Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/30

Cromwell in Ireland on his Irish expedition until the summer of 1049 was half over.

On the 10th of July he left London in great state late in the afternoon. Although his language was still studiously humble, he already lost no opportunity of playing the prince. Six grey Flanders mares drew his coach; an immense cavalcade preceded and followed it. Some fourscore gentlemen, in rich uniforms, formed his life guard. All the chief officers of the army accompanied him, drums beat, trumpets blared. London had not seen such a show since, exactly hifty years earlier, Essex had marched the same road in the same gallant fashion, the "extirpation" of the Irish people being in each instance the chiefest plank in the political and military platforms.

But it is the old newspapers which give us these details of the departure; and then as now they have to be received with caution. Cromwell was the first press soldier of whom we have any record. Despite the accounts of the "diurnals," the attitude of the people of London was sullenly hostile. "The trumpets sounded," wrote the Puritan penny-a-liner, "almost to the shaking of Charing Cross, had it been now standing." But the blare was to drown the people's dissatisfaction. "That dismal universal groan such 18