Account of Poyning's law.

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were passed, and among them that celebrated one, of which much will be said in the future pages of this work, called Poyning's Law, a law whose repeal was effected towards the close of the last century, and was hailed as the first signal of Irish independence. The history of this law should be minutely understood by all those who are desirous of distinctly comprehending some of the most important features in the last 50 years of Irish history; and the detail of it's origin and nature shall be here presented in the words of Mr. Plowden.

Twenty-three different statutes were enacted for the purposes of settling the validity of many former statutes and ordinances, which had been ordained by parliaments or conventions of contested jurisdiction, of securing the pale against the incursions of the Irish, of extending the English law throughout the whole of the island, and introducing several regulations for the internal management of that kingdom. To effectuate this, an act was passed, whereby all statutes made in England before that time were established and made of force in Ireland; and for keeping up in future a complete English ascendancy and controul in the English cabinet over the legislature of Ireland, it was enacted, at the request of the Commons of the land of Ireland, that no parliament should be there holden, but at such season as the king's lieutenant and council should first certify to the king under the great seal of that

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Its particular clauses.

land, the causes and considerations, and all such acts as to them seemeth should pass in the same parliament, and such causes, considerations and acts affirmed by the king and his council to be good and expedient for that land, and his license thereupon, as well in affirmation of the said causes and acts, as to summon the said parliament under the great seal of England had and obtained.' No parliament was thenceforth to be holden in Ireland, but under this badge of submission to the English cabinet. Thus in the most extended view of the Irish legislature, was their parliament confined to a mere negative voice against the direction or approbation of the English cabinet. This limitation of the Irish parlia ment to the Veto, has from the time of it's passing been the constant theme of complaint from the Irish, and the occasion of too despotic a sway of the English government over the Irish parlia

ment.

"All the Irish patriots throughout the whole of the last century uniformly decry Poyning's law as a most unconstitutional national grievance. As this statute precluded any law from being proposed, but such as had been preconceived before the parliament was in being, which occasioned many inconveniences, and made frequent dissolutions necessary, it was provided by statute 3d and 4th of Philip and Mary, chap. 4, that any new proposition might be certified to England in the usual forms, even after the summons and dur

Mode of operation.

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ing the sessions of parliament. To remedy in some measure the inconvenience arising from these laws, the Irish lords and commons had adopted a mode of originating laws in their own houses. A lord or commoner applied to the house, of which he was a member, for leave to bring in the heads of a bill, which being granted by a majority of the house, the heads were proposed, received after a regular discussion, alteration, and amendment, and having passed through all the forms of parliamentary order, paragraph by paragraph, and being perfected to the satisfaction of the house, where they had originated, they were sent to the Irish privy council, in order to be transmitted to the King of England. If these heads of bills were transmitted to England by the Irish privy council (which was not always the case,) and were assented to by the king, they were then transmitted to Ireland, and if not negatived by either of the houses of parliament, they received a formal royal assent from the viceroy. These pre-legislative proceedings were incessantly complained of by the people of Ireland, as blighting in the bud the most promising fruit. When the heads of a bill prepared by the Irish lords, or commons dissatisfied the council, or displeased the viceroy, they were arrested in their course to the throne, and were in the technical language of the council, put under the cushion,' whence they never reached the ear of majesty. When the heads (or practically speaking, the form or draught)

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Attainder of the Earl of Kildare.

of the bill came certified from the Irish council to the king, it was immediately delivered to the attorney-general of England, to be perused and settled by himself, or the solicitor-general. It was, in fact, generally done by some conveyancing counsel, who had leisure to attend to it. In the year 1769, the inconveniency of this system was illustrated by a bill returned to Ireland, altered in 74 places, which had been successively revised by the late Lord Thurlow, when attorney-general, Lord Roslyn, when solicitor-general, and the late Mr. Macnamara, a chamber counsel. The bill so metamorphosed was rejected by the commons of Ireland. The temporary duties expired some weeks before a new bill could be perfected; and in the mean time the merchants imported duty free. The commissioners without any existing law levied the duties, seized the goods, and lodged them in the king's stores. The merchants with the posse comitatus broke open the stores, and the goods were conveyed away in triumph."

I shall not now stop to shew the virtual degradation to which the Irish people were reduced by the effects of a law such as this, as another opportunity will offer itself for that discussion.

In addition to various other legislative acts performed by this parliament, may be mentioned the attainder of the Earl of Kildare, and which attainder that Lord contrived to evade, with a singular mixture of frankness and intrepidity. He was summoned to England to answer his accusers,

Conduct of the Earl of Kildare.

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to

he was admitted into the presence of the king. "I would advise you," said his majesty, provide yourself with counsel.” "Yes," replied the Earl, "the ablest in the kingdom," and seiz ing hold of the king's hand, added, "I will take your highness for my counsel against these false knaves." The king was not displeased at this liberty, and still less was he displeased at the candid ascription to him of integrity which it implied. In the course of his trial, it was urged against him, that he had impiously and sacrilegiously burnt the church of Cashel.

"I know I

did," said Kildare," but then I thought the archbishop was in it." When the trial was concluded, his prosecutors, feeling that they had not successfully proved their accusations, at least not to the satisfaction of the king, they said to him with all the bitterness of resentment, "that all Ireland could not govern that earl," to which Henry promptly replied, "then that earl shall govern all

Ireland." And he was as good as his word, for he received him into favour again, and made him deputy of Ireland, in the place of Sir Edward Poynings; a generosity of conduct which Kildare justified by his subsequent gratitude, which was soon put to the test by the rebellion of Ulicke Burke, Lord Clanricarde, who had married his daughter. That alliance, however, intimate as it was, did not impede him in the full discharge