And the Rest Is History by Marlene Wagman-Geller Page B

was Captain Charles Boycott, whose name has become part of the English lexicon. Parnell was known not only for his ability to lead men but also for the magnetic effect he had on women. However, he had no interest in the latter; his only mistress was his country.
    Parnell brought dignity and power to a people who for centuries had been robbed of it. Yet when the Irish looked to their leader to make home rule a reality, the man who had been faithful only to his cause realized that he had a greater love than Ireland.
    Charles’s destiny, Katharine, was born in England, the youngest of thirteen children of Lady Emma and Sir John Page Wood, an Anglican vicar. She was raised to acquire a husband, as were other proper Victorian girls. “Look lovely and keep your mouth shut,” a brother advised her, voicing the common wisdom of the age. Although they had the trappings of wealth (such as a mansion in Riverhall), the family lacked money. The only one who was well-to-do was Emma’s oldest sister Maria, who, when she married a man named Benjamin, was affectionately dubbed “Aunt Ben.”
    When Katharine went to visit her brother’s regiment, she met the Irish captain William O’Shea, whom she married at age twenty-two. He was chiefly known for his velvet jackets and his passion for get-rich-quick schemes. The childless Aunt Ben lavished a £5,000 dowry on her niece, but it quickly evaporated in William’s spendthrift hands.
    The O’Sheas had three children, and to support his family William abandoned business for Irish politics and became a member of parliament for County Clare. Cracks soon erupted in their marriage. William preferred a bachelor’s life with constant absences and excessive gambling, and his moderate income left the family in dire straits. As their finances deteriorated, Katharine made an arrangement with Aunt Ben to move into her home with the children. She would look after the now-elderly woman in exchange for room and board. She said this period was “narrow, narrow, narrow, and so deadly dull.” It was not how she had envisioned her life, and she desperately wished for another.
    In 1880, William O’Shea, eager to make the acquaintance of the man who was dominating the Irish political scene, urged Katharine to invite Charles Parnell to a dinner party. However, Parnell, a committed loner, was not one to socialize and ignored their letter. In the spirit of “if Muhammad will not go to the mountain, the mountain must go to Muhammad,” Katharine decided to attend Parliament.
    The first time Katharine met Charles was when she approached him as he was leaving the House of Commons and inquired why he had not responded to her invitation. Katharine recorded her first impression of Parnell: “He looked straight at me smiling, and his curiously burning eyes looked into mine with a wonderful intentness that threw into my brain the sudden thought: This man is wonderful—and different. ” Her impression on Parnell was just as startling, and he later told her that from the first moment he gazed into her eyes he had known she was his destiny. As she was departing, Katharine leaned out of her carriage and a rose on her bodice fell. Parnell picked it up, kissed it, and placed it in his buttonhole. This rose was discovered years later by Katharine in an envelope with her name and the date on which they first met.
    After the encounter, the man who rarely wrote personal missives was constantly penning love letters. He also attended her next dinner party, which was followed by an evening at the theater, where they were engrossed in each other rather than the stage.
    Katharine knew the risks of an affair: Aunt Ben’s inheritance, the anger of her husband, and Victorian condemnation. Charles, knowledgeable about politics but naive about the dangers of gossip, believed there should be no “impediment to the marriage of true minds.” However, it was the