516 Froceedinfjs of the Royal Irish Academy. 



it had been certified by the Irish Government to the English Privy 

 Council, was found in practice to be exceedingly irksome to those 

 responsible for the administration of the country. JN'o measure, 

 however urgent or desirable, could be dealt with unless it had been 

 devised and certified before the meeting of Parliament. In days when 

 communication Avas slow and tedious to a degree which it is now 

 difficult to conceive, this was a very real difficulty. Accordingly, it 

 was found desirable by the Ministers of the Crown, as early as the 

 28th of Henry VIII., to modify Poynings' Act. A letter from Lord 

 Chancellor Audeley to Thomas Cromwell, written in view of the 

 assembling of Lord Leonard Grey's Parliament, explains the 

 ministerial point of view. " I have also seen," he wrote, the Act 

 made in Ireland in Poynings' time. I do not take that Act as they 

 take it in Ireland ; nevertheless for clere matter of the Actes that 

 should passe in this Parliament at Irlond, I have made a short Act 

 that this Parliament, and everything to be done by authoritye thereof , 

 shall be good and effectual, the said Act made in Poynings' time, or 

 any other Act or usage of the land of Irlond, notwithstanding."^ 

 An Act to this effect was accordingly passed, and a further Act of 

 Explanation (Statutes Henry VIII., cap. 20), declaring the effect of 

 Poynings' Act, was passed in the same session. The law was, in fact, 

 continually the subject of these suspensory measures. In 1557 Sussex 

 attempted to settle the difficulty by a declaratory Act- which, after 

 reciting that forasmuch as manie events and occasions may happen 

 during the tyme of Parliament, the which may be thought meet and 

 necessary to be provided for," authorised the certifying into England 

 during the currency of Parliament of such further causes and considera- 

 tions as the Lord Lieutenant and Council might think fit. But these 

 relaxations of the provisions of Poynings' Law were viewed with much 

 suspicion by the Irish Parliament. This is best seen by what occurred 

 in Sir Henry Sydney's Parliament, called in the 1 1th Elizabeth.^ The 

 first measure submitted to this Parliament was " An Act authorising 

 Statutes, Ordinances, and Provisions to be made in this present Parlia- 

 ment concerning the government of the Commonweale, and the aug- 

 mentation of her Majesties revenues, notwithstanding Poynings' Act." 

 Of the proceedings in relation to this measure a lively account has 



1 State Fapers, Henry VIII., part i., p. 440. 



2 " An Act declaring how Poynings' Acte shall be exponed and taken," 

 3rd & 4th Philip and Mary, cap. 4. 



2 nth Elizabeth, cap. 1, sess. 2. 



