When the chiefs of the north fled to the Continent, their lands were held to have reverted to the crown; and not only was the right to tax the produce of these lands assigned to adherents of the central power, but numbers of farmers from the Scottish lowlands, and in lesser degree from England, were brought over and settled on the old tribal territory.  The tribesmen, with their cattle, were driven to less fertile districts, and the valleys were tilled by the transplanted farmers of Scotland.  This was the Plantation of Ulster, of 1611,—­four years after the flight of O’Neill and O’Donnell.  The religious controversies of Scotland were thereby introduced into Ireland, so that there were three parties now in conflict—­the old indigenous church, dispossessed of revenues and buildings, and even of civil rights; the Anglicans who had received these revenues and buildings, and, lastly, the Dissenters—­Presbyterians and Puritans—­equally opposed to both the former.

The struggle between the king and Parliament of England now found an echo in Ireland, the Anglican party representing the king, while the Scottish and English newcomers sympathized with the Parliament.  A cross-fire of interests and animosities was thus aroused, which greatly complicated the first elements of strife.  The Parliament at Dublin was in the hands of the Puritan party, and was in no sense representative of the other elements of the country.  There was a Puritan army of about ten thousand, as a garrison of defence for the Puritan newcomers in Ulster, and there were abundant materials of an opposing national army in the tribal warriors both at home and on the Continent.

These national materials were presently drawn together by the head of the O’Neills, known to history as Owen Roe, an admirable leader and a most accomplished man, who wrote and spoke Latin, Spanish, French and English, as well as his mother-tongue.  Owen Roe O’Neill had won renown on many continental battlefields, and was admirably fitted by genius and training to lead a national party, not only in council but in the field.  The nucleus of his army he established in Tyrone, gaining numbers of recruits whom he rapidly turned into excellent soldiers.

This took place at the end of 1641 and the beginning of 1642, and the other forces of the country were organized about the same time.  The lines of difference between the Anglican and Catholic parties were at this time very lightly drawn, and the Norman lords found themselves able to co-operate with the Catholic bishops in forming a General Assembly at Kells, which straightway set itself to frame a Constitution for the country.