Charles appointed an absentee, the earl of Leicester, in Wentworth's place as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, but left real power to two lords justices, Borlase and Parsons, who sided with the parliamentary opposition to the monarchy in England. They used their position in Ireland to advance the interests of the New English, in terms of political power, economic advantage, and religious attitudes (low church, antiepiscopal, and vehemently anti-Catholic). They suspended the Irish parliament and blocked an issuance of further "Graces" that would benefit the Catholics. When the parliament met again in March 1642 there were no Catholics present.
In view of the developments in England and Ireland, which augured so poorly for the position of the Catholics in Ireland, many were attracted to the idea of a rising. Leading figures were Rory O'More, of the Leix family, who had been ousted from their holdings in the 1550s and Sir Phelim O'Neill, a member of the Irish parliament. Encouragement came from many Irish in the military service of continental kings and many Irish clergy on the Continent. A planned seizure of Dublin Castle on October 23, 1641, failed when a drunken participant revealed the plot.
A rising did take place in Ulster that was directed at the settler population who had arrived since the Ulster Plantation. These Presbyterian Ulster Scots had earlier been under threat from Wentworth with his religious conformity policy. Now the native Irish Catholics had turned on them. Despite the admonitions of the Catholic leaders, such as Turlough O'Neill that no harm should come to the Scots, there were, as in many popular uprisings, numerous atrocities. Modest estimations would put the number killed at 4,000, but possibly twice that number died from exposure or lack of sustenance. The Catholics drove the Scots from holdings, which had been occupied by Catholics in the previous generation. The Catholic "gentry" leadership obviously hoped the uprising would result in their being restored to lands under familial control in earlier times. However, the refugees were able to obtain shelter in towns like Enniskillen, Coleraine, Londonderry, and Lisburne, whose fortifications held
Out against the rebels who tended to dominate the open country of the province. News of the uprising, and tales of the woes of refugees who came to Dublin and Drogheda, quickly made the tragedy appear even worse. It was not long before the number of victims in popular accounts exceeded by tens of thousands the total number of Protestants actually living in Ulster at the time. Over decades and even centuries the horrors of the uprising would be a major element in popular Ulster loyalist historiography.
World History
