Falkland, having now the whole family in his clutches, prepared the finishing stroke. On the 5th July, 1628, he represented to Charles I. how “absolutely inconvenient” it would be to allow the O’Byrnes to hold “the territory of Ranelagh.” They were already bereft of Cosha, and on 22nd July, 1628, he began taking depositions against them, in secret signed with his own hand—with Sir William Graham (son to Richard) as Gaelic interpreter. A week later, without waiting for any reply or authority from his Majesty, or procuring their attainder, the Deputy proceeded to distribute the remainder of O’Byrne’s estate piecemeal amongst his confederates. Seven Patents for Ranelagh (unsupported by any King’s Letter) were issued by Falkland to his subordinates in August, 1628. The recipients were Sir William Parsons, Sir William Graham (the translator), Lord Docwra, Lord Esmond, Sir Roger Jones (the “rascal’s” son, afterwards Lord Ranelagh), Sir Thomas Stockdale, and Lord Chancellor Loftus. The last-named, although an enemy of the Deputy, had as Lord Chancellor to be given a morsel, to keep his mouth shut, and consent to apply the Great Seal to the parchments of the other six. That the Patents were without Royal sanction is clinched by the answer the King gave on the 4th September, 1628, to Falkland’s dispatch of the 5th July. Therein Charles I. tells him, after the Patents had been issued: “It is our pleasure that you shall set down your further opinions precisely what is the best course to be taken for the settling of those lands,” and he promised then to “declare his resolution touching the same.” A month previously the Patents had been distributed amongst the Seven Champions of Law and Order. Having stolen the property of the O’Byrnes, Falkland next proceeded to concert measures to do away with the family altogether. In August, 1628 (the month in which the Patents were sealed) the Chief and his sons were arraigned at Wicklow. Warned by the Carlow fiasco, Parsons saw to it that the Grand Jurors should be men having no qualification to serve. He mustered a faction of stalwarts in Wicklow Courthouse as a counterfeit Grand Jury, who readily found “True Bills” against the prisoners. Their guilt, however, had still to be proved before a Petit Jury; so the trial was put off, and everyone likely to be a witness for them was seized under martial law and put on the rack, or hanged.