Cromwell

by Antonia Fraser

  Despite his vicissitudes of personal health, Cromwell’s sense of purpose in Ireland remained as strong as ever, and to his original intention to defeat the Catholic powers, was now added a new care for the actual population, whom he somehow divided off in his mind from his enemies. At the end of November, in writing to Parliament, he had produced the weakened health of the army as yet another instance of divine guidance: because the divided Irish had failed to take advantage of it. “Sir, what can be said to these things?” he observed of the Parliamentary victories. “Is it an arm of flesh that doth these things? Is it the wisdom, and counsel or strength of men? It is the Lord only … Sir, you see the work is done by divine leading … I tell you, a considerable part of your army is fitter for an hospital than the field; if the enemy did not know it, I should have held it impolitic to have writ it. They know it, yet they know not what to do.” But writing to his friend John Sadler during the winter, to persuade him to become Chief Justice of Munster, he described the ordinary Irish people as being “very greedy to hear the Word”, and flocking to “Christian” meetings – “a sweet symptom, if not an earnest of the good we expect”. Cromwell expresed himself as eager to take the place of the dissolved former authority in this anarchistic land, which God was busy delivering into their hands, and urged Sadler to join him in the good work: “Sir, it seems to me we have a great opportunity to set up, until the Parliament shall otherwise determine, a way of doing justice among these poor people.”41

  Such sentiments were in conspicuous contrast to Cromwell’s feelings towards the Irish clergy, who at the Convention of Clacmanoise on 4 December had proclaimed a kind of holy war of their own against the English. The gesture had already brought its own disadvantages among the Irish themselves, since the Anglo-Irish body of Protestant Royalists were much put off by it. Cromwell however countered with a blistering Declaration on 14 January, which however it is read, cannot amount to less than an expression of total hatred for one way of life; its more violent phrases go further and point to something nearer paranoia on the part of Cromwell towards the Roman Catholic clergy.42 Their declared aim had been towards union. To this Cromwell answered:

  By the grace of God, we fear not, we care not for union. Your covenant was with death and hell.. . You say your union is against a cornmon enemy; and to this, if you will be talking of union, I will give you some wormwood to bite on, by which it will appear God is not with you. Who is it that created this common enemy? I suppose you mean Englishmen. The English! Remember, ye hypocrites, Ireland was once united to England. Englishmen had good inheritances, which many of them purchased with their money; they or their ancestors, from many of you and your ancestors… They lived peaceably and honestly amongst you … You broke this union! You, unprovoked, put the English to the most unheard-of and most barbarous massacre (without respect of sex or age) that ever the sun beheld. And at a time when Ireland was in perfect peace, and when, through the example of the English industry, through commerce and traffic, that which was in the natives’ hands was better to them than if all Ireland had been in their possession and not an Englishman in it … What think you by this time, is not my assertion true? Is God, will God be, with you? I am confident he will not.

  And from this amazing start, which one must at least believe to be a sincere expression of the attitude of England to Ireland in the seventeenth century, Cromwell proceeded to denounce the Roman Catholic religion in language of even greater violence. It was the priests who were “the intruders” in Ireland, the “violators of the known laws” with their Mass. And as for the charge that the English army had only crossed the sea to claim Irish lands:

  No, I can give you a better reason for the army’s coming over than this. England hath experience of the blessing of God in prosecuting just and righteous causes, whatever the cost and hazard be. And if ever men were engaged in a righteous cause in the world, this will be scarce a second to it. We are come to ask an account of the innocent blood that hath been shed … We come to break the power of a company of lawless rebels… We come (by the assistance of God) to hold forth and maintain the lustre and glory of English liberty in a nation where we have an undoubted right to do it…

  Yet even here, in this gale of passion, it must be noted that Cromwell preserved the distinction between the ordinary people and the priests; at least the former were to benefit from Cromwell’s own brand of belief in personal tolerance, “what thoughts they have in matters of religion in their own breasts I cannot reach; but think it my duty, if they walk honestly and peaceably not to cause them in the least to suffer in the same.” As at Ross earlier, the emphasis for them was on civil order not on private conformity.

