always easy. Sometimes, also, hostile witnesses could be bribed not to appear, or the Cromwellian in possession could be bought out on easy terms. So, contrary to the expectations of the Protestant interest, of those whose claims were heard during the first three months after the Court opened the vast majority were restored to their estates.
Of course clamour at once arose.[1] Already in February the Irish House of Commons had passed a resolution condemning the procedure of the Commissioners and virtually charging them with a design to destroy the English Protestant interest. This only brought down on them a severe rebuke from the King.[2]
So they fell back on another resource, an appeal to arms. A plot to seize the Castle and overturn the government was hatched by the extreme Cromwellians. The Covenant was again to be set up and the Protestants secured in their lands. The conspiracy was discovered and three of the ringleaders were duly hanged. But they did not die in vain. Already, before their execution, the government had begun to yield, and were considering a new Bill designed to amend in the Protestant interest the Act for the Settlement of Ireland.
The main objections to this Bill are to be found in a memorial from the Commissioners for the execution of the Act of Settlement themselves.[3]
- ↑ Coventry, one of the Commissioners, says they were abused for having restored one or two hundred innocents, "an Act of justice, and therefore an unheard of crime in this land." Cal. St. Paps., 1663, p. 11. This has a curiously modern ring.
- ↑ Cal. St. Paps., pp. 32 and 33. The King to the Commissioners and to the Lord Lieutenant.
- ↑ Reports on Public Records, Ireland, Vol. 1821—25, p. 653.
