Siege of Drogheda
Encyclopedia
The siege of Drogheda (3–11 September 1649) at the outset of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
. The town of Drogheda
in eastern Ireland
was held by a combined English Royalist and Irish Catholic garrison when it was besieged and stormed by English Parliamentarian forces under Oliver Cromwell. In the aftermath of the assault much of the garrison and an undetermined but "significant number" of civilians were killed by the Parliamentary troops.
Historians debate the legality of Cromwell's killing of the garrison of Drogheda and the extent to which civilians were targeted during the massacre
after the taking of the town.
Drogheda was also besieged in 1641–42, during the Irish rebellion of 1641
when an insurgent Catholic force under Phelim O'Neill tried but failed to take the town. See Siege of Drogheda 1641
Oliver Cromwell
landed in Ireland in August 1649 to re-conquer the country on behalf of the English Parliament. The Parliamentarians were opposed in their aims by an alliance between Royalists defeated in the English Civil War, and an Irish Catholic movement the Confederate Catholic Association
. The alliance was made in 1648 to oppose the Parliamentarians.
Just before Cromwell's landing, Dublin had been secured for the Parliament at the Battle of Rathmines
. After their defeat the Royalists, under the Earl of Ormonde, retreated in disarray. Some of their Protestant regiments defected to Parliament and Ormonde had to try and rally the remaining "dispersed forces" so as to put together a new field army.
On 23 August the Royalists held a council of war at Drogheda, present at which were the Earls of Castlehaven
and Westmeath, Sir Arthur Aston, Sir Thomas Armstrong (Quartermaster-General of Horse), Sir Robert Stewart and other Royalist leaders. It was resolved that the town should be held and four regiments were chosen for the defence. The garrison was composed of both English Royalist
s and Irish Confederate
troops under Arthur Aston
—with a total strength of about 3,100. The army was half Catholic, including some English Catholics, and half English and Irish Protestants. Ormonde's strategy was not to confront the Parliamentary forces in battle but to retain the towns in the east of Ireland and to, "let his allies hunger and sickness weaken the invaders".
Cromwell's tactics at Drogheda were determined by a need to take the port towns on Ireland's east coast quickly to ensure re-supply for his troops. The normal "campaigning season", when armies could live off the land, ran from spring to autumn. Cromwell had landed in Ireland late in the year and campaigning through the winter meant securing a constant re-supply from the sea. Cromwell therefore favoured rapid assaults on fortified places over time-consuming blockades to secure the all-important ports.
Cromwell arrived before Drogheda on September 3 and his siege guns, brought up by sea, arrived two days later. His total force was around 12,000 men and eleven heavy, 48-pounder, siege artillery pieces.
Drogheda's defences consisted of mediaeval curtain walls
. These were high but relatively thin rendering them vulnerable to cannon fire. Most of the town was situated on the northern bank of the river Boyne
but its two main gates, the Dublin and Duleek
gates, were in an enclave south of the river.
Cromwell positioned his forces on the south side of the river Boyne
in order to concentrate them for the assault, leaving the northern side of the town open and covered by a small screen of cavalry. In addition a squadron of Parliamentarian ships blockaded the harbour of the town.
In a letter to William Lenthall
, Speaker of the English House of Commons, written shortly after the storming of the town, Cromwell explained why he did not fully invest the town—an action that would have left his divided command vulnerable to an attack by a relieving force and a simultaneous sortie
by the garrison—but rather concentrated his troops on the south side of Drogheda for a swift assault.
On Monday 10 September Cromwell had a letter delivered to the governor, the English Royalist, Sir Arthur Aston which read:
The contemporary laws of war were clear: if surrender was refused and a garrison was taken by assault, then the lives of its defenders could be forfeit. That is; acceptance of a surrender of the besieged after the storming of the breach was at the discretion of the attacker.
Aston, the Royalist commander, refused to surrender. The garrison of Drogheda was critically short of gunpowder and ammunition. Their hope was that Ormonde, nearby at Tercroghan, with some 4,000 Royalist troops would come to their relief.
