How this war, between the King and Parliament, progressed and terminated, forms a bloody chapter in English history, but it can be noticed in this place no further than its effect on Ireland; there it helped to swell the tide of oppression; it brought another war, another defeat, another confiscation, and another wholesale expatriation of the native race. Since the plantation of Ulster, religious persecution had been aggravated by an established system of confiscation, under the name of the "Irish Titles Act." In the mean time the "Nonconformists" of England and Scotland having taken up arms against King Charles, made a solemn vow to exterminate the Catholics of Ireland, and the apprehensions of the latter were soon alive to the emergency. Groaning so long under civil and religious exactions, they looked on the king's difficulty as a most suitable event to petition for a removal of their grievances. But their action was anticipated, and while their leaders were considering a course of procedure, a series of outrages was perpetrated in the province of Ulster which precipitated them at once into the vortex of rebellion. A garrison of Scotch soldiers, stationed at Carrickfergus, in the dead of night, and without premonition, made a descent on Island Magee, a peninsula in the neighborhood, and drove all its inhabitants, to the number of 3,000, over the cliffs into the sea; scarce a soul escaping to tell their cruel fate. The Catholic inhabitants of the surrounding counties flew to arms, and the flames of rebellion were soon lit throughout the province. The Protestants rose to oppose them, and excesses were perpetrated on both sides. This hastened the action of the Catholic leaders. The Irish chiefs, the Catholic Lords of the English Pale, and the bishops of the Catholic Church convened at Kilkenny for mutual protection and right, under the name of the "Confederation of Kilkenny," and inaugurated one of the boldest efforts for civil and religious liberty known in the country's history.