Irish affairs, in the long continued suspension of the functions of Parliament, were administered in general by the Privy Council, and in detail by three special courts, all established in defiance of ancient constitutional usage. These were the Court of Castle Chamber, modelled on the English Star Chamber, and the Ecclesiastical High Commissioners Court, both dating from 1563; and the Court of Wards and Liveries, originally founded by Henry VIII., but lately remodelled by James. The Castle Chamber was composed of certain selected members of the Privy Council acting in secret with absolute power; the High Commission Court was constituted under James and Charles, of the principal Archbishops and Bishops, with the Lord Deputy, Chancellor, Chief Justice, Master of the Rolls, Master of the Wards, and some others, laymen and jurists. They were armed with unlimited power "to visit, reform, redress, order, correct and amend, all such errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts and enormities," as came under the head of spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction. They were, in effect, the Castle Chamber, acting as a spiritual tribunal of last resort; and were provided with their own officers, Registers and Receivers of Fines, Pursuivants, Criers and Gaolers. The Court of Wards exercised a jurisdiction, if possible, more repugnant to our first notions of liberty than that of the High Commission Court. It retained its original power "to bargain and sell the custody, wardship and marriage," of all the heirs of such persons of condition as died in the King's homage; but their powers, by royal letters patent of the year 1617, were to be exercised by a Master of Wards, with an Attorney and Surveyor, all nominated by the Crown. The Court was entitled to farm all the property of its Wards during nonage, for the benefit of the Crown, "taking one year's rent from heirs male, and two from heirs female," for charges of stewardship. The first master, Sir William Parsons, was appointed in 1622, and confirmed at the beginning of the next reign, with a salary of 300 pounds per annum, and the right to rank next to the Chief Justice of the King's Bench at the Privy Council. By this appointment the minor heirs of all the Catholic proprietors were placed, both as to person and property, at the absolute disposal of one of the most intense anti-Catholic bigots that ever appeared on the scene of Irish affairs.