  By 29 January Cromwell was ready to take the field again, and since he wrote to Parliament that regiments which had lately marched but four hundred men were now mustering eight or nine hundred, we must assume that the sick were now on their way to health. His next objective was to expunge Ormonde’s influence from the rich Munster inlands in a series of castle-cropping operations in the golden vale to the east of Tipperary; here the castles of Cahir, Cashel, Fethard and Clonmel formed a kind of square, averaging about a dozen miles apart, over the Comeragh mountains from Cork. There were some relaxed moments during the campaign which with its adjacent castles and rivers, its marching soldiers and generals, took on the character of a chess game. Newcastle, the seat of the Prendergasts, was saved from destruction by surrender, on condition that it was no longer fortified, and some Parliamentary soldiers were left behind to supervise the removal of the armaments. Suddenly the pack of buckhounds belonging to the owner gave tongue; the retreating army hurried back, under the impression that their own soldiers were being attacked and yelping for help. In the end dogs and owner had to be taken before Cromwell to convince him of the innocent truth. Cromwell, only too pleased no doubt to ameliorate the conditions of his Irish stay with his favourite outdoor pursuit, proceeded to have some excellent sport with the pack, and as Protector, wrote a personal note that this same Prendergast should not be transplanted.43

  All in all, those fortresses which showed the wisdom of surrender, received the promised reward of mercy. Fethard’s agreement, for example, contained a crucial clause protecting the inhabitants from the plunder of their estates and property from that time forth, and five years later when Cromwell was Protector, they successfully petitioned him against transplantation “under the shelter of your gracious annexed concessions”. The result was a note signed Oliver P: “Our will and pleasure is that the Articles granted by Us to the Inhabitants of the Towne of Fethard in Ireland, be well and truly observed and performed in all things, according to the true intention and meaning of them.” And the lives of the clergy were spared. Cahir, a particularly imposing castle on the river Suir, did put up some resistance. Cromwell in his account of it to Parliament could not resist pointing out that it was a stronghold which had taken the Earl of Essex in the days of Elizabeth eight weeks to besiege, but was now theirs without loss of a man. Even so Cahir’s terms were generous and the clergy were spared. There is a tradition that Cromwell observed, standing on a hill: “This, indeed, is a country well worth fighting for”, and although the story is also told of William of Orange, it is easy to see how he might have been seduced by the dulcet beauty of the Tipperary plains, stretched out round the Rock of Cashel like a green sea; the story also gains plausibility from the fact that Cromwell set aside a good deal of Tipperary for himself, rather than the Adventurers or the soldiers.44

  Having joined up once more with Ireton, Cromwell now turned to Kilkenny, north of Callan, where the magnificent castle of the Ormonde family dominated the rocky town; it was a palace, wrote a Frenchman of the period, to rival some of the palaces of Italy with its marble fitments. Cromwell had high hopes of securing Kilkenny without striking a blow, particularly since a certain Tickle was expected to betray it to him. He arrived without siege materials. But Tickle was routed out by the Governor, Sir Walter Butler, and the subsequent negotia
tions for surrender were long and for a time fruitless, since first of all the castle was “exceeding well fortified by the industry of the enemy” and would cost much “blood and time” to take, and then the Governor expressed his intention of dying with his whole garrison rather than submit.

  For all Butler’s obduracy, Cromwell in a rational mood was a very different fellow from Cromwell in anger. The first assault of his army was uncharacteristically weak, and Butler did not finally propose terms until a second storm had begun. Although Cromwell understandably refused to allow Butler the same favourable terms as the previous towns (which Butler demanded) he did suggest a compromise scheme which protected the townsfolk from the natural effects of a sack. The soldiers having been promised the right of plunder if they took Kilkenny by storm, Cromwell, pointing out that the townsfolk had Butler to blame for their predicament, asked them to pay in lieu Ł2,000 “as a gratuity to his Excellency’s Army”. Even so, Butler’s men were allowed to march away free with drums beating and colours flying; and of their forfeited arms, they were allowed to keep at least one hundred muskets and one hundred pikes to defend themselves against the Tories – those Irish brigands who were now pillaging all-comers.45