After the death of Colonel Wall, and with more and more Parliamentary soldiers streaming into the breaches, Royalist resistance at the walls collapsed. Their surviving troops tried to flee across the river Boyne into the north of the town, while Arthur Aston and 250 others took refuge in Millmount Fort
which overlooked Drogheda's southern defences. Others remained stranded in the towers along the town walls, while Cromwell's troops surged into the town below them.
With up to 6,000 Parliamentary troops now inside the town, Drogheda had been taken.
Cromwell, upon riding into the town, was enraged by the sight of heaps of Parliamentarian dead at the breaches. Morril states "it was the sight of fallen comrades that was the occasion of Cromwell issuing the order for no quarter". In Cromwell's words, "In the heat of the action, I forbade them [his soldiers] to spare any that were in arms in the town...and, that night they put to the sword about two thousand men".
After breaking into the town the New Model soldiers pursued the defenders both through the streets and into private properties, sacking churches and defensible positions as they progressed. A drawbridge existed that would have blocked access to the northern side from the south side, but the defenders had no time to pull it up behind them and the killing continued in the northern part of town.
, "offered to spare the lives of the governor and the 200 men with him if they surrendered on the promise of their lives, which they did".
According to Axtell, the disarmed men were then taken to a windmill and killed about an hour after they had surrendered. Arthur Aston was reportedly beaten to death with his own wooden leg which the New Model Army soldiers believed had gold hidden in it. Cromwell wrote of the incident, "our men getting up to them, were ordered by me to put them all to the sword".
Another group of about 80 Royalist soldiers sought refuge in St Peter's church at the northern end of Drogheda. Parliamentarian soldiers led by John Hewson
, on Cromwell's orders, set fire to the Church. Some 30 of the defenders were burned to death in the fire and 50 more were killed outside when they fled the flames.
The final major concentration of Royalist soldiers was 200 men, who had been stationed in two towers. They stayed in the towers during the sack of the town but surrendered the following day, September 12. All of the officers and one in every ten ordinary soldiers were killed by being clubbed to death The rest were deported to Barbados.
The heads of 16 Royalist officers were cut off and sent to Dublin, where they were stuck on pikes on the approach roads. Any Catholic
clergy found within the town were killed by being clubbed to death or, "knocked on the head", as Cromwell put it, including two who were executed the following day.
Cromwell wrote on 16 September 1649: "I believe we put to the sword the whole number of the defenders. I do not think 30 of the whole number escaped with their lives; those that did are in safe custody for Barbados
". Specifically, he listed Royalist casualties as 60 officers, 220 cavalry troopers and 2,500 infantry.
However Colonel John Hewson wrote "those in the towers being about 200, did yield to the Generals mercy, where most of them have their lives and be sent to Barbados.” Other reports spoke of 400 military prisoners. Some of the garrison escaped over the northern wall, while according to one Royalist officer, Dungan, "many were privately saved by officers and soldiers", in spite of Cromwell's order for no quarter. Richard Talbot
, the future Jacobite Duke of Tyrconnell was one of the few members of the garrison to survive the
sack.
The only surviving civilian account of the siege is from Dean Bernard, a Protestant cleric, though a Royalist. He states that during the sack while some 30 of his parishioners were sheltering in his house Parliamentarian troops fired in through the windows killing one civilian and wounding another. They then broke into the house firing their weapons, but were stopped from killing those inside when an officer known to Bernard identified them as Protestants. The fate of less fortunate civilians may therefore have been worse.
The week after the storming of Drogheda, the Royalist press in England claimed that 2,000 of the 3,000 dead were civilians—a theme that was taken up both in English Royalist and in Irish Catholic accounts. Irish clerical sources in the 1660s claimed that 4,000 civilians had died at Drogheda, denouncing the sack as "unparalleled savagery and treachery beyond any slaughterhouse".
