JANE ANNE SHEARES, NÉE BETTESWORTH (-1803)[27]
“Come to me, O Christ,
Take swiftly my soul
Alike with my sons.”
—Lament of Mothers of Bethlehem.
ON Saturday, May 19th, 1798, Lord Edward, desperately wounded in the gallant fight he had put up—one man against the multitude of his assailants—was taken prisoner and lodged in Newgate. Wounded and alone he lay in his gloomy cell, and on his hard prison bed through the long hours of the hot May Sunday that followed, and none of those who loved him was near at hand to bring healing to his fevered body, or comfort to his tortured heart.
On that same May Sabbath, when, from every open space that the retreating country had left behind her, in her flight before the city’s advance, there came the smell of the lilac and hawthorn, the honeyed fragrance of lime trees and chestnut blossoms—“all the sweetness of the May”—a different scene was taking place in another part of the city. In a handsome house at the corner of Baggot Street and Pembroke Street, a dinner-party was in progress. The cuisine was irreproachable, the wine excellent, the conversation of a high order. The master of the house, a tall finely-built man of about forty-five, with something of the soldier in his bearing, sat at one end of the table. His countenance, usually somewhat stern and forbidding, owing to the haughty glance of his dark eyes, and the curious blood-red birth-mark which stained the lower part of his face, was softened now into geniality as his eyes swept the little circle of relatives and guests gathered around his hospitable board. His brother, a man of about thirty-two, of a singularly open and pleasing countenance, blue-eyed, clear-complexioned, with well-formed features and a clever mobile mouth, that showed, as the frequent smile parted it, a row of perfect teeth—sat opposite. An old lady—their mother—very stately and handsome in her rich dark dress and priceless lace, sat near her eldest son. Beside her was that son’s beautiful wife. On the opposite side of the table was the host’s sister, and beside her his daughter by an earlier marriage. By the side of the younger brother sat a tall man in the uniform of a Captain in the King’s County Militia.
Presently, dinner being ended, the ladies left the men of the party to their wine, and retired to the drawing-room. A knock at the front door, followed by the frou-frou of silks and the murmur of feminine voices in the hall, announced the advent of after-dinner visitors. At the proposal of the younger brother of the host, the political discussion which the three men had inaugurated over their port was postponed, and a dish of tea with the ladies in the drawing-room was suggested. The dark eyes of the master of the house were full of merriment, while he explained to the guest what the magnet was that drew John from his politics. As the voices floated past them in the hall there had been clearly discernible the silvery tones of their beautiful neighbour, Miss Maria Steele. “You should hear some of the poetry he addresses to his Stella, Captain Armstrong!” said the host in laughing tones.
Captain Armstrong! Captain Warneford Armstrong! We know now, with that name ringing in our ears, that darker than the tragedy of Lord Edward, lying wounded to death in his prison cell at Newgate, is the tragedy that is being enacted before our eyes in this pleasant hospitable house. In this handsome dining-room, around the gleaming mahogany with its genial burden of fruit and wine, there sit—the informer, Captain John Warneford Armstrong, and his victims, Henry and John Sheares! And presently, if we have the courage to face it, and will follow the three men in their passage to the ladies in the drawing-room, we shall see an even more harrowing spectacle. For in that charming eighteenth-century room, all full of May sweetness from the tall open windows, all full of lovely ladies and beautiful children in their picturesque eighteenth-century costume, we shall presently see the traitor gather the two little children of Henry Sheares upon his knee, while their mother tunes her harp, and sings in her glorious voice, some exquisite, moving strain for his delectation.[28] It is the picture which the genius of Curran has made immortal: “I am disposed to believe, shocking as it is,” he cried, while he turned to the Jury, in the dim light of the ghastly midnight court where the Sheareses stood, two months later, on trial for their lives, “that this witness had the heart, when he was surrounded by the little progeny of my client—when he was sitting in the mansion in which he was hospitably entertained—when he saw the old mother, supported by the piety of her son, and the children basking in the parental fondness of the father—that he saw the scene, and smiled at it—contemplated the havoc he was to make, consigning them to the storms of a miserable world, without having an anchorage in the kindness of a father. Can such horror exist, and not waken the rooted vengeance of an eternal God?”
