 The "Anglo-Irish Empire" idea, though strongly associated with Griffith, was not uniquely his creation.As early as the mid-1880s Lord Salisbury, leader of the Conservative Party had contemplated using the 1867 Austro-Hungarian example as a model for a reformed relationship between Britain and Ireland.From 1917 the party while maintaining its commitment to abstentionism, abandoned Griffith's proposal for having the British monarch on the Irish throne as King of Ireland.