Act of Settlement 1662 - The Act of 1665

The Act of 1665

A Court of Claims was set up to investigate who was eligible for recovery of their lands. Unfortunately, the Commissioners found that too many Catholics were "innocent", so a further Act of Explanation 1665 was needed to find a workable solution. The Act of Explanation stated that Cromwellian settlers (with some named exceptions) had to give up one third of the lands they had received after 1652 in order to compensate innocent Catholics. This was a very complicated process, as most of the new owners had bought their land from the Cromwellian grantees, and so numerous contracts had to be unwound. Many of these buyers were not settlers but people who had already been living in Ireland before 1641.

By this measure, what has been described as a "favoured minority" of Irish Catholics — mostly Old English Royalists — recovered all or most of their pre-war estates. Examples of this include Ormonde and his relatives, and supporters like Richard Bellings or Randal MacDonnell, 1st Marquess of Antrim. The people who had been militant Irish Confederates during the wars — who had rejected an alliance with the English Royalists, or sought better terms from Charles I in return for an alliance — got little or nothing from the settlement. Many of them regarded it as a betrayal by the Stuart monarchy, which they all had fought for at some point in the Civil Wars. The Catholic poet Daibhi O Bruadair concluded that the Restoration was "Purgatory" for Irish Catholics, while the former Confederate and Catholic Bishop Nicholas French wrote a pamphlet about Charles II titled, The Unkind Deserter of Loyal men and true Friends.

By 1685, Catholic land ownership was put at 20% of the land in Ireland. This included 95,000 acres assigned to King Charles' Catholic brother James, Duke of York, who succeeded to the throne that year as King James II.

Many Protestants in Ireland felt that the Restoration Settlements were far too lenient towards those Irish Catholics who had rebelled against the sovereignty of King Charles in 1641 and had been justly punished for it by the loss of their property and power. They had bought their new properties at market rates, competing against other bidders, and expected that privity of contract would apply as usual. As in England and Scotland, the Irish Restoration of 1660 had occurred without bloodshed because of their approval.