the last Parliament in England broke up you lent the King 15,000_l._ And afterwards in a very uncivil unmannerly manner you pressed his Majesty to restore it you. Whereupon I resolved before I came out of England to fetch it back again from you, by one means or other. And now I have gotten what I desired you and I will be friends hereafter.' The money was duly paid within two years. Laud congratulated himself on having kept the King steady throughout; but Charles seems to have had some misgivings, for he excused Cork from subscribing towards the Scotch campaign, and afterwards graciously accepted a thousand pounds in gold, which were sent down to the North after him.[233] [Sidenote: Sir Piers Crosbie's case.] [Sidenote: Wentworth falsely accused of killing Esmond.] [Sidenote: Crosbie fined and imprisoned.] Sir Piers Crosbie had been excluded from the Irish Council for opposing Wentworth in the Parliament of 1634. This action was sustained in England and might easily be defended, for the distinction between executive and legislative functions was not fully observed in those days. Privy Councillors were then the real advisers of the Crown, and Wentworth might fairly object to one who was an open opponent. In modern times the Cabinet has usurped the powers of the Council, but no one could long remain a member without submitting to the Prime Minister in his parliamentary capacity. By withholding his confidence from all except some half-dozen Englishmen, who owed their advancement to him, Wentworth made enemies or very lukewarm supporters of the Irish officials and their friends. Crosbie had commanded an Irish regiment at Rhé, but Wentworth wrote of him as 'a gentleman of so fine and tender parts as qualifies him much better for a lady's chamber. Was there ever man such an Adonis, think you?' These words, or others to the like effect, were probably in circulation, and Crosbie was in a position to give some trouble. Lord Esmond spoke openly against the Lord Deputy, and the death of a relation of his in prison furnished the pretext for a false charge. Robert Esmond was a ship-owner, and he refused in November 1634 to take some timber of Wentworth's on board. His own defence was that the pieces were too long to be stored on board his vessel, which was already laden with wood belonging to the Chief Justice. Perhaps the Lord Deputy did not believe him: at all events he shook his cane at him and sent him to gaol, and as he died of consumption soon after being released, it is possible that confinement may have hastened his death. It was generally given out that he died of the beating he had received, and Esmond, Mountnorris, and others appear to have combined with Crosbie to propagate the story. 'There is,' Wentworth wrote, 'an impudent and false conspiracy against me. And, verily, my lord, on this Friday (a day on which it pleased God to bring me forth into the world) I renounce all the blessings of this passion