Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/44

Ireton was worsted by Rupert's cavaliers and partially broken. Ireton, seeing some of the parliamentary infantry hard pressed by a brigade of the king's foot, ‘commanded the division that was with him to charge that body of foot, and for their better encouragement he himself with great resolution fell in amongst the musketeers, where his horse being shot under him, and himself run through the thigh with a pike and into the face with an halbert, was taken prisoner by the enemy.’ When the fortune of the day turned Ireton promised his keeper liberty if he would carry him back to his own party, and thus succeeded in escaping (ib. pp. 36, 39, 42). He recovered from his wounds sufficiently quickly to be with the army at the siege of Bristol in September 1645 (ib. pp. 99, 106–18). The letter of summons in which Fairfax endeavoured to persuade Rupert to surrender that city was probably Ireton's work.

Ireton was one of the negotiators of the treaty of Truro (14 March 1646), and was afterwards despatched with several regiments of horse to block up Oxford, and prevent it from being provisioned (ib. pp. 229, 243). The king tried to open negotiations with him, and sent a message offering to come to Fairfax, and live wherever parliament should direct, ‘if only he might be assured to live and continue king.’ Ireton refused to discuss the king's offers, but wrote to Cromwell begging him to communicate the king's message to parliament. Cromwell blamed him for doing even that, on the ground that soldiers ought not to touch political questions at all (, Memorials of the Civil War, i. 1;, Great Civil War, ii. 470). Ireton took part in the negotiations which led to the capitulation of Oxford, and married Bridget, Cromwell's daughter, on 15 June 1646, a few days before its actual surrender. The ceremony took place in Lady Whorwood's house at Holton, near Oxford, and was performed by William Dell [q. v.], one of the chaplains attached to the army (, Cromwell, i. 218, ed. 1871).

Though the marriage was the result of the friendship between Cromwell and Ireton, rather than its cause, it brought the two men closer together. The union and the confidence which existed between them was during the next four years a factor of great importance in English politics. Each exercised much influence over the other. ‘No man,’ says Whitelocke, ‘could prevail so much, nor order Cromwell so far, as Ireton could’ (Memorials, f. 516). Ireton had a large knowledge of political theory and more definite political views than Cromwell, and could present his views logically and forcibly either in speech or writing. On the other hand, Cromwell's wider sympathies and willingness to accept compromises often controlled and moderated Ireton's conduct.

On 30 Oct. 1645 Ireton was returned to parliament as member for Appleby; but there is no record of his public action in parliament until the dispute between the army and the parliament began (Names of Members returned to serve in Parliament, i. 495). His justification of the petition of the army, which the House of Commons on 29 March 1647 declared seditious, involved him in a personal quarrel with Holles, who openly derided his arguments. A challenge was exchanged between them, and the two went out of the house intending to fight, but were stopped by other members, and ordered by the house to proceed no further. On this basis Clarendon builds an absurd story that Ireton provoked Holles, refused to fight, and submitted to have his nose pulled by his choleric opponent (Clarendon MSS. 2478, 2495; Rebellion, x. 104;, ed. 1751, p. 94; Commons' Journals, 2 April 1647). Thomas Shepherd of Ireton's regiment was one of the three troopers who presented the appeal of the soldiers to their generals, which Skippon on 30 April brought to the notice of the House of Commons. In consequence Ireton, Cromwell, Skippon, and Fleetwood, being all four members of parliament, as well as officers of the army, were despatched by the house to Saffron Walden ‘to employ their endeavours to quiet all distempers in the army.’ The commissioners drew up a report on the grievances of the soldiers, which Fleetwood and Cromwell were charged to present, while Skippon and Ireton remained at headquarters to maintain order. Ireton foresaw a storm unless parliament was more moderate, and had little hope of success. In private and in public he had at first discouraged the soldiers from petitioning or taking action to secure redress, but when an open breach occurred he took part with the army (Clarke Papers, i. 94, 102;, Memorials of the Civil War, i. 205, 207, 214). When Fairfax demanded by whose orders Joyce had removed the king from Holdenby, Ireton owned that he had given orders for securing the king there, though not for taking him thence (Huntingdon's reasons for laying down his commission,, Tracts, i. 398). From that period his prominence in setting forth the desires of the army and defending its conduct was very marked. ‘Colonel Ireton,’ says Whitelocke, ‘was chiefly employed or took upon him the business of the pen, … and was therein encouraged and assisted by Lieutenant-general Cromwell,