Chapter 30

Cromwell arrives in Ireland--He marches to Drogheda--Cruel Massacre of the Inhabitants after promise of Quarter--Account of an Eyewitness--Brutality of the Cromwellian Soldiers--Ladies are not spared--Cromwell's Letters--He boasts of his Cruelties--Massacre and Treachery at Drogheda--Brave Resistance at Clonmel--Charles II. arrives in Scotland--The Duplicity of his Conduct towards the Irish--Siege of Limerick--Ireton's Cruelties and Miserable Death--The Banishment to Connaught--The Irish are sold as Slaves to Barbadoes--General Desolation and Misery of the People.

[A.D. 1649-1655.]

Cromwell was now master of England, and ruled with all that authority which is so freely granted to a revolutionary leader, and so often denied to a lawful monarch. The great body of the English stood aghast with horror when they discovered that regicide, and the substitution of an illegal tyranny for one which at least was legal, was the end of all their hopes. The new ruler was aware of the precariousness of his position. The safety of his head, as well as the continuance of his power, depended on the caprice of the multitude; and he saw that the sword alone could maintain him in the elevated position to which he had risen, and the still more elevated position to which he aspired. We scarcely imagine him to have been more religious or less humane than many of his contemporaries, though it is evident that he required a great show of the kind of religion then fashionable to support his character as a reformer, and that he considered himself obliged to exercise wholesale cruelties to consolidate his power.

The rightful heir to the English throne was then at the Hague, uncertain how to act and whither he should turn his steps. He wished to visit Ireland, where he would have been received with enthusiastic loyalty by the Catholics; but Ormonde persuaded him, from sinister motives, to defer his intention. Ormonde and Inchiquin now took the field together. The former advanced to Dublin, and the latter to Drogheda. This town was held by a Parliamentary garrison, who capitulated on honorable terms. Monck and Owen O'Neill, in the meantime, were acting in concert, and Inchiquin captured supplies which the English General was sending to the Irish chief. Newry, Dundalk, and the often-disputed and famous Castle of Trim[483] surrendered to him, and he marched back to Ormonde in triumph. As there appeared no hope of reducing Dublin except by famine, it was regularly blockaded; and the Earl wrote to Charles to inform him that his men were so loyal, he could "persuade half his army to starve outright for his Majesty."

Ormonde now moved his camp from Finglas to Rathmines, and at the same time reinforcements arrived for the garrison, under the command of Colonels Reynolds and Venables. The besiegers made an attempt to guard the river, and for this purpose, Major-General Purcell was sent to take possession of the ruined Castle of Bagotrath, about a mile from the camp. Ormonde professed to have expected an attack during the night, and kept his men under arms; but just as he had retired to rest, an alarm was given. Colonel Jones had made a sortie from the city; the sortie became for a brief moment an engagement, and ended in a total rout. The Earl was suspected; and whether he had been guilty of treachery or of carelessness, he lost his credit, and soon after left the kingdom.

Cromwell had been made Lieutenant-General of the English army in Ireland, but as yet he had been unable to take the command in person. His position was precarious; and he wished to secure his influence still more firmly in his own country, before he attempted the conquest of another. He had succeeded so far in the accomplishment of his plans that his departure and his journey to Bristol were undertaken in royal style. He left the metropolis early in June, in a coach drawn by six gallant Flanders' mares, and concluded his progress at Milford Haven, where he embarked, reaching Ireland on the 14th of August, 1649. He was attended by some of the most famous of the Parliamentary Generals--his son, Henry, the future Lord Deputy; Monk, Blake, Ireton, Waller, Ludlow and others. He brought with him, for the propagation of the Gospel and the Commonwealth, £200,000 in money, eight regiments of foot, six of horse, several troops of dragoons, a large supply of Bibles,[484] and a corresponding provision of ammunition and scythes. The Bibles were to be distributed amongst his soldiers, and to be given to the poor unfortunate natives, who could not understand a word of their contents. The scythes and sickles were to deprive them of all means of living, and to preach a ghastly commentary on the conduct of the men who wished to convert them to the new Gospel, which certainly was not one of peace. Cromwell now issued two proclamations: one against intemperance, for he knew well the work that was before him, and he could not afford to have a single drunken soldier in his camp. The other proclamation prohibited plundering the country people: it was scarcely less prudent. His soldiers might any day become his masters, if they were not kept under strict control; and there are few things which so effectually lessen military discipline as permission to plunder: he also wished to encourage the country people to bring in provisions. His arrangements all succeeded.

