each with a good title the one in possession is to be preferred. Still
it cannot be said that the decisions of the Royal Commissioners were
always equitable according to our ideas; for instance, the award of
80,000 acres to the Duke of York (afterwards James II) of land which
had been forfeited under Cromwell because the owner had fought for his
father, would be hard to justify on any possible grounds. Still, an
Act of Settlement was passed, by which a certain amount of justice
was done; it is difficult to arrive at the figures accurately, but
it appears that after the passing of the Act nearly one-third of
the Island was vested in Roman Catholic proprietors. Archbishop King
estimated that at the time when he was writing--1689--two-thirds
of the Protestant landowners held their estates under the Act of
Settlement. And Lecky says, "Only an infinitesimal portion of the soil
belongs to the descendants of those who possessed it before Cromwell."
But Archbishop King was influenced by the fear he had felt as to what
the effect of a repeal of the Act would be; and there can hardly be
a doubt that his feelings led him to overestimate the number. With
regard to Lecky's remark, one can only take it as a strange instance
of a gross exaggeration having crept into a book which is usually
careful and accurate. It may be that the statement was not very
incorrect according to the evidence the author had before him; but if
so, that only proves that the evidence was wrong; for the proceedings
in the Land Courts which have been set up in Ireland during the last
half century have shown that the proportion of titles to estates which
date from an earlier period was far larger than people had supposed.

During the peaceful and tolerant reign of Charles II the country made
steady progress.

Under James II, however, everything was reversed. That unhappy