had proved remarkably turbulent during the late commotions, though opposed by the earl of Kildare, obliged Poynings to march against him, attended both by Sir James de Ormond and the earl. This lord evinced the most zealous attachment to the English interests, in order to regain the royal favour; but his rivals worked so successfully upon Poynings, as to convince him that Kildare had entered into a secret correspondence with the Irish enemy, assisted them clandestinely, and was actually engaged with O'Hanlon to massacre the king's deputy; in confirmation of which intelligence was received that Lord James, brother to Kildare, had seized the castle of Carlow in defiance of the royal authority. Kildare was directly charged with high treason, arrested, and confined; the deputy hastily concluded a treaty with the Irish insurgents, and laid siege to Carlow, which in a week surrendered upon articles.

15. The character of Henry VII. has been variously drawn by different historians. Bacon's portrait is too highly coloured. He neither appears to have been the Solomon which his noble and learned biographer represents him, nor the weak, mean, avaricious, and vindictive prince, as others have exhibited him. With fair allowances for the imperfect notions of civil government at that period, impartiality might allow merit to particular acts of state, the policy of which improved knowledge and experience would condemn. Certain it is, that in his conduct towards Ireland he acted almost in direct contradiction to the principles of all his predecessors. The system of governing this unsettled kingdom had unexceptionably been bottomed on a rapid succession of vindictive retaliations and punishments, hasty pardons of insincere and relapsing delinquents, unwarrantable forfeitures, improvident grants, and unjust resumptions.

16. Sir Edward Poynings was chosen deputy in Ireland, as a person of congenial talent and disposition with the king, and of tried fidelity. It appears evident from the fair review of this monarch's reign, that by legislation he aimed at establishing an absolute dominion over the kingdom: and the nation having been saturated with blood both on the field and scaffold, sought shelter from the continuance of such scenes of horror, even in the despotism of the monarch. He confirmed and increased the powers of the court of Star Chamber in England, and is allowed to have carried himself more above the prerogative than any of his predecessors. It must, however, be candidly allowed, that the wisdom,

spirit, and effect of several laws passed in this reign, botha in England and Ireland, have been judged of from subse-e quent events in a manner totally repugnant to the feelings and probable intentions of the legislators who passed them. Witness Lord Verulem's eulogy upon the Star Chamber.

17. The second counterfeit banner, round which the Yorkists rallied in Ireland, was put down by Sir. E. Poynings' marching at the head of what the histories call an army; though, as Sir John Davies says, it "did not consist of 1000 men by the poll: and yet it brought terror with it, as all the adherents of Perkin Warbeck were scattered and retired for succour into the Irish countries: to the marches whereof he marched with his weak forces, but eft-soones returned and held a parliament."

18. At this parliament, which was holden at Drogheda in the 10th year of Henry VII. more statutes were passed than at any preceding parliament in Ireland: and amongst others that famous act called Poynings' Law, which has been so much debated and so variously represented in the course of the last century. Twenty-three different statutes were enacted for the purposes of settling the validity of many for. mer 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 there be holden, "but at such season as the king's lieutenant and council should certify to the king under the great seal of that land, the causes and considerations and all such acts as 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

* 10 Hen. VII. c. iv. From Molyneux, who published his Case of Ireland in support of the legislative independence of his country in

barliament was thenceforth to be holden in Ireland, but unader 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 parliament to the Veto has, from the time

1698, with the privity and approbation of Mr. Locke, all the Irish patriots, throughout the whole of the last century, uniformally decried Poyning's law as a most unconstitutional national grievance. The union has rendered its observance impossible whilst union lasts.