Ormonde had garrisoned Drogheda with 3,000 of his choicest troops. They were partly English, and were commanded by a brave loyalist, Sir Arthur Aston. This was really the most important town in Ireland; and Cromwell, whose skill as a military general cannot be disputed, at once determined to lay siege to it. He encamped before the devoted city on the 2nd of September, and in a few days had his siege guns posted on the hill shown in the accompanying illustration, and still known as Cromwell's Fort. Two breaches were made on the 10th, and he sent in his storming parties about five o'clock in the evening. Earthworks had been thrown up inside and the garrison resisted with undiminished bravery. The besieged at last wavered; quarter[485] was promised to them, and they yielded; but the promise came from men who knew neither how to keep faith or to show mercy. The brave Governor, Sir Arthur Aston, retired with his staff to an old mill on an eminence, but they were disarmed and slain in cold blood. The officers and soldiers were first exterminated, and then men, women, and children were put to the sword. The butchery occupied five entire days; Cromwell has himself described the scene, and glories in his cruelty. Another eyewitness, an officer in his army, has described it also, but with some faint touch of remorse.

Several of the leading gentry of Limerick were also executed; and the traitor Fennell met the reward of his treachery, and was also hanged. Hugh O'Neill was saved through the remonstrances of some of the Parliamentary officers, who had the spirit to appreciate his valour and his honorable dealing.

Ludlow now took the command, and marched to assist Coote, who was besieging Galway. This town surrendered on the 12th of May, 1652. The few Irish officers who still held out against the Parliament, made the best terms they could for themselves individually; and there was a brief peace, the precursor of yet more terrible storms.

I have already given such fearful accounts of the miseries to which the Irish were reduced by confiscations, fines, and war, that it seems useless to add fresh details; yet, fearful as are the records given by Spenser of 1580, when neither the lowing of a cow nor the voice of a herdsman could be heard from Dunquin, in Kerry, to Cashel, in Munster, there seems to have been a deeper depth of misery after Cromwell's massacres. In 1653 the English themselves were nearly starving, even in Dublin; and cattle had to be imported from Wales. There was no tillage, and a licence was required to kill lamb.[490] The Irish had fled into the mountains, the only refuge left to them now; and the Parliamentary officers were obliged to issue proclamations inviting their return, and promising them safety and protection. But the grand object of the revolutionary party was still to carry out the wild scheme of unpeopling Ireland of the Irish, and planting it anew with English--a scheme which had been so often attempted, and had so signally failed, that one marvels how it could again have been brought forward. Still there were always adventurers ready to fight for other men's lands, and subjects who might be troublesome at home, whom it was found desirable to occupy in some way abroad. But a grand effort was made now to get rid of as many Irishmen as possible in a peaceable manner. The valour of the Irish soldier was well known abroad;[491] and agents from the King of Spain, the King of Poland, and the Prince de Condé, were contending for those brave fellows, who were treated like slaves in their native land; and then, if they dared resist, branded with the foul name of rebels. If a keen had rung out loud and long when O'Donnell left his native land never to return, well might it ring out now yet more wildly. In May, 1652, Don Ricardo White shipped 7,000 men for the King of Spain; in September, Colonel Mayo collected 3,000 more; Lord Muskerry took 5,000 to Poland; and, in 1654, Colonel Dwyer went to serve the Prince de Condé with 3,500 men. Other officers looked up the men who had served under them, and expatriated themselves in smaller parties; so that, between 1651 and 1654, 34,000 Irishmen had left their native land; and few, indeed, ever returned to its desolate shores.

But their lot was merciful compared with the fate of those who still remained. In 1653 Ireland was considered sufficiently depopulated by war and emigration to admit of a commencement of the grand planting. The country was again portioned out; again the ruling powers selected the best portion of the land for themselves and their favourites; again the religion of the country was reformed, and Protestant prelates were condemned as loudly, though they were not hunted as unmercifully, as Popish priests; again the wild and lawless adventurer was sent to eject the old proprietor, who might starve or beg while the intruder held his lands, and sheltered himself in his mansion, while a new cruelty was enacted, a new terror devised, a new iniquity framed, and this by rulers who talked so loudly of political and religious liberty. It was not convenient, more probably, it was not possible, to massacre all the native population who still survived; so they were to be banished--banished to a corner of their own land, imprisoned there safely by their ruthless conquerors, and there, without hope or help, it was supposed they must soon die out quietly.

