British Covenant

The British Covenant was a protest organised in 1914 against the Third Home Rule Bill for Ireland. It largely mirrored the Ulster Covenant of 1912.

With the failure of Asquith and Bonar Law to reach a compromise on the delayed bill, Law accepted that a compromise was unlikely, and from January 1914 onwards returned to the position that the Unionists were "opposed utterly to Home Rule". The campaign was sufficient to bring the noted organiser Lord Milner back into politics to support the Unionists, and he immediately asked L. S. Amery to write a British Covenant saying that the signers would, if the Home Rule Bill passed,

The Covenant was announced at a massive rally in Hyde Park on 4 April 1914, with hundreds of thousands assembling to hear Milner, Long and Carson speak.

The signature campaign was largely organised through the Primrose League and Walter Long's Union Defence League. By the middle of the summer, two million signatures were obtained,

Signatures included Field-Marshal Lord Roberts, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Edward Seymour, Rudyard Kipling, and Sir William Ramsay FRS.

The Daily Herald condemned the campaign

The British Covenant coincided with the Larne Gun Running. During the Curragh Incident, Engineer Lieutenant Ranken of HMS Firedrake, as a signatory of the British Covenant, declined to be a party to propelling the ship.