GETTY IMAGES, BRIDGEMAN IMAGESCharles I / Britain’s civil wars
- The storming of
Drogheda 11 September 1649
When Cromwell’s massacre of Catholic and
Protestant royalists sparked a period of
unprecedented bloodletting in Ireland- The battle
of Worcester
September 1651
When Cromwell effectively
ended royalist resistance
throughout England, Scotland
and IrelandOn 11 September 1649, soldiers of
the New Model Army, commanded
by Oliver Cromwell, stormed the
town of Drogheda. The defenders,
comprising Irish and English
royalists, both Catholic and
Protestant, repulsed the first
assault but eventually fell back
from the walls. Within a matter
of hours, the parliamentary
forces had slaughtered almost
the entire garrison of 3,500 men,
alongside an indeterminate
number of civilians.
The massacre created a legacy
of bitterness that persists to this
day. Cromwell justified the mass
killing, which breached all
contemporary codes of conduct,
on two grounds. In the first
instance, he saw it as the“righteous judgement of God
against those barbarous wretches,
who have imbrued their hands in
so much innocent blood”, allegedly
murdering thousands of Protestant
settlers during the early months of
the 1641 rebellion.
None of Drogheda’s defenders,
however, had taken part in the
initial uprising. Secondly, Cromwell
hoped that his harsh tactics might
“prevent the effusion of blood for
the future” by terrifying the enemy
into submission. In fact, his actions
had exactly the opposite effect,
stiffening Catholic Irish resolve to
resist to the bitter end.
Events at Drogheda, therefore,
undoubtedly prolonged the
Cromwellian conquest. This phase
of the war lasted for four years,
resulting in the
death of almost a
quarter of Ireland’s
population, the
biggest demographic
disaster in its history.
Micheál Ó SiochrúThe execution of Charles I removed the king not only
of England but of Ireland and Scotland. The English
republic could survive only by conquering those
other nations.
Cromwell’s ruthless campaign in Ireland in
1649-50 was followed by his expedition to Scotland
in 1650-51. After his triumph at Dunbar in September
1650, he could not bring the Scots to a conclusive
battle. So he allowed them, with Charles II at their
head, to invade England, and followed in their rear.
Their defeat at Worcester on 3 September 1651,
exactly a year after Dunbar, ended large-scale
royalist resistance across the three nations.
For the first time, a Puritan regime not only
occupied Westminster and Whitehall, but
had the nation at its feet. The
external royalist threat had more
or less held the Rump and its
army together. Now issues
of political settlement
and social and religious
reform would fatally
divide them.
Blair WordenThis c1649 engraving
shows Cromwell taking
Drogheda by storm.
The massacre that
followed created a
legacy of bitterness“This phase of the war
resulted in the death of
almost a quarter of
Ireland’s population”
King Charles II hides in an oak tree following
his defeat at the battle of Worcester,
as shown in a 1660 engraving