Before the Restoration was accomplished the Irish Convention sent over Sir John Clotworthy and Major William Aston as Commissioners to communicate with the still sovereign Parliament of England. Clotworthy, created Viscount Massereene a few months later, was deeply interested in the Cromwellian land settlement and gained much influence by his activity. His unconcealed Presbyterian leanings were forgiven because, in Clarendon's words, 'he was of a generous and a jovial nature' and a staunch Royalist. After the Restoration these two Commissioners were appointed to attend the King along with eleven others, including Coote, Broghill, Barry, Eustace, and Audley Mervyn. They carried with them 20,000_l._ for Charles and lesser gifts for each of his brothers. Their instructions were to petition for an Irish Parliament consisting of Protestant Peers and Commoners and freed for this turn from the restrictions of Poynings' law, for an act of oblivion for all Protestants subject to parliamentary exceptions, and for an act for the attainder of such persons as Parliament should select. It was desired that adventurers and soldiers should be settled in their lands and the Irish in Connaught and Clare. Impropriate tithes in the King's hand were to be restored to the Church, and taxation was to be controlled by the Irish Parliament. These were the chief points insisted on by the dominant party, while the Irish Roman Catholic gentry in London besought Ormonde, who had been the principal means of uniting the three kingdoms, to mediate for them 'and the remnant of their miserable nation' who were ready to lay down their lives for the King. Sir Nicholas Plunket was usually the spokesman of these suppliants. On July 27 Ormonde, who became an Irish duke, took his seat in the House of Lords as Earl of Brecknock, and on the same day Charles concluded his speech as follows: 'I hope I need say nothing of Ireland, and that they alone shall not be without the benefit of my mercy. They have shewed much affection to me abroad, and you will have a care of my honour and of what I have promised to them.'[6] [Sidenote: Position of the Roman Catholics.]