James II
indisputable that limiting the royal prerogative of pardon appears to me to be the most objectionable. It was not, however, as it has been sometimes called, unprecedented. On the contrary it was modelled only too closely upon the clause in the Adventurers' Act of 1641, which provided "that all pardons granted to any of the said [Irish] rebels before attainder shall be adjudged void and of none effect."105 In this as in other respects, whatever was most blameable in the legislation of the Irish parliament is to be attributed to a too faithful adherence to English precedents.
183
