Next day the Lord Deputy ordered a general hosting, according to the ancient custom, for six weeks, beginning on August 10. Tara was assigned as the place of meeting, and Tyrone, Ormonde, Barrymore, and Mountgarret were among those who signed the order. Perrott devoted a few days to the Council, whose help was necessary to enable him to gather up the reins. Fenton found him 'affable and pleasing, seeking by good means to recover the hearts of the people that were somewhat estranged, quick and industrious, careful of her Majesty's profit, sincere, just, and no respecter of persons.' Indeed, he did not respect persons enough. Wallop, whose office of Vice-Treasurer made him the most important man next to the Viceroy, and who had been virtual chief governor for nearly two years past, was on the point of quarrelling with him at the outset, but forced himself to make allowance for the Deputy's passionate disposition. With Loftus, who had lately been Wallop's colleague in the government, and who was still Lord Chancellor, Perrott was at open war in a very short time.[116]
[Sidenote: John Norris governor of Munster, and Bingham of Connaught.]
John Norris, the most famous of Lord Norris of Rycot's six good sons, had been appointed Lord President of Munster. Bingham, whom Perrott knighted at his installation, was, at the same time, made Chief Commissioner of Connaught in Maltby's room, but with inferior emoluments. The Lord Deputy proposed to settle the two provincial governors in their places at once, and to return in time for the hosting at Tara. Norris went straight to Munster, and Bingham accompanied Perrott to the West. All the chief men of Connaught and Thomond flocked dutifully to the Viceroy, and he decided controversies to their satisfaction. The sheriffs maintained great trains of followers, who became a scourge to the country, and this abuse was sternly repressed. Clanricarde and the rest were ready to make some permanent arrangement with their tenants, 'so as I,' said Perrott, 'would take a time among them to perform it, which, if I have quietness, I will do hereafter.' He was not fated to have much quietness. Bingham's first impression of his province was that the Irish should be won by plausible means. It was, he said, their habit to acknowledge their duty to her Majesty on the arrival of a new Lord Deputy, 'more for fashion than for faithful obedience.' The fashion and the want of faithful obedience have both continued to our own time. Bingham saw clearly that the Queen's government would never be really popular--'the people, for every small trifle, are daily suggesting that they are intolerably oppressed and extorted upon.' His advice was to keep them down by steady but gentle pressure, 'so that by having too little the country may not be waste, and by having too much the people may not rebel. Nevertheless, my meaning is rather to better their estate than to make it worse.' He understood the problem, but he was not much more successful than others in finding the solution.[117]