3. =Irish Parties. 1641.=--Before the king returned from Scotland, news arrived from Ireland which increased the difficulty of maintaining a good understanding with Charles. Besides the English officials, there were two parties in Ireland discontented with Strafford's rule. Of these one was that of the Catholic lords, mostly of English extraction, who wanted toleration for their religion and a large part in the management of the country. The other was that of the native Celts, who were anxious to regain the lands of which they had been robbed and to live again under their old customs. Both parties were terrified at the danger of increased persecution by the Puritan Parliament at Westminster, especially as the government at Dublin was in the hands of two lords justices, of whom the more active, Sir William Parsons, advocated repressive measures against the Catholics, and the introduction of fresh colonists from England to oust the Irish more completely from the land. In the spring of =1641= the Catholic lords had emissaries at Charles's court offering to send an army to his help in England, if he would allow them to seize Dublin and to overthrow the Government carried on there in his name. 4. =The Irish Insurrection. 1641.=--Nothing was settled when Charles left England, and in October the native Irish, impatient of delay, attempted to seize Dublin for themselves. The plot was, however, detected, and they turned savagely on the English and Scottish colony in Ulster. Murders, and atrocities worse than ordinary murder, were committed in the North of Ireland. At Portadown the victims were driven into a river and drowned. Women were stripped naked and turned into the wintry air to die of cold and starvation, and children were slaughtered as ruthlessly as full-grown men. The lowest estimate of the destruction which reached England raised the number of victims to 30,000, and, though this was doubtless an immensely exaggerated reckoning, the actual number of victims must have reached to some thousands. In England a bitter cry for vengeance went up, and with that cry was mingled distrust of the king. It was felt to be necessary to send an army into Ireland, and, if the army was to go under the king's orders, there was nothing to prevent him using it--after Ireland had been subdued--against the English Parliament.