these the Scotch parliament sent over a force of 10,000 men under General Munro, by whose aid they established themselves firmly round Carrickfergus. The Scots joined the English parliament against the King, and so were more or less in alliance with the English of Munster and opposed to those of Dublin.
Division too, showed itself in the Irish ranks. There was a large and influential party in favour of a peace with Charles I. on conditions which would secure their lands, free them from the most oppressive of the penal laws, and allow them to join their forces to those of the King and overthrow those of the parliament. The chief men of this party were the old Anglo-Norman families of the Pale, and of the district round Kilkenny.
But there was another party composed chiefly of the Ulster Irish who demanded the restoration of all the lands confiscated in Ulster by James I., the restoration of the greater number of the churches and complete religious freedom. At their head we soon find the able Italian Nuncio of the Pope, Rinuccini. This party held that the best means of securing their designs was a vigorous prosecution of the war. If once all Ireland was in their hands they could dictate what terms they liked to the King as the price of their aid.
We can now see that either policy would have worked. If one or the other party could have got the upper hand and carried the nation with it they could have obtained as many reforms as might reasonably have satisfied them. The English royalists if backed by the whole force of the Irish
