and to resign his powers into other hands, if he should find himself unable to further the royal cause. Charles, however, refused his consent. And thus did matters stand at the close of the campaign of 1649.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Cromwell re-opens the campaign-His renewed successes-Kilkenny taken-Siege of Clonmel-Its desperate defence by Hugh O'Neill-The siege is converted into a blockade-Defeat and death of the Bishop of Ross-Surrender of ClonmelCromwell's departure for England-Cromwell's memory among the Irish-His policy-The Anti-popish spirit of his army-Hereditary in our own day-Condition of the Royalist party-Their disasters-General distrust of Ormond-Is refused admission into Limerick-Base conduct of Charles in reference to the Irish Catholics-Successes of the Parliamentary generals-Waterford takenOrmond leaves Ireland-Dilemma of the Catholics-Campaign of 1651--Limerick besieged and taken-Ireton's barbarous treatment of his prisoners-The executions-Death of Ireton-Ludlow succeeds him-The war prosecuted-Galway taken-Emigration of the Irish soldiers-Conclusion of the war- -The retrospect -Dreadful consdition of the people.

CROMWELL allowed his army to rest only six weeks in their winter quarters. He took the field early in February: and again his efforts were followed by a success almost without parallel. He bore down every thing before him. Stronghold after stronghold fell into his hands. His first attempt upon Kilkenny, however, was unsuccessful. He was induced to approach that place by the offer of Colonel Tickle to deliver it into his hands. But the plot was discovered in time to display such an appearance of defence, that Cromwell on perceiving it again retired with his force. Tickle himself was put to death. But the fate of Kilkenny was only suspended. For, Cromwell, drawing together all his forces from the towns in which they had been quartered, was soon after enabled to invest it with a considerable army. In the meantime, he had taken Callan and Gowran, after a short resistance. The towns of Cashel and Fethard, including the castle of Cahir, yielded to him without opposition. The following is Cromwell's own account of this portion of the campaign :-"I marched from Roghill Castle over the Shewer with very much difficulty, and from thence to Fethard, almost in the heart of the county of Tipperary, where was a garrison of the enemy. The town is most pleasantly seated, having a very good wall with round and square bulwarks, after the old manner of fortifications. After almost a whole night spent in treaty, the towne was delivered to me the next morning upon terms, which we usually call honourable, which I was the willinger to give, because I had little above 200 foot, and neither ladders nor guns, nor anything else to force them that night. There being about seventeen companies of the Ulster foot in Cashel, above five miles from thence, they quit it in some disorder, and the sovereigne and the aldermen since sent to me a petition, desiring

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that I would protect them, which I have also made a quarter. From thence I marched towards Callen, hearing that Colonel Reynolds was there with the party before mentioned; when I came thither I found he had fallen upon the enemy's horse, and routed them, being about 100, with his forlorne, took my Lord of Ossory's capt.-lieutenant, and another lieutenant of horse, prisoners; and one of those who betrayed our garrison of Eniscorfy, whom we hanged. The enemy had possessed three castles in the town, one of them belonging to one Butler, very considerable; the other two had about 100 or 120 men, which he attempted, and they refusing conditions seasonably offered, were put all to the sword. Indeed some of our soldiers did attempt very notably in this service, I doe not hear there were 6 men of ours lost. Butlear's castle was delivered upon conditions for all to march away, leaving their arms behinde them; wherein I have placed a company of foot, and a troop of horse, under the command of my lord Colvil, the place being six miles from Kilkenny. From hence col. Reynolds was sent with his regiment to remove a garrison of the enemies from Knocktofer (being the way of our communication to Rosse), which accordingly he did. We marched back with the rest of the body to Fethard and Cashel, where we are now quartered, having good plenty both of horse meat and man's meat for a time; and being indeed, we may say, almost in the heart and bowells of the enemy, ready to attempt what God shall next direct. And blessed be his name only for this good successe; and for this, that wee doe not finde that our men are at all considerably sicke upon this expedition, though indeed it hath been very blustering weather."

