Great numbers of gentlemen and yeomen quitted the open country, and repaired to those towns which had been founded and incorporated for the purpose of bridling the native population, and which, though recently placed under the government of Roman Catholic magistrates, were still inhabited chiefly by Protestants.
A considerable body of armed colonists mustered at Sligo, another at Charleville, a third at Marlow, a fourth still more formidable at Bandon, [127] But the principal strongholds of the Englishry during this evil time were Enniskillen and Londonderry.
Enniskillen, though the capital of the county of Fermanagh, was then merely a village.

It was built on an island surrounded by the river which joins the two beautiful sheets of water known by the common name of Lough Erne.

The stream and both the lakes were overhung on every side by natural forests.

Enniskillen consisted of about eighty dwellings clustering round an ancient castle.

The inhabitants were, with scarcely an exception, Protestants, and boasted that their town had been true to the Protestant cause through the terrible rebellion which broke out in 1641.