From Drogheda Cromwell returned to Dublin, and then marched on Wexford, taking and burning minor places by the way. On the 1st of October he summoned Wexford to surrender, and though the governor refused, the officer who commanded the castle traitorously yielded it. The soldiers then perceiving the enemy quit the walls of the town, scaled them with their ladders, and encountering the forces in the market-place, they made a stout resistance; but Cromwell informs the Parliament that they were eventually all put to the sword, "not many less than two thousand, and I believe not twenty of yours from first to last of the siege. The soldiers got a very good booty; and the inhabitants," he says, "were either so completely killed, or had run away, that it was a fine opportunity for honest people to go and plant themselves there." According to various historians, no distinction was made between the soldiers and the innocent inhabitants; three hundred women, who had crowded around the great cross, and were shrieking for protection to Heaven, were put to death with the same ruthless ferocity. Some authors do not restrict the numbers of the slain like Cromwell to two thousand, but reckon them at five thousand.
Ormond now calculated greatly on the aid of O'Neil to create a diversion in the north, and divide the attention and the forces of Cromwell, for that chieftain had begun to justify the treaty made with him through Monk, by compelling Montgomery to raise the siege of Londonderry, and rescuing Coote and his small army, the only force which the Parliament had in Ulster. But the cry in London against this alliance with the Irish Papist had done its work, and, after the victory of Rathmines, the Parliament refused to ratify the treaty made with O'Neil. Indignant at this breach of faith, he had listened to the offers of Ormond, and was on his march to join him at Kilkenny. O'Neil died at Clonacter, in Cavan, but his son took the command. By his assistance, the operations of Cromwell's generals were greatly retarded at that place, and at Duncannon and Waterford.
On the 17th of October, Cromwell sat down before Ross, and sent in a trumpeter, calling on the commander to surrender, with this extraordinary statement, "Since my coming into Ireland, I have this witness for myself, that I have endeavoured to avoid effusion of blood;" which must have been read with wonder, after the recent news from Drogheda and Wexford. General Taaffe refused. There were one thousand soldiers in the place, and Ormond, Ardes, and Castlehaven, who were on the other side of the river, sent in fifteen hundred more. Yet on the 19th the town surrendered, the soldiers being allowed to march away. O'Neil had now joined Ormond at Kilkenny with two thousand horse and foot, and Inchiquin was in Munster. Soon after Cork and Youghal opened their gates, Admiral Blake co-operating by water. In the north, Sir Charles Coote, Lord President of Connaught, took Coleraine by storm, and forming a junction with Colonel Venables, marched on Carrickfergus, which they soon after reduced. Cromwell marched from Ross to Waterford, his army having taken Inistioge, Thomastown, and Carrick. He appeared before Waterford on the 24th of November. Here, too, he received the news of the surrender of Kinsale and Bandon Bridge, but Waterford refused to surrender, and Cromwell was compelled to march away to Cork for winter quarters. His troops, however, took the fort of Passage near Waterford; but they lost Lieutenant-General Jones, the conqueror of Rathmines, by sickness at Dungarvan.
Cromwell did not rest long in winter quarters. By the 29th of January, 1650, he was in the field again, at the head of thirty thousand men. Whilst Major-General Ireton and Colonel Reynolds marched by Carrick into Kilkenny, Cromwell proceeded from Youghal over the Blackwater into Tipperary, various castles being taken by the way; they quartered themselves in Fethard and Cashel. On March 28th Cromwell succeeded in taking Kilkenny, whence he proceeded to Clonmel. In this campaign the Royalist generals accuse him of still perpetrating unnecessary cruelties, though they endeavoured to set him a different example. "I took," says Lord Castlehaven, "Athy by storm, with all the garrison (seven hundred) prisoners. I made a present of them to Cromwell, desiring him by letter that he would do the same to me, if any of mine should fall into his power. But he little valued my civility, for in a few days after he besieged Gouvan, and the soldiers mutinying and giving up the place with their officers, he caused the Governor Hammond and some other officers to be put to death." Cromwell avows this in one of his letters. "The next day the colonel, the major, and the rest of the commissioned officers were shot to death; all but one, who, being very earnest to have the castle delivered, was pardoned." And this, he admits, was because they refused to surrender at his first summons. He seemed to consider a refusal to surrender at once and unconditionally, a deadly crime, and avenged it bloodily. On the other hand, Ormond, in one of his letters, says, "Rathfarnham was taken by our troops by storm, and all that were in it made prisoners; and though five hundred soldiers entered the castle before any officer of note, yet not one creature was killed; which I tell you by the way, to observe the difference betwixt our and the rebels' making use of a victory."
