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Updated: June 18, 2025
"Sir John Poynings!" said Vivian, with a quivering lip, turning to the gentleman who was writing at the table, "we were school-fellows; circumstances have prevented us from meeting often in after-life; but I now ask you, with the frankness of an old acquaintance, to do me the sad service of accompanying me in this quarrel, a quarrel which I call Heaven to witness is not of my seeking."
He could merely bandy glances with Poynings, the groom, and he was so far from indifferent that he significantly lifted up the end of his whip. Nothing could more have gratified Tom, who retorted with a grimace and murmur, 'Don't you wish you may catch me? You jealous syc what is the word, sick of uncles or aunts, was it, that the orator called 'em?
Sir Edward Poynings, with a picked force of 1,000 men, was appointed Lord Deputy; the Bishop of Bangor was appointed Chancellor, Sir Hugh Conway, an Englishman, was to be Treasurer; and these officials were accompanied by an entirely new bench of judges, all English, whom they were instructed to instal immediately on their arrival.
'I have no doubt you said and did, sir, everything that a blackguard could say or do, interposed little Poynings. 'This lady is now safe under the protection of her relations and the law, and need fear your infamous persecutions no longer. 'But YOU are not safe, roared I; 'and, as sure as I am a man of honour, and have tasted your blood once, I will have your heart's blood now.
To this an answer came from her Ladyship's amanuensis, stating that Lady Lyndon was too much disturbed by grief at her recent dreadful calamity to see any one but her own relations; and advices from my friend, the boy's governor, stating that my Lord George Poynings was the young kinsman who was about to console her.
As one of the members of the Dublin University he had every opportunity of judging how the grasp which the English Parliament maintained by means of the obsolete machinery of Poynings' Act was steadily throttling and benumbing all Irish enterprise.
There were, however, three fundamental differences between the Parliaments of the two countries, which, above all others, stood in the way of such equality as the Irish patriots desired: the first, that by a law as old as the time of Henry VII., and called sometimes the Statute of Drogheda, from the name of the town in which it was first promulgated, and sometimes Poynings' Act, from the name of Sir Henry Poynings, the Lord-deputy at the time, no bill could be introduced into the Irish Parliament till it had received the sanction of the King and Privy Council in England; the second, that the Parliament lasted for the entire life of the King who had summoned it a regulation which caused a seat in the House of Commons to be regarded almost as a possession for life, and consequently enormously increased the influence of the patrons of boroughs, some of whom could return a number of members such as the mightiest borough monger in England could never aspire to equal.
It was at a parliament summoned at Drogheda, whither this new deputy had gone to quell a northern rising, that the famous statute known as Poynings' Act was passed, long a rock of offence, and even still a prominent feature in Irish political controversy.
'Another accident! was the almost impatient answer. 'He is dreadfully hurt! she said, sobbing and breathless. 'His foot is crushed! He has been there this hour! The alarm was indeed given. The Earl seemed about to rush away without knowing whither; and she had absolutely to withhold him, while, summoning her faculties, she gave directions to Poynings.
But shortly afterward a crisis arose which, more than the debates on the commercial propositions, or on the Volunteers, or on the police, showed how over-liberal had been the confidence of the English minister who had repealed Poynings' Act, and had bestowed independent authority on the Irish Parliament before the members had learned how to use it.
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