The plague was raging in the south of Ireland when Cromwell laid siege to Kilkenny. The garrison had been considerably reduced by its ravages; and at the time that Cromwell sat down before it, did not amount to more than 450 men. The governor, Sir Edward Butler, nevertheless, made so gallant a defence, that he had almost compelled the besiegers to retreat. A breach was made, and an assault ordered, but it was repelled with great loss to the assailants. The second attack was attended with no better success; and Cromwell was meditating a retreat, when he received a message from the mayor and citizens inviting him to stay, and they would admit him into the town. A third assault was made, and again defeated with great loss; but the garrison being now much weakened, and despairing of any assistance from Lord Castlehaven, at the same time that Ireton came up with great reinforcements to Cromwell, the governor entered into terms with the besiegers, and a capitulation took place. The garrison received the most honourable conditions: they marched out with arms and baggage, Cromwell complimenting the officers and soldiers on their gallant defence of the place, and declaring that but for the treachery of the civic authorities, he would have raised the siege.

From Kilkenny Cromwell marched to invest Clonmel, where he

met with a still more determined resistance. This place was garrisoned by a detachment of the Ulster Irish, about 1,500 strong. They were commanded by a brave officer, Hugh O'Neill, who, in this struggle, proved himself worthy of the illustrious name he bore. Cromwell having sent him a summons to surrender, which was treated with scorn, the cannon was set a-thundering against the walls, and, ere long, a practicable breach was effected. An assault was now ordered, but was resisted with such valour by the besieged, that the English were compelled to retire after a loss of not less than 2,000 men. Another attack was resolved upon, but Cromwell's infantry had suffered so much in the first assault that they refused to advance a second time, and an appeal was made to the cavalry. A volunteer storming party was soon formed under the command of Colonel Culin, and preparations were made for a second attack more desperate than the first. Meanwhile the besieged were not idle. Every preparation was made for resistance. The breach was fortified, and rendered as difficult to the assailants as possible; and within it, at the head of the street, O'Neill erected a new wall which completely commanded the opening through which the besiegers must enter. He also lined the adjacent houses with his best marksmen. The assault at length took place, and it was fierce, bloody, and destructive. The men fought hand to hand, and foot to foot, with terrible fury. At length the assailants succeeded in driving the Irish from the breach, and they rushed into the town over the dead bodies of their comrades. But here new obstacles met them for which they were not prepared. The wall raised by O'Neill obstructed their further progress: they were placed in a cul-de-sac, exposed to a heavy fire of musketry from the adjoining houses, and had a bold and determined enemy in front of them. The Colonel of the assailing party was already killed, together with most of the commanding officers. Lieutenant Langley, who was one of the first to volunteer for the service, had his left hand cut off by the blow of a scythe. Most of the men were either killed or wounded. The survivors had no alternative but retreat, and they were again driven through the breach, terribly shorn of their numbers. Cromwell did not venture on a third assault, but converted the siege into a blockade, and determined to accomplish by famine what he could not accomplish by force.

Cromwell was now eager to return to England, where events were taking a new turn, and danger was anticipated from an invasion from Scotland headed by the king in person. He, therefore, fretted and fumed at the obstinate defence of Clonmel; and pressed Lord Broghill and others to hasten to his assistance. O'Neill also, on his part, pressed Ormond and the Catholic lords to come to his aid. But Ormond, anxious and indefatigable though he proved himself, was defeated in all his attempts by the commissioners of trust, who refused to co-operate with him for the rescue of

* LELAND.

History of Ireland.

O'Neill and the relief of Clonmel. He prevailed, nevertheless, on Lord Roche, to collect a body of troops in the south, in which he was assisted by the Catholic bishop of Ross. This body, though numerous, was ill-disciplined, badly armed and appointed, and therefore unable to take the field against the veteran troops of the parliament. It was therefore no matter of surprise that Lord Broghill, who had been sent against them with a select body of troops, encountered and defeated them with great ease. Roche himself escaped through a morass, with the greater part of Lord his forces; but the Bishop of Ross was taken prisoner in the engagement, and afterwards put to death under circumstances of great atrocity. The following is the relation of the Protestant historian Leland:-" A man so distinguished in his opposition to the parliamentarians could expect no mercy: Broghill, however, promised to spare his life, on condition that he would use his spiritual authority with the garrison of a fort adjacent to the field of battle, and prevail on them to surrender. was conducted to the fort; but the gallant captive, unshaken by For this purpose he the fear of death, exhorted the garrison to maintain their post resolutely against the enemies of their religion and their country, and instantly resigned himself to execution (he was forthwith hanged). His enemies could discover nothing in his conduct but insolence and obstinacy, for he was a papist and a prelate.”*

