When announcing the appointment of a new Deputy to the Lords Justices of Ireland, the King asked for a detailed account of the revenue and of the state of the army. He required them 'not to pass any pardons, offices, lands, or church livings, nor to confer the honour of knighthood upon any, or to dispose of any company of horse or foot there in the interim.' While waiting for the Deputy, they were to confine themselves to the administration of civil justice and the maintenance of military discipline. Wentworth wrote himself a few days later asking for information as to the state of Ireland. Sir William Parsons, with whom as well as with the Lords Justices he was quite unacquainted, wisely advised him to do nothing until he crossed the channel and could see for himself. In the meantime he made arrangements with the King by which power was concentrated in his hands. To secure secrecy and promptness it was agreed that he should correspond on financial matters direct with the Lord Treasurer, and on general business direct with Secretary Coke, instead of with the Privy Council or any committee of it. The whole patronage, civil and ecclesiastical, was made to depend on the Lord Deputy, while grants of places in reversion were annulled for the past and forbidden for the future. No new office was to be created without the Deputy's advice, and it was promised that no Irish complaint should be entertained in England unless it had been made to him first. By direct orders from the King the Lords Justices were directed to pay no arrears or other debts, but to confine their expenses of government strictly to the current cost of the establishment. They nevertheless sanctioned payment of a large sum to Sir Francis Cook. Wentworth was highly indignant, but Cottington wrote that Mountnorris as Vice-Treasurer would probably refuse to pay the money out of an almost empty Exchequer. 'Your old dear friend Sir John Eliot,' he added, 'is very like to die.' He did die six weeks later in the unwholesome prison where he lay, as a consequence of adhering to the cause which the new Lord Deputy had deserted. Yet Wentworth seems to have been surprised at the abuse which his rather late found loyalty brought upon himself. He had bound himself hand and foot to the service of the magnanimous prince who had ordered that Sir John Eliot should be buried in the Tower, in the church of that parish where he died.[178] [Sidenote: Deficiency of the revenue.] [Sidenote: Fines for not going to church.] [Sidenote: First difference with Lord Mountnorris.] [Sidenote: The Lords Justices reprimanded.]