ver 60,000 acres had been discovered by the lawyers to
belong to the king, and of these a large portion were now settled with
English undertakers. In Longford, Leitrim, Wicklow, and many other parts
of Leinster, it was the same. Even where the older proprietors were not
dispossessed heavy fines were levied in return for fresh grants. No
proof of recent surrender or former agreement was allowed to count, and
so ingeniously was the whole scheme carried out, and so inextricable was
the jungle of legal technicalities in which it was involved, that what
in reality was often sheer confiscations sounded like the most equitable
of judicial arrangements.

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 fa