Over 12,000 veterans of the New Model Army were awarded land in Ireland in place of their wages due, which the Commonwealth was unable to pay. Many of these soldiers sold their land grants to other Protestants rather than settle in war-ravaged Ireland, but 7,500 soldiers did settle in Ireland. They were required to keep their weapons to act as a reserve militia in case of future rebellions. Taken together with the Merchant Adventurers, probably over 10,000 Parliamentarians settled in Ireland after the civil wars. Most of these were single men, however, and many of them married Irish women (although banned by law from doing so). Some of the Cromwellian soldiers thus began to be integrated into Irish Catholic society. In addition to the Parliamentarians, thousands of Scottish Covenanter soldiers, who had been stationed in Ulster during the war, settled there permanently after its end.