The Irish Rebellion of 1641 led to the formation of the Catholic Confederation and the 1641 to 1653 Irish Confederate Wars. Charles and his opponents in Parliament approved the recruitment of an army to suppress the rising, led by the Earl of Ormonde, a Protestant Royalist. However, the ongoing tensions between the two sides resulted in the outbreak of the First English Civil War in August 1642;Ormonde could no longer receive reinforcements or money from England, and by early 1643 the Confederacy held most of Ireland, with the exception of Ulster, Dublin and Cork City.