11 September 1649 A.D. Oliver Cromwell’s Bloody Slaughter at Drogheda
11
September 1649 A.D. Oliver
Cromwell’s Bloody Slaughter at Drogheda
Graves, Dan. “Massacre of Drogheda
under Oliver Cromwell.” Christianity.com.
http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1601-1700/massacre-of-drogheda-under-oliver-cromwell-11630121.html. Accessed 21 May 2014.
After the massacre,
Oliver Cromwell declared to the English Parliament, "I am persuaded that
this is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have
imbued their hands in so much innocent blood and that it will tend to prevent
the effusion [shedding] of blood for the future, which are satisfactory grounds
for such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret."
Just what happened at
Drogheda, Ireland on this day, September 11, 1649 is hard to pin down with certainty. Two
groups stood to gain by issuing propaganda against Cromwell. The Irish hoped to
inflame patriotic fervor by magnifying the event and certain Englishmen hoped
to discredit Cromwell because they feared his growing power.
Parliament had sent the
Protestant Cromwell into Catholic Ireland to subdue it and prevent Prince
Charles from landing and preparing an invasion from the nearby Island (he used
Scotland as his launch pad instead). Aware that previous armies had bogged down
in Ireland, usually because of insufficient financing, Cromwell insisted on
having the necessary money in hand before he sailed. That way he could pay for
supplies as he needed them and not make enemies by robbing the common folk.
Once in Ireland, he moved quickly, knowing that a drawn-out war favored the
inhabitants, not the invaders.
The situation in Ireland
was complex. The Irish were badly divided and several betrayed their own towns.
They offered little effective resistance to Cromwell. In fact, he reduced
opposition across most of the island within eight months, although subordinates
required another decade to complete the work he had begun.
Drogheda was one of the
first cities Cromwell faced. He offered fair terms and gave his men strict
instructions against excessive violence. However, the situation fluctuated a
good deal. As Drogheda's fortunes waned or waxed, the garrison alternately
negotiated or stalled. Cromwell's troops broke through the wall before
negotiations were complete (possibly with inside help) and rushed through the
town, killing virtually everyone in the city. They set fire to St. Mary's
church, burning alive those who had taken refuge in it and then butchered women
hiding in the vaults below. Some accounts say they used Irish children as human
shields and killed every priest, treating them like combatants, because they
had encouraged the defenders. According to those tales, only thirty defenders
survived and they were sold as slaves to Barbados. At least one of the English
soldiers claimed that Cromwell himself ordered the slaughter.
Defenders of Cromwell say
that not only did he not order the slaughter but that the massacre of the women
never happened. Cromwell himself insisted (even before he left Ireland) that no
one in arms was massacred, destroyed or banished. His statement fell short of
denying that civilians were slaughtered. Tales of civilian massacres increased
at the time of the restoration of the English throne when it was both
politically correct and safe to say the worst things one could about the man
who cut off the head of King Charles I.
Whatever the truth,
Cromwell surely is to blame for not attempting to stop the massacre. By the
brutal standards of the time, killing a defiant garrison was acceptable, but
butchering civilians was not. By his own statement, it is clear Cromwell hoped
that the events at Drogheda (and at Wexford a few days later) would shorten the
war. At Wexford, his troops committed another massacre, although apparently
without his approval. A priest writing over a century later claimed 300 women
were slaughtered beside a cross at which they had taken refuge and seven friars
were killed in the performance of their duty. Whether this is true or not, Cromwell
considered the victory an unexpected providence and said he prayed that God
would have all the glory.
The present religious
troubles in Ireland were aggravated by the events at Drogheda and Wexford.
British soldiers, for example, are called "Cromwell's lads." However,
it would be unjust to leave the impression that Cromwell's campaign was the
beginning of the Irish religious troubles. Eight years before Cromwell's
invasion, for instance, Catholics slaughtered hundreds of Protestant civilians
in Ulster and thousands more throughout Ireland.
Bibliography:
Allen, John. One
Hundred Great Lives. New York: Journal of Living, 1944.
Coonan, Thomas L. The
Irish Catholic Confederacy and the Puritan Revolution. New York:
Columbia University, 1954.
Copeland, Lewis. World's
Greatest Speeches. New York: Book League of America, p. 147ff.
"Cromwell." A
History of the Irish Race. http://www.ireland.org/irl_hist/hist31.htm
"Cromwell,
Oliver." Dictionary of National Biography.
Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. London: Oxford University Press, 1921
- 1996.
"Cromwell and the
Drogheda Massacre."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/beyond/factsheets/makhist/
makhist7_prog5c.shtml)
"Cromwell Devastates
Ireland." http://www.doyle.com.au/cromwell.htm
Drinkwater, John. Oliver
Cromwell. New York: George H. Doran, 1927.
Hill, Christopher. God's
Englishman; Oliver Cromwell and the English revolution. Harper and
Row, 1970.
Russell, Bertrand. Wisdom
of the West. New York: Fawcett, 1964; p. 252.
Smellie, Alexander. Men of
the Covenant. Revell, 1903. Source of the image.
Last updated July, 2007.
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