example to men of inferior weight and talents, he commenced his career with two judicial persons, the Chancellor and the Earl of Cork; by this a double point was gained—men of honesty and courage were humbled, and an encouragement held forth to professional apostasy and vice. This oppressive Viceroy well knew that Government must divide the spoil of plundered subjects with the criminal ministers who executed these horrid plans. If firm or honest judges met reprobation and punishment, the complaisant and tyrannic seemed entitled to encouragement or reward.
Four shillings in the pound on a composition for defective titles was given to the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and the Chief Baron, which Strafford, a skilful balancer of judicial trade, declares was well laid out. Encouraged by this successful precedent, the same bounty was held out to the Court of Exchequer in intended exactions upon recusants. Can we be surprised that treason and civil war soon afflicted the realm, when a Viceroy thus sapped the unfading pillars of Royal authority, humanity and justice, and influenced legal priests to stain law's consecrated altar with the property and blood of innocent fellow-subjects. The Chief Justice of the King's Bench and two other Judges were proof against all his assaults, and though honoured with hearty Castle hatred, the tyrant was afraid to remove them.
The pride of patronage induced him to import a complete colony of dependent minions in the civil, clerical, legal and military line—such persons proved the sincerity of their principles by becoming successful adherents to Oliver Cromwell. Thus Strafford's mistaken but arbitrary policy contributed to lead Charles to the block, and continue his children in exile.
The statute book was loaded, under Strafford's viceroyalty, with a singular exhibition of legal surplusage—Englishmen were naturalized by Irish Acts of Parliament. This Viceroy increased the number of sergeants-at-law, which rank in preceding reigns was confined to one lawyer, as that degree was never conferred in Ireland in the ordinary way, nor any limitation to
