bsentee. Lord Carson of
Duncairn--for this was the title that Sir Edward Carson had assumed on
being appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary a few weeks previously--was
detained in London by judicial duty in the House of Lords; and possibly
reasons of delicacy not difficult to understand restrained him from
making arrangements for absence. But the marked ovation given to Lady
Carson wherever she was recognised in the streets of Belfast showed that
the great leader was not absent from the popular mind at this moment of
vindication of his statesmanship.

Such an event as that which brought His Majesty to Belfast was naturally
an occasion for bestowing marks of distinction for public service. Sir
James Craig wisely made it also an occasion for letting bygones be
bygones by recommending Lord Pirrie for a step in the Peerage. Among
those who received honours were several whose names have appeared in the
preceding chapters of this book. Mr. William Robert Young, for thirty
years one of the most indefatigable workers for the Unionist cause in
Ulster, and Colonel Wallace, one of the most influential of Carson's
local lieutenants, were made Privy Councillors, as was also Colonel
Percival-Maxwell, who raised and commanded a battalion of the Ulster
Division in the war. Colonel F.H. Crawford and Colonel Spender were
awarded the C.B.E. for services to the nation during the war; but
Ulstermen did not forget services of another sort to the Ulster cause
before the Germans came on the scene.[109] A knighthood was given to Mr.
Dawson Bates, who had exchanged the Secretaryship of the Ulster Unionist
Council for the portfolio of a Cabinet Minister.

These honours were bestowed by the King in person at an investiture held
in the Ulster Hall in the afternoon. There must have been many present
whose minds went back to some of the most stirring events of Ulster's
domestic history which had been transacted in the same building within
recent years. Did Sir Hamar Greenwood, the Chief Secretary, as he stood
in attendance on the Sovereign in the resplendent uniform of a Privy
Councillor, look in curiosity round the walls which he and Mr. Churchill
had been prohibited from entering on a memorable occasion when they had
to content themselves with an imported tent in a football field instead?
Did Colonel Wallace's thoughts wander back to the scene of wild
enthusiasm in that hall on the evening before the Covenant, when he
presented the ancient Boyne f