Such depredations would have been impossible without the connivance of Court favourites who shared in the profits. Public virtue had either ceased to exist or had not begun to be cultivated. When anyone complained of the conduct of Chichester’s servitors, most of whom were scoundrels apt for his purpose, he shielded them in dispatches as “very honest men.” He fetched from Devonshire his brother and two nephews to assist him, and was at pains to embellish his practices with a garniture of profuse loyalty and solid piety. In the Castle Chamber (or Star Chamber) he dealt with land, descent, and ownership. Removable judges, flanked by a few men-at-arms, with the Law Officers occasionally thrown in, formed its judicial ingredients. Before them were haled those who were to be fleeced or tortured. Excuse may be attempted for the profligacy of the officials who then found salary and place in Ireland by reference to the hardships of their service. They had to put up with much discomfort; and to confront, at times, the perils of war, famine, and pestilence. Conquest is a hard school. If they returned to London their journey might end in the Tower and their fee be the scaffold. The sea between the islands was infested with pirates lying in wait to assail their ships, and when they reached the metropolis it was part of their science accurately to know whom to bribe, whom to squeeze, whom to favour, and whom to flatter. Such was the age in which Chichester throve. CHAPTER XIV. THE PLANTERS’ PARLIAMENT. With the coming of the Planters, Chichester, being by law disabled from holding land without the King’s sanction, grew anxious as to the title of his ill-gotten estates. Many of his Deeds were open to attack, and safety could only be found in confirmation by Act of Parliament. James I. had contemplated, on his accession, the calling together of the Irish Legislature. His order of the 11th September, 1603, as to the pardoned chiefs, mentions “an Act to be passed in the next assembling of Parliament there for the restoration in blood of the Earl of Tyrone, his brother, and their heirs.” On the 16th October, 1604, when appointing Chichester Deputy, he informed him that he “intended to call a Parliament” in Ireland. Sir Arthur disliked the idea and blocked it, as he wished to compass the ruin of the native princes. Besides, a Parliament would have created a counter-authority to dwarf his power.