The Parliament, seeing the necessity of having their best general for the impending Scottish war, sent towards the end of April the President Bradshaw frigate, to bring over Cromwell from Ireland, and to leave Ireton, Lord Broghill, and the other generals to finish the war by the reduction of Clonmel, Waterford, Limerick, and a few lesser places. But Cromwell would not go till he had witnessed the fall of Clonmel. There Hugh O'Neil, the son of old Owen Roe O'Neil of Ulster, defended the place gallantly with twelve hundred men. The siege lasted from the 28th of March to the 8th of May. Whitelock says, "They found in Clonmel the stoutest enemy this army had met in Ireland, and there never was seen so hot a storm, of so long a continuance, and so gallantly defended, either in Ireland or England." The English troops had made a breach, and endeavoured to carry the town by storm in vain. On the 9th they stormed the breach a second time. "The fierce death-wrestle," says a letter from one of the besiegers, "lasted four hours," and Cromwell's men were driven back with great loss. But the ammunition of the besieged was exhausted, and they stole away in the night. The inhabitants, before this was discovered, sent out and made terms of surrender. On discovering the retreat of the enemy, pursuit was made, and two hundred men killed on the road. Oliver, however, kept his agreement with the inhabitants.
The siege of Clonmel finished, Cromwell set sail in the President Bradshaw, and landed at Bristol towards the end of May, where he was received with firing of guns and great acclamations for his exploits in Ireland. On the 31st of the month he approached Hounslow Heath, where he was met by the Lord-General Fairfax, and numbers of other officers and members of Parliament, besides crowds of other people. They conducted him to London, and on reaching Hyde Park Corner he was received by the discharge of artillery from Colonel Barkstead's regiment, there drawn up; and thus, with increasing crowds and acclamations, he was attended to the Cockpit near St. James's, a house which had been assigned to him, and where his family had been residing for some time. There the Lord Mayor and aldermen waited on him, to thank him for his services in Ireland. Thence, after rest and refreshment, he appeared in his place in Parliament, where he also received the thanks of the House. Some one remarking what crowds went out to see his triumph, Cromwell replied, "But if they had gone to see me hanged, how many more there would have been!"
Prince Charles, though invited to assume the crown of Scotland, was invited on such terms as would have afforded little hope to a man of much foresight. Those who were to support him were divided into two factions, which could no more mix than fire and water. The Covenanters, and the Royalists under Montrose, hated each other with an inextinguishable hatred. So far from mixing, they were sure to come to strife and bloodshed amongst themselves. If the Covenanters got the upper hand, as was pretty certain, he must abandon his most devoted followers, the Old Royalists and Engagers, and take the Covenant himself, thus giving up every party and principle that his father had fought for. He must take upon him a harsh and gloomy yoke, which must keep him not only apart from his Royalist and Episcopalian followers, but from his far more valuable kingdom of England, where the Independents and sectaries reigned, and which the Scottish Covenanters could not hope to conquer. But Charles was but a poor outcast and wanderer in a world the princes of which were tired of both him and his cause, and he was, therefore, compelled to make an effort, however hopeless, to recover his dominions by such means as offered. He therefore sent off Montrose to raise troops and material amongst the Northern Courts, and then to pass over and raise the Highlands, whilst he went to treat with the Covenanters at Breda.
GREAT SEAL OF THE COMMONWEALTH.