Figments were recited about Thomas Irelande in the King’s Letter which rival those palmed off on James I. by the Lord Lieutenant in the case of John Wakeman. Its text made his Majesty certify that the tapster of the “Half-Moon” had paid into the Exchequer £1,678 6s. 8d., but whether before or after he came to the throne of England was not stated; and that, as a recompense, Thomas Irelande was to receive an estate worth £100 a year “out of such castles, manors, etc., as came to the Crown by forfeiture, attainder, etc.” The Privy Council had just ordered the Irish Executive not to part with any such “castles.” In the year 1604 the sum of £1,678 6s. 8d. would represent nearly £20,000 in to-day’s values. This a humble innkeeper is supposed to have presented to the Exchequer without security or interest—an unexplained and un-Scottish caprice. To have had such command of money, Thomas Irelande must have amassed a fortune out of the tavern “where Scotsmen lie”; although in Elizabeth’s reign no large muster of Scots from whom it could derive custom repaired to London. A Census of Foreigners in 1567 shows that there were only 40 resident Scotchmen in the metropolis, as compared with 472 Frenchmen and 2,030 Dutch. So the Bow Lane philanthropist must have been as lucky under the Tudors as he was lavish under the Stuarts. His Majesty was in the habit of borrowing money wherever he could lay hands on it. He took loans from Hugh O’Neill and never repaid them. He also laid himself under obligation to wealthy London citizens; but these were personal debts; and the landlord of the “Half-Moon” is not alleged to have made the King a private loan, but to have lodged cash in the public Exchequer. His place of abode is not mentioned in the King’s Letter, where his innkeepership is disguised by misdescribing him as a “merchant.” The oddest part of the transaction has now to be recorded. Having poured his largesse into the royal coffers, the tapster’s openhandedness sought a fresh outlet. With boundless disregard for bawbees, Thomas Irelande made over to Hamilton the grant of £100 a year which had cost him £1,678 6s. 8d. This was expressed to be done “for divers good considerations”—that being the common form for a voluntary conveyance. In other words, he gave a valuable property away for nothing. Few London hotel-keepers now endow their guests in that way. These goodly giants of the prime are alas extinct. Hamilton, armed with his landlord’s conveyance and the grant of Sir Con O’Neill’s estate (in trust as to two-thirds), pressed the Deputy for Patents to validate them. Legally his demand was irresistible; but Chichester’s righthand men, led by Sir William Parsons (the Surveyor-General), shared his reluctance to “passing” a grant so extensive. They, like their master, felt wounded that an intruder should try to carry off booty larger than any seized by the Lord Lieutenant or the other Elizabethan warriors.