In 1630 a “case” was submitted to Sir Robert Oglethorpe, one of the Barons of the Exchequer, who in 1623 had denounced their origin. Oglethorpe retired in 1624 from his position in Dublin as judge (probably owing to his uncomfortable uprightness in Patent matters); and resumed his practice at the Bar in London. The “case” he received was incomplete, and its framer is unknown, but though omitting much, it is startling enough. It sets out that five Patents had been issued on foot of Wakeman’s Letter for £100, “in value surmounting £4,000 per annum,” including one for the fishery of the Bann. It foreshadowed that further grants were in contemplation, and asked the ex-Judge for his opinion as a lawyer if the King could have all of them declared void by legal process? Oglethorpe’s reply shows that he and the other Exchequer Barons ruled against the Wakeman Patents in 1623, and that this decision “was certified to the Lord Deputy (Falkland) upon referment from his late Majesty.” He again branded them with “fraud” and “deceit,” and advised that this taint would “extend to many Letters Patent in Ireland”; for, quoth he, “this is a great and general case.” When this “opinion” was delivered Lord Cork, prince of Patent-mongers, wielded the Sword of State with Chancellor Loftus, and of course no action was taken. In 1632 Charles I. made up his mind to replace both Lords Justices; and in the following year there arrived in Dublin a Viceroy less dishonest than Ireland had known for some time. This was Wentworth, Lord Strafford. Whatever his faults, the new Lord Lieutenant hunted down those who had preyed on the country since Elizabeth’s reign, and in the eight years he served as Viceroy he earned the hatred of every confiscator. Those whose avarice he checked or penalised, including Patentees like the Earl of Cork and Sir John Clotworthy, were Strafford’s chief enemies. When he perished on the scaffold, their self-interested testimony spoke his doom. Many of his processes were, of course, expedients to provide revenue for the King in order to dispense with the summoning of Parliament. Others were well-grounded investigations to recover property of which the Crown had been cozened. Strafford had to deal, not only with lawless Patents, but with Patents which, if lawful, conveyed, in acreage and value, lands largely in excess of what the King had authorised. He was not three months in Dublin before he obtained an insight into the ways of his predecessors. On the 23rd October, 1633, he reported that, “in all the Plantations, the Crown had sustained shameful injury, by passing in truth ten times the quantities of lands expressed in their Patents, and reserving throughout base tenures in soccage.” As to those who “held the Sword” before him, he remarked:—