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 the 3d and 4th of Philip and Mary, chap. 4, that any new propositions might be certified to England in the usual forms, even after the summons and during the sessions of parliament. To remedy in some measure the inconveniences 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 the majority of the house, the heads were proposed, received after 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 in 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 re-transmitted to Ireland, and if not negatived by either of the houses of parliament, they received a formal royal assent from the viceroy. These prelegislative 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) 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 Rosslyn, when solicitor-general, and the late Mr. Macnamara, a chamber counsel. The bill so metaphorphosed 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..

of its 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 parliament.*

19. Besides the twenty-three public acts, which were passed at this memorable parliament at Drogheda, several other acts were enacted, which have never been printed. Amongst them was an act† for attainting the earl of Kildare and his brother James for high treason, for corresponding with O'Halan, and seizing the castle of Carlow, for extorting coigne and livery, and for treating with the king of Scotland.+

20. Notwithstanding this parliamentary attainder, Kildare evaded the effects of it under singular circumstances. Historians have questioned the motive of Henry's conduct towards this deputy. He had certainly been imprudent, and at present was probably the victim of envy and resentment. Being summoned to England to answer his accusers, he was admitted to the presence of the king, who recommended him to provide himself with counsel. "Yes," replied the earl with a frank familiarity, "the ablest in the realm," catching hold of his majesty's hand, "your highness I take for my counsel against these false knaves." The king, instead of being offended at this liberty of Kildare, seemed pleased with the honest compliment paid to his integrity. In the course of the trial, it was urged against him by his enemies, that he had with sacrilegious impiety burned the church of Cashel. "Spare your evidence," cried Kildare, "I did burn the church, for I thought that the archbishop had been in it." Towards the close of the trial, his accusers finding that they had not proved their principal charges to the conviction of the king, told him, in the bitterness of resentment, "That all Ireland could not govern this earl." "Then,"

said the king," this earl shall govern all Ireland."

21. On the conclusion of the trial, Henry, convinced that a man of such undesigning plainness and simplicity could not be guilty of any deep state delinquency, received Kildare into favour, restored him to all his honours, and made him deputy of Ireland in the place of Sir Edward Poynings.

* Of this legislative independence we shall hereafter have occasion to speak. + Rot. Parl. c. 41, b. 6.

It is also presumed, though I have discovered no author who ascertains the fact, that the fraternity of St. George was put down by authority of this parliament; for from this time it is no more spoken of.

This generous treatment was afterwards returned by the earl with cordial and suitable gratitude.

22. No evidence can be adduced from the historians of these times, whether the deception practised upon several persons of high consideration at this time were genuine, or whether in hatred to the party and person of Henry they gave into the delusion. James, king of Scotland, was either so involved in the scheme or so ensnared by the art of Warbeck, that he gave to him in marriage a young lady of the first accomplishments, the lady Catherine Gordon, a daugh ter of the earl of Huntly, who was allied to the blood royal of Scotland. After Warbeck had failed in a descent upon the coast of Kent and returned to Flanders, the duchess of Burgundy displayed a scene of refined hypocrisy. She passed in severe scrutiny the evidence of his pretensions, publicly acknowledged him as her nephew, gave him a suitable establishment, and soon after enabled him to make another, which was his last effort in Ireland. He landed at Cork, on the 26th of July, but found that the nation was then so steadily kept in awe by Sir E. Poynings, that he despaired of success; and in consequence of an invitation from the Cornish men in the beginning of September he sailed from Cork with one hundred and twenty soldiers, whom by the countenance of Desmond be had enlisted into his service. Warbeck having advanced with his Cornish men as far as Taunton, was forced to abandon his projects, and fled to sanctuary in Beaulieu in Hampshire, where he surrendered himself, and was committed a prisoner to the Tower of London; whence having once escaped, he was recommitted; and upon a second attempt to escape was hanged, together with the mayor of Cork, who had followed him through all his adventures from his arrival in that town to the gallows at Tyburn. About the same time Henry ordered the young earl of Warwick, the last of the Plantagenets, to be tried for designing to disturb the government. Warwick confessed the indictments, was condemned and executed. A sentence which neither the peace of the realm, nor the safety of the king appeared to call for.*

* Bacon, who in all things studied to magnify his sage and hero, tells us, that the crime for which Warwick was indicted was for joining Warbeck in the attempt to escape out of prison; which he either could or would not deny. No crime surely in an innocent captive. But he also insinuates something of state policy in this barbarous execution of an unoffending youth, whose sole crime was the noble