Historians have interpreted the first part of this passage, "the righteous judgement of God", in two ways. Firstly as a justification for the massacre of the Drogheda garrison in reprisal for the Irish massacre of English and Scottish Protestants in 1641. In this interpretation the "barbarous wretches" referred to would mean Irish Catholics.
However, as Cromwell was aware, Drogheda had never fallen to the Irish rebels in 1641, or the forces of Confederate Ireland
in the years that followed. The garrison was in fact English as well as Irish and comprised Catholics and Protestants of both nationalities. The first Irish Catholic troops to be admitted to Drogheda arrived in 1649, as part of the alliance between the Irish Confederates and English Royalists. Historian John Morrill has argued that in fact it was English Royalist officers who were singled out for the most ruthless treatment—being denied quarter, executed after being taken prisoner and whose heads were publicly displayed on pikes. From this viewpoint, he argued that by "barbarous wretches" Cromwell meant the Royalists, who in Cromwell's view had refused to accept "the judgement of God" in deciding the civil war in England and were unnecessarily prolonging the Civil Wars
.
The second part of Cromwell's statement, that the massacre would, "tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future", is accepted to mean that such severity, including such terrorising tactics as clubbing to death and public display of heads, would discourage future resistance and prevent further loss of life. Another of Cromwell's officers wrote, "such extraordinary severity was designed to discourage others from making opposition". Indeed the neighbouring garrisons of Trim
and Dundalk
surrendered or fled when they heard the news of what had happened at Drogheda.
Several recent analyses by historians, particularly by Tom Reilly, have claimed that Cromwell’s orders were not exceptionally cruel by the standards of the day, which were that a fortified town that refused an offer of surrender, and was subsequently taken by assault, was not entitled to quarter. However, other historians have argued that, while, "Arthur Aston had refused a summons to surrender, thereby technically forfeiting the lives of the garrison in the event of a successful assault...the sheer scale of the killing [at Drogheda] was simply unprecedented."
According to John Morrill, the massacre at Drogheda, "was without straightforward parallel in 17th century British or Irish history". The only comparable case in Cromwell's previous career was that at Basing House, where 100 soldiers, out of 400 were killed after a successful assault. "So the Drogheda massacre does stand out for its mercilessness, for its combination of ruthlessness and calculation, for its combination of hot- and cold-bloodiness".
Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland refers to the conquest of Ireland by the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Cromwell landed in Ireland with his New Model Army on behalf of England's Rump Parliament in 1649...
. The town of Drogheda
Drogheda
Drogheda is an industrial and port town in County Louth on the east coast of Ireland, 56 km north of Dublin. It is the last bridging point on the River Boyne before it enters the Irish Sea....
in eastern Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
was held by a combined English Royalist and Irish Catholic garrison when it was besieged and stormed by English Parliamentarian forces under Oliver Cromwell. In the aftermath of the assault much of the garrison and an undetermined but "significant number" of civilians were killed by the Parliamentary troops.
Historians debate the legality of Cromwell's killing of the garrison of Drogheda and the extent to which civilians were targeted during the massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
after the taking of the town.
Drogheda was also besieged in 1641–42, during the Irish rebellion of 1641
Irish Rebellion of 1641
The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began as an attempted coup d'état by Irish Catholic gentry, who tried to seize control of the English administration in Ireland to force concessions for the Catholics living under English rule...
when an insurgent Catholic force under Phelim O'Neill tried but failed to take the town. See Siege of Drogheda 1641
Siege of Drogheda 1641
The first Siege of Drogheda took place in 1641-42, during the Irish Rebellion of 1641. A Catholic force under Féilim Ó Néill laid siege to the town and assaulted it twice but failed to take it...
Background to the siege
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
landed in Ireland in August 1649 to re-conquer the country on behalf of the English Parliament. The Parliamentarians were opposed in their aims by an alliance between Royalists defeated in the English Civil War, and an Irish Catholic movement the Confederate Catholic Association
Confederate Ireland
Confederate Ireland refers to the period of Irish self-government between the Rebellion of 1641 and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649. During this time, two-thirds of Ireland was governed by the Irish Catholic Confederation, also known as the "Confederation of Kilkenny"...
