HIST362: Modern Revolutions

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.

Half-Crown coin of Oliver Cromwell, 1658. The inscription reads OLIVAR.D.G.RP.ANG.SCO.ET.HIB.&.PRO (OLIVARUS DEI GRATIA RES PUBLICA ANGLIAE, SCOTIAE ET HIBERNIAE, ETC, PROTECTOR), meaning "Oliver, by the Grace of God, of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, etc, Protector. The "etc" refers to the residual claim of England to the throne of France, which even the republican Cromwell was not prepared to renounce.

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 judgment 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 he demanded that no supplies were to be seized from the inhabitants and that everything should be fairly purchased. It has been claimed 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 inevitable by the standards of the day. This view has been disputed by historians. Cromwell's men committed another infamous massacre at Wexford, when they broke into the town during surrender negotiations and killed over 2,000 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 labor 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 of Settlement 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.

Scotland

Cromwell also invaded Scotland in 1650-1651, after the Scots had crowned Charles I's son as Charles II and tried to re-impose the monarchy on England. Cromwell had been prepared to tolerate an independent Scotland, but had to react after the Scots invaded England. Cromwell was much less hostile to Scottish Presbyterians than to Irish Catholics, seeing 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 battles Dunbar (1650) and of Worcester and occupied the country. Cromwell treated the thousands of prisoners of war he took in this campaign very badly, 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 kept under military occupation, with a line of fortifications sealing off the Scottish Highlands from the rest of the country. Presbyterianism was allowed to be practiced as before, but its 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 traditionally held for Cromwell's memory has much to do with his mass transfer of Catholic-owned property into the hands of his soldiers as with his wartime actions.