horoughness and was adopted without substantial alteration by the
Council, but was not made public for several months. The Council itself
was, in the event of the Provisional Government being set up, to
constitute a "Central Authority," and provision was made, with complete
elaboration of detail, for carrying on all the necessary departments of
administration by different Committees and Boards, whose respective
functions were clearly defined. Among those who consented to serve in
these departmental Committees, in addition to the recognised local
leaders in the Ulster Movement, were Dr. Crozier, Archbishop of Armagh,
the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in
Ireland, Lord Charles Beresford, Major-General Montgomery, Colonel
Thomas Hickman, M.P., Lord Claud Hamilton, M.P., Sir Robert Kennedy,
K.C.M.G., and Sir Charles Macnaghten, K.C., son of Lord Macnaghten, the
distinguished Lord of Appeal. Ulster at this time gave a lead on the
question of admitting women to political power, at a time when their
claim to enfranchisement was being strenuously resisted in England, by
including several women in the Provisional Government.

A most carefully drawn scheme for a separate judiciary in Ulster had
been prepared with the assistance of some of the ablest lawyers in
Ireland. It was in three parts, dealing respectively with (a) the
Supreme Court, (b) the Land Commission, and (c) County Courts; it was
drawn up as an Ordinance, in the usual form of a Parliamentary Bill, and
it is an indication of the spirit in which Ulster was preparing to
resist an Act of Parliament that the Ordinance bore the introductory
heading: "_It is Hereby Enacted by the Central Authority in the name of
the King's Most Excellent Majesty that_------" Similarly, the form of
"Oath or Declaration of Adherence" to be taken by Judges, Magistrates,
Coroners, and other officers of the Courts, set out in a Schedule to the
Ordinance, was: "I ... of ... being about to serve in the Courts of the
Provisional Government as the Central Authority for His Majesty the
King, etc."

It will be remembered that the original resolution by which the Council
decided to set up a Provisional Government limited its duration until
Ulster should "again resume unimpaired her citizenship in the United
Kingdom,"[48] and at a later date it was explicitly stated that it was
to act as trustee for the Imperial Parliament. All the forms prepared
for use while it remained