This is the official proclamation which was issued on the subject: "The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, having, by an Act lately passed (entitled an Act for the Settling of Ireland), declared that it is not their intention to extirpate this whole nation ... it is ordered that the Governor and Commissioners of Revenue ... do cause the said Act of Parliament, with this present declaration, to be published and proclaimed in their respective precincts, by beat of drum and sound of trumpet, on some market-day within ten days after the same shall come unto them within their respective precincts."

We may imagine the dismay and anguish which this announcement caused. The old Irish chieftain and the Anglo-Irish lord still had some kind of home and shelter on their own estate--it might be but an outhouse or a barn; it was certainly on the worst and least cultivated portion of their land, for the old castle had long since been taken from them, and their broad acres transferred to others. Yet, though they tilled the soil of which they so lately had been the lords, this little spot was home: there the wife and mother loved her little ones as tenderly as in the stately halls which her husband or his fathers had so lately possessed. It was home, and if not the dear old home, it was, perhaps, loved all the more for its sorrowful proximity to the ancestral castle--for the faint hope that the rightful owner might still be restored. But the trumpet had sounded the nation's doom. Confiscation and banishment, wholesale plunder and untold iniquity, reigned supreme. The name of the God of justice was invoked to sanction[492] the grossest outrages upon justice; and men who professed to have freed their own nation from the tyranny of kingcraft and of Popery, perpetrated a tyranny on another nation, which has made the name of their leader a byword and a curse.

The majority of the Catholic nobility and gentry were banished; the remainder of the nation, thus more than decimated, were sent to Connaught. On the 26th of September, 1653, all the property of the Irish people was declared to belong to the English army and adventurers, "and it was announced that the Parliament had assigned Connaught [America was not then accessible] for the habitation of the Irish nation, whither they must transplant, with their wives, and daughters, and children, before 1st May following, under the penalty of death, if found on this side of the Shannon after that day."[493] It must not be supposed that this death penalty was a mere threat; I shall give instances to prove the contrary. Any man, woman, or child who had disobeyed this order, no matter from what cause, could be instantly executed in any way, by any of these soldiers or adventurers, without judge, jury, or trial. It was in fact constituting a special commission for the new comers to murder[494] all the old inhabitants.

Connaught was selected for two reasons: first, because it was the most wasted province of Ireland; and secondly, because it could be, and in fact was, most easily converted into a national prison, by erecting a _cordon militaire_ across the country, from sea to sea. To make the imprisonment more complete, a belt four miles wide, commencing one mile to the west of Sligo, and thence running along the coast and the Shannon, was to be given to the soldiery to plant. Thus, any Irishman who attempted to escape, would be sure of instant capture and execution.

The Government, as it has been already remarked, reserved the best part of the land for themselves. They secured the towns, church-lands, and tithes, and abolished the Protestant Church, with all its officers, which had been so recently declared the religion of the country. A "Church of Christ" was now the established religion, and a Mr. Thomas Hicks was approved by the "Church of Christ" meeting at Chichester House, as one fully qualified to preach and dispense the Gospel as often as the Lord should enable him, and in such places as the Lord should make his ministry most effectual. The Parliament also reserved for themselves the counties of Dublin, Kildare, Carlow, and Cork; and from these lands and the church property they were to enrich themselves, and, with what they could spare, to reward the leading regicides and rebels. The adventurers were next provided for. They claimed £960,000. This was divided into three lots, to be paid in lands in Munster, Leinster, and Ulster. All these were to be drawn by lot; and a lottery was held at Grocers' Hall, London, which commenced at eight o'clock in the morning, on the 20th of July, 1653, at which time and place men who professed the advancement of the Christian religion to be the business of their lives, openly and flagrantly violated the most solemn and explicit commands of that very belief which they declared themselves so zealous in upholding. The soldiers and officers were to obtain whatever was left after the adventurers had been satisfied.

A book was written by a Franciscan father, called _Threnodia Hiberno-Catholica, sive Planctus Universalis totius Cleri et Populi Regni Hiberniæ_,[495] in which the writer states he had heard a great Protestant statesman give three reasons why this transplantation was confined to the gentry, and why the poor, who had not been either transported or hanged, were allowed to remain: (1) because the English wanted them to till the ground; (2) they hoped they would become Protestants when deprived of their priests; (3) because the settlers required servants, or else they should have worked for themselves.

