The articles of Strafford's impeachment were twenty-eight in number, and of these seventeen, from the third to the nineteenth, bore directly upon his government in Ireland. The third article charged that he had in a public speech in 1634 declared that Ireland was a conquered nation, and that the King might do what he liked there; and that the charters of cities were obsolete and at the royal discretion. This was proved by several witnesses, of whom Cork was one, who declared that he had come to England with Strafford's leave, that he had determined to make no complaint, and that he had purposely left all his papers behind him. The answer to this evidence was that Ireland was in fact conquered, that the charters had been often violated, and that the object of his dealing with the corporation of Dublin was to encourage the English Protestants who had been depressed by native competition and combination. All that he had done, however, was at most a misdemeanour, and no treason. In support of the fourth article, which declared that the prisoner had seized property by Order in Council, Cork deposed that this had been done in his case, that he had tried to appeal to the law and 'that my lord of Strafford answered "call in your writs, or if you will not, I will clap you in the Castle; for I tell you I will not have my orders disputed by law nor lawyers"'; and that on another occasion the Lord Deputy had told him that he would make an Act of State as binding as an Act of Parliament. There were other witnesses on the latter point. Strafford replied that there was no breach of Magna Charta, since the law and custom of Ireland had been followed, and that during the long interval between Parliaments it was necessary to depend upon the action of the Executive. The fifth and sixth articles dealt with Lord Mountnorris's case, which has been sufficiently discussed, and the eighth with the Loftus case and other accusations of arbitrary treatment by the Lord Deputy and Council, the general defence being that they had acted according to the established custom of Ireland. The ninth article contained a charge of unlawfully stretching the secular arm to support the power of certain bishops. One case was proved, but Strafford answered that he had discontinued the practice when he found its legality was doubtful. [Sidenote: Strafford's financial measures: the customs.] [Sidenote: Tobacco and linen.] [Sidenote: Strafford discouraged Irish woollens.]