army. The Privy Council of Ireland was dominated by English Protestants. The constituencies of the Irish House of Commons gave Protestants a majority. In response, the Irish Catholic upper classes sought 'The Graces', and appealed directly first to James I and then his son Charles, for full rights as subjects and toleration of their religion. On several occasions, they seemed to have reached an agreement under which these demands would be met in return for raising taxes. However, despite paying increased taxes after 1630, Charles postponed implementing their demands until 3 May 1641 when he and the English Privy Council instructed the Lords Justices of Ireland to publish the required Bills. The advancement of the Graces were particularly frustrated during the time that Wentworth was Lord Deputy. On the pretext of checking of land titles to raise revenue, Wentworth confiscated and was going to plant lands in counties Roscommon and Sligo and was planning further plantations in counties Galway and Kilkenny directed mainly at the Anglo-Irish Catholic families. In the judgement of historian Pádraig Lenihan, "It is likely that he [Wentworth] would have eventually encountered armed resistance from Catholic landowners" if he had pursued these policies further. However, the actual rebellion followed the destabilisation of English and Scottish politics and the weakened position of the king in 1640. Wentworth was executed in London in May 1641. Conspiracy From 1638 to 1640 Scotland rose in a revolt known as the Bishops' Wars against Charles I's attempt to impose Church of England practices there, believing them to be too close to Catholicism. The King's attempts to put down the rebellion failed when the English Long Parliament, which had similar religious concerns to the Scots, refused to vote for new taxes to pay for raising an army. Charles therefore started negotiations with Irish Catholic gentry to recruit an Irish army to put down the rebellion in Scotland, in return for granting longstanding requests for religious toleration and land security. Composed largely of Irish Catholics from Ulster, an army was slowly mobilised at Carrickfergus opposite the Scottish coast, but then began to be disbanded in mid-1641. To the Scots and Parliament of England, this seemed to confirm that Charles was a tyrant, who wanted to impose his religious views on his kingdoms, and to govern again without his parliaments as he had done in 1628–1640. In early 1641, some Scots and English Parliamentarians even