Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/20

Cromwell in Ireland the animosity of the military party against the King, and to strengthen the hands of those who meant to destroy him. To all the reasons which had heretofore existed among the Independents for "extirpating" the Irish people, another had now been added. Prelatist, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic had at last been politically welded together by the fall of the axe which beheaded Charles. But the desired blow which the Parliament had long designed to strike at Ireland, and upon which the new Council of State were now intent, could not be carried into effect just yet.

Early in April, 1649, money was terribly scarce. The murdered King’s jewels, pictures, and parks had to be sold. The pay of the Army was deeply in arrear; and, above all, a spirit of insubordination and mutiny was showing itself in daily-increasing strength among the Parliamentarian regiments, and spreading deeper among the peasants, which threatened even the authority of the Council of State itself. There was nothing surprising in this. The people—that strange, dull, hapless, helpless multitude—always hoping, always credulous, always deceived, and always ready to be deceived, had come to ask themselves what the whole of this vast business of Rebellion had been about. They had been 8