The Chichester House claims reveal how an apparently administrative deadline could shape lived experience across religion, gender and class. Although the register offered widows, tenants, creditors and purchasers a route to defend prior interests, it functioned within a wider post-war transfer of land and Protestant political dominance. The article therefore suggests that legal procedure was both a means of protection and a mechanism through which unequal power endured. How might comparing claimants’ social backgrounds, denominations and eventual settlements in particular places and communities over time deepen our understanding more of whether the process preserved rights, redistributed them, or did both?