But though here and there a few of the prominent citizens and of the poorer classes were driven into public conformity by fear of punishment, the work of winning over the people to Protestantism made little progress. In Cashel the Commissioners reported (1606) that they found only one inhabitant who came to church, and even "the Archbishop's (Magrath) own sons and sons-in-law dwelling there" were noted as obstinate recusants."[13] Brouncker, President of Munster, was particularly severe in his repressive measures, so much so that on his death (1606) his successors were able to announce "that almost all the men of the towns are either prisoners or upon bonds and other contempts," but they added the further information that many of those who had been conformable in his time had again relapsed. The Protestant Bishop of Cork complained (1607) that in Cork, Kinsale, Youghal, and in all the country over which he had charge no marriages, christenings, etc., were done except by Popish priests for seven years, that the country was over-run by friars and priests who are called Fathers, that every gentleman and lord of the country had his chaplains, that "massing is in every place, idolatry is publicly maintained, God's word and his truth is trodden down under foot, despised, railed at, and contemned of all, the ministers not esteemed --no not with them that should reverence and countenance them." "The professors of the gospel," he added, "may learn of these idolators to regard their pastors."[14] Sir John Davies with his usual keen insight placed the blame for the comparative failure of the Protestant clergy. "If our bishops, and others that have care of souls," he wrote (1606), "were but half as diligent in their several charges as these men [the Jesuits and seminary priests] are in the places where they haunt, the people would not receive and nourish them as now they do. But it is the extreme negligence and remissness of our clergy here which was first the cause of the general desertion and apostasy, and is now again the impediment of reformation."[15] The Catholics had protested continually against the proceedings under royal mandates as illegal, and their protests were brought before the English privy council by Sir Patrick Barnewall, who had been sent over to London as a prisoner. The judges in England condemned the proceedings in Ireland as unwarrantable and without precedent. Barnewall was allowed to return to Ireland in 1607, and the new method of beggaring or Protestantising the wealthier class of Irish Catholics was dropped for the time.