No evidence bearing upon Oates' plot had been discovered in Ireland, but Shaftesbury did not neglect that fertile field. There was a scheme to remodel the Irish Government without Ormonde, his place being filled by Orrery, Conway, or Granard. That cowardly villain, Lord Howard of Escrick, was thought of for Chancellor, and the Council was to be filled with the most extreme men of the Protestant party. But the King would have nothing to say to this precious plan, and it came to naught. Under orders from England, Ormonde sought for witnesses, but their stories did not fit in with those that had been told in London. The first Irish case of any importance was that of Richard, Earl of Tyrone, whose professed Protestantism was perhaps naturally doubted, since he became a Roman Catholic at the beginning of the next reign. He declared, however, that he was ready to sacrifice himself for the Protestant religion in which he had brought up his two sons. He had committed one Hubert Bourke, an attorney, for an assault upon a smith named MacDaniel, and Bourke, being a man of bad character, was unable to get bail. While in Waterford gaol he made charges against Tyrone, who was summoned to Dublin and examined by the Council. Nothing of importance appeared, but the Earl was indicted at Waterford Assizes, in August 1679, for conspiring to bring in the French. The Grand Jury ignored the bill, and Bourke's evidence of treasonable talks was not believed. A further indictment in the following March had the same fate, Chief Justice Keating presiding on both occasions. Another informer, a Limerick gentleman named David Fitzgerald, made similar charges against Lord Brittas and others, whom he accused of a comprehensive scheme to massacre the Protestants and bring in the French. Some of the accused were bailed for want of evidence, and in other cases bills were ignored by the Limerick Grand Jury. Oates' patrons in Parliament found it necessary to take other measures, and the hatching of an Irish plot was entrusted to a sub-committee consisting of Shaftesbury, Essex, Burlington, and Falconberg. A Mr. Hetherington, apparently a person of some education, acted as agent and stage-manager for Shaftesbury.[124] [Sidenote: Abortive charges of treason.]