Cavan.
Cavan members unseated.
The Kildare case, and others.
Besides the general objection to the new boroughs special objection had been taken in five cases, of which the most remarkable was that of Cavan. It was alleged that Captain Culme, who brought a mandate from the county sheriff, had proposed himself and the Lord Deputy’s secretary, George Sexton, but that the townsmen had refused to elect them. Four or five days later the high sheriff, Sir Oliver Lambert, held an election, and it was said that he behaved with great violence, while his musketeers with matches burning excluded all but his partisans. Thomas and Walter Brady were the opposition candidates, and George Brady, who voted for his namesakes, was struck by Lambert. The Commissioners found that this was after the election, that Brady had used bad or irritating language, and that Sir Oliver had struck him ‘with a little walking-stick, but his head was not broken,’ as the petitioners alleged. Culme and Sexton were declared duly elected, but the Commissioners found upon the evidence that the two Bradys had the majority. Later on the return was annulled, and in the end the two Bradys were returned. Kildare was the only other borough where the Commissioners found that an undue election had been made.[109]
The delegates in London.
Barnewall and Talbot.
Non-residence of members.
When the Irish Parliament was just about to meet the English Council had sent for Sir Patrick Barnewall. He was known to have written letters declaring that the assembly as constituted would reduce Ireland to slavery, and that the new boroughs were erected only to pass money votes. His abilities were known, and no doubt he was considered formidable since his victory in the matter of the mandates. Barnewall may have had influence with the delegates in London, but William Talbot was the chief legal adviser of the Opposition, and their petition to the King was drawn up under his guidance. Observers in London thought him the real head of the deputation. Talbot afterwards had a son Richard, who was destined as Earl and Duke of Tyrconnel to overthrow for a moment the fabric raised by Elizabeth, James and Cromwell, and grudgingly maintained by Charles II. Gormanston and his five companions petitioned as agents for twenty-one counties and twenty-eight ancient cities and boroughs, and a schedule was appended containing particulars of electoral irregularities. They laid special stress upon an English Act of Henry V. binding in Ireland by the operation of Poynings’s Law, which required that members of Parliament should be resident in the counties for which they sat, and that knights of shires should be natives of them. The statute as to residence has been long obsolete in England, where attempts to revive it had deservedly failed, and it had been disregarded in Ireland in Perrott’s time; but in point of strict law the petitioners were right, for the requirement of residence, which had been abolished or suspended in Ireland in the time of Edward IV., was clearly reaffirmed by St. Leger’s Parliament under Henry VIII. Boldly assuming that they were the majority, the petitioners asserted that their speaker lawfully elected was ejected by violence, and that they themselves were terrorised.[110]
Case for the Irish Government.
Distinction between native and Anglo-Irish Catholics.