of Barbados, the Bermudians made a separate peace that respected the internal status quo. The Parliament of Bermuda avoided the Parliament of England's fate during The Protectorate, becoming one of the oldest continuous legislatures in the world. Virginia's population swelled with Cavaliers during and after the English Civil War. Even so, Virginia Puritan Richard Bennett was made Governor answering to Cromwell in 1652, followed by two more nominal "Commonwealth Governors". The loyalty of Virginia's Cavaliers to the Crown was rewarded after the 1660 Restoration of the Monarchy when Charles II dubbed it the Old Dominion. Ireland Meanwhile, in the Kingdom of Ireland (proclaimed such in 1541 but only fully conquered for the Crown in 1603), tensions had also begun to mount. Thomas Wentworth, Charles I's Lord Deputy of Ireland, angered Catholics by enforcing new taxes while denying them full rights as subjects; he further antagonised wealthy Irish Catholics by repeated initiatives to confiscate and transfer their lands to English colonists. Conditions became explosive in 1639 when Wentworth offered Irish Catholics some reforms in return for their raising and funding an Irish army (led by Protestant officers) to put down the Scottish rebellion. The idea of an Irish Catholic army enforcing what many saw as already tyrannical government horrified both the Scottish and the English Parliaments, which in response threatened to invade Ireland. Wars Modern historians have emphasised the lack of inevitability of the civil wars, noting that the sides resorted to "violence first" in situations marked by mutual distrust and paranoia. Charles' initial failure to end the Bishops' Wars of 1639 and 1640 quickly persuaded the antagonists that force could serve them better than negotiation. The imposition of Bishops and other Anglican practices to the Scottish Kirk were opposed by most Scots, who supported a Presbyterian system of governance led by a General Assembly, and in individual churches by ministers and committees of elders. The 1638 National Covenant pledged to oppose such imposed "innovations." Signatories were known as Covenanters. In Ireland, alienated by Church of England domination and frightened by the rhetoric of the English and Scottish Parliaments, a small group of Irish conspirators launched the Irish Rebellion of 1641, ostensibly in support of the "King's Rights." The uprising featured widespread violent assaults on Protestant communities in Ireland, both Anglican and dissenter Protestants in Ulster whose practice was similar to the Scottish Kirk. In England and Scotland, rumours spread that