Cromwell

by Antonia Fraser

  Sinnott however was an optimist. Wexford as a city lay the whole length of the harbour, and was surrounded by a town wall of exceptional strength – twenty-two foot high, and lined with ramparts of earth fifteen to twenty foot thick. There was a castle at the southern end of the town, just outside the wall. Moreover the ferry to the outside world to the north was still open, by which Sinnott hoped to receive further reinforcements from Ormonde, to make up for Cromwell’s vast numerical advantage. Therefore Cromwell’s first summons of 3 October, in the usual language “to the end effusion of blood may be prevented and the town and country about it preserved from ruin” met with a prevaricating response from Sinnott. He suggested a general cessation of hostilities. Cromwell would have none of this, calling for a more definite resolution by twelve noon, pointedly adding that in the prevailing filthy weather “our tents are not so good a covering as your houses …” However he did agree to send deputies to treat, so long as it was understood that they were to treat only of surrender. Sinnott’s answer was to demand “honourable terms” otherwise he would die honourably, and to suggest a further delay until eight the following morning. Cromwell’s reply to this was to unload his guns from the harbour.26

  But at this point Lord Castlehaven arrived with one thousand, five hundred horse via the ferry, to supplement Sinnott’s meagre resources. Although Sinnott was quick to deny to Cromwell that he had been delaying on purpose, awaiting just such a development, he did now ask for more time that Castlehaven too might consider the terms, and from the tone of Cromwell’s reply of 6 October, it is clear that he was becoming enraged by Sinnott’s obvious procrastination. Three days later, he moved his entire camp round to the south of the town, and positioned his great guns on the high ground which rose above it there, now called Cromwell’s Fort, dominating the panorama of water and buildings below. An outcrop of rocks, including one particularly imposing one known as the Trespan Rock, provided an excellent stable environment for a cannonade.* ( * Still to be seen today: much played on by children from the near-by housing estates.) Cromwell’s guns knocked some damaging holes in the structure of the castle lying at their mercy below them, at which, as Cromwell wrote later, “the Governor’s stomache came down”, and he began to negotiate once again. 27

  The appearance of Ormonde outside Wexford, sending another five hundred foot and one hundred horse into the beleaguered city brought yet another element into Sinnott’s calculations. According to a contemporary, Sinnott once more refused to surrender on any conditions (which this same witness believed had been his intention all along). But in the meantime, before the arrival of these fresh reinforcements, Sinnott had certainly suggested lavish terms for himself and the townsfolk, including the free exercise of the Catholic religion, the total evacuation of the garrison with all its equipment, and a general indemnity to the townspeople for their former actions (which no doubt covered the piracy). In reply Cromwell, while showing further annoyance with Sinnott’s presumption in expecting quite such glowing terms when he was in an undeniably inferior position, did offer some counter proposals. Soldiers and noncommissioned officers were to depart freely with what they stood up in, having sworn a promise not to bear arms against Parliament for life; commissioned officers would be given quarter, but retained as prisoners; as for the townsfolk, “I shall engage myself that no violence shall be offered to their goods, and that I shall protect the town from plunder.” These terms were in themselves generous by the standards of the time, and when he wrote them, Cromwell clearly meant them.28

  But at this point a surprising development took place, euphemistically described by Cromwell afterwards as “an unexpected Providence”. “What actually happened was that a Captain Stafford, in control of Wexford Castle and described as “a vain, idle young man, nothing practised in the art military”, either found his “stomache” even further down than that of Governor Sinnott or enjoyed being “fairly treated” by the Cromwellians. At all events, he took advantage of the negotiations for a treaty to betray the whole castle to Cromwell. As the castle abutted the town wall, and as the wall dominated that southern corner of the town, the Parliamentarians were presented with an unrivalled opportunity to swarm over and in after the contumacious inhabitants of Wexford. Cromwell at this point, it is clear from his own narrative which makes no attempt to gloss over what happened, was still studying how to make best use of the town itself, preserving it from plunder in order to use it as winter quarters.

