[Sidenote: Lawless conduct of Ormonde's brethren.]
Both Butlers continued their lawless practices; indeed, Lady Dunboyne, who was a chief sufferer, declared that Edward was 'but a patch to Sir Edmund in extortion and spoil.' He threatened her with yet worse things for having brought Sidney's letters to him; and in the meantime seized her cattle, nominally for the purpose of maintaining himself against the White Knight, with whom he had picked a quarrel to give an excuse for keeping his ragged battalion together. Ormonde still lingering in England, the Lord Deputy was obliged to go to Kilkenny himself, where he hanged several of Edward Butler's men, not by martial law, as Sir Peter Carew proudly pointed out, but 'by the verdict of twelve men orderly.' A similar example was made at Waterford, and Sidney returned to Dublin to make preparations for holding a Parliament, in which he secured a majority by interfering in elections.[159]
[Sidenote: Parliament of 1569. Opposition to Government.]
No list has been preserved of the members who sat in either House of Elizabeth's second Irish Parliament. Many Englishmen had, by Government influence, been returned for remote places. Sidney, who had a taste for heraldic pomp, was in some anxiety as to what dress he ought to wear. He was told to do as St. Leger had done. If he could not find whether St. Leger had used a garter or a Parliament robe, he might do as he pleased. Princely robes of crimson velvet lined with ermine were provided in due course, and the Lord Deputy took his seat under the cloth of estate. Lord Chancellor Weston made an eloquent speech on the advantages of law and order. The House then separated, and James Stanihurst, Recorder of Dublin, was again chosen Speaker of the House of Commons by a large majority over Sir Christopher Barnewall, who was also a lawyer and the candidate favoured by the gentlemen of the Pale. After the usual protestations of unfitness, Stanihurst was accepted by Sidney, and made a speech in which he claimed personal inviolability for the members, freedom of speech, and power for the House to punish breaches of its own orders. The Lord Deputy, having granted these suits, addressed the whole Parliament at great length. None knew better, he said, than those in Ireland the advantages of law and order; let them act according to that knowledge, and be careful lest in defending their own privileges they should tread upon her Majesty's prerogative. On the following day business began, and it soon appeared that the House of Commons was divided into two parties bitterly hostile to each other. The Court, or English party, consisted chiefly of officials and of the Lord Deputy's nominees, men who might be trusted not to exhibit too much independence. On the other side were the gentry of the Pale, the burgesses returned by the old corporate towns, and the common lawyers generally, who had been roughly handled by Sidney in Sir Peter Carew's case, and who asserted that some of the English members were returned for towns not incorporated, that sheriffs and mayors had returned themselves, and that others were ignorant of their constituencies and non-resident. The Judges held that the first and second objections were good, but that there was nothing in the third. The Attorney-General having reported this decision, which still left the Government a majority, the Irish party professed not to believe him, and demanded that the Judges themselves should come down. The Speaker called for the orders of the day, but the malcontents refused to listen to the first readings of any bills. Next day the Judges came and confirmed their former decision, but the Irish party, headed by Sir Edmund Butler, still obstructed the business, and opposed the introduction of a Bill for suspending Poyning's Law and allowing Bills to proceed without being first certified under the Great Seal of England. This Bill was obviously for the enlargement of their own jurisdiction, and passed in the end, as did another which provided that the Great Seal of Ireland should not be affixed to any further Suspension Bill until it had been passed by the majority of both Irish Houses. After some days spent in these bickerings, Hooker, who sat for Athenry--an ancient borough certainly, but at this time containing only four freeholders--made a long prerogative speech. He had formerly represented Exeter and had a taste for antiquities, and he proved to his own entire satisfaction that Moses and Pythagoras, Camillus and Mithridates, had created precedents on his side of the question.