lesser, subsisted only for the sake of securing the privileges and emoluments of a sn all number of ecclesiastics, frequently strangers, who performed no duties, and rendered no sort of return for their enormous monopoly. A great share, in fact, of the temporal government under George II. was thrown successively into the hands of two primates, Boulter and Stone; the one a worthy but narrow-minded man, who showed his egregious ignorance of policy in endeavouring to promote the wealth and happiness of the people, whom he at the same time studied to depress and discourage in respect of political freedom; the other an able, but profligate and ambitious statesman, whose name is mingled, as an object of odium and enmity, with the first struggles of Irish patriotism. The new Irish nation, or rather the protestant nation, since all distinctions of origin have, from the time of the great rebellion, been merged in those of religion, partook in large measure of the spirit that was poured out on the advocates of liberty and the Revolution in the sister kingdom. Their parliament was always strongly whig, and scarcely manageable during the later years of the queen. They began to assimilate themselves more and more to the English model, and to cast off by degrees the fetters that galled and degraded them. By Poyning's celebrated law, the initiative power was reserved to the English council. This act, at one time popular in Ireland, was afterwards justly regarded as destructive of the rights of their parliament, and a badge of the nation's dependence. It was attempted by the commons in 1641, and by the catholic confederates in the rebellion, to procure its repeal; which Charles I. steadily refused, till he was driven to refuse nothing. In his son's reign, it is said that "the council framed bills altogether; a negative alone on them and their several provisoes was left to parliament; only a general proposition for a bill by way of address to the lord lieutenant and council came from parliament; nor was it till after the Revolution that heads of bills were presented; these last in fact resembled acts of parliament or bills, with only the small difference of We pray that it may be enacted,' instead of 'Be it enacted.'"* They assumed about the same time the examination of accounts, and of the expenditure of public money. (Mountmorres, 184.) inent. Meanwhile, as they gradually emancipated themselves from the ascendency of the crown, they found a more formidable power to contend with in the English parliaIt was acknowledged, by all at least of the protestant name, that the crown of Ireland was essentially dependent on that of England, and subject to any changes that might affect the succession of the latter. But the question as to the subordination of her legislature was of a different kind. The precedents and authorities of early ages seem not decisive; so far as they extend, they rather countenance the opinion that English statutes were of themselves valid in Ireland. But from the time of Henry VI. or Edward IV. it was certainly established that they had no operation, unless enacted by the Irish parliament. This however would not legally prove that they might not be binding, if express words to that effect were employed; and such was the doctrine of lord Coke and of other English lawyers. This came into discussion about the eventful period of 1641. The Irish in general protested against the legislative authority of England, as a novel theory which could not be maintained (Carte's Ormond, iii. 55); and two treatises on the subject, one ascribed to lord chancellor Bolton, or more probably to an eminent lawyer, Patrick Darcy, for the independence of Ireland, another, in answer to it by serjeant Mayart, may be read in the Hibernica of Harris. (Vol. ii. Mountmorres, i. 360.) Very few instances occurred before the Revolution, wherein the English parliament thought Mountmorres, ii., 142. As one house could not regularly transmit heads of bills to the other, the advantage of a joint recommendation was obtained by means of conferences, which were consequently much more usual than in England. Id. 179. ** FF 434 HALF HOURS OF ENGLISH HISTORY. fit to include Ireland in its enactments, and none perhaps wherein they were carried But after the Revolution several laws of great importance were passed into effect. in England to bind the other kingdom, and acquiesced in without express opposition by its parliament. Molyneux, however, in his celebrated "Case of Ireland's being bound by Acts of Parliament in England stated," published in 1697, set up the claim of his country for absolute legislative independency. The house of commons at Westminster came to resolutions against this book; and, with the high notions of parliamentary sovereignty, were not likely to desist from a pretension which, like the very similar claim to impose taxes in America, sprung in fact from the semirepublican scheme of constitutional law established by means of the Revolution.