had elapsed since the original rising of the native Irish. A murderous
and butcherly warfare had been carried on throughout these years, but
not along the lines of original division. On the contrary, when Cromwell
landed, there had been a complete shifting of the parties to the
contest, every faction having in turn fought every other faction, and,
more extraordinary still, having at some time or other joined its
religious foes in attacking a rival faction of its own creed. The
original rising was in Ulster, and was aimed at the English and Scotch
settlers who had been planted under James in the lands from which the
Irish had been evicted. These “plantations” under James, not to speak of
the scourge of Wentworth under Charles, were on a par with the whole
conduct of the English toward Ireland for generations, and gave as ample
a justification for the uprising as in the Netherlands the Spaniards had
given the Dutch. From the stand-point of the Irish, the war was simply
the most righteous of wars—for hearthstone, for Church, and for country.
This first uprising was one of Celtic Catholics. In the Pale and
elsewhere, here and there throughout Ireland, were large numbers of
Old-English Catholics; these, unlike the Celts, did not wish separation
from England, but did wish complete religious liberty for themselves,
and, if possible, Catholic supremacy. The Episcopalian and Royalist
English throughout Ireland, under the lead of the Earl of Ormond,
favored the King. The Puritan oligarchy of Dublin favored the
Parliament, and were in touch with the Scotch Presbyterians of Ulster.
The rising began to spread from Ulster southward. The Catholics of the
Pale were at first loyal to the King, but the Protestant leaders, in
striking back at the insurgents, harried friend and foe alike, until the
Pale joined with Ulster. After this, all Ireland revolted. Only a few
fortified and garrisoned towns were held for the English.
Violent alterations of policy and of fortune followed. Under the lead of
the Roman Catholic clergy the revolt was consolidated. Unswerving
loyalty to the King was proclaimed, war was denounced against the
Puritans, and the re-establishment of Roman Catholicism as the State
religion of Ireland was demanded. On the Puritan side the lords justices
in Dublin nominally acknowledged the King’s authority, but really stood
for the Parliament and hampered Ormond, who, while a stanch Protestant,
was an ardent Royalist. Ormond gained one or two victories over the
insurgents in spite of the way in which the lords justices interfered
with him. Charles created him marquis, and he took command of the
English interest, drove out the lords justices, and concluded a truce
for one year with the Catholic party, in September, 1643. They gave
Charles a free contribution of £30,000, and sent over some Irish troops
to aid Montrose and the other Royalist leaders in Scotland, besides
setting Ormond free to transfer part of his forces to the King in
England. But Munro and the Ulster Scotch refused to recognize the
armistice, took the Covenant, and declared against the King; while, in
the south, certain Protestant sea-coast towns, under the lead of Lord
Inchiquin, followed suit and acknowledged the Parliament. Months of
tortuous negotiations followed, King Charles showing the same readiness
in promise, and utter indifference in performance, while dealing with
the Irish as while dealing with the English. The treachery of the King
was made manifest by the discovery of his secret treaty with the Irish,
when Sligo was captured.
Meanwhile, the Papal nuncio, an Italian, had arrived, and exhorted the
Irish to refuse any peace with the King except on the basis of the
complete reinstatement of the Catholic Church. He roused what would now
be called the ultramontanes against the moderate Catholic party which
was acting with Ormond. Their wrangles caused a fatal delay, for by the
time the moderates triumphed the King had been made a prisoner. Their
treaty of peace with the King was not signed till September, 1645, and
it amounted to nothing, for the adherents of the Parliament rejected it
on the one side, and the extreme Catholic party, the utterly intolerant
and fanatical Catholics, under the nuncio, refused to be bound by it on
the other. In the north the Irish were led by Owen O’Neil, a member of
the great Ulster house of that name, and under him they had beaten Munro
and the Scotch. He now hurried to the support of the nuncio. The
moderate Catholic leaders and Ormond fled to Dublin at his approach, and
he was joined, after some hesitation, by Preston, the leader of the
Irish forces in the south. In 1647, Ormond, at his wits’ end, handed
over Dublin to the agents of the Parliament, and joined the Royalist
refugees in France.
