was none.  It was one unbroken scene of turbulence and disorder.  The few Irishmen remained quiet, too much amused, perhaps, or too much exhausted to retaliate.  It was the English—­the members of the first assembly of gentlemen in Europe, as they love to style it—­who howled and roared, and almost foamed at the mouth with rage at the calm and pale-featured young man who stood patiently facing them and endeavouring to make himself heard.”

An hour later the closure was applied, for the first time in Parliament’s history.  The records of Hansard spoil a story which Redmond was fond of telling—­that he took his oath and his seat, made his maiden speech and was suspended all in the same evening.  In point of fact he took his seat that Wednesday afternoon, when the House sat for a few hours only and adjourned again.  Next day news came in that Davitt had been arrested in Ireland.  Mr. Dillon, in the process of endeavouring to extract an explanation from the Government, was named and suspended.  When the Prime Minister after this rose to speak, Mr. Parnell moved:  “That Mr. Gladstone be not heard.”

The Speaker, ruling that Mr. Gladstone was in possession of the House, refused to put the motion.  Mr. Parnell, insisting that his motion should be put, came into collision with the authority of the Chair and was formally “named.”  Mr. Gladstone then moved his suspension and a division was called—­whereupon, under the rules which then existed, all members were bound to leave the Chamber.  On this occasion the Irish members remained seated, as a protest, and after the division the Speaker solemnly reported this breach of order to the House.  For their refusal to obey the Irish members present were suspended from the service of the House, and as a body they refused to leave unless removed by physical force.  Accordingly, man by man was ordered to leave and each in turn rose up with a brief phrase of refusal, after which the Sergeant-at-Arms with an officer approached and laid a hand on the recusant’s shoulder.  Redmond, when his turn came, said: 

“As I regard the whole of these proceedings as unmitigated despotism, I beg respectfully to decline to withdraw.”

That was his maiden speech.  Having delivered it, “Mr. Redmond,” says Hansard, “was by desire of Mr. Speaker removed by the Sergeant-at-Arms from the House.”  It was a strange beginning for one of the greatest parliamentarians of our epoch—­and one of the greatest conservatives.  The whole bent of his mind was towards moderation in all things.  Temperamentally, he hated all forms of extravagant eccentricity; he loved the old if only because it was old; he had the keenest sense not only of decorum but of the essential dignity which is the best guardian of order.  Yet here he was committed to a policy which aimed deliberately at outraging all the established decencies—­at disregarding ostentatiously all the usages by which an assembly of gentlemen had regulated their proceedings.