Wood — The Court of Castle Chamber or Star Chamber of Ireland. 163 



and in the same year Henry Byrd, Eegister to the High Commission in Causes 

 Ecclesiastical, was convicted of forging the Lord Deputy's hand to divers 

 warrants. 1 



In 1587-8 Alex. Pluncket of the Bawne, Co. Louth, gent., was found 

 guilty of declaring that " within two years of this spring or this spring itself," 

 the Spaniards would return to Ireland and conquer it, and that all the Irish 

 would join them against the Queen ; after which the Spaniards, with the 

 forces of Ireland, would go into England, and there crown a King and 

 drive the Queen to flight 2 ; while in 1593, Nicholas Whyte, of Maynane, 

 Co. Kildare, was sentenced to imprisonment and the pillory for having 

 " traitorously published that there was a prophecy in Ireland that O'Donuell 

 shuld be King in Ireland, and that there was an old crown of the Kings of 

 Ireland in Koine, and that the Catholic Bishops of this land did write to Borne 

 for that crown." 3 



In 1594 the Bishop of Leighlin was fined £20 for undutiful speeches 

 against the Lord Deputy ; and Lord Inchiquin was ordered to pay 100 marks 

 for assaulting Sir Tirloughe O'Bryen, Knight, on the Quay of Dublin as he 

 was repairing to the Council Chamber. i 



In 1608-9, in the ease of Sir Robert Digby and Lady Lettice his wife 

 v. Garrett, Earl of Kildare, dame Mable, Dowager Countess, and Henry Burnell, 

 the latter was convicted of forging an Inquisition by which the late Queen 

 was defrauded of the wardship of the Lady Lettice. This important case, 

 upon which depended the lands of the whole earldom, gave considerable 

 trouble to the Court. 5 



In 9 James I a case of legitimation and bastardy was tried in the Court 

 of Castle Chamber, by which it was decided that the Ecclesiastical Court 

 could not move in such a case without direction from a temporal Court. 

 This case is reported at length by Sir John Davies, in his " Reports des cases 

 & matters en Ley." 



In 1611, in the case of Richard, Earl of Clanrickard v. Sir Thomas Brooke 

 and others, the defendants asserted that the Earl was born out of wedlock, 

 thereby conspiring to disinherit him ; but the Court declared that he had been 

 born after the marriage of his father and mother. 6 



In 1616 Lord Inchiquin was fined and imprisoned for receiving into his 

 house one Nicholas Nugent, a Jesuit, who celebrated mass in his house. This 



1 Egmont Papers (Hist. MSS. Com.), vol. i, pt. 1, pp. 17, 18. 



2 Ibid., p. 20. zibid., p. 25. i Ibid., p. 26. 



5 Egmont Papers (Hist. MSS. Com.), vol. i, pt. 1, pp. 34-5, and Cal. State Papers 

 (Ireland), 1607-9. 



6 Egmont Papers (Hist. MSS, Com.), vol. i, pt. 1, pp. 38-9. 



