Reading’s Six Coastal Lights
The Act of Settlement of 1662 had attempted to reconcile claims that could not all be met from the land available. Cromwellian soldiers and financial ‘adventurers’ had received Irish estates after the 1650s conquest. Protestant royalists who had lost out during the Commonwealth also expected recompense. So did some Catholic proprietors who had remained loyal to the Stuart crown, qualified under earlier peace agreements, or could establish legal ‘innocence’ under the exacting post-war rules. Each claim rested on a different account of service, suffering and loyalty; all competed for the same confiscated land.