. The alliance was made in 1648 to oppose the Parliamentarians.
Just before Cromwell's landing, Dublin had been secured for the Parliament at the Battle of Rathmines
Battle of Rathmines
The Battle of Rathmines was fought in and around what is now the Dublin suburb of Rathmines in August 1649, during the Irish Confederate Wars, the Irish theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
. After their defeat the Royalists, under the Earl of Ormonde, retreated in disarray. Some of their Protestant regiments defected to Parliament and Ormonde had to try and rally the remaining "dispersed forces" so as to put together a new field army.
On 23 August the Royalists held a council of war at Drogheda, present at which were the Earls of Castlehaven
James Tuchet, 3rd Earl of Castlehaven
James Tuchet, 3rd Earl of Castlehaven was the son of Mervyn Tuchet, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven and his first wife, Elizabeth Barnham...
and Westmeath, Sir Arthur Aston, Sir Thomas Armstrong (Quartermaster-General of Horse), Sir Robert Stewart and other Royalist leaders. It was resolved that the town should be held and four regiments were chosen for the defence. The garrison was composed of both English Royalist
Cavalier
Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I and son Charles II during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration...
s and Irish Confederate
Confederate Ireland
Confederate Ireland refers to the period of Irish self-government between the Rebellion of 1641 and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649. During this time, two-thirds of Ireland was governed by the Irish Catholic Confederation, also known as the "Confederation of Kilkenny"...
troops under Arthur Aston
Arthur Aston (army officer)
Sir Arthur Aston was a lifelong professional soldier, most noted for his support for King Charles I in the English Civil War, and in folklore for the gruesome manner of his death....
—with a total strength of about 3,100. The army was half Catholic, including some English Catholics, and half English and Irish Protestants. Ormonde's strategy was not to confront the Parliamentary forces in battle but to retain the towns in the east of Ireland and to, "let his allies hunger and sickness weaken the invaders".
Cromwell's tactics at Drogheda were determined by a need to take the port towns on Ireland's east coast quickly to ensure re-supply for his troops. The normal "campaigning season", when armies could live off the land, ran from spring to autumn. Cromwell had landed in Ireland late in the year and campaigning through the winter meant securing a constant re-supply from the sea. Cromwell therefore favoured rapid assaults on fortified places over time-consuming blockades to secure the all-important ports.
The Storming of Drogheda
Drogheda's defences consisted of mediaeval curtain walls
Curtain wall (fortification)
A curtain wall is a defensive wall between two bastions of a castle or fortress.In earlier designs of castle the curtain walls were often built to a considerable height and were fronted by a ditch or moat to make assault difficult....
. These were high but relatively thin rendering them vulnerable to cannon fire. Most of the town was situated on the northern bank of the river Boyne
River Boyne
The River Boyne is a river in Leinster, Ireland, the course of which is about long. It rises at Trinity Well, Newbury Hall, near Carbury, County Kildare, and flows towards the Northeast through County Meath to reach the Irish Sea between Mornington, County Meath and Baltray, County Louth. Salmon...
but its two main gates, the Dublin and Duleek
Duleek
Duleek is a town in County Meath, Ireland, close to the Louth border.Duleek takes is name from the Irish word daimh liag, meaning house of stones and referring to an early stone-built church, St Cianan’s Church, the ruins of which are still visible in Duleek today...
gates, were in an enclave south of the river.
Cromwell positioned his forces on the south side of the river Boyne
River Boyne
The River Boyne is a river in Leinster, Ireland, the course of which is about long. It rises at Trinity Well, Newbury Hall, near Carbury, County Kildare, and flows towards the Northeast through County Meath to reach the Irish Sea between Mornington, County Meath and Baltray, County Louth. Salmon...
in order to concentrate them for the assault, leaving the northern side of the town open and covered by a small screen of cavalry. In addition a squadron of Parliamentarian ships blockaded the harbour of the town.
