dramatically altered patterns of Irish land holding, the percentage owned by Protestants increasing from 41% to 78% over the period 1641 to 1660. Shifting allegiances The Irish Confederate Wars were a complex conflict in which no fewer than four major armies fought in Ireland. These were the Royalists loyal to King Charles, the Scottish Covenanters (sent into Ulster in 1642 to protect Protestant planters after the massacres that marked the Irish rebellion of 1641 in that region), the Parliamentarian army, and the Irish Confederate army to whom most of the inhabitants of Ireland gave their allegiance. During the wars, all of these forces came into conflict at one stage or another. To add to the turmoil, a brief civil war was fought between Irish Confederate factions in 1648. The Royalists under Ormonde were in conflict with Irish Catholic forces from late 1641 to 1643. Their main enclave was in Dublin. A ceasefire with the Confederate Catholics lasted from 1643 until 1646, when the Confederates again came into conflict with the Royalists. After 1648 most of the Confederates and the Scots joined an alliance with the Royalists. This was the array of forces that was to face Cromwell's army in 1649. Ormonde's handling of the defence of Ireland was however rather inept so that by mid-1650 the defence of Ireland was conducted mainly by Irish Confederate leaders. The Irish Confederates: formed in October 1642, the Confederation of Kilkenny was initially a rebel Irish Catholic movement, fighting against the English troops sent to put down the rebellion, though they insisted they were at war with the king's advisers and not with Charles himself. They also had to fight the Scottish army that landed in Ulster. From 1642 to 1649, the Confederates controlled most of Ireland except for east and west Ulster, Cork city and Dublin. A cessation was arranged with the Royalists in 1643 after the outbreak of civil war in England and negotiations began to bring the Confederates into the English conflict on the Royalist side. A strongly Catholic faction under the influence of the Irish Bishops and Nuncio Rinuccini emerged in 1646, which opposed signing a peace treaty that did not recognise the position of the Catholic Church in Ireland or return confiscated Catholic land. When this faction ousted the Confederate 'peace party' or pro-Royalists, the Confederates once again clashed with the English Royalists, who abandoned most of their positions