But the fatal day at length arrived, and those who had dared to linger, or to hope that so cruel a sentence would not be finally executed, were at once undeceived. The commissioners had been in trouble all the winter: the people who were to be driven out of their farms refused to sow for those who were to succeed them; and the very plotters of the iniquity began to tremble for the consequences which might accrue to themselves. They fasted, they prayed, and they wrote pages of their peculiar cant, which would be ludicrous were it not profane. They talked loudly of their unworthiness for so great a service, but expressed no contrition for wholesale robbery. Meanwhile, however, despite cant, fasts, and fears, the work went on. The heads of each family were required to proceed to Loughrea before the 31st of January, 1654, to receive such allotments as the commissioners pleased to give them, and that they might erect some kind of huts on these allotments, to shelter their wives and daughters when they arrived. The allotment of land was proportioned to the stock which each family should bring; but they were informed that, at a future day, other commissioners were to sit at Athlone, and regulate even these regulations, according to their real or supposed affection or disaffection to the Parliament. All this was skilfully put forward, that the unfortunate people might transplant the more quietly, in the hope of procuring thereby the good-will of their tyrants; but the tyrants were quite aware that the stock would probably die from the fatigue of transportation and the want of food; then the land could be taken from the victim, and, as a last favour, he might be allowed to remain in the poor hut he had erected, until misery and disease had terminated his life also.

Remonstrances and complaints were sent to the faction who governed England, but all was in vain. The principal petitioners were the descendants of the English nobles; they were now, by a just retribution, suffering themselves the very miseries which they had so ruthlessly inflicted on the native Irish. The petitioners, says Mr. Prendergast,[496] were the noble and the wealthy, men of ancient English blood, descendants of the invaders--the FitzGeralds, the Butlers, the Plunkets, the Barnwalls, Dillons, Cheevers, Cusacks, names found appended to various schemes for extirpating or transplanting the Irish, after the subduing of Lord Thomas FitzGerald's rebellion in 1535--who were now to transplant as Irish. The native Irish were too poor to pay scriveners and messengers to the Council, and their sorrows were unheard; though under their rough coats beat hearts that felt as great pangs at being driven from their native homes as the highest in the land.

One of these English families demands special mention. Edmund Spenser's grandson was now commanded to transplant, as though he to had been "mere Irish" and the very estate near Fermoy, which had been confiscated from the FitzGeralds seventy years before, and which the poet had obtained thus fraudulently, was now confiscated anew, and granted to Cromwell's soldiers. William Spenser protested; he pleaded his grandfather's name, he pleaded his grandfather's services, especially the odium he had incurred amongst the Irish by the way in which he had written of them; and lastly, William Spenser declares of himself that he had utterly renounced Popery since he came to years of discretion. But even Cromwell's interference could not save him; the soldiers were determined to have his lands, and they had them.

The commissioners appointed to conduct the transplanting had a busy time. They were overwhelmed with petitions: the heads of families demanding permission to return and save their crops; the women requesting to remain a few months longer for a similar purpose, when the men were not permitted to return. Hundreds of petitions were sent from aged and bedridden persons, to obtain leave to die in peace where they were. Then there were complaints from the officers who had charge of driving the people into the plantation; and above all, there was a charge, a grave charge, against the Irish people--they were as stiff-necked, wicked, and rebellious[497] as ever, and could not be brought to see that they were created for no other end than to be sacrificed for the benefit of English adventurers; and, moreover, they were declared to be a most treacherous race, for, years after, they might revenge all this kindness, by murdering the men who had taken possession of their lands and farms; and some had absolutely refused to transplant, and preferred death.

The manner in which these difficulties were met is thus recorded in a letter which was written for publication in London:--

"_Athy, March_ 4, 1664-5.

"I have only to acquaint you that the time prescribed for the transplantation of the Irish proprietors, and those that have been in arms and abettors of the rebellion, being near at hand, the officers are resolved to fill the gaols and to seize them; by which this bloody people will know that they [the officers] are not degenerated from English principles; though I presume we shall be very tender of hanging any except leading men; yet we shall make no scruple of sending them to the West Indies, where they will serve for planters, and help to plant the plantation that General Venables, it is hoped, hath reduced."