The poor old lady, on whom the diabolical treachery of the guest of that Sunday dinner-party was to bring such suffering that the whole annals of “’Ninety-Eight” have nothing to surpass it, had already tasted in a fuller measure, than is the lot of common women, the joys and the sorrows of life. The near kinswoman of the distinguished lawyer, Sergeant Bettesworth, and a relation of the Earl of Shannon, she had been married, while still very young, to a wealthy Cork banker, Mr. Henry Sheares, son of Henry Sheares, Esq., M.P., of Goldenbush. At Goldenbush, by the pleasant Bandon river, the young couple resided for some time, and here a number of their children were born. But at a later date the family lived at Glasheen, about a mile and a half from Cork, and their abundant means allowed them to keep up another establishment in the city—a house which has been identified by Dr. Madden as situated at the corner of Moore Street and Nile Street.
The young wife was highly accomplished, and it is rare to find a couple so perfectly matched, as were she and her husband, in every noble quality of heart and mind. She entered into his philanthropic schemes with the greatest zeal. Out of the abundance with which God had blessed them it was their joy to help all those in need. One of the spectacles which moved their compassion most keenly was that of decent poor people who, having fallen into debt, were by the barbarous law of the time, liable to be hauled off to prison for it, and to be herded with criminals, by whom they were too frequently contaminated. To help these unfortunates, whose only crime was poverty, Mr. Sheares instituted “the Society for the Relief of Persons Confined for Small Debts,” and in about nine months the secretary, Rev. Dr. Pigott, was able to report that “more than seventy poor wretches have been relieved by this institution from the depths of misery, and all the horrors of loathsome confinement—by which, at the same time, above 240 children (besides wives and other poor dependent relations) have had those restored to them from whose labour they derive their bread, and the community has been enriched by the replacing of many useful and industrious members.”
We have already spoken of the culture which marked the merchant princes of Cork in the eighteenth century. Even in their cultured ranks Mr. Henry Sheares stood prominently forth. He was a clever writer, and his contributions over the pen-name “Agricola,” to the Cork periodicals of his day were keenly appreciated by their readers. It was held by some of them that “no moralist—not even Mr. Addison—excelled him in the composition” of the little moral essay, which was his favourite vehicle of instruction. Two of his essays, one “On Forgiveness,” the other “On Man in Society, and at His Final Separation from it,” are reproduced by Madden; and they show, beneath the somewhat stilted and formal style which was so much to the taste of their day—and so little to that of ours—a depth of religion, feeling, a noble philosophy of life which can never be out of date. He was the founder of a Club, somewhat in “the Spectator” style, “where popular and literary subjects were debated, and his speeches at this Club were long remembered by his friends as pleasing memorials of great historical knowledge, a fine taste and graceful elocution.” He sat as member of Parliament for the borough of Clonakilty—which was in the patronage of his wife’s kinsman, the Earl of Shannon—in the Irish House of Commons from 1761 to 1767; and the Parliamentary Debates for these years show that he took an active part in the proceedings of the House.
Mr. Sheares died in 1776, leaving his widow and family in very comfortable circumstances. Nine children are mentioned in his will: Henry, Robert Bettesworth, Richard, John, and Christopher Humphrey; Letitia, Mary, Jane Anne Bettesworth, and Julia. Of these it was their mother’s tragic fate to survive all but the youngest, Julia.
The greatest pains had been taken with their education, and for their settlement. Of the four daughters, all were married except Julia: one to Mr. Gubbins, of Limerick, another to Mr. Henry Westropp, another to Dr. Payne of Upton. “The sons,” writes one who knew the family, “had the best masters to attend them in their father’s house, under their father’s eye; he narrowly inspected what company they kept, and at a proper age they were sent to the University, where, being young men of good natural parts, they acquired a considerable degree of reputation.”
The high hopes that had been built on these boys were overturned, in the case of three of them, by very early deaths. One day Robert and John were out bathing together, when John got into difficulties, in saving him poor Robert was drowned. A little later, Christopher, who had chosen the army for his profession, went out to the West Indies, on John’s advice. A few months later there came to his loving mother in Ireland the news of his death by yellow fever. Richard, who had entered the navy, perished on the Thunderer, which went down, with all hands, off the West Indies, in the great hurricane of October, 1779.
