The Anglo-Irish gentry of the ancient faith protested against his electoral arrangements, but were laughed at. They carried their plaints to the King in London, and were imprisoned or abused as “recusants.” Such of them as were not lodged in the Tower or the Fleet were only allowed to return home to witness the Deputy’s triumph. “Hurly-burlies and other unnecessary stirs were moved in sundry places,” but all to no purpose. The packed Parliament met, and the Commons made Sir John Davies Speaker, after a feverish protest from the Anglo-Irish. When it proceeded to business its first enactment was that O’Neill and the Northern chiefs, dead or alive, stood attainted of high treason; that their estates were forfeited, and their Letters Patent void. The cleavage between the Anglo-Catholics and the disfranchised natives was such that the Bill of Attainder passed unanimously, and was proposed by Sir John Everard, the “recusant” candidate for Speaker, who had renounced a judgeship rather than take the oath of apostacy. Six Ulster counties were then made the Royal demesne. Now came the moment for Chichester’s privy turn. He had a year before procured the assent of the English Privy Council to the “heads” of several measures which he desired to pass, including one “to confirm the Patents of Ulster Undertakers.” Some shift of wind afterwards set in at Whitehall against him, and his Majesty, scenting his purpose, thwarted it. No sufficient ground for this sudden disfavour anywhere appears. The records of State are often a blank at the most critical moments. Perhaps the King was smarting at the havoc wrought by his lordship’s grants; perhaps he bemoaned the £2,500 “compensation” paid from his purse to free the Bann and Lough Foyle; perhaps he grudged the Deputy the £10,000 he extracted from Parliament “for extraordinary equipage and porte.” Perhaps he learnt of the £10,000 of the embezzled Ulster rents. At any rate, James I. was vexed with his new peer, and determined he would not allow him to “cook” statutes as he had cooked Patents. Cecil was dead, and the influence which the hunchback wielded was lacking. In the royal councils Cecil’s enemies openly complained of the way in which he had tolerated the devastation of Crown lands. Sir Richard Cooke, the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer, urged Chichester’s removal, and wrote bitterly of the disorders he witnessed, although formerly he had supported the Deputy.