same day was appointed a lord justice along with Robert Jocelyn, Baron Newport, the lord chancellor, and Henry Boyle, the speaker of the House of Commons. Though Stone had already on several occasions ‘signalised himself by a most determined opposition to the Irish interest’ (Plowden, Historical Review of the State of Ireland, 1803, i. 304), it does not appear that he exercised much influence on the Irish administration during the viceroyalty of Lord Harrington. A rivalry, however, soon sprang up between the young primate and Boyle, who had been for a long time one of the most considerable men in the kingdom. On the reappointment of his old patron, the Duke of Dorset, as lord-lieutenant in 1751, Stone allied himself with Lord George Sackville, the new chief secretary. This alliance, combined with the influence of his elder brother, Andrew Stone, in England, enabled him more effectually to contest the supremacy of his rival in the direction of Irish affairs. The contest between Stone and Boyle was merely for power, but the question nominally at issue in the struggle between them from 1749 to 1753 was whether the Irish House of Commons had or had not the right to dispose of the surplus revenues of the country. Stone supported the claim of the crown, while Boyle, who had been driven into opposition by Lord George Sackville's attempt to induce him to resign the speakership in favour of John Ponsonby, took the popular side. In the session of 1749 heads of a bill for the appropriation of the surplus were sent over to England, but the English authorities insisted that the surplus belonged to the crown, and that the Irish House of Commons had not even the right to entertain any question of the kind without the express consent of the crown. In order to establish this principle Dorset, at the opening of the session in 1751, declared the royal consent to the proposed measure. The house, however, passed the bill without taking any notice of this consent. The bill was returned from England with an alteration in the preamble, signifying that the royal consent had been given. The Irish parliament thereupon gave way, and the bill was passed in its altered form. In the session of 1753 the struggle was renewed. Dorset again signified the king's consent to the appropriation of the new surplus towards the payment of the national debt. As in the previous session, the bill was sent over without any mention of the consent of the crown. It was returned with the same alteration as before; but by this time the opposition had grown stronger, and the bill was rejected by the Irish House of Commons on account of the alteration by a majority of 122 votes against 117. Hereupon strong measures were taken by the government; Anthony Malone [q. v.] and other servants of the crown who had voted with the majority were dismissed from their places, and a portion of the surplus was by royal authority applied to the liquidation of the national debt (Lecky, History of Ireland, 1892, i. 463–5).
Stone was now virtually dictator of Ireland. ‘Without this Wolsey's interposition it is vain,’ writes Adderley to Lord Charlemont, ‘to look after honours or any kind of preferment’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. app. x. p. 189). Though Boyle was excluded from the regency of 1754–5, he still continued his active opposition to the government until the Duke of Dorset's dismissal. During the Duke of Devonshire's viceroyalty the tables were turned. Boyle was created Earl of Shannon, and several members of the opposition received places or pensions, while Stone was forced to retire from the direction of affairs. Though he was excluded from the regency in May 1756, he was not struck off the list of Irish privy councillors, as Plowden and others assert. With the object of regaining power, Stone now entered into an alliance with John Ponsonby [q. v.] in opposition to the government. The House of Commons was at this time divided into three parties, of which Stone, John Ponsonby, and the Earl of Kildare were respectively the chiefs. Unable to govern Ireland independently of these factions, the Duke of Bedford, who succeeded the Duke of Devonshire as lord-lieutenant of Ireland in September 1757, attempted to induce Kildare to make up his differences with Stone. Stone had always been a special object of hatred to Kildare, who, in his famous petition to the king in 1754, described the primate as ‘a greedy churchman,’ affecting to be ‘a second Wolsey in the senate’ (Plowden, Historical Review of the State of Ireland, vol. i. app. pp. 255–257). Though Stone was willing to serve with anybody so long as he was restored to power, Kildare was inexorable. Ultimately Stone's intrigues prevailed, and, having promised to be faithful in future, provided he received a share of the public patronage, he was appointed a lord justice along with the Earl of Shannon and John Ponsonby, by patent dated 29 April 1758. With the aid of his old antagonist Shannon, and the steady assistance of John Ponsonby, Stone was enabled to carry on the government of Ireland during the remainder of his life, but he never regained his former ascendency. Stone died unmarried, at his brother's house in Privy Garden (now known as Whitehall Gardens),