  The season was now advanced into April, and Cromwell, as he himself admitted, was well aware that his presence was beginning to be urgently required back in England. As early as n January, the Speaker of the House of Commons had been ordered to write to him to confer about Ireland and the settlement of the civil government there, since the Scottish situation was rapidly getting out of hand. But in his report on Kilkenny back to Parliament, Cromwell only referred to “divers private intimations”. Without an official request from the Speaker, he decided it would have been “too much forwardness” in him to have left his Irish charge. As a reply, it showed Nelsonian overtones of turning a blind eye to orders and need not be taken quite at its face value. Cromwell certainly knew of the official desire for his return even if a proper request had not reached him. As a professional soldier however he was anxious not to leave Ireland until the campaign was to all intents and purposes concluded. By now only Clonmel, Waterford and Limerick remained of strongholds to the Royalist cause, and it was to Clonmel that he proceeded to turn his attention. Already he had the encouraging news that the Royalist confederation itself was melting away in the unhappy atmosphere after Clacmanoise, and negotiations were put in hand for the disbandment of the Royalist army in Ireland, on condition that the soldiers should find their way abroad. On 26 April Articles for the Protestant Party in Ireland were signed by Cromwell at Carrick; although both Ormonde and Inchiquin refused to allow themselves to be personally included in them, Cromwell at least did his best to press safe-conducts upon them, having much to gain from their disappearance abroad. In the end only Lady Ormonde accepted an official pass from the Lord-Lieutenant, who allowed her, her family and her household to leave by ship.

  At Clonmel, another town flanked by the meandering Suir, Cromwell found Hugh O’Neill. Sometimes called by the Irish buidhe or swarthy, he was the nephew of Owen Roe O’Neill by his elder brother Art Oge; he had been born in the Spanish Netherlands and served in the Spanish army. With twelve hundred men, O’Neill had been installed at Clonrnel since February. By the end of April the Cromwellian guns were engaged in their now familiar bombardment upon Irish stone. But in Hugh O’Neill Cromwell had met a wily adversary, one who was neither pusillanimous nor lacking in initiative. O’Neill’s first move was to have huge fortifications of stones piled up within the town walls, forming lanes behind which he placed his guns. As a result, Cromwell’s first attempt at a storm, accompanied as it was by some fervent hymn-singing, was nevertheless an unrelieved disaster. His men found themselves caught in a peculiarly unpleasant trap. The leaders, when they realized the truth, were quick to cry out: “Halt! Halt!”, but as in the Lays of Ancient Rome when those behind cried forward and those in front cried back, the followers were too busy screaming “Advance! Advance!” to heed. The outcome was a massacre. Some estimates of the dead even went over two thousand. Cromwell, waiting vainly at the main gate to be admitted, was said by a soldier eye-witness to have been as vexed “as ever he was since he first put on a helmet against the King, for he was not used to being thus repulsed”. He insisted on a further assault being carried out, but this time, although his men penetrated the town, hundreds more were slain by the skilful defenders. It was necessary to retreat.

  Of course O’Neill knew that with his inferior numbers and lack of powder such a recoil could only be temporary. Having behaved himself, according to Sir Lewis Dyve, both “discreetly and gallantly” in defence of the town, he decided to escape with all his men in the middle of the night, leaving the Mayor of the town free to treat for terms in the morning. Thus when Cromwell finally entered Clonmel, having granted the usual moderate terms to the Mayor, it was only to find that the armed birds were flown. Cromwell was said to have been furious and turned on the Mayor: “You knave, you served me so, and did not tell me so before?” “Had his Excellency enquired,” replied the Mayor smoothly, “he would have told him before.” As to the treaty of surrender he reminded Cromwell that he had his reputation for keeping his promises in these respects. Cromwell calmed down. He also kept to the terms. But he did think it worth enquiring what sort of man O’Neill was. The Mayor told Cromwell that he was “an oversea soldier born in Spain”. This provoked another explosion from the General – “God damn you and your oversea”- and a threat to pursue O’Neill and destroy him?46 The sprightly O’Neill however continued to elude Cromwell’s vengeance. Later he held Limerick against Ireton, and when that too finally surrendered in 1651, pleaded Spanish nationality with success to escape the death sentence. Imprisoned in the Tower, he was released on the intercession of the Spanish King, and died peacefully in Spain. He deserved his survival for his unique feat in outwitting old Ironsides.

