In April, 1629, Falkland was recalled by the unanimous voice of the Privy Council. He wrote to Charles I. on the 13th April, 1629:—“I hear that the question of Felim is to be made the ground of my recall owing to the machinations of the Chancellor and Commissioners. It is a disgrace to your Royal Justice that I should be recalled before being heard in my defence.” The King did not reply. In July, 1629, the Lord Chancellor (Loftus) and Lord Cork were ordered to “take up the Sword” and act in his place. Falkland remained in Dublin for several months, and the spirit which beset him burns fiercely through his final dispatches. He threatened Sir Francis Annesley with the Star Chamber for his “undutiful contempt” in saving Felim. He sued Sir Arthur Savage for alleged debt; and his warning to the English Secretary of State gleams with a comic touch:—“I pray you think of the results that will follow if Patents (which Gondomar[1] did term the common faith) be overridden. Your fortune rests on the sanctity of such Patents.” He returned to England not hopelessly disgraced, for he was appointed to the Privy Council; and the King allowed him to name a Committee of that body in November, 1629, to investigate his conduct. If the Committee reached any conclusions or took any evidence they have been withheld from the world. On the 12th November, 1629, he boastfully wrote to Primate Ussher that at Court there was “not one wry look in any creature towards me.” Falkland’s daughter married Sir Terence O’Dempsey, who was also implicated in the conspiracy to strip the O’Byrnes. In 1631 the ex-Deputy’s retirement was soothed by O’Dempsey’s being translated into “Lord Glenmalire.” The King having ridded Ireland of Falkland, thought Deputies a trifle out of fashion. So Lord Cork and Chancellor Loftus were allowed to govern the country for nearly four years as “Justices.” In that interval their own Patents, at least, were safe from scrutiny. Lord Cork sometimes scattered gems of wisdom through his correspondence as lustrous as Falkland’s. In 1631 he sighed:—“This place is not a comfortable one unless a man consoles himself by making a private fortune—as has been the custom of my predecessors.” Under Strafford, in 1639, a Statute was passed whereby the “Birns Country” with “Ranelagh, Cosha, Shillela and Vartry” were declared the King’s. This was done, apparently, for the purpose of enabling valid Patents to be issued. By this arrangement some of the O’Byrnes must have recovered patches of their estate, as they paid the Crown £17,000 for “remedy of Defective Title.” Ere the century ended Cromwellian and Williamite confiscations made this investment a barren one for the family. FOOTNOTES: [1] The Spanish Ambassador to London. CHAPTER XIX. STRAFFORD, PATENT-BREAKER. When Lord Falkland left Ireland, the question of the validity of the Wakeman grants was re-opened under the rule of the Lords Justices.