Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/174

 well and the council of state, in which the council was described as the mere creature of Cromwell, his viceroy until he chose to assume his kingship, and Cromwell himself as a tyrant, an apostate, and a hypocrite. ‘You shall scarce speak to Cromwell about anything but he will lay his hand on his breast, elevate his eyes, and call God to record. He will weep, howl, and repent even while he doth smite you under the fifth rib’ (‘The Hunting of the Foxes by Five Small Beagles,’ Somers Tracts, vi. 49). Though he might despise insults, Cromwell could not despise the dangers with which this agitation threatened the Commonwealth. ‘You have no other way to treat these people,’ said he to the council, ‘but to break them in pieces; if you do not break them, they will break you’ (, The Picture of the Council of State, p. 15). His advice was followed, the leaders of the levellers were arrested, and the mutiny in the army swiftly and vigorously suppressed by himself and Fairfax (May 1649). Apart from the paramount necessity of preventing a new war, Cromwell had no sympathy with either the social or political aims of the levellers. He was tenaciously attached to the existing social order. ‘For the orders of men, and ranks of men, did not that levelling principle tend to the reducing of all to an equality? What was the purport of it but to make the tenant as liberal a fortune as the landlord, which I think, if obtained, would not have lasted long?’ (, Speech ii.) Not less did he differ from them on the constitutional question. They sought to limit the powers of the government and demanded the largest liberty for the individual. He sought to change the aims of the government, but to retain all its authority. So in the very first days of the Commonwealth those profound differences of opinion appeared which separated Cromwell from many of his former adherents in the army and caused him so many difficulties during the protectorate. Nearly two months before the outbreak of the levellers took place Cromwell had been selected by the council of state to command in Ireland (15 March 1649). He was entrusted for three years with the combined powers of lord-lieutenant and commander-in-chief, and granted a salary of 8,000l. a year in the latter capacity in addition to his salary as lord-lieutenant, making in all about 13,000l. (preface to Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1649–50, p. xlv).

His army was to consist of twelve thousand men, and their equipment and support was provided for on the same liberal scale. Cromwell landed at Dublin on 16 Aug. 1649, and signalised his arrival by a searching purgation of the Irish army and by the publication of two proclamations which marked the beginning of a new era in the Irish wars. One of them was levelled against profane swearing (23 Aug.), the other prohibited plunder and promised the people protection and a free market in his camp (24 Aug.) From Dublin he marched to Drogheda, which was stormed on 10 Sept., and the garrison of two thousand five hundred put to the sword. The few score who received quarter were shipped to Barbadoes to labour in the sugar plantations. In the same way the storming of Wexford on 11 Oct. was marked by the slaughter of two thousand of its defenders. Warned by their fate, Ross surrendered after two days’ attack (19 Oct.), but the approach of winter and the increase of sickness in his army obliged Cromwell to raise the siege of Waterford (2 Dec. 1649). During this period his lieutenants had been equally successful. One, Colonel Venables, relieved Londonderry and regained the court towns of Ulster (September 1649). Another, Lord Broghil, received the submission of Cork and other Munster ports, whose protestant garrisons his intrigues had induced to revolt (November 1649). Nevertheless the greater part of Ireland was still unconquered. ‘Though God hath blessed you,’ wrote Cromwell to the speaker, with ‘a great longitude of land along the shore, yet hath it but little depth into the country’ (, Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland, ii. 468).

The second campaign, which began at the end of January 1650, was devoted to the reduction of the inland fortresses. Cashel, Cahir, and several smaller places fell in February, Kilkenny capitulated on 27 March, and Clonmel surrendered on 18 May after a stubborn and bloody resistance. The rapidity of Cromweirs conquests was due in part to the dissensions of the Irish leaders and the growing breach between Ormonde’s protestant and catholic adherents. It was due still more to the excellence of his army, his own skill as a leader, and the firm and consistent policy which he adopted. What that policy was Cromwell’s letters, and above all his answer to the Clonmacnoise declaration of the Irish clergy, very clearly show. He came to Ireland not only to reconquer it, but also to ‘ask an account of the innocent blood that had been shed,’ and to punish ‘the most barbarous massacre that ever the sun beheld.’ These reasons justified in his eyes the severity exercised at Drogheda and Wexford. Of the slaughter at Drogheda he wrote: ‘I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches who have