By this time, however, the Deputy was plunged in the throes of a scandal springing from his own misdeeds. He had promoted the attempt to seize the estate of the last Gaelic Chief, O’Byrne of Wicklow, and dared not suffer his assistants to be impeached for former wrongdoing. To allow Forbes to take the lid off the cauldron in which the hell-broth of the previous reign lay simmering was not Falkland’s notion of statecraft. The new “discovery” was no more to him than that of Sir William Power or Sir James Balfour, and less than that of the Exchequer Barons. Possibly he quieted Forbes with the gift of £300, for the “discoverer” went abroad soon afterwards and never returned, being killed in a duel in Hamburg in 1632. Still his shipping-off did not benefit Falkland, whose agony was about to begin. The eyes of England, as well as Ireland, were fastened on his treatment of the O’Byrnes, and both kingdoms resounded with rumour against him. Throughout two reigns and three Deputyships the persecution of the O’Byrnes lasted. It comprised the whole art and mystery of Patent-shuffling and confiscation. To understand the story is to understand the methods and policy of Chichester and his successors. It is the Southern counterpart of the Ulster tragedy. The reasons which impelled the Northern Lords—O’Neill, O’Donnell, and Maguire—to go into exile can best be realised by studying the doom of the Wicklow chief who held his ground. Carte (an English Protestant historian), writing in 1736, summarises the case as “very extraordinary, and contains in it such a scene of iniquity and cruelty that, considered in all its circumstances, it is scarce to be paralleled in any age or country.” Since then, Carte’s disclosures have been supplemented by State papers and other records which furnish dates and details that he lacked. They confirm the judgment on his work passed by Dr. Johnson, who styled it “that book of authority.” Carte’s narrative largely follows the “Remonstrance” lodged on behalf of the O’Byrnes, which fails to disentangle the parts played by Chichester, by St. John, and by Falkland, but mingles all together. In the following condensed account the action taken by each Deputy is separately shown, while needful particulars are added from the State Papers and Patent Rolls. CHAPTER XVIII. LORD FALKLAND’S SHAME. The harrying of the O’Byrnes under Chichester was largely carried out through Sir William Parsons, his Surveyor-General—a seasoned and hardy pillager. Parsons was a Commissioner at Limavady in 1609, when the inquisition which “found” the Bann for Sir Arthur to forestall the Londoners was concocted. In 1621 St. John nominated him to take “office” for the fabrication of the “Carrickfergus” Patent which abstracted the non-tidal Bann from the Corporation. He was the chief author of the Antrim inquisition of 12th July, 1605, which “found” that the King owned the “pool” of Lough Neagh “towards Claneboy.”