In a letter to William Lenthall
William Lenthall
William Lenthall was an English politician of the Civil War period. He served as Speaker of the House of Commons.-Early life:...
, Speaker of the English House of Commons, written shortly after the storming of the town, Cromwell explained why he did not fully invest the town—an action that would have left his divided command vulnerable to an attack by a relieving force and a simultaneous sortie
Sortie
Sortie is a term for deployment or dispatch of one military unit, be it an aircraft, ship, or troops from a strongpoint. The sortie, whether by one or more aircraft or vessels, usually has a specific mission....
by the garrison—but rather concentrated his troops on the south side of Drogheda for a swift assault.
Summons to surrender
The Parliamentary commander set up his batteries at two points near the Duleek gate, either side of St Mary's Church, where they would have an interlocking field of fire. Having opened two breaches in the walls, one to the south the other to the east of the church, he called on the Royalists to surrender.On Monday 10 September Cromwell had a letter delivered to the governor, the English Royalist, Sir Arthur Aston which read:
The contemporary laws of war were clear: if surrender was refused and a garrison was taken by assault, then the lives of its defenders could be forfeit. That is; acceptance of a surrender of the besieged after the storming of the breach was at the discretion of the attacker.
Aston, the Royalist commander, refused to surrender. The garrison of Drogheda was critically short of gunpowder and ammunition. Their hope was that Ormonde, nearby at Tercroghan, with some 4,000 Royalist troops would come to their relief.
The assault
At 5pm on September 11, Cromwell ordered simultaneous assaults on the south and east breaches in the walls of Drogheda. Three regiments attacked the breaches, gaining a foothold in the south but being beaten off in the east. Cromwell had to reinforce the eastern attack with two more regiments before it succeeded, the second wave climbing over "a heaped pile of their comrades' corpses". At the southern breach the Royalists counter attacked. The death of their commander, Colonel Wall, caused them to fall back, allowing further Parliamentary reinforcements to be funneled into the breach. In the fighting at the walls some 150 New Model Army troops, including a Colonel, Castle, were killed.After the death of Colonel Wall, and with more and more Parliamentary soldiers streaming into the breaches, Royalist resistance at the walls collapsed. Their surviving troops tried to flee across the river Boyne into the north of the town, while Arthur Aston and 250 others took refuge in Millmount Fort
Millmount Fort
Millmount Fort, is a large 19th century Martello tower located in Drogheda in County Louth, Ireland. Built in 1808, it is one of a series of Martello towers erected by the British in expectation of a possible invasion of Ireland by Napoleon. Built upon a huge mound, it is visible from most parts...
which overlooked Drogheda's southern defences. Others remained stranded in the towers along the town walls, while Cromwell's troops surged into the town below them.
With up to 6,000 Parliamentary troops now inside the town, Drogheda had been taken.
The massacre
After breaking into the town the New Model soldiers pursued the defenders both through the streets and into private properties, sacking churches and defensible positions as they progressed. A drawbridge existed that would have blocked access to the northern side from the south side, but the defenders had no time to pull it up behind them and the killing continued in the northern part of town.
Killing of prisoners
Some 200 Royalists under Arthur Aston, the garrison commander, had barricaded themselves in Millmount Fort overlooking the south-eastern gate, while the rest of the town was being sacked. Wary of trying to storm the fort, which Cromwell described as, "a place very strong, and of difficult access, being exceeding high, having a good graft, and strongly palisaded", Parliamentary Colonel AxtellDaniel Axtell
Colonel Daniel Axtell was Captain of the Parliamentary Guard at the trial of King Charles I at Westminster Hall in 1649. Shortly after the Restoration he was hanged, drawn and quartered as a regicide....
, "offered to spare the lives of the governor and the 200 men with him if they surrendered on the promise of their lives, which they did".
