166 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



Exchequer. In order to avoid payment of the fines, the parties sometimes 

 made fraudulent conveyances of their goods. It is curious to note that the 

 Government showed some reluctance about taking the fines produced by the 

 prosecution of the recusants, for in some cases their fines or part of them 

 were allocated to charitable purposes. Thus part of the fines imposed on the 

 recalcitrant aldermen and citizens of Dublin who refused to attend divine 

 service were ordered to be laid out partly in repairing the churches in 

 Dublin which remained ruinous since the blast of gunpowder, part in the 

 relief of poor scholars in the college, and in other necessary and charitable 

 uses, that they might perceive it was not their goods but their conformity 

 that was sought. The Mayor, burgesses, and commonalty of Drogheda 

 (1607) petitioned to be paid some of the fines imposed on the townsmen by 

 the Castle Chamber ; and the dean and chapter of Christ Church also sought 

 to be paid some of the fines imposed for building the Law Courts near 

 Christ Church. Both these petitions were allowed. 



We find that complaints against the Court were numerous. In 15S2 

 the Clerk of the Court complained that in many of the cases depending, 

 as well as in a far greater number not yet proceeded with, both plaintiffs 

 and defendants had failed to appear and prosecute. It would appear 

 that a prosecution in the Court was used as a species of black- 

 mail, and that the parties arrived at an understanding without the 

 intervention of the Court. In 1588 Sir Richard Bingham complained to 

 Burghley that he had been convicted on the judgment of the Lord Deputy 

 and two or three Irish Councillors, though the majority, including the Lord 

 Chief Justice, the Treasurer, and Bishop of Meath, were in his favour. In 

 1613 the recusants complained to Lord Chichester against the action of the 

 Castle Chamber, especially that jurors who refused to convict the recusants 

 were not allowed counsel. To this it was answered that no counsel was 

 allowed because the jurors proceeded " ore tonus " upon their own confession. 

 About 1630-2, in a " Brief collection for his Highness' Court of Castle 

 Chamber in Ireland," probably prepared by the law-officer, it was shown that 

 the Court was now " abused for private ends," plaintiffs " wresting and 

 terrifying the poor " or compounding with delinquents without licence from 

 the Court. The king is thus deprived of £1,000 a year or more in revenue." 

 This memorandum went on to state that there were about 1,200 cases in 

 number pending in the Court, " most of them of great consequence and very 

 foul, which are and have been discountenanced." 1 The Lord Viscount 

 Dorchester was advised to ask the King to rectify the evils. In a memorial 



' Cal. State Papers (Ireland), Add., 1625-60, p. 172. 