* It is evident that while the sovereignty and enacting power was supposed to reside wholly in the king, and only the power of consent in the two houses of parliament, it was much less natural to suppose a control of the English legislature over other dominions of the crown, having their own representation for similar purposes, than after they had become, in effect and in general sentiment, though not quite in the statute-book, co-ordinate partakers of the supreme authority. The Irish parliament however, advancing as it were in a parallel line, had naturally imbibed the same A judgment sense of its own supremacy, and made at length an effort to assert it. from the court of Exchequer, in 1719, having been reversed by the house of lords, an appeal was brought before the lords in England, who affirmed the judgment of the exchequer. The Irish lords resolved that no appeal lay from the court of exchequer in Ireland to the king in parliament in Great Britain; and the barons of that court having acted in obedience to the order of the English lords, were taken That house next addressed the king, setting into the custody of the black rod. forth their reasons against admitting the appellant jurisdiction. But the lords in England, after requesting the king to confer some favour on the barons of the exchequer who had been censured and illegally imprisoned for doing their duty, ordered a bill to be brought in for better securing the dependency of Ireland upon the crown of Great Britain, which declares "that the king's majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal and commons of Great Britain in parliament assembled, had, hath, and of right ought to have full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the people and the kingdom of Ireland; and that the house of lords of Ireland have not nor of right ought to have any jurisdiction to judge of, reverse, or affirm any judgment, sentence or decree given or made in any court within the said kingdom; and that all proceedings before the said house of lords upon any such judgment, sentence or decree, are and are hereby declared to be, utterly null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever."+ The English government found no better method of counteracting this rising spirit of independence than by bestowing the chief posts in the state and church on strangers, in order to keep up what was called the English interest. This wretched * Journs., 27 June, 1698. Parl. Hist. v. 1181. They resolved at the same time that the conduct of the Irish parliament, in pretending to re-enact a law made in England expressly to bind Ireland, had given occasion to these dangerous positions. On June 30, they addressed the king in conseqnence, requesting him to prevent any thing of the like kind in future. In this address, as first drawn, the legislative authority of the kingdom of England is asserted. But this phrase was omitted afterwards, I presume, as rather novel; though by doing so they destroyed the basis of their proposition, which could stand much better on the new theory of the constitution than the ancient. 5 G. I., c. 5. Plowden, 244. The Irish house of lords had, however, entertained writs of error as early as 1644, and appeals in equity from 1661. Mountmorres, i., 339. The English peers might have remembered that their own precedents were not much older. See Boulter's Letters, passim. His plan for governing Ireland was to send over as many "The bishops," he says, "are the persons on whom the English-born bishops as possible. policy united the natives of Ireland in jealousy and discontent, which the latter years of Swift were devoted to inflame. It was impossible that the kingdom should become, as it did under George II., more flourishing through its great natural fertility, its extensive manufacture of linen, and its facilities for commerce, though much restricted, the domestic alarm from the papists also being allayed by their utter prostration, without writhing under the indignity of its subordination; or that a house of commons, constructed so much on the model of the English, could hear patiently of liberties and privileges it did not enjoy. These aspirations for equality first, perhaps, broke out into audible complaints in the year 1753. The country was in so thriving a state that there was a surplus revenue after payment of all charges. The house of commons determined to apply this to the liquidation of a debt. The government, though not unwilling to admit of such an application, maintained that the whole revenue belonged to the king, and could not be disposed of without his previous consent. In England, where the grants of parliament are appropriated according to estimates, such a question could hardly arise; nor would there, I presume, be the slightest doubt as to the control of the house of commons over a surplus income. But in Ireland, the practice of appropriation seems never to have prevailed, at least so strictly (Mountmorres, i. 424); and the constitutional right might perhaps not unreasonably be disputed. After long and violent discussions, wherein the speaker of the commons and other eminent men bore a leading part on the popular side, the crown was so far victorious as to procure some motions to be carried, which seemed to imply its authority; but the house took care, by more special applications of the revenue, to prevent the recurrence of an undisposed surplus.* From this era the great parliamentary history of Ireland begins, and is terminated after half a century by the Union: a period fruitful of splendid eloquence, and of ardent, though not always uncompromising patriotism; but which, of course, is beyond the limits prescribed to these pages. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 1603 Accession of James I. 1603 Sir Walter Raleigh condemned for the "Main" plot. 1604 Gunpowder plot devised. 1605 Lord Mounteagle receives a letter warning him to stay away from parliament. 1605 Guy Fawkes discovered in the cellar. 1606 Remaining conspirators in plot executed. 1607 An insurrection in Northamptonshire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire. It is quelled. 1607 Robert Carr knighted. 1610 Arabella Stuart committed to the Tower. government must depend for doing the public business here." I., 238. This of course disgusted the Irish church. * Plowden, 306, et post. Hardy's Life of Lord Charlemont. |