  Let Cromwell tell the subsequent action in his own words.29 When his own men showed themselves at the top of the castle, the enemy immediately quitted the town walls, and started to flee. When the Parliamentarians saw this they,

  ran violently upon the town with their ladders, and stormed it. And when they were come into the market-place, the enemy making stiff resistance, our forces brake them, and then put all to the sword that came in their way. Two boatfuls of the enemy attempting to escape, being overprest with numbers sank, whereby were drowned near three hundred of them. I believe, in all, there was lost of the enemy not many less than two thousand; and I believe not twenty of yours killed from first to last of the siege.

  In these stark words, Cromwell recounted what was arguably a greater blot on his career as a General than Drogheda, where at least there had been the excuse of stiff resistance, a double rebuff and the deaths of Cromwellian officers. But Wexford took place not on his orders but despite them; his men ran amok, yet no effort was made to check them by Cromwell or anyone beneath him. For them it was enough to reflect afterwards on what the wicked Catholics of Wexford had recently achieved in the way of piracy, preying upon families, “as a result they were now made with their bloods to answer the cruelties which they had exercised upon divers poor Protestants”.

  Cromwell, who had not lost his appetite for Catholic atrocities, related two new ones “which I have been lately acquainted with”. In one tale, seven or eight Protestants were put to sea in a leaky vessel and drowned in the harbour; and in another some Protestants were deliberately starved to death in a chapel. Yet the Cromwell who related this horror story with pious disgust was the same man who had described the deaths of hundreds of Catholics without a qualm; the dichotomy in his attitude was total, his blindness to the equal human claims of the people he regarded as cruel barbarians absolute. It was God who had “brought a righteous judgement upon them [the inhabitants of Wexford] causing them to become a prey to the soldier …” His only expressed regret was that the soldiers, in plundering, inconveniently had gone so far as to destroy the town: “I could have wished for their own good, and the good of the garrison, they had been more moderate.” And his last words were especially revealing: Wexford was a fair city, “pleasantly seated and strong” with its ramparts, and its profitable fishing trade. As the former inhabitants had mainly run away or been killed, “it were to be wished that an honest people would come and plant here” to take advantage of the many excellent properties now empty.

  Many details of the sack of Wexford of course appeared afterwards to fill out Cromwell’s brief account. There is the evidence of the Bishop of Ferns, Dr Nicholas French, who heard of his sacristan-cum-gardener, a boy of sixteen, killed in the episcopal palace, of priests scourged and thrown into drains, his chaplain pierced six times and left to die in his own blood.30 Certainly at Wexford priests and friars were treated simply as enemy soldiers, soldiers in the uniform of a hated faith perhaps, and were butchered with the rest. In the general slaughter that took place at the Market Cross, to the north of the town, to which many wretched people had fled for refuge through the narrow streets, undoubtedly many women died. Even if the numbers have become exaggerated the fact is attested not only in the subsequent Irish accounts, but also in English tracts of the time; Heath in his biography of 1663 gave a terrible picture of two hundred women, many of them of high rank, asking for mercy “with the command of their charming eyes and those melting tears” – but it was denied to them.*31 ( * Today a plaque can be seen on the site, now
the Bull Ring, at “Wexford, commemorating the massacre in these words: “It is fitting that this plaque be erected here to commemorate the five Franciscan priests, two Franciscan brothers, and numerous citizens of this town, who were slaughtered by Oliver Cromwell on October n 1649.” The Franciscan church has an account of the massacre prominently displayed on its wall, and the names of seven Franciscan friars killed, some kneeling before die altar and others hearing confessions; two friars were called Sinnott and two the less glorious name of Stafford.) As to numbers, it seems likely that one thousand, five hundred actual inhabitants died, quite apart from the Irish soldiers, according to a petition made from Wexford after the Restoration.* ( * State Papers. Irish Series. Charles II. Vol. 307. No. 65. P.R.O: – “where among the rest the said governor lost his life and other of the soldiers, and inhabitants to the number of fifteen hundred persons.” It is wrongly calendared in the Irish State Papers to give the impression that a total of 1,500 died, but the original makes it clear.32)