This for a moment eliminated the Royalists, and left the party of the
nuncio, the party of the bigots and intolerant extremists, supreme among
the Irish. But when Jones, the Puritan leader, marched out of Dublin and
defeated Preston, while in the south Lord Inchiquin won some butchering
victories, the party of the moderates again raised its head. Then there
was a new and bewildering turn of the kaleidoscope. Inchiquin suddenly
became offended with the Parliament, made overtures to Preston, and then
to Ormond. A coalition was formed between the Royalist Protestants in
Munster and the moderate Catholics. The nuncio threatened the moderates
with excommunication and interdict, and fled to O’Neil’s camp. Preston
and Inchiquin joined forces and marched against O’Neil, so that civil
war broke out among the insurgents themselves.
Colonel Jones, the victor over Preston, felt doubtful of his own troops,
who included a number of Royalists, and, extraordinary to relate, he
actually made terms with the nuncio and O’Neil as against the Protestant
Royalists and moderate Catholics—the Ultramontanes so hating the
moderate Catholics that they preferred to come to terms with the
Puritans. Ormond now came over from France to head the moderates, the
party of the Royalist Catholics and Protestants. Peace was declared
between Ormond and the Supreme Council of Dublin in the King’s name.
But hardly had peace been declared when news arrived of the King’s
execution. Ormond proclaimed Charles II., at Cork; most of the Irish
outside of Ulster united under him, and Munro and the Scotch
Presbyterians joined him. The nuncio fled the country in despair. The
rupture between the Presbyterians and Independents was complete, and the
Scotch became the open enemies of the English. They began the siege of
Derry, which Coote held for the Parliament. At the same time they
confronted O’Neil and the Ulster Irish, who were acting in alliance with
Monk, who held Dundalk for the Parliament by order of Colonel Jones.
Inchiquin captured Drogheda for the Confederates. Monk’s garrison
mutinied, and he had to surrender Dundalk. Ormond began the siege of
Dublin, but was routed by Jones, one of the sturdiest of the many sturdy
Puritan fighters. Meanwhile, the Puritan Parliament had disavowed the
alliance with O’Neil and the Ulster Irish, and the latter were thus
forced into the arms of Ormond, who found himself at the head of all the
Irish and English Catholics, of the Scotch Presbyterians in Ulster, and
of the Royalist Protestants elsewhere in Ireland. It was at this time
that Cromwell landed.
The exact condition of affairs in Ireland should be carefully borne in
mind, because it is often alleged, in excuse of Cromwell’s merciless
massacres, that he was acting with the same justification that the
English had when they put down the Indian Mutiny with righteous and
proper severity. Without a doubt, Cromwell and most Englishmen felt this
way; and in the case of the average Englishman, who could not be
expected to understand the faction-fighting, the feeling was
justifiable. But it was Cromwell’s business to know what the parties had
been doing. As a matter of fact, the wrong of the original Ulster
massacre, which itself avenged prior wrongs by the invaders, had been
overlaid by countless other massacres committed by English and Irish
alike, during the intervening years; and the very men against whom this
original wrong had been committed were now fighting side by side with
the wrong-doers, against Cromwell and the Puritans. Moreover, for some
time the Parliamentarians had been in close alliance with these same
wrong-doers against the moderate Irish, who were not implicated in the
massacres in question, and against the Royalist Protestants, some of
whom had suffered from the massacres and others of whom had helped
avenge them. The troops against whom Cromwell was to fight were in part
Protestant and English, these being mixed in with the Catholics and
Irish; and at the moment the chief Royalist leaders in Ireland included
quite as many English, Scotch, and Irish Protestants, as they did Irish
Catholics.
