Oliver Cromwell: Encyclopedia II - Oliver Cromwell - Ireland and Scotland

Oliver Cromwell - Ireland and Scotland

See also: Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, Irish Confederate Wars, and Scottish Civil War.

Cromwell's actions made him very unpopular in Scotland and Ireland which, as previously independent nations, were effectively conquered by English forces during the civil wars. In particular, Cromwell's brutal suppression of the Royalists in Ireland, during 1649, still has a strong resonance for many Irish people. The most enduring symbol of this brutality is the siege of Drogheda in September 1649. The massacre of nearly 3,500 people in Drogheda after its capture — comprising around 2,700 Royalist soldiers and all the men in the town carrying arms, including some civilians, prisoners, and Catholic priests — is one of the historical memories that has fuelled Irish-English and Catholic-Protestant strife for over three centuries.

Ireland

The extent of Cromwell's intentions has been strongly debated. For example, it is clear that Cromwell saw the Irish in general as enemies - he justified his sack of Drogheda as revenge for the massacres of Protestant settlers in Ulster in the Irish Rebellion of 1641, calling the massacre, "The righteous judgement of God on these barbarous wretches, who have imbued their hands with so much innocent blood"- and the records of many churches such as Kilkenny Cathedral accuse Cromwell's army of having defaced and desecrated the churches and having stabled the horses in them. On the other hand, it is also clear that on entering Ireland, Cromwell demanded that no supplies were to be seized from the inhabitants, and that everything should be fairly purchased. It has been claimed ¹ that his actual orders at Drogheda followed military protocol of the day, where a town or garrison was first given the option to surrender and receive just treatment and the protection of the invading force. The refusal to do this, even after the walls had been breached, meant that Cromwell's orders to show no mercy in the treatment of men-of-arms was made inevitable by the standards of the day. This view has been disputed by historians ². Cromwell's men committed another infamous massacre at Wexford, when they broke into the town during surrender negotiations, and killed over 2000 Irish soldiers and civilians. These two atrocities, while horrifying in their own right, were not exceptional in the war in Ireland since its start in 1641, but are well remembered, even today; because of a concerted propaganda campaign by the Royalists, which portrayed Cromwell as a monster, who indiscriminately slaughtered civilians wherever he went.

However, Cromwell himself never accepted that he was responsible for the killing of civilians in Ireland, claiming that he had acted harshly, but only against those "in arms". In fact, the worst atrocities committed in that country, such as mass evictions, killings and deportation for slave labour to Barbados, were carried out by Cromwell's subordinates after he had left for England. In the wake of the Cromwellian conquest, all Catholic-owned land was confiscated in the Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652, the "practice" of Roman Catholicism was banned, and bounties were offered for priests. Regardless, Ireland remained a Roman Catholic nation, as most Irish Catholics refused to abandon their faith.

No matter his intentions, Cromwell was not alone in his apparent truculence towards the Irish. Long seen as "savages" and inferior by the English (and they were Catholic to the British Protestants as well) the Parliamentarian side in particular nursed a hatred towards the Irish during the civil wars. The Royalists were less hostile and ultimately allied themselves with the Irish Confederates - which discredited them in the eyes of many English and Scottish Protestants. The massacres in Ulster during the Irish Rebellion of 1641 claimed roughly 4,000 lives, not the "180,000" that was reported to the British public. The incident was used as effective propaganda to drum up anti-Irish and anti-Royalist sentiment, and it is evident Cromwell believed it.

Scotland

Cromwell also invaded Scotland in 1650-1651, after the Scots had crowned Charles I's son as "Charles II" and when they tried to re-impose the monarchy upon England. Cromwell had been prepared to tolerate an independent Scotland, but had to react after the Scots invaded England. Cromwell, much less hostile to Scottish Presbyterians than to Irish Catholics, saw them as, "His [God's] people, though deceived". Nevertheless, he acted with ruthlessness in Scotland. Despite being outnumbered, his veteran troops smashed Scottish armies at the Dunbar and the Worcester, and occupied the country. Cromwell treated very badly the thousands of prisoners of war he took in this campaign; allowing thousands of them to die of disease, and deporting others to penal colonies in Barbados. Cromwell's men, under George Monck viciously sacked the town of Dundee, in the manner of Drogheda. During the Commonwealth, Scotland was ruled from England, and was kept under military occupation; with a line of fortifications sealing off the Highlands from the rest of the country. 'Presbyterianism' was allowed to be practised as before, but the Kirk did not have the backing of the civil courts to impose its rulings, as previously.

In both Scotland and Ireland, Cromwell is remembered as a "remorseless and ruthless" enemy. However, the reason for the peculiar bitterness that the Irish especially held for Cromwell's memory, has as much to do with his mass-transfer of Catholic-owned property into the hands of his soldiers, as with his wartime actions.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Ireland and Scotland", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki