Charles II
and the municipal corporations, about a hundred in number, were set aside for their benefit. These arrangements disposed of four-fifths of the island; and the claims of the Irish had yet to be considered. "Innocent Papists," the declaration continued, were to be restored to their estates, compensation being promised to the actual occupants; but a test of innocence was framed, in which, as Carte tells us, "the qualifications were made so strict that scarce any of their nation could propose to gain a sentence in his favour. For no man was to be restored as an innocent Papist who, at or before the cessation on September 15, 1643, was of the rebels' party, or enjoyed his estate, real or personal, in the rebels' quarters, or who had entered into the Roman Catholic confederacy before the peace of 1646. Whoever had at any time adhered to the Nuncio's or clergy's party, or Papal power, in opposition to the King's authority, or, having been excommunicated for adhering to his Majesty's authority, had afterwards owned his offence in so doing and been thereupon relaxed from his excommunication: whoever derived the title to his estate from any that died guilty of the aforesaid crimes, or pleaded the articles of the peace for his estate, or, living in the English quarters, held a correspondence with the rebels:
72
