The
Parliamentarians swept through the streets with orders to kill
anyone in arms. Against orders, civilians also were killed in
the rush. Priests and friars were treated as combatants by Cromwell's
Puritans and executed. Even more horrible was the fate of the
defenders of St. Peter's Church in the northern part of the town;
the church was burned down around them. By nightfall, only small
pockets of resistance on the walls remained. When they managed
to kill some Parliamentarians, Cromwell ordered the captured officers
to be "knocked on the head" and every 10th soldier executed.
When
forces on one side of a nearby river surrendered, it is alleged
that Cromwell, still meeting resistance on the other side, ordered
the annihilation of the entire population. "I do not think
that thirty of the whole number escaped with their lives,"
Cromwell later wrote. The survivors were sent to the sugar plantations
at Barbados.
Several
similar battels ensued in Cromwell's conquest of Ireland including
Wexford, Kiltenan, Dundrum, Ballynakill and Kildare until he and
other Parliamentarians next converged on Kilkenny, headquarters
of the Confederacy. Upon payment of 2,000 pounds sterling, the
citizens of Kilkenny were protected from looting, and the officers
and soldiers were allowed to march out disarmed for two miles.
The clergymen also were allowed to march out.
The
war in Ireland continued after Cromwell's return to England on
the forlorn hope that Charles II would come in from Scotland,
but, for the most part, the Irish effort had degenerated into
bands of guerrillas known as Tories. Bishop Hebere Mac Mahon led
an Ulsterman army against Sir Charles Coote against the advice
of Henry O'Neill, Owen Roe's son. The bishop was captured, hanged
and quartered on the order of Coote and Ireton. The bishop had
appealed to Owen Roe O'Neill to spare Coote at the siege of Derry
several years earlier. Ireton captured Waterford on June 21 and
tried but failed to take Limerick. Coote narrowly defeated the
remnants of Owen Roe O'Neill's army at Scariffhollis.
Many
today trace the current problems in Northern Ireland back to Cromwell.
The British troops in Northern Ireland are referred to as "Cromwell's
Boys," and there is hardly a ruined building in Ireland whose
destruction is not blamed on Cromwell.
Cromwell's
wars with both the Irish and Scotish was to instill the Church
of England as the religion of state and to persecute and eliminate
anyone who opposed the Church. Cromwell life and actions had a
radical edge springing from his strong religious faith. A conversion
experience some time before the civil war, strengthened by his
belief that during the war he and his troops had been chosen by
God to perform His will, gave a religious tinge to many of his
political policies as Lord Protector in the 1650s. Cromwell sought
'Godly reformation', a broad program involving reform of the most
inhumane elements of the legal, judicial and social systems and
clamped down on drunkenness, immorality and other sinful activities.
<<<<
Back | Cromwell Page 8 >>>>
( 1 | 2
| 3 | 4
| 5 | 6
| 7 | 8
| 9 | 10
)