declaration of 1460

declaration of 1460, a pronouncement in a parliament at Drogheda that ‘the land of Ireland is and at all times has been corporate of itself, by the ancient laws and customs used in the same, freed of the burthen of any special law of the realm of England’, unless such law was confirmed by parliament in Ireland. There has been some dispute as to whether precedent provided any justification for this assertion, but it was prefatory to an act (subsequently repealed under Edward Poynings) ruling that no one in Ireland should be compelled to obey a summons from outside Ireland to answer accusations of treason. The immediate beneficiary was Richard, duke of York, then governing Ireland in defiance of his attainder for treason in parliament in England. The question of whether the declaration was prompted by York himself, or by the strength of aspirations in Ireland for autonomy from English interference, has been the subject of considerable and continuing debate.

Elizabeth Matthew