Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/172

James II had the measure, therefore, by which they were remodelled, been plainly illegal, the case was one in which considerations of equity and public policy would have justified a wise government in disregarding the letter of the law. Its illegality, however, was by no means clear. The provisions of the Act of Settlement and the more recent regulations introduced under the viceroyalty of Essex had placed the corporations almost entirely at the mercy of the castle, and the history of the preceding century afforded more than one precedent for confiscating the charter of a refractory municipality. The Irish judges unanimously supported the claims of the crown; and, although their decisions have been ascribed to servility and party spirit, it deserves notice that they merely followed the example of their most distinguished brethren in England. That these changes were harshly and violently effected, and that the minority were occasionally treated with something less than justice by the party which was now dominant, may, perhaps, be acknowledged; but, for the most part, the Protestants continued, by the admission of their own writers, to enjoy, under a Catholic government, a far greater share in the administration than they had ever conceded to their adversaries.

The attacks upon the Established Church and 160