Page:Confiscation in Irish history.djvu/224

 Commons; the vacancies being caused either by the fact that some boroughs were the seat of war, and that others had had their charters cancelled by James. Bonn, following King, says that 232 members appeared and Murray follows him. Of these, according to Archbishop King, six were Protestants.

In dealing with the composition of the House of Lords Murray professes to follow King, and here it seems impossible to accept his statements. He declares that the total number who attended was 36, of whom five temporal and four spiritual peers were Protestants, and that of the Catholics 17 owed their seats either to new creations or to the reversal of attainders. King himself, however, puts the matter somewhat differently. According to him the total number of Papist peers in Ireland was forty-five, including new creations, of which he says there were four, although in reality there were five. But a little further on he says that of thirty-seven Papist lords there attended twenty-four at times, besides the new creations; and that, of these twenty-four, fifteen were under attainders by indictments and outlawries. He further says that only four or five of the Protestant lay peers attended.

But in an appendix he has a list which purports to give the actual composition of James' House of Lords. This list gives forty-eight lay peers, one Archbishop and four Bishops of the Established Church. Of the lay peers named, eight certainly, eleven possibly, were Protestants.

Now it appears certain that, including Fitton the Lord Chancellor, there were only five new