[4] Other lesser incidents added to Phipps' unpopularity: although his good intentions need not be doubted, he showed very poor political judgment on several occasions, especially in the Dudley Moore case.

This struck many people as an overreaction: the prosecution lagged and was seemingly about to be withdrawn when Phipps made a speech to Dublin Corporation on the disorder in the city, and specifically referred to the Moore case.

His reasons were entirely humane – Lloyd was a relatively poor man and the publication was purely a commercial venture, without any political motive- but it was widely seen as further evidence of his involvement in a Jacobite conspiracy.

Phipps' well-meant efforts to ban the annual procession round the statue of William III in College Green (once more on the grounds that it was inflammatory) increased his unpopularity.

[6] In 1713 it was rumoured, wrongly, that the new Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Shrewsbury, had made it a condition of taking up office that Phipps be dismissed, together with his main ally on the Bench, Richard Nutley.

The Queen's death at the beginning of August resolved the problem since her successor George I simply dismissed her Irish judges en bloc.

He spoke at the trial of George Seton, 5th Earl of Winton for his alleged acts of treason during the Jacobite rising of 1715, but was severely reprimanded by the presiding judge for speaking without permission.

On the other hand, O'Flanagan in his work on the Irish Lord Chancellors spoke highly of Phipps as a gifted and moderate man who made a genuine attempt to calm political and religious strife in Ireland.

He was a fine lawyer, and a reforming Chancellor: O'Flanagan praises his efforts to make litigation cheaper and faster, and suggests this was one cause of his unpopularity within his own profession.

He was certainly to blame in part for the paralysis in the Dublin city government, but it is hardly fair to suggest, as Ball seems to, that he was wholly responsible for it:[12] indeed all his actions found supporters.