O'Neill was hanged, drawn, and quartered, one quarter being impaled at Lisburn, which he had burned; another at Dundalk, which he had taken; a third at Drogheda, which he had vainly besieged; and a fourth, with the head, at Dublin, which he had plotted to surprise. Tirlogh Groom O'Quin, who was captured with him and who had been his close associate in the early days of the rebellion, was executed later, and his head set upon the west gate of Carrickfergus. There has been much discussion as to the exact relation of Sir Phelim and the other original conspirators to Charles I., and the declaration of Dean Ker in 1681 was long accepted as evidence. Attempts have been made to set aside Ker's statement, on the ground that he wanted to be a bishop, that he spoke twenty-eight years after the fact, and that it was impossible that things which happened in open court should have remained doubtful for so long. It is certain that he never became a bishop, and there is nothing to prove that he wished to be one. By his own showing he had often mentioned the matter to his friend or patron, Lord Lanesborough, who at last persuaded him to write it down. There is never anything extraordinary in London being ignorant of what happens in Dublin; and after the Restoration no one had any interest in recalling the proceedings of the Cromwellian High Court there. The late King's position as a saint and martyr was then undisputed, and the Church of England was not on her defence. A more important difficulty is that the Dean says he heard Michael Harrison, who only saved his life by acting as secretary to Sir Phelim, confess in open court that he attached the Great Seal to a sham commission, and that O'Neill, when pressed by the judges, answered 'that no man could blame him to promote that cause he had so far engaged in.' In his sworn deposition Harrison says Sir Phelim had often spoken of a commission from the King, but he had never been able to get a sight of it, though it was generally believed to exist. It seems certain that a sham commission of some sort was shown not only in Ulster but in Munster; and there is no difficulty about believing that O'Neill should not have wished to die with a lie in his mouth, or that hopes of mercy should have been held out to him if he would implicate Charles. If the commission were forged, it matters little whether the seal was that of England or Scotland; either would do to exhibit at a distance. We know from the judge's notes that O'Neill was believed to have altered a genuine document, and that a copy was produced in court. It is not impossible that Harrison may have been employed to affix a seal to some instrument which he had not been allowed to read. The memory of Charles I. has much to bear, but he could not have given a commission authorising a general insurrection. He had been angling for Roman Catholic help before the outbreak of the rebellion, and many may have been persuaded that they were doing his