om had acquired immense estates under the
Cromwellian rule, were amongst the foremost to hail the Restoration, and
to secure their own interests by being eager to welcome the king. Such
secular vicars of Bray were not likely to suffer whatever king or
government came uppermost.

To the exiled proprietors, who had fought for that king's father and for
himself, it naturally seemed that the time had come for their sufferings
and exile to end. Now that the king had been restored to his own again,
they who had been punished for his sake should also, they thought, in
fairness, again enjoy what had been theirs before the war.

[Illustration: HENRY CROMWELL, LORD-LIEUTENANT FROM 1657 TO 1660. (_From
a Mezzotint_.)]

Charles's position, it must be acknowledged, was a very difficult one.
Late found as it was, the loyalty of Coote, Broghill, and others of
their stamp had been eminently convenient, as without it the army in
Ireland would hardly have returned to its allegiance. To deprive them of
what they had acquired was felt to be out of the question, and the same
argument applied, with no little force, to many of the other newly-made
proprietors. The feeling, too, against the Irish Catholics was far from
having died out in England, and anything like a wholesale ejection of
the new Protestant settlers for their benefit, would have been very
badly received there.

On the other hand, decency and the commonest sense of honour required
that something should be done. Ormond, who had been made a duke, was at
once reinstated in his own lands, with a handsome additional slice as a
recompense for his services. A certain number of other great proprietors
and lords of the Pale, a list of whom was rather capriciously made out,
were also immediately reinstated. For the rest, more tardy and less
satisfactory justice was to be meted.

A Court of Claims was set up in Dublin to try the cases of those who
claimed, during the late war, to have been upon the king's side. Those
who could prove their entire innocence of the original rebellion were to
be at once reinstated; those, on the other hand, who were in arms before
'49, or who had been at any time joined to the party of Rinucini, or had
held any correspondence, even accidentally, with that party, were to be
excluded, and if they had received lands in Connaught might stay there
and be thankful.

A wearisome period of endless dispute, chicanery, and wrangling followed
this decision. As the