No explanation was offered to Porter, the King treating him with studied coolness, and merely remarking that it was all his own fault. He returned to the English bar, and was counsel for Sir Alexander Fitton, his successor as Irish Chancellor, in one of his numerous lawsuits. Fitton, who was released from prison and knighted by the King, seems never to have had any practice to speak of, but he was a convert to the Church of Rome. He had been engaged in long litigation with Lord Gerard, and was accused of setting up a forged deed. A jury found against the document, and he was fined and imprisoned by the House of Lords. He apparently owed his appointment to Father Petre and to James himself, rather than Tyrconnel, whom he accompanied to Ireland. Archbishop King, who was in Dublin during the whole time that he held office, has represented Fitton as not only partial and tyrannical, but quite incompetent to perform his judicial function, while a modern biographer who examined the records of Chancery declares that all was done in order. Possibly the legal knowledge was supplied by two new Masters in Chancery appointed to strengthen the Court. One of these was Felix O'Neill, whose father had been a member of the Confederate Council in 1642; the other was Alexius Stafford, a priest who may have been a learned civilian. Both Stafford and O'Neill were killed at Aughrim. King may or may not have painted Fitton in too dark colours, but Sheridan, who was closely associated with him, says he was 'a most poor and timorous man, having nothing to maintain him but his office, to which dignity he was surprisingly raised from a tedious imprisonment of many years in the King's Bench in England for debt and pretended forgery in the business of the estate in dispute between him and Lord Macclesfield.'[166] [Sidenote: Judges and magistrates.]