In March 1887, The Times published a series of articles, "Parnellism and Crime", in which Home Rule League leaders were accused of being involved in murder and outrage during the land war.
[2] After considerable argument, the government eventually set up a special commission to investigate the charges made against Parnell and the Home Rule party.
The commission did not limit itself to the forgeries, but also examined at length the surrounding circumstances, and in particular the violent aspects of the Land War and the Plan of Campaign.
[5] When it eventually published its 35 volumes of evidence it satisfied for the most part the pro- and anti-nationalist camps in Ireland: A balanced and up-to-date overview of the "Parnellism and Crime" affair is given by T. W. Moody (1968), who was able to take advantage of the important modern contributions of Henry Harrison in the 1940s and 1950s and of Leon Ó Broin in the 1960s.
Andrew Robert's biography of Salisbury (1999) mainly lists the government's concerns; chapter 27 covers the period from March 1887 to July 1891.