Ealkiner — Parliament of Ireland under Tudor Sovereigns. 525 



of which the principal related to the shiring of Ireland, that it met 

 at Christ Church in June, and was prorogued in the following month. 

 The name of the Speaker has, however, been preserved for us by the 

 filial piety of Richard Stanihurst, whose father, James Stanihurst, 

 the Recorder of Dublin, and one of the members for the city, was in 

 this Parliament elected to the Chair for the first time. Stanihurst 

 was again chosen in the two subsequent Parliaments of 1559-60 

 and 1568. 



The first Parliament of Elizabeth met at Christ Church,^ on 

 January 12, 1559-60, and was likewise summoned by the Earl of 

 Sussex. It was dissolved after barely three weeks, on February 1st, 

 in consequence of its being found that ''most of the nobility and 

 Commons were divided in opinion about the ecclesiastical govern- 

 ment." But it is of interest to the student of Parliamentary 

 antiquities, because it is the first for which a complete roll of 

 members has been preserved. The Upper House included three 

 Archbishops, seventeen Bishops, and twenty- three temporal peers. 

 Twenty counties were represented, and twenty-nine boroughs. As 

 each constituency returned two members, the full strength of the 

 House would appear to have been ninety-eight. But the borough of 

 Kilmallock seems to have made no return. In this Parliament the 

 then undivided province of Connaught was reckoned as a single 

 ■county. Ulster was represented by the members for the counties of 

 Antrim and Down ; the latter being divided into Down and Ards, 

 each of which returned two members. Of the proceedings of this 

 Parliament, which was chiefly occupied with the religious settle- 

 ment following Elizabeth's accession, no details survive. But, as 

 already mentioned, Stanihurst was again its Speaker, having been 

 preferred by Sussex to Cusake, Speaker in St. Leger's Parliament, 

 who, having resigned or lost his Chancellorship, was again a member 

 of the House, and sat for Athenry.^ 



With the second Parliament of Elizabeth, which was summoned in 

 1568 by Sir Henry Sydney, we reach firmer ground, andareable to realise 

 more accurately the manners and usages of a Tudor Parliament. For 



1 But see note at p. 520, supra. 



' See a document printed in the Hatfield Papers, part iii., p. 459, in which it is 

 stated by the writer that " Cusack or Stanhurst will be fit to be speaker." This 

 document, which is conjecturally dated by the editor of the Calendar, 1589, 

 manifestly belongs to 1559, and was M-ritten by Sussex in view of the approaching 

 session of Parliament. From its mention of Scurlocke as attorney-general, the 

 document cannot be of later date than 1559, since Scurlocke died in that year. 



[42^-] 



