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Cromwell in Ireland the moment Dublin passed into the hands of the King's enemies the King's fate was sealed. But the strangest part of this terrible blunder of Ormond's was the part which Dublin was doomed to play against him, when he came back to Ireland after the King's death, as Lord Lieutenant for Charles the Second. Then, when Inchiquin had come to terms with him, and O'Neill was in treaty with him, Dublin, the city he had surrendered two years earlier, was destined to wreck his fortunes. The "rout at Rathmines," the news of which came to Cromwell at Milford Haven, made the conquest of Ireland an easy task to him. It not only broke up the army which Ormond had got together, but it introduced into the Irish ranks the strongest feelings of distrust for Ormond himself. Their life-long persecutor, Inchiquin, had left Ormond a few days before the battle, taking with him some 2,000 horse and foot. Castlehaven hints that this was a treacherous movement. Prendergast, that indefatigable enquirer, asserts that "the English regiments who went over to Jones, the Parliamentary Governor of Dublin in the middle of the battle, helped mainly to cause Ormond's defeat."

The evidence of all these things is clear as noonday, but not a word will you find of them in 27