine, coffee, his copy of The Times, or anything else he desired. I decided to wait at least a year before killing him, gaining his trust and friendship. I chose to act alone. I could not – and would not – put anyone’s life at risk. Besides, the less people, the less suspicion. I wondered if Ireland would even bat an eyelid at my actions, but it had to be done.
In 1806, Castlereagh was preparing to move departments after a change in Cabinet. Now that it had been a year, I was uncertain. When Castlereagh was exhausted after a day’s work, he would always smile to greet me. I proof-read his speeches and he valued my feedback, as he knew I was an orator in my Trinity days. He toasted my health one evening and announced that he was to become Secretary for the State of War, but he wanted me at his side. I had wanted Castlereagh to trust me, but not this much.
Returning home one evening, I saw the knife on my desk. Waiting. My hands were sweating and shaking so much that it slipped and fell to the floor when I picked it up.
I know not what came over me when I fell to my knees and covered my face with my shaking hands. Hate for Castlereagh had been my motivation for years, yet the reason for my existence had become so alien to me. How can one take a human life?
Something inside told me, now or never.
Staggering to my feet, I reached for the knife. Once I held it, I could not let it go. I knew Castlereagh would be walking home now. Phantom hands from the past pushed me forward, down the stairs and out into the street. I strode to Whitehall, clutching the knife so hard my hand turned white. When it struck half ten, I saw Castlereagh promptly leaving the Board of Control Headquarters, whistling to himself. I crossed the road and followed him down the path, my heart hammering at my chest.
Then I lunged at him with all my strength. “Freedom for Ireland!”
Castlereagh turned around in surprise as I held the knife high and tackled him to the ground. Trying to register that his would-be assassin was his own clerk, he gasped my name, but the knife was already swiping down, ready to pierce his stomach. I held it there, hate boiling my insides.
I could not do it.
It is one thing to hate a man. It is another to let him bleed.
I collapsed, the knife falling beside me. What manner of man was I? What had hate turned me into? I started to weep. In my despair, I confessed everything to Castlereagh. He listened with patience, and when I finished, I looked up and saw that he was stunned. Whether by my oratory which he so admired, or by my confession, I could not tell.
Head low, Castlereagh turned and swiftly left. I knelt in the middle of Whitehall for a while. I don’t know how much time had passed when I finally rose and began to walk.
Could I now live in a world where I knew I had contrived to kill a man? Where hate had turned me into a monster whose only cause for existence was the death of another human? I had not slept, nor had I left my room. My landlady had come with my breakfast, but I ignored her knocks. I simply sat on the end of the bed, head bowed. I did not even flinch when the Bow Street Runners came barging in with truncheons, nor did I resist when they marched me down the stairs. The threat of execution did not register. Nothing registered, not even who I was.
Holding me in Newgate Prison, they asked the usual questions: who my accomplices were, if I was working for the French, if I was a United Irishman, and what possessed me to consider carrying out ‘such a barbaric act’. They wanted to declare me insane to avoid making a martyr of me, but given my education and oration, saw that I was completely rational. Not even a physician could understand me. Their final hope was a vicar, one Sebastian Sinclair. Like Castlereagh, he listened to my confession with patience and did not comment until I was finished. His face showed no judgement.
“Like Christ, you were tempted, yet you listened to morality and yielded,” Sinclair said. “I do not doubt your motives, and frankly, I despise what was done in Ireland. From everything I have heard, you are a troubled, rational soul wronged by circumstance. The greatest justice will be to declare you sane. You are not an evil man. I thank you for your confession.”
So I was not declared insane, which I think frightened the government to the point of doing everything in their power to move on from this sorry business. To avoid public excitement and incident, they covered up my crimes with news of the upcoming Season and advancements on Napoleon’s recent victory in Austria. Nobody will know my name. Ireland will be unchanged by my unknown act and Castlereagh will move up the government ladder, though I wonder what he will make of that night. It was decided that I would hang by the neck until dead, but I would have no public execution, no chance to deliver a grand speech that would raise the spirits of the people and lead Ireland towards emancipation.
On the morning of my execution, which was unusually warm, even in Newgate, Sinclair came in with his Bible and delivered a confession of his own. He had pleaded that I be charged with conspiracy to murder, not attempted murder. Though punishment awaited me, Sinclair’s plea had redeemed me of the dread that defied my nature and haunted my final hours.
“Would you like a blessing, my son?” he asked, placing a hand on my shoulder and gesturing to his Bible.
I had thought myself inhuman until Sinclair had heard my confession. That was the greatest blessing I could ask for. Sinclair gripped my shoulder harder when my cell door opened and a shadowed figure appeared, announcing that the time had come.
Is it then honourable to kill a tyrant? Who am I to say, when I could not bring myself to do it? Yet, I am an honourable man, and it is with honour that I take my punishment.
Written by Ciara Griffiths, 3rd Year Philosophy, Issue 12 Crime and Punishment, Spring 2023.
Illustration by Jasmine Fry.
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