“Wherein it is great wonder to see the odds which is between the zeal of Popish priests and the ministers of the Gospel; for they spare not to come out of Spain, from Rome, and from Rheims, by long toil and dangerous travelling hither, where they know peril of death awaiteth them, and no reward or riches is to be found, only to draw the people into the Church of Rome. Whereas some of our idle ministers, having a way for credit and estimation thereby opened unto them, and having the livings of the country offered unto them without pain and without peril, will neither for the same nor any love of God, nor zeal of religion, nor for all the good they may do by winning souls to God, be drawn forth from their warm nests to look out into God’s harvest, which is even ready for the sickle and all the fields yellow long ago. Doubtless those good old godly Fathers will (I fear me) rise up in the Day of Judgment to condemn them.” Thirty years later Charles I., in a letter (written with his own hand) to the Irish Protestant Archbishops, complained that “the clergy of Ireland are apt to be careless of God’s service and their own honour.” One of his officials, Sir John Bingley, described them in March, 1629, as “a set of very profane and drunken fellows.” Sogarth aroon! CHAPTER X. THE HARRYING OF SIR RANDAL. To complete the uprooting of the Ulster chiefs, an onslaught on Sir Randal MacDonnell was undertaken. The persecution of the other chieftains might be palliated by the plea of political necessity; but, with the passing of Elizabeth, no such excuse in MacDonnell’s case existed. He, like O’Cahan, had been induced by Chichester to forsake O’Neill in 1602, and the surrender at Mellifont was largely brought about by this desertion. His loyalty to James I. as a Scottish noble was undoubted, but for full seven years he was pursued by the malice of the Deputy, who thwarted the King’s wishes in his regard, to feed a personal grudge and win private profit. This vendetta ended in Chichester’s occupying the judgment seat to decide the title to Sir Randal’s fishery, after he had secretly grabbed it for himself. MacDonnell’s Patent was the first issued by James on becoming King of Ireland in 1603. It was a favour shown to Randal as the Scoto-Irish Lord of the Isles, and the brother-in-law of Hugh O’Neill. It confirmed to him 333,907 acres in Antrim—an enormous estate—but reserved to the Crown three-fourths of the tidal fishery of the Bann. This grant (dated 6th July, 1603) was distasteful to the hungry Captains avid for spoil, and cavil was raised against it from the outset.