any lease’ (State Papers, Ireland, Eliz. lxxii. 52). His treatment of Viscount Baltinglas before the ecclesiastical commission (ib. lxxvi. 26) was warmly resented by the Irish Roman catholics, who naturally regarded him as their greatest enemy, and during the rebellion of Baltinglas and his associates he was obliged, for self-protection, to live ‘in a kind of imprisonment in his own house’ (ib. lxxxiv. 1). The value of his bishopric had been reduced to less than 200l., and he begged Walsingham to obtain for him ‘some mean living in England’ (ib. lxxxiii. 53).
On the recall of Lord-deputy Grey he was, on 12 July 1582 (ib. xciv. 17; Lascelles, Lib. Hib. i. ii. 4, gives the date as 14 July), appointed lord justice in conjunction with Sir Henry Wallop; and this office, which he held till June 1584, somewhat improved his position. On 12 Sept. 1582 he petitioned for a portion of the attainted lands of Viscount Baltinglas (State Papers, Ireland, Eliz. xcv. 46, 47). At Burghley's request, however, the petition was withdrawn, but Loftus declined a proposal for his translation to an English bishopric on the ground that he was too old to undertake new duties (ib. xcviii. 44). For similar reasons also he declined Walsingham's offer of the archbishopric of Armagh in commendam (ib. c. 25). With the exception of Munster, where the people had grown so enfeebled through famine that Loftus suggested the advisability of pardoning the Earl of Desmond (ib. xcvii. 16), the country remained tolerably quiet under the economical government of Loftus and Wallop (ib. xcviii. 20, xcix. 43, civ. 104). Some disturbances indeed occurred in Ulster in the summer of 1583, and the lords justices were obliged to visit Dundalk for the purpose of restoring peace (ib. ci. 7, ciii. 37, civ. 28). There was always, however, a danger of foreign invasion, and the examination of Christopher Barnewall (ib. civ. 38) emphasised the necessity for keeping a strict watch over foreign emissaries. On 8 Oct. 1583 the lords justices announced the arrival and apprehension of Dermot O'Hurley [q. v.], Roman catholic archbishop of Cashel. Loftus has been much blamed by catholic writers for his inhumanity in torturing O'Hurley, but apart from the fact that O'Hurley had himself been an inquisitor, it must not be forgotten that the order proceeded directly from Walsingham, that neither Loftus nor Wallop took any personal part in the inquisition, and that O'Hurley's execution by martial law, though stigmatised as unlawful, was sanctioned and approved by the queen and privy council (Brady, State Papers concerning the Irish Church and Episcopal Succession; Moran, Catholic Archbishops of Dublin and Spicilegium Ossoriense; O'Sullevan, Historiæ Catholicæ Hiberniæ Compendium; Roth, Analecta Sacra nova et mira de rebus Catholicorum in Hibernia gestis; Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors).
On 21 June 1584 the sword of state was handed over to Sir John Perrot. Among Perrot's instructions (Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica, i. 28) was one authorising him to inquire how the revenues of St. Patrick's Cathedral might be diverted to the establishment of a university. The scheme was an old one and had been opposed by Archbishop Curwen (State Papers, Ireland, Eliz. xi. 13). Loftus adopted Curwen's views, and in a letter addressed to Walsingham and Burghley (4 Oct.), while allowing that the proposal to establish a university was both good and necessary, he argued that the dissolution of St. Patrick's would prove disastrous not only to religion, but also to the English interest in Ireland (ib. cxii. 4, 5). A fierce quarrel between Loftus and Perrot followed, in the course of which Loftus procured an order from the queen expressly forbidding the dissolution; otherwise he threatened to resign his bishopric (ib. cxv. 27; Nicolas, Hatton, p. 357). Loftus asserted that Perrot had no real regard for religion or learning, but that all he desired was to benefit his own friends and to gratify his ambition by founding a college by the name of ‘Perrot's College’ (State Papers, Ireland, Eliz. cxviii. 63, 66, cxix. 18, 32, 44). Through Burghley's interposition a temporary reconciliation was effected, and on Easter Day 1586 the deputy and archbishop received the communion together (ib. iii. 48). But the old ‘bickerings’ soon broke out again, Perrot complaining of the indignities offered him by the archbishop, and Loftus asserting that Perrot's government was ‘abhorred and loathed of the better sort’ (ib. pp. 164, 211, 220). Perrot had made many enemies, and his rashness and intemperate speeches in the end gave Loftus the advantage he desired. In December he learnt that Perrot's secretary, Philip Williams, who had been dismissed and imprisoned by him, was willing to bear witness against his former master, and Loftus took care that Williams's insinuations should reach Burghley's ear (ib. pp. 228, 244, 348, 358, 383). In a collection of the material points against Perrot, drawn up by Burghley and bearing date 15 Nov. 1591, Loftus's name appears along with those of Thomas Jones, bishop of Meath, and Philip Williams, as giving evidence for ‘evil words against the queen for writing to him to forbear his proceedings about St. Patrick's’ (ib. iv. 439). Perrot
