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 he had been counted a Catholic his lands were given out to Cromwell's soldiers in due course, and his profession of Protestantism was not enough to recover them.

Off he had to go to Connaught like any other mere Irishman in 1654, and not until 1657 was he able to get his case brought before Oliver Cromwell himself, who on account of the usefulness of his grandfather the poet's writings touching the reduction of the Irish to civility, ordered the restoration of his estate.

And Spencer's case was not singular. The sons of those who under Elizabeth had been the greediest plunderers of the Irish were now packed off to Connaught on the charge of being Irish Papists.

The fate of the inhabitants of Cork is particularly curious. The citizens of Cork, and the townsmen of Youghal and Kinsale were proud of their unblemished English or at least Danish descent. Not only did the law up to the time of James I. forbid marriages between the English and the Irish, but in all the towns local bye-laws