  Yet the Catholic religion, while it brought death in its wake at Wexford on ii October 1649, brought also its own compensations. There were stories of sanctity in extremis, the rainbow after this storm of carnage: the blood of the priest staining his executioner which the man could never afterwards wash off; the dying monk whose cowl bullets could not penetrate; the English soldiers who having donned religious habits in mockery, went sick and died, haunted by their blasphemies; towards the end of the day, a beautiful woman was seen from a distance ascending into the sky, just over the spot where a number of religious had died.33

  Such consolatory tales presented an extraordinary contrast to the attitude of the Puritan attackers, and their future plans for Wexford. Hugh Peter wrote enthusiastically on 22 October that it was “a fine spot for some godly congregation, where house and land wait for inhabitants and occupiers… I wonder thousands do not come out of England to see this work, which I hope is the fulfilling of prophesies.”34 An English pamphlet on the subject, printed in London at the end of 1649, echoed Cromwell’s own words: “there was a wonderful providence seen in it, that when they were even on the brink to hear conditions, it should be so marvellously denied them.” Even the fact that Wexford was now totally unfit for winter quarters was seen in some way as another piece of Providence. Wallop, while admitting that the sack was contrary to intention and “incommodious to ourselves”, drew this conclusion from it: “And so we may conceive God had a further quarrel with them [the inhabitants of Wexford] than we had, and by him the issue was otherwise ordered”; it was thus the divine will they they should not use the town “for a winter retirement”.35 It was an attitude fully shared by Oliver Cromwell. He had not intended that Wexford should be sacked, and it is possible to make a case that Sinnott behaved with dangerous imprudence, considering his weak situation and the known disloyalty of many of his so-called supporters, in thus dragging out the negotiations. Yet once the deed was done, Cromwell’s hatred of the Irish, his conviction of their former iniquities, descended like a convenient mantle and covered it all with the embracing folds of “an expected providence”.

  * * *

  From Wexford, it was on westwards to New Ross – luckily the weather was temporarily improved – and here the summons with its now familiar references to “effusion of blood”, and Cromwell’s keen desire to avoid such an outcome, was passed by a trumpeter to the Governor, Sir Lucas Taaffe. The Parliamentary guns did get as far as some moderate play on the town, before Sir Lucas hastily announced that he intended to give in on honourable terms. And Cromwell, showing that he meant what he said about the advantages of surrender, did subsequently allow the soldiers to march away with arms, bag and baggage, while he guaranteed the inhabitants freedom “from the injury and violence of the soldiers”. However there was a delicate moment when Taaffe also asked for freedom of conscience for the people. Cromwell replied firmly: “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 a 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.”36 To latterday ears of course, Cromwell’s words have an ironic ring, since his boast of toleration so clearly had its limits. But it is only fair to point out that the irony would have been much less apparent at the time: the Catholic Mass was of course illegal in Ireland – as in England – so that Cromwell’s words were literally accurate. The distinction between freedom of thought and freedom of action, which immediately brought about a problem of the law and therefore of order, was a genuine one, in which Cromwell showed himself somewhat ahead of many of his contemporaries particularly in his later treatment of English Catholics under the Protectorate.

  Despite the “seasonable mercy” of Ross’s surrender, as Cromwell described it, happy at the good augury for the re-conquest of Munster, the Irish expedition was beginning to take its toll not only on his men, but on his own physique. At Ross he fell extremely sick, quite “crazy” in his health, as he described it in a letter from thence to Richard Mayor. It was quite possibly his first bout of the low malarial fever that was to plague him later.* ( * A form of malaria which was extremely common in the seventeenth century: it was not, however, a fatal disease, being of the benign tertiary variety.) Otherwise in this unusually melancholy epistle, Cromwell was full of gloom about his son Dick, who should be admonished by his fatherin-law “to mind the things of God more and more; alas, what profit is there in the things of this world; except they be enjoyed in Christ, they are snares”. The invalid even struck a querulous note about his usually beloved daughter-in-law Dorothy, who had failed to write to him: “As for Dick, I do not much expect it from him, knowing his idleness, but I am angry with my daughter as a promise-breaker. Pray tell her so; but I hope she will redeem herself.”37 (She did: by April Cromwell was asking Dick to thank her for “her loving letter”.) Yet for all such fancied family slights, the course of the Irish campaign was going extremely well. The death of the Irish leader Owen Roe O’Neill left the loyalty of his own forces in abeyance. The presence of Lord Broghill on Cromwell’s side was at the same time having its expected salutary effect on Munster.