Cromwell recked but little of nice distinctions between the different
stripes of Royalists and Catholics when, in August, 1649, he landed in
Dublin, the only place in Ireland, save Derry, which still held out for
the Parliament. He brought with him the pick of his troops and soon had
at Dublin some 10,000 foot and 5,000 horse. They were excellently
disciplined; they included the Ironsides, the veterans of the New
Model—grim Puritans for the most part, inflamed with the most bitter
hatred against Catholics, Irish, and Royalists. They had been welded
into one formidable mass by Cromwell’s rigid discipline, and yet were
all aflame with religious and political enthusiasm. There could not be
gathered in all Ireland an army capable of meeting in the open field
that iron soldiery, under such a leader as Cromwell; and this the Irish
chiefs well knew.
Cromwell, therefore, had to deal with a numerous and individually brave
but badly disciplined enemy, formidable in guerilla warfare, because
theirs was a wild country of mountain and bog, and resolute in defence
of their walled towns, but not otherwise to be feared by such troops as
the Ironsides. His first care was to put an end to the plundering and
licentiousness which had hitherto marked the English no less than the
Irish armies. He completely stopped outrages upon the peasantry and
non-combatants generally, besides protecting all who lived quietly in
their homes.
In September he marched against Drogheda, into which Ormond had thrown
3,000 picked men, largely English, under Sir Arthur Aston. Cromwell had
with him some 8,000 men when he sat down to attack it. He brought up a
siege-train, beating back the sallies of the garrison with ease, and
meanwhile maintaining his strict discipline, and putting down pillage by
the summary process of hanging the plunderers.
When his batteries were ready he summoned the Governor to surrender, but
the summons was refused. For two days the guns kept up their fire, and
then in the afternoon the assault was delivered. The defenders met the
stormers in the breaches; the fight was hot and stiff; the English were
once repulsed, but came forward again and carried the breach only to be
once more driven out by a fierce rally.
When Cromwell saw his men driven down the breach, he placed himself at
the head of the reserve, and in person led it with the rallied men of
the broken regiments, back to the breach. This time the stormers would
not be denied. They carried the breach, the church—which was strongly
held by the Irish—and finally the palisaded intrenchments of Mill Mount,
in which Sir Arthur Aston had taken refuge. The horse followed close
behind the foot, and speedily cleared the streets of the hostile cavalry
and infantry. The victorious Puritans pressed on and a terrible
slaughter followed. Cromwell forbade them to spare any that were in arms
in the town, and they put to the sword over 2,000 men. Nearly 1,000 were
killed in the great Church of St. Peter’s. “All the priests found,” says
Cromwell, “were knocked on the head promiscuously but two, both of whom
were killed next day.” Sir Arthur Aston, Verney, the son of the King’s
standard-bearer at Edgehill, and all the officers were put to the sword.
Two towers held out until next day, when they submitted; their officers
were “knocked on the head,” says Cromwell. One tower fought hard; there
every tenth man of the soldiers was killed; the rest, and all the
soldiers in the other tower, were shipped to the white slavery of the
Barbadoes. Of the assailants, about a hundred were slain and several
hundred wounded.
[Illustration:
Magdalen Tower, Drogheda.
On the right may be seen the ruins of St. Sunday’s Gate.
]
Said Cromwell: “We put to the sword the whole number of the
defendants.... This hath been a marvellous great mercy. I wish that all
honest hearts may give glory of this to God alone, to whom indeed the
praise of this mercy belongs.... I am persuaded that this is a righteous
judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches who have imbrued their
hands in so much innocent blood, and that it will tend to prevent the
effusion of blood for the future, which are the satisfactory grounds to
such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret. The
officers and soldiers of this garrison were the flower of their army.”