So examples were made. Mr. Edward Hetherington was hanged in Dublin, on the 3rd of April, 1655, with placards on his breast and back, on which were written, "For not transplanting;" and at the summer assizes of 1658, hundreds were condemned to death for the same cause, but were eventually sent as slaves to Barbadoes. The miseries of those who did transplant was scarcely less than those of the persons who were condemned to slavery. Some committed suicide, some went mad, all were reduced to the direst distress. The nobles of the land were as cruelly treated and as much distrusted as the poorest peasant. The very men who had laid down their arms and signed articles of peace at Kilkenny, were not spared; and the excuse offered was, that the Act of Parliament overrode the articles. One of the gentlemen thus betrayed was Lord Trimbleston, and his tomb may still be seen in the ruined Abbey of Kilconnell, with the epitaph:--

"HERE LIES MATHEW, LORD BARON OF TRIMBLESTON, ONE OF THE TRANSPLANTED."

FOOTNOTES:

[483] _Trim_ For an illustration of this castle, see p. 560.

[484] _Bibles_.--See _The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland_, by John P. Prendergast, Esq.--a most important work, and one which merits the careful consideration of all who wish to understand this period of Irish history, and one of the many causes of Irish disaffection. The scythes and sickles were to the corn, that the Irish might be starved if they could not be conquered.

[485] _Quarter_.--Cromwell says, in his letters, that quarter was not promised; Leland and Carte say that it was.

[486] _Tale_.--_Cromwell's Letters and Speeches_, vol. i. p. 456. The simplicity with which Carlyle attempts to avert the just indignation of the Irish, by saying that the garrison "consisted mostly of Englishmen," coupled with his complacent impression that eccentric phrases can excuse crime, would be almost amusing were it not that he admits himself to be as cruel as his hero.--vol. i. p. 453. A man who can write thus is past criticism. If the garrison did consist mainly of Englishmen, what becomes of the plea, that this barbarity was a just vengeance upon the Irish for the "massacre."

[487] _Allowed of_.--_Letters and Speeches_, vol. i. p. 477.

[488] _Protection_.--Dr. French, the Catholic Bishop of Ferns, has given an account of the storming of Wexford, in a letter to the Papal Nuncio, in which he states that the soldiers were not content with simply murdering their victims, but used "divers sorts of torture." As he was then in the immediate neighbourhood, he had every opportunity of being correctly informed. Cromwell must have sanctioned this, if he did not encourage it.

[489] _Bribe_.--40,000 golden crowns, and free leave to emigrate where he chose.--_Hib. Dom._ p. 448.

[490] _Lamb._.--_Cromwellian Settlement_, p. 16. See also Petty's _Political Anatomy of Ireland._

[491] _Abroad_.--The Prince of Orange declared they were born soldiers. Sir John Norris said that he "never beheld so few of any country as of Irish that were idiots or cowards," Henry IV. of France said that Hugh O'Neill was the third soldier of the age; and declared that no nation had such resolute martial men.--_Cromwellian Settlement_, p. 22.

[492] _Sanction_.--See _Cromwellian Settlement_, p. 61, for a specimen of the "Bible stuff with which they crammed their heads and hardened their hearts."

[493] _Day_.--_Cromwellian Settlement_, p. 163.

[494] _Murder_.--"Whenever any unwary person chanced to pass these limits he was knocked on the head by the first officer or soldier who met him. Colonel Astell killed _six women_ in this way."--_Ibid_. p. 164.

[495] _Hiberniæ_.--_The Wail of the Irish Catholics; or, Groans of the Whole Clergy and People, &c._ By Father Maurice Morison, of the Minors of Strict Observance, an eyewitness of these cruelties. Insbruck, A.D. 1659. This religious had remained in Ireland, like many of his brethren, in such complete disguise, that their existence was not even suspected. In order to minister the more safely to their afflicted people, they often hired as menials in Protestant families and thus, in a double sense, became the servants of all men. Father Maurice was in the household of Colonel Ingolsby, the Parliamentary Governor of Limerick.

[496] _Prendergast.--Cromwellian Settlement_, p. 34. We can only recommend this volume to the consideration of our readers. It would be impossible, in anything less than a volume, to give the different details which Mr. Prendergast has brought together with so much judgment, and at the expense of years of research. We might have selected some cases from his work, but, on the whole, we think it will be more satisfactory to the reader to peruse it in its entirety. It may be obtained from our publishers, Messrs. Longmans and Co., Paternoster-row, London.

[497] _Rebellious_.--If the subject were not so serious, the way in which the officials wrote about the feelings of the Irish would almost provoke a smile. They say: "It is the nature of this people to be rebellious; and they have been so much the more disposed to it, having been highly exasperated by the transplanting work." Surely they could not be expected to be anything else but rebellious and exasperated!