518 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academij. 



•of Poynings' Act, unless such Bill should be first agreed upon in a 

 Session of the Irish Parliament by a clear majority of the members of 

 both Houses.^ 



That this objection of the Irish Parliament of the sixteenth 

 centuiy to any interference with a measure which it appears to have 

 continuously regarded as the Charter of its independence against 

 Viceregal oppression was deep-seated and abiding, is shown by the 

 miction taken subsequently in Perrott's Parliament of 1585. In that 

 assembly a bill was introduced for the total repeal of Poynings' Act, 

 on the ground that under its provisions, coupled with those of the 

 nth Elizabeth, Parliament was " shut up and forbidden to make any 

 law or statute unless the same be first certified into England." Yet 

 though the Eill recited the willingness of the Deputy to admit the 

 Houses to conference touching any bill to be treated of, the measui'e 

 was rejected by the Commons, as a result of the first division of the 

 Irish House of Commons of which any particulars have been pre- 

 served, by the large majority of thirty-five. Following Sydney's 

 precedent, Perrott prorogued the Parliament, and the measure was 

 submitted a second time in a fresh session, but it was once more 

 defeated, this time by six votes. ^ 



This was the last occasion for close on two centuries on which any 

 attempt was made in the Irish Parliament to procure the repeal of the 

 famous legislation of 1495, though in 1692 the House of Commons 

 asserted the principle that money bills should originate in their House, 

 and were not dependent on the approval or suggestion of the English 

 Council. Of course, the strictness of the provisions of Poynings' Law 

 was greatly modified by the practice which grew up in the seventeenth 

 century, by which the Irish Parliament submitted heads of bills as the 

 basis of the bills certified by the English councils, thus recovering in 

 fact, though not in form, the power of initiating legislation on their 

 own account.^ It thus appears that Edmund Spenser's statement 



^ llth Elizabeth, cap. 8, sess. 3. 



-Letter, dated May 27, 1585, by Sir Nicholas AVhite, Master of the Rolls in 

 Ireland, to Burghley. State Papers (Ireland), vol. 16, No. 56. 



2 The claim made in 1692 was repudiated by the Viceroy, Lord Sydney, in an 

 energetic protest, which was inserted in the Journals of Parliament, and the demand 

 was never pressed. On Dec. 2, 1757, it was resolved by the House of Commons — 

 That it is the undoubted right of every member to declare his opinion touching the 

 construction of Poynings' Law, and to move its repeal, without incurring any pains 

 and penalties for the same, and any threat to deter a member from so doing is a 

 breach of the privilege of the House." Commons Journal, vol. x., pp. 366, 367. 