Cromwell’s defenders say simply that he acted from a fervent belief in
the righteousness of what he was doing, and, further, that the terrible
vengeance he took here and at Wexford upon all who withstood him in arms
cowed the Irish and prevented further resistance. Neither defence is
tenable. If on the ground of their sincerity the deeds of Cromwell and
his soldiers at Drogheda and Wexford can be defended, then we cannot
refuse the same defence to Philip and Alva and their soldiers in the
Netherlands. Of course, we must always remember that under Cromwell
there was no burning at the stake, no dreadful torture in cold blood;
and, therefore, at his worst, he rises in degree above Philip and Alva.
But in kind, his deeds in Ireland were the same as theirs in the
Netherlands; and though the Puritan soldiers were guiltless of the
hideous licentiousness shown by the Spaniards, or by the armies of Tilly
and Wallenstein, yet the merciless butchery of the entire garrisons and
of all the priests—accompanied by the slaughter of other non-combatants,
in at least some cases—leave Drogheda and Wexford as black and terrible
stains on Cromwell’s character. Nor is there any justification for them
on the ground that they put a stop to resistance. The war lingered on
for two or three years in spite of them; and in any event the outcome
was inevitable. It does not seem to have been hastened in any way by
this display of savagery. There had been many such butcheries during the
war, before Cromwell came to Ireland, without in any way hastening the
end. Cromwell and his lieutenants put down the insurrection and
established order because they gained such sweeping victories, not
because Cromwell made merciless use of his first victories. It was the
fighting of the Puritan troops in the battle itself which won, and not
their ferocity after the battle; and it was Cromwell who not merely gave
free rein to this ferocity, but inspired it. Seemingly quarter would
have been freely given had it not been for his commands. Neither in
morals nor in policy were these slaughters justifiable. Moreover, it
must be remembered that the men slaughtered were entirely guiltless of
the original massacres in Ulster.
Immediately after Drogheda, Cromwell sent forces to Dundalk, which was
held by the Irish, and to Trim, which was held by the Scotch; but the
garrisons deserted both places at the approach of the Cromwellians. In
October, Cromwell himself advanced on Wexford and stormed the town. Very
little resistance was made, but some 2,000 of the defenders were put to
the sword. This time the soldiers needed no order with reference to
refusing quarter; they acted of their own accord, and many of the
townspeople suffered with the garrison. Practically, the town was
depopulated, not one in twenty of the inhabitants being left.
Then Cromwell moved to Ross. In spite of the slaughter which he made in
the towns he stormed, he exercised such strict discipline over his army
in the field, and paid with such rigid punctuality for all supplies
which the country people brought in, that they flocked to him as they
feared to do to their own armies, and in consequence his troops were
better fed and able to march more rapidly than was the case with the
Irish. He soon took Ross, allowing the garrison to march out with the
honors of war, and gave protection to the inhabitants. When asked to
guarantee freedom of religion he responded: “For that which you mention
concerning liberty of conscience, I meddle not with any man’s
conscience. But, if by liberty of conscience, you mean liberty to
exercise the mass, I judge it best to use plain dealing, and to let you
know, where the Parliament of England have power, that will not be
allowed of.”
[Illustration:
St. Lawrence’s Gate, Drogheda.
]
Three months after he landed, Cromwell had possession of almost all the
eastern coast. One of the remarkable features of his campaign had been
the way in which he had used the army and the fleet in combination. He
used his admirals just as he had used his generals and colonels, and
they played a very important part in the operations against Wexford and
Ross, and in securing the surrender of both. When he moved away from the
coast his task was very difficult; there were no roads, the country had
been harried into a wilderness, and was studded with castles and
fortified towns, every one held by an Irish garrison. Ormond and O’Neil
were in the field with a more numerous force than his; and though they
dared not fight a pitched battle, they threatened his detachments. The
service was very wearing, and in December Cromwell went into winter
quarters, the weather being bad, and his men decimated by fever. The
triumphs won by his terrible soldiership rendered the conquest of the
whole island only a question of time.
