Although they had many grievances, being, almost without exception, Catholics, the Lords of the Pale, and most of the Anglo-Irish nobility and gentry elsewhere at first hesitated to join the revolt. On their treatment by the Government authorities their future action would, to a great extent, depend. The Lord Justices, by so wording their first Proclamation as to make it appear that they considered the conspiracy as one of the " Irish Papists " in general; by receiving with marked coldness the ... Read More

In the August of this year (1629), Falkland finally left Ireland. He had asserted, and endeavoured by fabricated evidence to prove the existence of a plot against the Government, whose leaders were, as he declared, Sir Phelim Mac Hugh O'Byrne, a large Wicklow land-owner, and his six sons. Falkland had already attempted to overreach the O'Byrnes in a certain transaction concerning land, but had not succeeded, and this accusation was his revenge, as well as a method, should it prove successful, of ... Read More