Clotworthy was a leading member of the cabal; and on the 30th March, 1660, he was nominated to proceed to Flanders to conclude the negotiations. When he reached London, his journey was stayed, as General Monck had won over Speaker Lenthal to his views, and the royal cause was thriving without the aid of cross-Channel converts. Sir John, therefore, remained in England to influence opinion against attempts to disturb the arrangements of the Irish confiscators. King Charles, on the eve of his return, issued from Breda a Declaration securing in their estates those of his enemies who had not taken part in his father’s execution. At the same moment he promised that the Irish who had served him should be restored to their lands. Unhappily, the pledge to the Irish was broken, while the bargain with Coote was kept. Much huxtering and hugger-mugger went on at Whitehall when the King came back. A large subscription was raised among the wily “Undertakers” to bribe his courtiers, and using this lubricant, Clotworthy and his friends found easy access to the Throne. Their aim was to ensure that the confiscations should be legalised, no matter who might suffer. Charles summoned a Parliament for each of the Three Kingdoms, but the Irish Executive (staffed with men of Cromwell’s mind) found no difficulty in packing the Dublin House of Commons with prayerful freebooters. The Restoration, which brought a joyful change in England and Scotland, made none in Ireland, unless for the worse. The loyalty and sufferings in exile of the King’s friends were forgotten. The squalid attornment of his enemies was remembered and rewarded. Irish Cromwellianism after the Restoration remained organised and formidable as before. It dominated the Government; and its mayors and sheriffs returned to Parliament such men as they listed. Out of 260 members in the Lower House, only 64 represented counties—the rest being sent up by hole-and-corner “Corporations” to which the natives were not admitted. These phantom bodies (dowered with two members) were manned by Ironsides who could hardly pronounce the names of their billets. Indeed statutory power was soon afterwards taken to replace the “barbarous and uncouth” Gaelic place-names (which limned every lineament of the landscape) with sweet-sounding “Jonesboroughs” and “Draperstowns.”