SIR

See also:

• EDWARD

EDWARD

See also:

• SIR EDWARD POYNINGS (1459–1521)

POYNINGS (1459–1521)  , lord deputy of Ire-land, was the only son of Robert Poynings, second son of the 5th Baron Poynings . His mother was a daughter of Sir William Paston, and some of her correspondence is to be found in the ' In September 1755 Pownall had been made lieutenant-governor of New Jersey, but he had little to do with the affairs of that province and resigned soon after his appointment to Massachusetts . Paston Letters . Robert Poynings was implicated in Jack Cade's rebellion, and Edward was himself concerned in a Kentish rising against Richard III., which compelled him to escape to the Continent . He attached himself to Henry, earl of Richmond, afterwards King Henry VII., with whom he returned to England in 1485 . By Henry VII . Poynings was employed in the wars on the Continent, and in 1493 he was made governor of Calais . In the following year he went to Ireland as lord deputy under the viceroyalty of Prince Henry, afterwards King Henry VIII . Poynings immediately set about Anglicizing the government of Ireland, which he thoroughly accomplished, after inflicting punishment on the powerful Irish clans who supported the imposture of Perkin Warbeck . He then summoned the celebrated parliament of Drogheda, which met in December 1494, and enacted the " Statutes of Drogheda," famous in Irish history as " Poynings's law " (see STATUTE: Ireland), which made the Irish legislature subordinate to, and completely dependent on, that of England, till its repeal in 1782 . After defeating Perkin Warbeck at Waterford and driving him out of Ireland, Poynings returned to England in 1496, and was appointed warden of the Cinque Ports . He was employed both in military commands and in diplomatic missions abroad by Henry VII., and later by Henry VIII., his most important achievement being the successful negotiation of the " holy league " between England, Spain, the emperor, and the pope, in 1513 .

In 1520 he was

present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, in the arrangement of which he had taken an active part . He died in 1521 . By his wife, Elizabeth Scot, Poynings left no surviving issue, and his estates passed through a collateral female line to the earl of Northumberland . He had several illegitimate children, one of whom, Thomas Poynings, was created Baron Poynings in 1545, but died in the same year without heirs . See Sir Francis Bacon, The History of the Reign of King Henry VII . (London, 1641); Richard Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors (2 vols., London, 1885) ; J . T . Gilbert, History of the Viceroys of Ireland (Dublin, 1865) ; J . A . Froude, The English in Ireland (3 vols., London, 1872—1874) ; Wilhelm Butch, England under the Tudors, ed. by James Gairdner (London, 1895) .