According to Axtell, the disarmed men were then taken to a windmill and killed about an hour after they had surrendered. Arthur Aston was reportedly beaten to death with his own wooden leg which the New Model Army soldiers believed had gold hidden in it. Cromwell wrote of the incident, "our men getting up to them, were ordered by me to put them all to the sword".
Another group of about 80 Royalist soldiers sought refuge in St Peter's church at the northern end of Drogheda. Parliamentarian soldiers led by John Hewson
John Hewson (regicide)
Colonel John Hewson was a soldier in the New Model Army and signed the death warrant of King Charles I, making him a regicide.-Life:...
, on Cromwell's orders, set fire to the Church. Some 30 of the defenders were burned to death in the fire and 50 more were killed outside when they fled the flames.
The final major concentration of Royalist soldiers was 200 men, who had been stationed in two towers. They stayed in the towers during the sack of the town but surrendered the following day, September 12. All of the officers and one in every ten ordinary soldiers were killed by being clubbed to death The rest were deported to Barbados.
The heads of 16 Royalist officers were cut off and sent to Dublin, where they were stuck on pikes on the approach roads. Any Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
clergy found within the town were killed by being clubbed to death or, "knocked on the head", as Cromwell put it, including two who were executed the following day.
Cromwell wrote on 16 September 1649: "I believe we put to the sword the whole number of the defenders. I do not think 30 of the whole number escaped with their lives; those that did are in safe custody for Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
". Specifically, he listed Royalist casualties as 60 officers, 220 cavalry troopers and 2,500 infantry.
However Colonel John Hewson wrote "those in the towers being about 200, did yield to the Generals mercy, where most of them have their lives and be sent to Barbados.” Other reports spoke of 400 military prisoners. Some of the garrison escaped over the northern wall, while according to one Royalist officer, Dungan, "many were privately saved by officers and soldiers", in spite of Cromwell's order for no quarter. Richard Talbot
Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnel
Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell PC was an Irish royalist and Jacobite soldier.-Life:The youngest of sixteen children of Sir William Talbot, 1st Baronet, of Carton, and his wife, Alison Netterville, he was descended from an old Norman family that had settled in Leinster in the twelfth century...
, the future Jacobite Duke of Tyrconnell was one of the few members of the garrison to survive the
sack.
Civilian casualties
It has not been clearly established how many civilians died in the sack of Drogheda. Cromwell listed the dead as including, "many inhabitants" of Drogheda in his report to Parliament. Hugh Peters, an officer on Cromwell's council of war, gave the total loss of life as 3,552, of whom about 2,800 were soldiers, meaning that between 700–800 civilians were killed. John Barratt wrote in 2009, "there are no reliable reports from either side that many [civilians] were killed".The only surviving civilian account of the siege is from Dean Bernard, a Protestant cleric, though a Royalist. He states that during the sack while some 30 of his parishioners were sheltering in his house Parliamentarian troops fired in through the windows killing one civilian and wounding another. They then broke into the house firing their weapons, but were stopped from killing those inside when an officer known to Bernard identified them as Protestants. The fate of less fortunate civilians may therefore have been worse.
The week after the storming of Drogheda, the Royalist press in England claimed that 2,000 of the 3,000 dead were civilians—a theme that was taken up both in English Royalist and in Irish Catholic accounts. Irish clerical sources in the 1660s claimed that 4,000 civilians had died at Drogheda, denouncing the sack as "unparalleled savagery and treachery beyond any slaughterhouse".
Debates over Cromwell's actions
Cromwell justified his actions at Drogheda in a letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons, as follows;Historians have interpreted the first part of this passage, "the righteous judgement of God", in two ways. Firstly as a justification for the massacre of the Drogheda garrison in reprisal for the Irish massacre of English and Scottish Protestants in 1641. In this interpretation the "barbarous wretches" referred to would mean Irish Catholics.
