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Herbert soon showed that they had no intention of making common cause with the Irish nationalists in the new parliament. Carnarvon's policy was not developing those results which he had anticipated. Crime was increasing, and his colleagues offered to strengthen by new legislation the means at his command for its repression. At the same time Mr. Gladstone allowed it to be known that he was ready, when in power, to bring in a Home Rule Bill. Amid these complications, but in accordance with his original intention on taking office, Carnarvon resigned (12 Jan.), and on 25 Jan. finally left Dublin. A few days later the conservatives were driven from office, and Mr. Gladstone in the course of the session brought forward his Home Rule and Land Purchase Bills. Carnarvon declared that these bills were financially unsound, healed none of the old sores, and by the tumult they excited virtually postponed the settlement of the Irish question to a very distant day. But, without entering into any details, he recommended ‘some limited form of self-government.’

Carnarvon was not invited to take office in the conservative ministry formed in July 1886, after the defeat of Mr. Gladstone at the general election which followed the rejection of the Home Rule Bill. But he continued to give his party an independent support, and, while still looking forward to an harmonious settlement of the Irish difficulty, acknowledged the need of re-enacting stronger criminal laws. Early in 1887 the ‘Times’ newspaper charged Mr. Parnell and his chief followers with conniving at the Phoenix Park and other outrages which had taken place in Ireland between 1880 and 1885; the House of Commons rejected a proposal to examine the charges as infringements of parliamentary privilege; and Mr. Parnell declined the offer of the government to bring in his behalf a libel action against the newspaper. Carnarvon thereupon urged, in a letter to the ‘Times’ (9 May 1887), that a special commission should be appointed by parliament to determine the truth or falsehood of the accusations. This was the earliest suggestion of a measure which the government adopted a year later. In speeches and letters to the papers Carnarvon repeatedly called attention, in his last years, to the need of increasing our coaling stations, and of fortifying our home and colonial ports for the protection of the empire in case of war. He visited South Africa and Australia (August 1887 to February 1888), and thus increased his practical knowledge of the colonial side of the subject. One of his latest speeches, which was delivered before the chamber of commerce in London (11 Dec. 1889), dealt exhaustively with the details of colonial defence. A few days later, in a speech at Newbury, he described himself in general political matters as still an old conservative, who was anxious to make his party as national as possible. Early in 1890 his health, which was never strong, began to fail, and he died at his London house in Portman Square on 28 June 1890. He was buried on 3 July in the chapel which he had himself erected in the grounds of Highclere. The funeral was attended by Lord Salisbury and many of Carnarvon's political associates. A commemorative service was held at the same time in the Chapel Royal, Savoy.

Carnarvon's chivalrous sentiment rendered him the enemy of all obvious injustice, but his reverence for the past made him suspicious of rapid change. On the battle-field of Newbury, near Highclere, he helped to erect, in 1878, a monument to the memory of Falkland and of those who fell with him there in 1643, and he justly described himself in the inscription as ‘one to whom the rightful authority of the crown and the liberties of the subject are alike dear.’ Apart from his action in Canada, Carnarvon achieved little conspicuous success in the practical field of politics. The difficulties that beset his South African and Irish administrations were beyond his capacity to remove; but the high principle and sensitive honour that guided his conduct were apparent even in his failures. He estimated his own powers with perfect accuracy, and rendered his greatest services as a statesman by forcing on the attention of his countrymen the duties owed by the mother-country to the colonies, and the necessity of preserving friendly relations between all parts of the British empire. That topic was free from the narrowing associations of party warfare, and his wide sympathies and liberal culture enabled him to present it with exceptional effect. His speeches were always clear and often eloquent. Carnarvon's leisure was spent instudy. He was interested in archæology, both ancient and modern. In 1859 he published an address on the archæology of Berkshire, delivered to the Berkshire Archæological Association at Newbury. He was admitted a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 15 March 1877, and was president from 23 April 1878 to 23 April 1885. He showed scholarship and taste in verse-translations of Æschylus's ‘Agamemnon’ (1879), and of the first twelve books of Homer's ‘Odyssey’ (1886). When at the Michaelmas commencement of 1885 the university of Dublin conferred on him the degree of LL.D., Carnarvon achieved the exceptional distinction of returning thanks in a felicitous