The eldest son, Henry, who inherited his father’s real and personal property, estimated at about £1,200 a year, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and first chose the army for his profession. In 1782, when he was scarcely twenty years of age, he eloped with Miss Swete, of Cork, whose father, Alderman Swete, was considered one of the wealthiest men in the City. Young Councillor Fitzgibbon (afterwards Lord Clare) had been among Miss Swete’s suitors, and it is said that he never forgave the man whom she preferred to him—and that thoughts of this early rivalry in love were at the bottom of the implacable hostility which drove Henry Sheares to his doom. Shortly after the marriage, Alderman Swete became bankrupt, and his daughter’s fortune having vanished with the rest of his assets, Henry Sheares was obliged to give up the army and take up the study of law. He was called to the Bar in 1790, his brother John, thirteen years younger than he (born 1766) having been called the preceding year. The brothers began practice together, taking up their residence in Dublin—at first in a house on Ormond Quay, and from 1796 in Baggot Street (now 128).
A little after the move to Dublin the young wife of Henry Sheares died (December 11th, 1791) leaving her husband four little children. Three of the children were taken by the grandparents, the Swetes, and educated by them in France. The youngest child, Jane, appears to have been put in charge of Grandmother Sheares and Aunt Julia.
In 1792 Henry Sheares, accompanied by his brother, John, went to France to visit his children. The stirring events which were taking place in Paris drew the brothers to the capital, and here they made the acquaintance of some of the most prominent men of the Revolution; notably Roland and Brissot. The influences under which they found themselves in this atmosphere were to give the most decisive direction to their political philosophy, and ultimately to seal their fate. The ardent spirit of John was irresistibly attracted to the new doctrines, and where John led, Henry, who loved him with a love surpassing the love of ordinary brothers, was fain to follow. Left to himself, poor Henry would have felt little call to republicanism; he liked dignified splendour; a fine house, a good table, a choice library. He loved society in which from his conversational powers, and his charming deferential way with women, he was a great favourite. He was a devoted family man—a loving son, and husband and father—and his happiest hours were spent in his own beautiful home in Baggot Street in the years which followed his second marriage with Miss Sarah Neville, a lady of good family in the County Kilkenny. In this home, with its rich furniture and fine library, he was soon joined by his mother and Julia and little Jane; and Sarah Sheares, who was a woman of character, as well as of accomplishments and charm, lived on the happiest footing with her people-in-law. John was also a permanent member of the household.
Shortly after their return from France the brothers became members of the newly instituted Society of United Irishmen, which at that time, had perfectly “constitutional” objects: Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform. But in the eyes of the Lord Clares and others of the Ascendancy the advocating of the most moderate measures of reform was “treason.” During all the brothers’ professional career, the enmity of Lord Clare, which was first that of an unsuccessful rival in love of Henry’s, pursued them, and as they, in their turn, put no restraint on the language they used with regard to the Lord Chancellor, every day that passed fanned the flame.
It was only after the arrest of the chief leaders of the United Irishmen on March 12th, 1798, that the Sheareses became prominent in the organisation. John Sheares was appointed to the Directory, and given special charge of operations in Cork. In April the brothers went circuit in the South-West, and were present at a memorable dinner-party in the house of Bagnal Harvey, Bargey Castle. Another guest was (unfortunately for the majority of those present) Sir Jonah Barrington. By some curious presentiment—which he took good care should be verified by immediately communicating with Mr. Secretary Cooke—he knew that a tragic fate was reserved for most of the guests. An excellent prophet was Sir Jonah—of the same “authentic class” as Major Sirr[29]—every member of that jovial dinner-party (with the exception of himself, a certain barrister and Mr. Hatton) was executed within three months!