  Altogether Clonmel – from Cromwell’s point of view – was a sorry affair. For his military reputation, it must rank with the second battle of Newbury (where of course he was not holding supreme command) as one of his very few rebuffs. One could plead that although he had mastered the rules in the West Country in 1645 Cromwell had never been a great sieger, relying more for his effects on daring and surprise. When he met daring and surprise on the other side in the shape of Hugh O’Neill, the odds were by no means so loaded in his favour. Indeed, militarily speaking, Cromwell’s real triumph in Ireland was to have succeeded in mounting such an exceptionally well-paid, well-equipped and well-trained force, the like of which had hardly been seen in that country before. With guns “like sons of Mars” as a contemporary wrote,47 it was no wonder that so many Irish castles crumbled to his touch. Otherwise Ireland did not provide him with victories, no new stars to join the great constellation already formed by Marston Moor, Naseby and Preston.

  By now however Cromwell’s days in Ireland were numbered in earnest. On 9 April the Council of State had despatched a message ordering him to return forthwith, and the new frigate President, built on the orders of the Admiralty Committee the preceding autumn, was sent to bring him back. By 13 May horses were being ordered up to await the conqueror’s returnxat either Barnstaple or Bristol. Although Cromwell proceeded south once more, and paused briefly before obstinate Waterford, a further letter from the Council outlining important matters ahead of him at home, clinched the matter of his return. Leaving Ireland to the cares of Henry Ireton, Cromwell left Youghal for England by the harbour beyond its mediaeval walls on 26 May. The Irish venture was over. He had been in Ireland for nine months and fourteen days.

  But the mud of his Irish reputation was not so easily shaken off. It was not that Cromwell did worse than some conquerors. Cromwell was no Macbeth. He did not feel so far in blood imbued after Drogheda and Wexford that nothing remained to him but to plunge in it still further. As has been seen, his subsequent terms for surrender were mild, and his actual pardons to priests and friars contrasted strangely with the vicious words in
which he denounced the Roman Catholic clergy generally in his Declaration. But Cromwell fought a dangerous opponent: the folk memory of a tenacious, doughty, romantic, bellicose people – the people of Ireland. It was this force, mightier even than the godly Ironsides, which would quarry down Cromwell’s memory in the future as relentlessly as those priests were hunted down at Drogheda and Wexford. Some of the Irish stories about Cromwell are predictably fey and strange;* ( * Lady Gregory’s Kiltartan History Book cites four, of which the most appropriate is actually entitled A Worse Than Cromwell and concerns drink: “Cromwell was very bad but the drink is worse. For a good many that Cromwell killed should go to heaven, but those that are drunken never see heaven.”) his name is latched on to improbable fairy tales; he becomes an English cobbler who rose to become King of all Ireland and whose body is put into the sea in three coffins at his death at a point where three seas meet; in other stories the King of France’s son courts his daughter.* ( * The general impression presented by the legends collected at the Irish Folklore cornmission in their file on CROMAIL is, perhaps surprisingly, more one of great power than of great evil. It is also noteworthy, if less surprising, how few of the stories could possibly ever have had any foundation in fact.) Then of course there are the inevitable stories of iconoclasm, as in England, and as in England a considerable proportion apply to places Cromwell did not actually visit. The rhyme recited concerning one castle: “Oliver Cromwell, he did it pommel” may stand for a whole series of tall tales by aspiring guides.48 What is true however is that “the Curse of Cromwell” remains a prodigious oath on the lips of Catholic Ireland, and may never be forgotten.