The defeat of the Home Rule Bill of 1886 brought relief from the
immediate strain of anxiety. But it was at once realised that the
encouragement and support given to Irish disloyalty for the first time
by one of the great political parties in Great Britain was a step that
could never be recalled. Henceforth the vigilance required to prevent
being taken unawares, and the untiring organisation necessary for making
effective defence against an attack which, although it had signally
failed at the first onslaught, was certain to be renewed, welded all the
previously diverse social and political elements in Ulster into a single
compact mass, tempered to the maximum power of resistance. There was
room for no other thought in the minds of men who felt as if living in a
beleaguered citadel, whose flag they were bound in honour to keep flying
to the last. The "loyalist" tradition acquired fresh meaning and
strength, and its historical setting took a more conscious hold on the
public mind of Ulster, as men studied afresh the story of the Relief of
Derry or the horrors of 1641. Visits of encouragement from the leaders
of Unionism across the Channel, men like Lord Salisbury, Mr. Balfour,
Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Randolph Churchill, fortified the resolution of a
populace that came more and more to regard themselves as a bulwark of
the Empire, on whom destiny, while conferring on them the honour of
upholding the flag, had imposed the duty of putting into actual practice
the familiar motto of the Orange Lodges--"No surrender."

From a psychology so bred and nourished sprang a political temper which,
as it hardened with the passing years, appeared to English Home Rulers
to be "stiff-necked," "bigoted," and "intractable." It certainly was a
state of mind very different from those shifting gusts of transient
impression which in England go by the name of public opinion; and, if
these epithets in the mouths of opponents be taken as no more than
synonyms for "uncompromising," they were not undeserved. At a memorable