This Pale, about twenty miles broad and sixty miles long, was almost as narrow and quite as lawless as the Welsh Marches or the Scottish Borders; and it was the nursery of the English-seedling-parliament in Ireland. A sort of parliament containing knights from a dozen shires had been summoned in 1295; boroughs appear to have been represented first in 1310. It was only designed to supply the financial needs of an English Government, and give statutory form to the edicts of Dublin Castle; and the statutes of Kilkenny (1367), which penalised everything Irish, were merely striking examples of the ferocity and the futility of its customary legislation. Nevertheless, it began to strike feeble roots in Irish soil, and when, in 1374, Edward III.’s deputy directed the clergy and laity of the Pale to send their representatives to Westminster, their constituents, while obeying, instructed them to reject all financial demands upon Ireland made at St. Stephen’s. Demands made at Dublin were not, however, much more fruitful, and for thirty years in the fifteenth century only one Irish Parliament met. Spasmodic efforts by sovereigns and royal princes like Richard II., Lionel and Thomas (Dukes of Clarence), and Richard (Duke of York,) alternated with longer periods, during which the Crown abandoned the government to the greatest chieftain in the Pale, and made believe that the power he wielded was due to his royal commission. Richard of York, indeed, established a reputation for vigorous rule which won him the support of the Parliament of the Pale in his assertion of an independent kingship in Ireland after his defeat in England in 1459; and the Anglo-Irish, either out of gratitude to him or of spite to the Tudors, afterwards discovered Yorkist features in every pretender to Henry VII.’s throne. Their favour to Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck precipitated Poynings’ laws. These famous enactments were aimed at Dublin Castle rather than at the Dublin parliament. The Crown had always controlled Irish legislation, but the control had been exercised through a deputy, who was often more powerful in Ireland than the Crown; this independence was to cease, and the control of Irish legislation was transferred from the Irish deputy to the English Privy Council. No Parliament was to be summoned in the Pale without the consent, and no legislation introduced without the approval, of that body. Acts previously passed by the English Parliament were declared in force in Ireland, and in practice the English Parliament proceeded to legislate for, though not to tax, Ireland without the concurrence of its Parliament. Poynings also attempted to conquer the native Irish, and to rule the Pale according to English ways; but the expense proved greater than Henry VII. could bear, and, with the bit of Poynings’ laws in his mouth, the Earl of Kildare was sent back to govern the Pale in the time-honoured fashion.