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III.

pounds to the inhabitants, which he had CHAP. probably received for wages *.

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On the 23d of July, a bill that this par liament should not terminate by the royal affent received a first reading.

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This measure has been explained in the account of the lords' proceedings †, and originated from a change in the old method of paffing laws in both kingdoms; but at what precife period this change was made in legislation in either kingdom, I have not yet been able to discover.

On the 29th, the lords propofed a conference for appointing the time of the meeting of the next parliament, and for an humble recommendation to the lord deputy for that purpose.

* As fovereign of this corporation, Sir Thomas Bramfton could not return himself; but in early periods this rule, perhaps, was not fo clearly laid down, and generally admitted, as it is at present.

+ See vol. i. p. 319. .

1634

III.

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CHAP. On the 31ft, fir William Reeves, attorney-general, defired admittance; and ac 1634 quainted the house, that the towns of Fower, Clonmynes, Taghmon, and Bannow, had fent members, though there were no charters on record whereby they were so privileged; and these burgeffes were ordered to attend in the Exchequer chamber, and to fhew by what right they were returned to ferve in parliament.

During the short time that the Chief Baron Gilbert prefided in the Exchequer in Ireland, before he was removed to a similar fituation in England, he feems to have made very accurate inquiries into the early state of the Irish representation: but though his works were published after his death, and feem to want the finishing hand of the au→ thor, yet the following account throws great light upon the subject.

"In Ireland, the pale * dépending on the king, the clergy seemed to have complied with

* Till the 13th year of Henry VIII. the English government extended only to five fhires; which district

was

III.

with the model of Edward I. in fending CHAP. proctors to parliament; and the archbishops and bishops, and mitred abbots, fat 1634. in the upper house, and the proctors in the lower house. Hence by the 36th of Henry VI. c. 1. it appears that they made a law, that beneficed parfons fhould forfeit their benefices if they were absent without leave; which fort of regulation was made in England by ecclefiaftical authority before the fubmiffion of the clergy in the 25th year of Henry VIII. So that the parliamentary establishment in Ireland in relation to the clergy, differed from that of England, for this reafon; that Edward the first projected the reprefentatives of the clergy in proportion to the number of the temporal body, and because there were many corporations that held on burgage tenure in England, therefore the deans, archbishops, and proctors of chapters, were let in, to make an equivalent

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was called the pale. The five counties were, Dublin, Kildare, Lowth, and Meath; afterwards divided into Eaft and Weft Meath in one thousand five hundred and forty-three, by an act of the 34th year of that king. number:

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CHAP. number: but in Ireland there were at first III. only representatives of hires; for the 1634.burghs did not arife from burgage tenures Das in England, but from conceffions of the king to fend members, which were erected in later times, when, by fecuring an intereft in fuch towns, proper reprefentatives to ferve the turn of the court were fent to parliament: but the ancient members being only for the fhires, the proctors were chofen from the county to anfwer them in num+bers.

By the 28th of Henry VIII. c. 12. the proctors of the clergy were excluded from any feat in the lower house of parliament but as the proctors came from all parts of the kingdom, fo they affembled in convocation in one fynod, where the parliament was held, and did not form four diftinct fynodical meetings in the four diftinct provinces, as they did in the two diftinct provinces in England, but made one national fynod under the Primate."

Treatife on the Court of Exchequer by the
Lord Chief Baron GILBERT, page 58.

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On the 2d of Auguft, it was ordered that CHAP. fir Barnaby Bryan fhould have leave of the house to go to England; but that if he did 1634. not return within one week after the next feffion of parliament, then, by his own confent, a writ should iffue for a new election; which was afterwards accordingly done *.

This was the firft precedent of iffuing a writ by a member's own defire, of which fo many inftances occur in the early journals; and it was a conftant practice till one thousand feven hundred and four, when, upon Mr. Caulfield, an ancestor of lord Charlemont's, defiring to vacate his feat to travel for his pleasure, a ftanding order was made, that writs fhould not iffue any more at the defire of members to choose others in their own places. This has been fince the conftant regulation; and in one thousand seven hundred and seventynine this principle was adopted in the contest between Mr. Fitzgibbon (the pre

* Commons Journals, p. 119. 121,

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fent

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