3rd. That “the only Inquisitions, Patents, and Grants” relating to the Lough in the Record Office were those in the list he set out—swearing he was “satisfied there were no others dealing with the fisheries in Lough Neagh.” These propositions, if true, went far to meet the judgment of the House of Lords in the former trial. Yet, extraordinary to relate, they were either wholly unfounded or very much astray. Only when too late did the facts leak out. The archivist’s list was vitally defective and incomplete, while the Commission was far from being “practically all illegible.” The earliest Patent was not that of 1606 to Hamilton, but those concocted by Chichester in 1603 and 1604, which as regards Lough Neagh and the Bann were warranted by no authority from James I. The Patents and King’s Letters of 1603-4 were not mentioned by the archivist, and they formed the key to the position as defined by the House of Lords. When Chichester in 1604 appropriated the title of “Admiral of Lough Neagh” he snatched a life-estate in the fisheries without the King’s knowledge. Neither Lough Neagh nor the non-tidal Bann then was claimed by or “in charge” to the Crown. If the existence of these Patents had been disclosed, and if the King’s Letter of 1603 had not been withheld, the fact that the fishery grants originated without Royal approval would have been established. The Letters throw a piercing searchlight on the problem raised by the House of Lords, for they prove that James I. nowhere mentions the fisheries. Their silence, therefore, reveals that the origin of the grant lay not with the Crown, but in fraud. This fact being shut out from judicial cognisance, the cardinal principle laid down by the House of Lords was frustrated—viz., that the existence of Royal title to make a grant must be lawfully deduced. To treat the Patent of 1606 as the earliest of the series not merely got rid of the necessity for coping with the fatal parchments of 1603-4, but enabled the contention to prevail that Hamilton’s Patent was based on a valid inquisition. For at the “office” at Antrim on 12th July, 1605, a jury was alleged to have found that a pool in Lough Neagh was owned by the Crown. This verdict was arrived at on the inquisition held by Parsons, and at the trial in 1908 it assumed a fundamental importance. The terms of the Commission authorising it became equally vital, and as to these the archivist swore:— “The Commission for holding the inquisition is attached to the original inquisition, and is practically all illegible. The inquisition deals with the eastern side of Lough Neagh only, and lands adjoining.”