  During October the garrison at Cork revolted by night against the confederates; the Governor, Sir Robert Starling, awoke in the morning to find that he had lost his command, or as it was put with Irish wit at the time “one may truly say he was caught napping”. An English Royalist lady, Ann Fanshawe, recounted in her memoirs how she heard from her bed the lamentable shrieks of the Irish as “stripped and wounded” they were turned out of the town. Sending a warning to her husband who was at near-by Kinsale, she packed hastily; obtaining at 3.00 a.m. a pass from a friend in reward for past kindnesses, she was able to steal out of Cork at 5.00, together with her children, in a cart belonging to a neighbour. Cork was merely the first step in the Parliamentary possession of the valuable Munster garrisons. Even Lord Inchiquin started to make overtures, with a view to establishing his own immunity. At the beginning of November Youghal also revolted successfully, and Capperquin, Mallow and other neighbouring garrisons soon fell into line. Nor were these revolutions of allegiance quite as drastic as they seemed: many of the strongholds had been on the side of Parliament in the early stages of the Irish Civil War, and had only turned to the Royalist confederation in 1648. When Cromwell wrote back to England, giving an account of the course of events, and asking for additional supplies, he felt able to add: “through the same blessed Presence that hath gone along with us, I hope, before it be long, to see Ireland no burden to England, but a profitable part of its Commonwealth.”38

  However it was comparatively late in November before a recovered Cromwell felt able to leave Ross and march on towards Waterford. The fort named Passage, which guarded the harbour, was quickly taken by his dragoons, and here once more Cromwell expected a quick pacific victory. However the weather was once more appalling and sickness was cutting through the ra
nks of his men at a fearful rate, a figure as high as a thousand being mentioned for the deaths, including that veteran of the New Model, Colonel Horton, and the Lord-Lieutenant’s own cousin, another Oliver Cromwell, son of his uncle Sir Philip. “Thus you see how God mingles out the cup unto us,” was Cromwell’s own comment on these sorrows. Under the circumstances, it was thought politic to abandon Waterford, still unrelenting, and on 2 December proceed on towards Dungarvan, “it being,” wrote Cromwell, “so terrible a day as I never marched in all my life”.39 Finally the easeful seaside town of Youghal was reached, some twenty miles east of Cork; the army, astonishingly late in the season, was at last allowed to relax into its winter quarters.

  Here at Youghal Sir Walter Raleigh had once dreamed of other worlds and read the Faerie Queen under his walnut tree. Here now Michael Jones, hero of Rathmines, died of the prevailing sickness; despite vicious rumours that Cromwell had poisoned him out of jealousy and that Jones had denounced Cromwell with his dying breath, it was the Lord-Lieutenant who pronounced the funeral oration at St Mary’s Church, and paid him a touching tribute in his letter afterwards. Cromwell himself lodged in St John’s Priory, a modest fourteenth-century building in the narrow main street.* ( * Still to be seen and marked by a plaque, although now an electrical shop.) However his winter retreat was destined to be of exceptionally short duration. In the course of it he left Youghal for Cork, where he was agreeably entertained, going on to Kinsale, as well as making a further plunge into the extreme south-west. At Kinsale a characteristic story was told of Cromwell presenting the keys to a certain Colonel Slubber, despite stories that he was not strict in his religious observance. To this Cromwell replied, in terms reminiscent of his early defence of the Anabaptists: “Maybe not, but as he is a soldier, he has honour, and therefore we will let his religion alone this time.”40