CHAPTER XI.

CROMWELL IN IRELAND.

UT it has

BUT

been said that there is one place where we dare not follow him-Ireland. Let

us see.

The Irish Roman Catholics had broken out in rebellion, and had massacred (according to various accounts) from fifty thousand to two hundred thousand victims. This was the Hibernian St. Bartholomew. The Irish, indeed, at this time determined on erasing every vestige of the English name from their country.

This great insurrection had broken out in 1640; it was not until after a long succession of murders, pillages, wild conflagrations, and excommunications that Cromwell was called upon by the Parliament, in 1649, to go there as Lord-Lieutenant, to attempt what really must be a difficult conquest. Guizot says, "The Protestants of Ireland had been ejected from their houses, hunted down, slaughtered, and exposed to all the tortures that religious and patriotic hatred could invent; a half-savage people, passionately attached to their barbarism, eager to avenge, in a day, ages of outrage and misery, with a proud joy committed excesses which struck their ancient mas

ters with horror and dismay." And, in fact, Cromwell undertook the task with great reluctance, and probably foresaw that there would be terrible reprisals.

"In fact," writes Merle D'Aubigné, "the Catholics burnt the houses of the Protestants, turned them out naked in the midst of winter, and drove them, like herds of swine, before them. If, ashamed of their nudity, and desirous of seeking shelter from the rigour of a remarkably severe season, these unhappy wretches took refuge in a barn, and concealed themselves under the straw, the rebels instantly set fire to it and burned them alive. At other times they were led without clothing to be drowned in rivers; and if, on the road, they did not move quick enough, they were urged forward at the point of the pike. When they reached the river or the sea, they were precipitated into it, in bands of several hundreds, which is doubtless an exaggeration. If these poor wretches arose to the surface of the water, men were stationed along the brink to plunge them in again with the butts of their muskets, or to fire at and kill them. Husbands were cut to pieces in the presence of their wives; wives and virgins were abused in the sight of their nearest relations; and infants of seven or eight years were hung before the eyes of their parents. Nay, the Irish even went so far as to teach their own children to strip and kill the children of the English, and dash out their brains against the stones. Numbers of Protestants were buried alive, as many as

seventy in one trench. An Irish priest, named MacOdeghan, captured forty or fifty Protestants, and persuaded them to abjure their religion on a promise of quarter. After their abjuration, he asked them if they believed that Christ was bodily present in the Host, and that the Pope was head of the Church? and on their replying in the affirmative, he said, 'Now, then, you are in a very good faith!' and, for fear they should relapse into heresy, he cut all their throats."

Let these facts always be borne in mind when we look on Cromwell in Ireland.

This rebellion, which broke out in 1640, had through the necessity of the times been much neglected till 1649. The Parliament, indeed, had long before got possession of Dublin, which was delivered up to them by the Marquis of Ormond, who was then obliged to come over to England. But being recalled by the Irish, Ormond made a league with. them in favour of the king, and brought over most of the kingdom into a union with the Royalists. Londonderry and Dublin were the only places that held out for the Parliament, and the latter was in great danger of being lost. This compelled Colonel Jones, the Governor, to send over to England for succour; and a considerable body of forces was thereupon ordered for Ireland. The command of these was offered to Cromwell, who accepted it with. seeming reluctance; professing "that the difficulty which appeared in the expedition, was his chief

motive for engaging in it; and that he hardly expected to prevail over the rebels, but only to preserve to the Commonwealth some footing in that kingdom."

The Parliament was so pleased with his answer, that, on the 22nd of June, 1649, it gave him a commission to command all the forces that should be sent into Ireland, and to be Lord-Governor of that kingdom for three years, in all affairs both civil and military. From the very minute of his receiving this charge, Cromwell used an incredible expedition in the raising of money, providing of shipping, and drawing the forces together for their intended enterprise. The soldiery marched with great speed to the rendezvous at Milford Haven, there to expect the new Lord-Deputy, who followed them from London on the 10th of July. His setting out was very pompous, being drawn in a coach with six horses, and attended by many members of the Parliament and Council of State, with the chief of the army; his life-guard, consisting of eighty men who had formerly been commanders, all bravely mounted and accoutred, both they and their servants.

He was received with extraordinary honours at Bristol. Thence he went to Wales, and embarked for Ireland from the lovely and magnificent haven of Milford, and at last arrived in Dublin. Reviewing his army of twelve thousand men-apparently a small army, indeed, for such a work!-there, he advanced to Drogheda, or Tredagh, which he took

by storm. His advance through the country was a continued triumph, a repetition of the same wonderful career which closed the war with Charles in England. The taking of Tredagh was a feat of extraordinary strength; so much so, that the brave O'Neal swore a great oath, "That if Cromwell had taken Tredagh, if he could storm hell, he would take it also!" Terrible also was the contest of Clonmell, before which Cromwell sat down with the resolution of fighting and of conquest.

Many persons were here taken, and among them the celebrated fighting Bishop of Ross, who was carried to a castle kept by his own forces, and there hanged before the walls, in sight of the garrison ; which so discouraged them that they immediately surrendered to the Parliament's forces. This bishop was used to say, "There was no way of curing the English, but by hanging them."

For all this tremendous havoc, the most terrible oath an Irishman knows to the present day is "The curse of Cromwell!" And the massacres and the besiegements are ever called in to blacken the great general's memory by writers, for instance, like Clarendon. And what did Cromwell do first? All husbandmen, and labourers, ploughmen, artificers, and others of the meaner sort of the Irish nation, were to be exempted from question in reference to the eight years of blood and misery, now ended. As to the ringleaders, indeed, and those who could be proved to be really concerned in the massacre of