belonged to it, and the lodge meetings and anniversary celebrations had
become little better than occasions for conviviality wholly inconsistent
with the irreproachable formularies of the Order. But its system of
local Lodges, affiliated to a Grand Lodge in each county, supplied the
ready-made framework of an effective organisation. Immediately after the
introduction of Gladstone's first Bill in 1886 it received an immense
accession of strength. Large numbers of country gentlemen, clergymen of
all Protestant denominations, business and professional men, farmers,
and the better class of artisans in Belfast and other towns, joined the
local Lodges, the management of which passed into capable hands; the
character of the Society was thereby completely and rapidly transformed,
and, instead of being a somewhat disreputable and obsolete survival, it
became a highly respectable as well as an exceedingly powerful political
organisation, the whole weight of whose influence has been on the side
of the Union.

A rallying cry was given to the Ulster Loyalists in the famous phrase
contained in a letter from Lord Randolph Churchill to a correspondent in
May 1886: "Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right." From this time
forward the idea that resort to physical resistance would be preferable
to submission to a Parliament in Dublin controlled by the "rebel party"
took hold of the popular mind in Ulster, although after the elections of
1886 there was no serious apprehension that the necessity would arise,
until the return to power of Mr. Gladstone at the head of a small
majority in 1892 brought about a fresh crisis.

The work of organisation was then undertaken with greater energy and
thoroughness than before. It was now that Lord Templetown founded the
Unionist Clubs, which spread in an affiliated network through Ulster,
and proved so valuable that, after falling into neglect during the ten