With Sir Jonah Barrington and other “honourable” gentlemen of his class drawing up “for their own amusement,” lists of those among their fellow guests at friendly dinner parties “whom they considered likely to fall victims” to the coming disaster, and these lists finding themselves wafted by some marvellous agency from Wexford Bridge to the office of Mr. Secretary Cooke in Dublin Castle—it is not to be supposed that Government was in ignorance of the movements and designs of the Sheareses. They were carefully watched and “set,” but they were left at large for some time, according to Madden, “to allow the premature explosion of the rebellion to take place, for the same reason that Lord Edward was left at large after the arrests at Bond’s for several weeks, during which time Messrs. Hughes and Reynolds (the informers) visited him in his places of concealment, at Cormick’s in Thomas Street, and at Dr. Kennedy’s in Aungier Street.”
At length the time was ripe for their destruction. Government had found the proper tool.
On Thursday, May 10th, Captain John Warneford Armstrong took a little jaunt to town from his camp at Lehaunstown and called—as he was in the habit of doing—at Byrne’s, the bookseller’s, in Grafton Street. Though Captain Armstrong wore the king’s uniform, he was, if his conversation was any indication, by no means a fanatical adherent of a militarist and royalist government. He talked republicanism; and was a diligent reader of republican and deistical books, like Paine’s “Age of Reason” and “Common Sense.”
During one of his many conversations with Byrne the names of the Sheareses cropped up, and Byrne, completely deceived by the Captain’s specious professions, proposed to make them known to each other. In the afternoon of May the 10th, Captain Armstrong was seated in Byrne’s shop when Henry Sheares came in, and Byrne immediately made the introduction. Henry, however, was unwilling to enter into any conversation with the Captain and shortly afterwards made an excuse to leave him.
Presently entered John, with his head full of plans for the Rising, which was fixed for the 23rd of the month. One of his greatest objects was to gain over the soldiers, and when Captain Armstrong was made known to him by the unsuspecting Byrne “as a true brother on whom he might depend,” it is not to be wondered at, if John looked on this meeting as the direct answer to his ardent prayers. The Captain professed to be as eager as John to secure the soldiers for the good cause, and after some preliminary discussion it was arranged to meet at the brother’s house in Baggot Street the following Sunday.
At eleven o’clock on Sunday, May 13th, Captain Armstrong saw the brothers as arranged; at this interview he got from them the names of some soldiers in his regiment who were known to be United Irishmen.
On Wednesday, May 16th, Captain Armstrong called once more at the house of his victims but found neither of them at home. A second call about six o’clock in the evening was more fruitful. He was shown in to John in the library, and learned from him that he was on the eve of his departure for Cork to organise the Rising there, and that his friend, Surgeon Lawless, would take his place in Dublin and consult and advise with Armstrong as to the matters they had in hand. It would appear that poor Henry Sheares was on his guard against Armstrong for at this interview he did not appear.
On the morning of the following day Armstrong was again in Baggot Street, and made the acquaintance of Surgeon Lawless, who according to the Captain, “informed him that he had lately attended a meeting of deputies from almost all the militia regiments in Ireland, at which meeting there were two of his (the Captain’s men).” At this interview Captain Armstrong found, what he had hitherto sought in vain, evidence to implicate Henry Sheares “in the knowledge of the military organisation” of the United men.
After each interview with his victims Armstrong, according to his own evidence, “returned to the camp and communicated the business that passed to Colonel L’Estrange and Captain Clibborn.” Sometimes he communicated it to Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Cooke. It was Lord Castlereagh who persuaded him to go to the house of the Sheareses. “He would not,” he told Dr. Madden himself, “have gone there if he had not been thus urged to do so. It was wrong, he believed—indeed, he felt it was wrong to have gone there and to have dined with them. It was the only part of the business he had any reason to regret.”
Early in the morning of Monday, May 21st, the day following the pleasant dinner-party at which Armstrong had been so hospitably entertained, the inhabitants of Baggot and Pembroke Streets, and the neighbouring Squares, were startled by seeing a party of military take possession of the front and rear entries to the house of Mr. Henry Sheares. A loud rapping at the door roused the inmates, and procured for the police magistrate in charge of the party, Alderman Alexander, and the Chief Constable, Mr. Atkinson, the entrance they demanded “in the king’s name.” Alexander made his way to the library, where he was presently joined by Mr. Henry Sheares. The master of the house was immediately made cognisant of the object of this early visit, and informed that his papers must be searched. Henry Sheares, who was perfectly easy in mind as to this, in the consciousness of having no treasonable papers in his possession, acquiesced without protest. The search was nearly ended, without anything incriminating having been found, when Henry Sheares directed the Alderman’s attention to a small writing box, belonging to his brother, which lay unlocked on the study table.
