The act of the Irish parliament of 1494-5, known as Poynings’ Law, was of outstanding importance in the history of that parliament down to its virtual repeal in 1782, but, owing to the brevity of its text, the changing nature of the relations between the English government and the Anglo-Irish administration and the development of the organisation of the Irish parliament, it passed through various stages of interpretation and significance which require to be studied separately.

The warfare in Ireland from 1593 to 1601 involved vital issues for both English and Irish. In many respects it was a unique conflict; certainly the opposing forces of the two countries were never so nearly balanced, and Kinsale is the major battle, all the potentialities and consequences of the occasion considered, in our history.

The difficulties and problems which the revolution of 1688 presented to people of tender conscience were, in England, smoothed over and covered by circumstances. The king’s flight left the tories free to frame, at least for their own consumption, a theory which secured to them the benefits of revolution without the sin of rebellion. The anglican church itself, than which no institution had more openly maintained the doctrine of non-resistance, found that the accomplished fact could be accepted with a face-saving show of consistency; even the moral and intellectual eminence of the non-jurors failed to secure more than a handful of followers for their schism.