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war they were accounted rebels; in peace, the statute
book called them Irish enemies; and to kill one of them was adjudged no felony.
During the long civil wars in
England, English power declined in
Ireland.
To recover its subordination, in the year 1495, the tenth after the union of the Roses, the famous statute of
Drogheda,
1 known as Poyning's Law, from the name of the
Lord Deputy who obtained its enactment, reserved the initiative in legislation to the crown of
England.
No parliament could from that time ‘be holden in
Ireland till the king's lieutenant should certify to the king, under the great seal of the land, the causes and considerations, and all such acts as it seems to them ought to be passed thereon, and such be affirmed by the king and his council, and his license to summon a parliament be obtained.’
Such remained the rule of Irish parliaments,
2 and began to be regarded as a good precedent for
America.
The change in the relations of England to the See of Rome, at the time of the reform, served to amalgamate the Celtic Irish and the Anglo-Norman Irish; for the Catholic lords within the pale, as well as Catholic Ireland, adhered to their ancient religion.
The Irish resisted the act of supremacy; and the accession of Queen Elizabeth brought the struggle to a crisis.
She established the Protestant Episcopal Church by an act of what was called an Irish parliament, in which the Celtic Irish had no part, and English retainers, chosen from select counties and boroughs and new boroughs made for the occasion,
