These oppressions, tortures, and captivities shocked the country, and the wail of the Clansmen arose on the westering winds. Its echo was heard even in England. Wherefore, Sir Francis Annesley (Lord Mountnorris), who had acted as one of the Commissioners in the dispute raised by Sir Richard Graham, as to Felim’s title, flamed up against Falkland. Annesley had assented to the Patent-outrage at Carrickfergus in 1621 in behoof of Chichester, but the Wicklow tragedy was too black for him. Largely by his influence a Royal Warrant of unusual peremptoriness was dispatched to Dublin on the 3rd October, 1628. It ordered the suspension of all proceedings against the O’Byrnes, and commanded the Deputy not to reply, lest he should make correspondence an excuse for delay. It appointed a Commission consisting of the Protestant Primate—Ussher; the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin—Bulkeley; Lord Chancellor Loftus; the Chief Justice (Sir George Shurley), and Sir Arthur Savage, Vice-Treasurer, to inquire into the case. Felim, however, was first declared by the Privy Council to be “not only unblamable, but to have been of extraordinary obedience.” The Duke of Buckingham’s assassination in the previous August had laid a powerful opponent low. The Commissioners sat in Dublin for a fortnight in November and December, 1628, and took the depositions of 37 witnesses. They probed no point of title and confined themselves to the criminal charge; but in the result the O’Byrnes were fully exonerated, and were restored to liberty after a close confinement of 14 months. This blow at oppression resounded through the land; but it came too late to undo the Patents of August, 1628. The plunder of Felim, after a struggle lasting a quarter of a century, had been consummated. He died within a year of his release. His wife, heartbroken by the action of Parsons’ Grand Jury, which she supposed meant destruction for her sons as well as her husband, perished within two days of its finding. By order of Falkland her body was dug up and carried away three weeks after its burial in Wicklow Churchyard. The local vicar, Fox, attended to the exhumation, and the remains were removed to Rathdrum. There they were again disturbed, but after identification “the State” allowed the earth to be closed over the corpse. This indignity has never been explained or denied. Falkland, in a letter to the Privy Council (8th December, 1628) tried to excuse his courses against the family, but his dispatch makes sorry reading. It consists of abuse of the Royal Commissioners (except the Primate and Chief Justice), and of attacks on the reputation of Felim. The father of the gallant who fell at Newbury attempts no reply to any of the evidence taken by the Commission as to the arrests and cruelties. That remains unanswered to this day.