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 in being purported to be issued in the name of the King.

And the Resolution adopted by the Unionist Council immediately after constituting itself the Central Authority of the Provisional Government, in which the reasons for that policy were recorded, concluded with the statement that "we, for our part, in the course we have determined to pursue, are inspired not alone by regard to the true welfare of our own country, but by devotion to the interests of our world-wide Empire and loyalty to our beloved King." If this was the language of rebels, it struck a note that can never before have been heard in a chorus of disaffection.
The demonstrations against the Government's policy which had been held during the last eighteen months, of which some account has been given, were so impressive that those which followed were inevitably less remarkable by comparison.