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James II and, should a demise of the crown take place before the position of the English Catholics was assured, a virtually independent Ireland might be their only refuge from a bloody retribution. The justice of these representations was self-evident; and Clarendon was ordered to make a complete change in the government of Ireland. The courts of judicature were the first object of attack. Three Protestant judges were at once dismissed, and two. Irishmen, Thomas Nugent and Denis Daly, and an English Catholic called Ingleby were selected to succeed them. Of the new judges the first mentioned seems to have been indebted for his promotion rather to the influence of his family than to his legal knowledge. Daly is admitted on all sides to have been an able lawyer and an upright judge. Ingleby declined the proferred office, which was eventually conferred on Stephen Rice, an Irish Catholic of great ability, noted for his implacable hostility to the Act of Settlement. About the same time twenty additional members, eighteen of whom were Catholics, were admitted to the Privy Council, of which body the Earl of Granard was appointed President.

A list of sheriffs was next pricked, on which, for the first time since the rebellion, some Catholics had a place. With this list Clarendon, who 132