Aston
refused to surrender and Cromwell's cannons fired until the walls
of the city near St. Mary's church began to crumble. The first
breach was only big enough for Cromwell's foot soldiers who met
with such fierce resistance that they were forced to retreat.
In a letter to the Speaker of the English Parliament, William
Lenthall, Cromwell wrote:
"Upon
Tuesday the 10th of this instant, about five o'clock in the evening,
we began the Storm: and after some hot dispute we entered, about
seven or eight hundred men; the Enemy disputing it very stiffly
with us. And indeed, through the advantages of the place, and
the courage God was pleased to give the defenders, our men were
forced to retreat quite out of the breach, not without some considerable
loss".
The
second attempt at the wall was joined by Cromwell himself with
more success in the face of the same resistance. The Parliamentarians
gained the Royalists entrenchment and St. Mary's church. Reinforcements
of 7,000 to 8,000 arrived under the command of Colonel Isaac Ewers
while Aston and his men retreated to Millmount. Of the event Cromwell
wrote:
"The
Governor, Sir Arthur Ashton, and divers considerable Officers
being there, our men getting up to them, were ordered by me to
put them all to the sword. And indeed, being in the heat of action,
I forbade them to spare any that were in arms in the Town: and,
I think, that night they put to the sword about 2,000 men;--divers
of the officers and soldiers being fled over the Bridge into the
other part of the Town, where about 100 of them possessed St.
Peter's Church-steeple, some the west Gate, and others a strong
Round Tower next the Gate called St. Sunday's. These being summoned
to yield to mercy, refused. Whereupon I ordered the steeple of
St. Peter's Church to be fired, when one of them was heard to
say in the midst of the flames: 'God damn me, God confound me;
I burn, I burn.'"
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