The case of the Connaught landowners is particularly characteristic, and as space dwindles rapidly, may serve as an example of the rest.  Nearly all the Connaught gentry, native and Norman alike, had surrendered their estates either to Elizabeth or to her father, and had received them back again upon new terms.  Legal transfer, however, was so little understood, and the times were so rough and wild, that few had received patents, and title-deeds were all but unknown.  In James I.’s reign this omission was rectified and patents duly made out, for which the landowners paid a sum little short of L30,000, equal to nearly L300,000 at the present day.  These new patents, however, by an oversight of the clerks in Chancery, were neglected to be enrolled, and upon this plea fresh ones were called for, and fresh fees had to be paid by the landowners.  Further it was announced that owing to the omission—­one over which the owners, it is clear, had no control—­all the titles had become defective, and all the lands had lapsed to the Crown.  The other three provinces having by this time received plantations, the Connaught landowners were naturally not slow to perceive the use that might be made of so awkward a technical flaw.  To appeal against the manifest injustice of the decision was of little avail, but a good round sum of money into the king’s own hands was known to rarely come amiss.  They agreed accordingly to offer him the same sum that would have fallen to his share had the plantations been carried out This was accepted and another L10,000 paid, and the evil day thus for a while, but only, as will be seen, for a while averted.

Charles’s accession awakened a good many hopes in Ireland, the Catholic party especially flattering themselves that a king who was himself married to one of their faith would be likely to show some favour to his Catholic subjects.  In this they found their mistake, and an attempt to open a Catholic college in Dublin was speedily put down by force.  In other directions a certain amount of leniency was, however, extended to recusants, and Lord Falkland, who a few years before had succeeded Sir Oliver St. John as deputy, was a man of conspicuous moderation and tolerance.  In 1629, however, he resigned, worn out like so many others before and after him by the difficulties with which he had to contend, and not long afterwards a man of very different temperament and widely different theories of government came to assume the reins.

XXXIV.

STRAFFORD.

In 1632, Wentworth—­better known as Strafford—­arrived in Ireland, prepared to carry out his motto of “Thorough.”  Only three years before, he had been one of the foremost orators in the struggle for the Petition of Right.  The dagger of Fenton had turned him from an impassioned patriot and constitutionalist into a vehement upholder of absolutism.  His revolt had been little more than a mask for his hostility to the hated favourite Buckingham, and when Buckingham’s murder cleared the path to his ambition, Wentworth passed, apparently without a struggle, from the zealous champion of liberty to the yet more zealous champion of despotic rule.