However, as Cromwell was aware, Drogheda had never fallen to the Irish rebels in 1641, or the forces of Confederate Ireland
Confederate Ireland
Confederate Ireland refers to the period of Irish self-government between the Rebellion of 1641 and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649. During this time, two-thirds of Ireland was governed by the Irish Catholic Confederation, also known as the "Confederation of Kilkenny"...
in the years that followed. The garrison was in fact English as well as Irish and comprised Catholics and Protestants of both nationalities. The first Irish Catholic troops to be admitted to Drogheda arrived in 1649, as part of the alliance between the Irish Confederates and English Royalists. Historian John Morrill has argued that in fact it was English Royalist officers who were singled out for the most ruthless treatment—being denied quarter, executed after being taken prisoner and whose heads were publicly displayed on pikes. From this viewpoint, he argued that by "barbarous wretches" Cromwell meant the Royalists, who in Cromwell's view had refused to accept "the judgement of God" in deciding the civil war in England and were unnecessarily prolonging the Civil Wars
Wars of the Three Kingdoms
The Wars of the Three Kingdoms formed an intertwined series of conflicts that took place in England, Ireland, and Scotland between 1639 and 1651 after these three countries had come under the "Personal Rule" of the same monarch...
.
The second part of Cromwell's statement, that the massacre would, "tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future", is accepted to mean that such severity, including such terrorising tactics as clubbing to death and public display of heads, would discourage future resistance and prevent further loss of life. Another of Cromwell's officers wrote, "such extraordinary severity was designed to discourage others from making opposition". Indeed the neighbouring garrisons of Trim
Trim
Trim may refer to:* Cutting small pieces off something** Book trimming, a stage of the publishing process** Editing*** Editing a posting style in online discourse** Pruning, trimming as a form of pruning often used on trees-Places:...
and Dundalk
Dundalk
Dundalk is the county town of County Louth in Ireland. It is situated where the Castletown River flows into Dundalk Bay. The town is close to the border with Northern Ireland and equi-distant from Dublin and Belfast. The town's name, which was historically written as Dundalgan, has associations...
surrendered or fled when they heard the news of what had happened at Drogheda.
Several recent analyses by historians, particularly by Tom Reilly, have claimed that Cromwell’s orders were not exceptionally cruel by the standards of the day, which were that a fortified town that refused an offer of surrender, and was subsequently taken by assault, was not entitled to quarter. However, other historians have argued that, while, "Arthur Aston had refused a summons to surrender, thereby technically forfeiting the lives of the garrison in the event of a successful assault...the sheer scale of the killing [at Drogheda] was simply unprecedented."
According to John Morrill, the massacre at Drogheda, "was without straightforward parallel in 17th century British or Irish history". The only comparable case in Cromwell's previous career was that at Basing House, where 100 soldiers, out of 400 were killed after a successful assault. "So the Drogheda massacre does stand out for its mercilessness, for its combination of ruthlessness and calculation, for its combination of hot- and cold-bloodiness".
See also
- Wars of the Three KingdomsWars of the Three KingdomsThe Wars of the Three Kingdoms formed an intertwined series of conflicts that took place in England, Ireland, and Scotland between 1639 and 1651 after these three countries had come under the "Personal Rule" of the same monarch...
- Cromwellian conquest of IrelandCromwellian conquest of IrelandThe Cromwellian conquest of Ireland refers to the conquest of Ireland by the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Cromwell landed in Ireland with his New Model Army on behalf of England's Rump Parliament in 1649...
- DroghedaDroghedaDrogheda is an industrial and port town in County Louth on the east coast of Ireland, 56 km north of Dublin. It is the last bridging point on the River Boyne before it enters the Irish Sea....
- Irish battlesIrish battlesThis is a list of major military engagements throughout Irish history including:-5th century:*457 - Ath Dara *464 - First Battle of Dumha Aichir *468 - Bri Ele *470 - Second Battle of Dumha Aichir *476 - First Battle of Granard *478 - Ocha...
- List of massacres in Ireland