The siege of Clonmel had now lasted two months, and the garrison of the brave O'Neill, though unsubdued, were reduced to great extremities. almost the last charge of powder had been spent. Finding it imProvisions were entirely exhausted, and possible to protract the siege any longer, the general withdrew his forces during the night, without being discovered by Cromwell; and on the following day, the townsmen treated with the besiegers, and surrendered the place on very favourable conditions. Thus ended the siege of Clonmel, one of the best contested struggles during the war. An eminent English commander, who assisted in that action, reported: "We found in Clonmel the stoutest enemy our army had encountered in Ireland; and it is my opinion, and that of many more, that no storm of so long continuance, and so gallantly contended, hath been seen in these wars, either in England or Ireland." Immediately after the surrender, Cromwell proceeded to Youghal and embarked for England, leaving the prosecution of the war to his son-in-law, General Ireton.

Cromwell left behind him a name in Ireland, which is mentioned with horror down even to the present day. well light on you!" or, may you suffer all that a tyrant like Cromwell "The curse of Cromwould inflict,-is one of the most blighting imprecations which an Irishman can use. The massacres of Wexford and Drogheda are yet green in the memory of the people of Ireland; and not only is

Cromwell hated as the author of these horrible atrocities, but, as if these were not enough, he is also denounced as the author of numberless cruelties and acts of destruction in places that he never so much as visited. In almost all parts of Ireland, traditions are preserved of the atrocity of the "bloody Cromwell," and ruins are pointed out, hundreds of miles distant from the tract of country to which his operations were confined, as the work of this cruel and exterminating destroyer. It would seem as if upon his memory were thrown the infamy of all the crimes which the Royalists, Confederates, and Puritans had committed, even before he dreamed of coming to the country. The atrocities, also, of the parliamentarian army, which he left behind him to complete the subjugation of the country, seem all to have been set down to the account of the "bloody Cromwell." "This is partly owing," says Dr. Taylor, "to the artifices of those who wished to persuade the Irish, in a subsequent generation, to take up arms in defence of the House of Stuart; and still more to the conduct of his soldiers and their descendants, who so long swayed the destinies of Ireland."

With all his cruelty, Cromwell, in certain cases, manifested a whimsical concern for the security of the lives and properties of the peaceable inhabitants of the country which he passed through; though this may have been good policy, and more in order to preserve strict discipline among his men, than out of regard to the security and well-being of the Irish peasantry. Thus, before he left Dublin with his army for Drogheda, he published two proclamations, forbidding his soldiers, on pain of death, to hurt any of the peaceable inhabitants, or to take provisions, or any thing else from them, without paying in ready money. And this order was so strictly executed, that, on the march to Drogheda, Cromwell ordered two of his private soldiers to be put to death, for stealing from an Irishman two hens, which were not worth sixpence! The policy of this step was soon obvious; for, ere long, upon the repeated assurances made by Cromwell and his officers, of protection and safety, both in life and liberty, civil and religious, "that all the country people flocked to them, with all kinds of provisions; and due payment being made for the same, his army was much better supplied than even that of the Irish ever had been."* It would appear that the confederates were much less scrupulous in their seizures of the property of the Irish peasantry. The army of Lord Inchiquin was especially reckless; being composed chiefly of descendants of English settlers, who, though Catholics, and fighting on the same side as the native Irish, still detested them quite as much as Cromwell's puritans ever could do. Their leaders were proud of their Norman descent, and had a supreme contempt for the "mere Irish," whom they treated as serfs and outcasts. Hence their hostility to Owen Roe O'Neill and his Irish army, and

* Carte's Ormond, vol. ii, p. 90.