Having now a little leisure, Cromwell published, for the benefit of the
Irish, a “Declaration,” as an answer to a polemic issued in form of a
manifesto at Kilkenny by the high Irish ecclesiastics. In this
Declaration, which is very curious reading, he exhorted the Irish to
submit, and answered at great length the arguments of their religious
leaders, with all the zeal, ingenuity, and acrimony of an eager
theological disputant, and with an evident and burning sincerity to
which many theological disputants do not attain. The religious side of
his campaigns was always very strong in his mind, and no Puritan
preacher more dearly loved setting forth the justification of his
religious views, or answering the arguments of his religious opponents,
whether Catholics or Covenanters.
So far as Puritanism was based upon a literal following of the example
set in the Old Testament, it had a very dark, as well as a very exalted
side. To take the inhuman butcheries of the early Jews as grateful to
Jehovah, and therefore as justification for similar conduct by
Christians, could lead only to deeds of horror. When Cromwell wrote from
Cork, justifying the Puritan zeal which he admitted could not be
justified by “reason if called before a jury,” he appealed to the case
of Phineas, who was held to have done the work of the Lord, because he
thrust through the belly with his javelin the wretched Midianitish
woman. No such plea can be admitted on behalf of peoples who have passed
the stage of mere barbarism.
Drogheda and Wexford could not be excused by pointing out that the
priests of the Jews of old had held it grateful to the Lord to kill
without mercy the miserable women and children of the tribes whom the
Israelites drove from the land. Such a position was in accord with the
mediæval side of Cromwell’s character, but was utterly out of touch with
his thoroughly modern belief in justice and freedom for all men. Queer
contradictions appear in the above-mentioned “Declaration,” written, as
he phrased it, “For the undeceiving of deluded and seduced people.” He
showed that he was a leader in the modern movement for social,
political, and religious liberty, when he wrote: “Arbitrary power men
begin to grow weary of, in Kings and Churchmen; their juggle between
them mutually to uphold civil and ecclesiastical tyranny begins to be
transparent. Some have cast off _both_; and hope by the Grace of God to
keep so. Others are at it.” But when he came to reconcile his own
declarations for religious liberty with his previous refusal to permit
the celebration of the mass, he was forced into a purely technical
justification of his position. He announced that he would punish, with
all the severity of the law, priests “seducing the people, or, by any
overt act, violating the laws established,” but added: “As for the
people what thoughts they have in matters of religion in their own
breasts, I cannot reach; but shall think it my duty, if they walk
honestly and peaceably, not to cause them in the least to suffer for the
same.” In other words, Catholics could believe what they wished, but
were not allowed to profess their beliefs in the form that they desired,
or to have their teachers among them. To our American eyes such a
position is so wholly untenable, so shocking to the moral sense, that it
requires an effort to remember that it was in advance of the position
taken in the next century by the English toward the Irish through their
Penal Laws, and of the position taken in France toward the Protestants
during the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV. and all the reign of
Louis XV., while of course it was infinitely beyond the theory upon
which the temporal and spiritual authorities of Spain acted.
While the Irish campaign was at its height, the Scotch, who had declared
for Charles II., made ready for war, and the English Parliament demanded
Cromwell’s return. For some months, however, he remained in Ireland,
capturing Kilkenny and various other towns and castles and constantly
extending the area of English sway, driving the Irish westward. His
campaign was a model for all military operations undertaken in a
difficult country, covered by a network of fortified places, and held by
masses of guerillas or irregular levies, backed by the whole population.
After Clonmel was taken he handed over the command to Ireton; the heavy
work had been done, and what remained to do was tedious and harassing
rather than formidable, while the Scotch business could no longer wait.
In May, 1650, Cromwell landed in England, took his seat in the House of
Commons, and was made Captain-General and Commander-in-Chief of the
forces, Fairfax having refused to take part in any offensive campaign
against the Covenanters. It is recorded that when Cromwell entered
London, greeted by surging multitudes, someone called his attention to
the way the people turned out to do him honor for his triumph; whereupon
he dryly answered that it was nothing to the way they would turn out to
see him hanged.