Ormonde sat armed during the day, and when summoned before the Council, produced his writ of summons which ordered him to attend 'girt with a sword.' Wentworth had met his match for the first time, and he held a private consultation with his two chief advisers as to what was to be done with this formidable young man. Wandesford was for crushing him, but Radcliffe advised conciliation, and Ormonde became a Privy Councillor at the early age of twenty-four.[193] [Sidenote: The case of Lord Slane.] Among the sixty-six lords present at the beginning of this session was William Lord Slane, who was allowed to sit and vote pending the possible reappearance of his elder brother Thomas, who had been tried by a jury in England for murder committed in Ireland, had become a friar, and had not been heard of for fourteen years. This precedent was afterwards relied on in Lord Maguire's case as establishing the principle that an Irish peer was a commoner in England.[194] [Sidenote: Wentworth's speech.] [Sidenote: Private consultations forbidden.] [Sidenote: The Recusants threatened.] [Sidenote: Election of Speaker.] On the second day Wentworth made a speech to both Houses, in what he calls his mildest manner; but it was not very mild. He told them that there was a debt of 100,000_l._ and an annual deficit of 20,000_l._ What they had to do was simply to clear off the debt and to provide a permanent equilibrium between receipts and expenditure, so that the necessary maintenance of the army might no longer trouble his Majesty's princely thoughts. That would be the King's session. Later on they would have a session of their own, where the King would grant all the favours he thought proper, and where they were to accept his gifts with confidence and gratitude, and without asking for more. 'Take heed,' he said, 'of private meetings and consults in your chambers, by design and privity aforehand to contrive, how to discourse and carry the public affairs when you come into the Houses. For besides that they are themselves unlawful, and punishable in a grievous measure, I never knew them in all my experience to do any good to the public or to any particular man; I have often known them do much harm.' With a Deputy who knew his own mind, a session strictly limited by the King's orders to three weeks, and no opportunity for private consultation, the House of Commons was almost powerless. Wentworth's instinct and the experience of 1613 told him that the chief danger would come from the Roman Catholics, whom he had taken care should form nearly one half of the Lower House. He told them that if adequate supplies were withheld there would be no way of paying the army but 'by levying the twelvepence a Sunday upon the Recusants.' The King wished to make no distinction between English and Irish, but if it came to a fight the predominant partner would take care not to be beaten. The first trial of strength was about the choice of a Speaker. The official candidate