sister, whose uncle, as heir male, would have had the title with nothing to support it. This judgment was given on February 1, 1638, but the Chancellor was in no hurry to obey, having already appealed to the King himself, and on April 20 he was suspended by the Lord Deputy and Council, and ordered to give up the Great Seal next day. The seal not being so produced, Loftus was thereupon committed, and remained under restraint for sixteen months. It was afterwards pretended that this extreme severity to an octogenarian public servant was caused by evidence of judicial misconduct in another case, but Wentworth did not say so at the time. Loftus may have been guilty of some irregularities, but nothing like corruption was proved against him, and it is probable that little would have been heard of these grave misdemeanours if his daughter-in-law had not been Wentworth's friend and if her sister had not lately been married to his brother. In one letter he calls the Chancellor's wife 'a fury,' and in another he speaks of 'that unclean-mouthed daughter of his, the Lord Moore's wife.'[229] [Sidenote: Severe treatment of Loftus.] [Sidenote: The King supports Wentworth.] [Sidenote: Loftus submits,] [Sidenote: but appeals to the Long Parliament.] More than ten years before Loftus had obtained a royal licence to go to England whenever he thought fit, and to put the Great Seal into commission. He did not now rely upon this, but asked for special leave, and Charles granted it at once. The King's letter probably arrived before the suspension of the Chancellor, who sent over his second son Edward. The latter had been made a party to the suit against his father, and Wentworth considered that this aggravated his contempt, though Edward does not seem to have held any office. When the Chancellor was first summoned before the Council he was not required to kneel 'considering his age and the eminency of his place,' but a resolution was passed that neither he nor anyone else should be so excused in future. On the second occasion he said he would rather die than kneel, and on the following day maintained that no such compliance had been required from one of his rank and quality for a hundred years, and that 'the Great Seal ought not to creep on knees and elbows to any subordinate person in the world.' He refused to give up the seal or to bring it with him; having received it from the King he would surrender it only to an order under the royal hand. After this he was committed to the Castle until the King's pleasure should be known. In his petition to Charles for release he stated that he was 'very aged and the prison very close and pestered with many prisoners.' But Wentworth and his subservient Council, fortified by a petition of Sir John Gifford, magnified the Chancellor's refusal to kneel into a great offence, and urged the King not to allow him over to England until he had fully submitted to their decree as to Monasterevan and the rest.