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James II sheriff was appointed for that county, Lesley, who, although he thought it unlawful to resist the king, entertained no scruples about resisting a Popish deputy, took an active part in thwarting that functionary in the exercise of his office. After the Revolution he clung, with a consistency which it is impossible not to respect, to the now discredited doctrine of the divine right of kings, steadily refused to take the oaths to the new sovereigns, and continued during many years to be the most uncompromising opponent of the government.

My readers will, I trust, pardon a digression which may enable them to estimate at their proper value the principal works relating to the period with which I am about to deal. I shall now resume my narrative of the events which followed the recall of Lord Clarendon from Dublin. Tyrconnell bore the inferior title of Lord Deputy, but his real power greatly exceeded that of his predecessor. He was instructed to remodel the civil government as thoroughly as he had already remodelled the army; and to this task he devoted himself with a zeal and energy little tempered by discretion. Fresh changes were made in the law courts, in the magistracy, and in the privy council. Sir Charles Porter, who had succeeded 145