After Charles I. came to the throne, Sir Hugh took advantage of the ignorance of the new Crown officials to ask for compensation for the “loss” of the pension. Although he deserved the stocks for having originally outwitted the Exchequer, the King in 1628 gave him £700, with a promise that his son should be appointed to a “company of horse.” Sir Hugh died in 1631; and, two years later, Sir John petitioned for his “company of horse.” The flight of time, and the changes in the personnel of the Government, had caused the case to be forgotten, so Sir John invented a new version of the pension, and kept back the fact that his father had received compensation for its loss. His petition was not granted; and when Strafford became Lord Lieutenant Sir John’s prayers ceased, for his political and religious leanings were not on the royal side. As a member of the Irish Parliament, Clotworthy now began to mark himself out as a pugnacious Presbyterian. Hence Pym, and his backers in the English House of Commons, caused him to be elected for the pocket-borough of Malden, to abet their designs at Westminster against Strafford. There he became so zealous that for years he was an outstanding figure on all Committees manned by the anti-royalists. He helped to bring Strafford and Archbishop Laud to the scaffold, as well as his old school-fellow, Lord Maguire, and was of use to Cromwell in smoothing his path to power. In time, of course, Sir John met with the usual fate of the zealot, being expelled from the House of Commons and accused of embezzling war-stores intended for Ireland. In 1648 he fled to France; and, on venturing to return, was imprisoned. Cromwell released him, and later on admitted him to favour. To Clotworthy the saying is attributed that: “Religion should be preached in Ireland with the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other.”