In this box was found a scrawled production, all blots and erasures, which John Sheares, who had the dramatic temperament developed in the highest possible degree, had passed the time in writing, after the rest of the household had gone to bed the previous night. It was written in the character of one addressing the Irish people after a successful rising, and on its evidence, supported by the perjured “parole” of Armstrong, not only John Sheares who wrote it, but Henry, who was asleep when it was written, and as innocent of its contents as his little child, whom Armstrong had fondled the evening before, were launched into eternity.
“Can such things be, and not awaken the vengeance of an eternal God?”
What were the feelings of the poor ladies, old Mrs. Sheares and her daughters when all this was going on? Was their privacy respected while the house was being searched for John and more “incriminating” documents? Was Henry allowed to bid them farewell before he was marched off to the Castle, and to whisper to them that there was no need for anxiety? Did any dim foreboding warn them as they saw him leave the home he loved so well, and where they had all been so happy that never, never more should he enter it again?
Later in the same day John Sheares was arrested by Major Sirr at the home of Surgeon Lawless. Lawless, himself, having received timely warning from Surgeon General Stuart, had made his escape on the previous Saturday.
The two brothers, after examination at the Castle, were committed to Kilmainham and here they lay in close confinement until they came up for trial on July the 4th. A postponement was secured until July the 12th. Then the trial was hurried on with the most indecent haste.
The truth was that Lord Clare was in terror of his enemies escaping from his hands—for the most powerful influences were at work for their rescue, and the evidence against Henry Sheares was not sufficient, as the common phrase goes, “to hang a dog on.” Miss Maria Steele used her influence with her devoted admirer, Captain Horatio Cornwallis, nephew of the Lord Lieutenant, to secure the brothers’ pardon; and to his nephew’s pleading, supported by that of Julia Sheares, Lord Cornwallis, “anxious that his first act in Ireland should not be a sanguinary one,” was about to yield, when Lord Clare, who was present, intervened. All day long on July 13th, while the trial dragged its weary length through the hot and crowded court, Sarah Sheares, poor Henry’s wife, sat in a sedan-chair at Lord Clare’s hall door; when at length she saw him, she fell at his feet on the steps of his door, clasping his knees and begging her husband’s life from his hands. It was all in vain.
And what of the mother all these dreadful weeks? They had not dared to tell her that Henry was in any danger. They told her that he had been advised to keep away, and would return when all was safe again. For John’s fate she was in some measure prepared, but she hoped, with all her mother’s heart, that it might be averted. A heart-breaking incident was related to Dr. Madden by a relation of the Sheareses:
“The Earl of Shannon was a relation and intimate friend of old Mrs. Sheares, and the day of her sons’ execution, of which she was then ignorant, his lordship went to see her. A most melancholy scene, as may be supposed, occurred between them. She threw herself on her knees to implore his mediation for her younger son, at the time not knowing that her son Harry was implicated, or had been imprisoned, having been told that he had been advised to keep out of the way for some time, and was actually expecting him home that evening. The Earl left the house, not being able to tell her that they had been both executed that morning.”
When poor heart-broken Julia, poor widowed “Sally” could bear no longer to hear her ask, “When will Harry come back,” they burst into a storm of weeping and then the desolate mother knew that no son had been spared to her out of the calamity that had swept them all away. For a time they feared her reason would give way before the shock of that knowledge.
Her two daughters—for Sarah’s devotion was not less ardent than that of Julia—took the poor old mother far away from the scene of her sufferings, and made a new home for her in Clifton, England. Here she passed the short and sad remainder of her days—grieving ever for those she had lost, having no joy but in the thought of death which would give them back to her once more. Some time in 1803, the same year which witnessed the death of her fellow mourner, Elizabeth Emmet, she passed through “the strait and narrow gate”—and stood with her beloved amid the multitude “clothed with white robes, and (having) palms in their hands, before the throne and in the sight of the Lamb.” For she and the sons, who welcomed her, had indeed “come out of great tribulation, and had washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.”