FaijvInkr — Pdi'Iifoiicnt of Ireland under Tudor Sovereigns. 559 



hereupon the said Deputy charged the Clerk of the Parliament to 

 enter it in the roll of Parliament and of record, the tenor of which 

 jDrotestation is as follows : — " The Commons of the said Parliament 

 have elected John Chevers for their Speaker to show and declare for 

 them in the said Parliament all manner of business which they have 

 to declare in the said Parliament, and to answer for them to the matters 

 moved or to be moved in the said Parliament, with his protestation 

 following ; that is to say, that if it happen that the said Speaker 

 (which God forbid should be his intention) should show anything or 

 say anything to the displeasure of the said Deputy, prelates, lords, 

 and peers of the said Parliament, through ignorance, mistake, or 

 surplusage, without assent or by assent of the said Commons, that 

 it be not recorded or reported ; but that at such time as it be perceived 

 or challenged by the said Deputy and the Council of the Xing, prelates, 

 lords, and peers aforesaid, he may, by good advice and much delibera- 

 tion of the said Commons, alter, amend, augment, or retrench the 

 business and matter aforesaid, the which protestation is enacted by 

 authority of the said Parliament."^ 



Here we have a close copy of the forms employed by the Speaker 

 of the English House of Commons in vindication of the rights of the 

 Lower House. A similar ''protestation" is recorded in the case of a 

 Parliament held in the succeeding year (28 Henry VI.) at Drogheda, 

 when Chevers was again elected Speaker. 



It is strange that no similar entry is found in the rolls of any 

 succeeding Parliament, and that no record remains of the election to 

 the Speaker's Chair between the election of Chevers in 1450 and 

 that of Sir Thomas Cusake in 1541. But though the interval is 

 long, the entry in the roll of 27 Henry VI. suffices to prove that the 

 constitutional forms of a Parliamentary system had been established 

 in Ireland on the English model at a period very much earlier 

 than has hitherto been understood, and that consequently the Parlia- 

 ment of the later Plantagenets and of the early Tudors must have 

 presented a much more real resemblance to the aspect of a modern 

 legislature than we have been accustomed to consider possible. 



^ This entry is taken from the transcript of the Irish statutes at the Irish 

 Record Office. JSee p. 511, supra, note. 



