Violent proceedings in the Commons.
Sir John Davies is elected.
Parliament met in the Castle on May 18. The discontented lords and gentlemen had brought armed retinues with them, and the Government thought that no open building would be safe. As the Recusant lords refused to attend, nothing could happen in the Upper House; but in the Commons there was an immediate trial of strength over the election of Speaker. Sir John Davies had been returned for Fermanagh, and the Protestant party at once accepted him as the Government candidate; while the Opposition were for Sir John Everard, member for Tipperary. Everard was a lawyer of high character who had been second Justice of the King’s Bench and had resigned early in 1607 rather than take the oath of supremacy. Thomas Ridgeway, the Vice-Treasurer, who sat for Tyrone, proposed Davies as the fittest person and as recommended by the King himself, and the majority assented by acclamation; but Sir James Gough, member for Waterford county, proposed Everard, and was seconded by Sir Christopher Nugent, who represented Westmeath. Gough objected to all the new boroughs and to all members who were not resident in the places which returned them; and William Talbot, member for Kildare, who had been removed from the recordership of Dublin for refusing the oath of supremacy, moved that the House should be purged from unlawful members before a Speaker was chosen. Sir Oliver St. John, Master of the Ordnance, who had been returned for Roscommon, thereupon remarked that he had sat in several English Parliaments, and that a Speaker must be chosen before election committees could be appointed. The practice in England was for the ‘Ayes’ to go out and for the ‘Noes’ to remain within. ‘All you,’ he said, ‘that would have Sir John Davies to be Speaker come with me out of the House.’ The Opposition, who stayed inside, refused to name tellers, and Sir Walter Butler, his colleague in the representation of Tipperary, placed Everard in the chair, where he was held down by Sir Daniel O’Brien of Clare and Sir William Burke of Galway. Ridgeway and Wingfield then offered to tell for both sides, but the Opposition gathered together ‘in a plumpe’ so that they could not be counted. As the majority returned the tellers called the numbers out loud, and 127 were found to be for Davies, which was a clear majority in a possible 232. St. John called upon Everard to leave the chair, but he sat still; whereupon the tellers placed Davies in his lap, and afterwards ejected him with some show of force. It was pretended that great violence was used, but an eye-witness declared that there was none—‘not so much as his hat was removed on their Speaker’s head.’ The defeated party then walked out, and Talbot said, ‘Those within are no House; and Sir John Everard is our Speaker, and therefore we will not join with you, but we will complain to my Lord Deputy and the King, and the King shall hear of this.’ The outer door having been locked during the division, Burke and Nugent re-entered to demand the keys. Davies invited them to take their seats; and when the door was opened, Everard and all his party left the Castle, declaring that they would return no more.[103]
Continued opposition of the Recusant Lords,
and Commons,
who refuse to attend the House.
Speeches of Sir John Davies.
The Tudors held Parliaments for special objects.
King James I. to hold a real Parliament in Ireland.
Davies praises Chichester.