233. Blood and Betrayal: Oliver Cromwell's Irish Invasion (Ep 1)

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0:28Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnon. And me, William de Rimpel. Looking very smug today. Possibly because my entire computer system melted down in the most catastrophic and stressful way. What do you mean you said nothing? I said nothing at all. What do you mean you said nothing? I could hear you chortling away in the background and you rang me to rub my nose in it. I just thought you might need some tech assistance. I was always willing to help. Can I just say, you know you're in the end of days when Willie Dalrymple rings you up to give you tech support. You know, basically, our time here is almost over, people.

1:03This is one of the many horsemen of the apocalypse. Anyway, we're here now. And listening to all this prattle, the most patient woman on God's green earth, it is Professor Jane Olmeyer, author of Making Empire, Ireland, Imperialism and the Early Modern World. We heard from her in Jaipur and you might remember we talked about plantations, not plants, people, corporate imperialism in Ireland, using the city of Derry, stroke Londonderry, stroke, stroke city in Northern Ireland as a prism through which to understand how colonial practices and policies played out and how they were a laboratory for what many people would use as a template for colonisation.

1:44And what I think is really interesting is how little of this is known in Britain. The Irish know this history very, very well. I went through 10 years of education in the British curriculum, and I never came across any of the stuff. Well, Jane, welcome. Welcome, welcome. And you are going to hold our hands and take us through one of the most contentious periods of Irish history, and that is Cromwellian conquest, Oliver Cromwell, who many people will see if they ever go to Westminster, his statue stands proudly outside the Houses of Parliament. Famously, a man who wanted to be displayed warts and all in his portrait.

2:22He was having his portrait done and thought it was too pretty He said, you put it in. I want people to see me as I am. So let's start with the mid 17th century and let's have a portrait of the man himself. Tell me who he was, what's his origin story, and what was he like? Hi, Anita. Hi, William. Great to be back. Remember, William, the English never remember and the Irish never forget. It's one of those wonderful stories. Anyway, Anita Cromwell. So in England, of course, as you said, he's revered. It's this great parliamentary hero. And in Ireland, he's excoriated as God's execution. And in Scotland.

3:01And Scotland too. And the devil beyond the sea. I mean, he's the most vilified man possible. But Cromwell's a fascinating character. And obviously, he was a military genius. He was born in 1599, just outside Cambridge, and really lived much of his early life as an ordinary country gentleman. and he's in his 40s when he becomes an MP. I hadn't realised, again, quite how posh he was. I'd presume that he was sort of urban middle class and he wasn't. He was landed gentry. He was landed gentry, but he's in his 40s before he sort of finds God and becomes a politician and goes on to be probably the most celebrated or one of the most celebrated military figures in British history.

3:44What I find so interesting about him are his religious beliefs. He believes he has a direct line to God. He actually reads as almost sort of messianic, if you read his letters and his speeches. He is the hand of God and the kind of the reaper of wrath for God, and very much points himself to that role. It doesn't read well to a modern eye. It definitely doesn't. But of course, he comes to Ireland and commits some of the worst atrocities in Irish history at Drogheda and Wexford. And we'll come back to those. But he is vilified in Ireland as God's executioner, as this satanic figure, this devil beyond the sea.

4:22And in the Irish Folklore Archive, it records social memory. And all of these sort of testimonies were taken in the 1930s. And Cromwell is mentioned, he's only second to Daniel O 'Connell in terms of how he's remembered in social memory. And to this day, there's a generation who will hiss when they hear Cromwell's name. I mean, he really is vilified, especially amongst Irish Catholics for what he did in Ireland. But of course, he was just one of many Englishmen who did dreadful things in Ireland. And just to give us a context of the world that he was born in, we're talking about the accession of Charles I.

5:00What does Britain look like? What does England more particularly look like? And how does it fit in the context of Europe? Well, he's born in 1599, so the end of Elizabeth's reign. He comes to maturity during the reign of King James VI and I, and then later Charles I, his son. I think England at this point is a bit of a non-entity on the world stage. It's a country that really is beginning to, if you want, establish itself. It's a period of westward expansionism. But Ireland is where a lot of its attention is focused. And that pacification and conquest of Ireland has happened under Elizabeth. And now Ireland becomes, if you want, part of this westward enterprise as England not just moves into the Atlantic world, but of course, with the East India Company into Asia and the other corporate bodies into Asia as well.

5:53I've just been watching Wolf Hall on the telly and he is related to Thomas Cromwell, isn't he? through his mother, isn't that right? Yeah, there's some distant relationship, yes. No, you're absolutely right. Yes, his great, great grandmother, if you want to put a pin in it, was the sister of Thomas Cromwell of Wolf Hall fame. So, you know, he's got this sort of direct lineage to history. Also, can I just tell you, I mean, Huntington, where he was born and the formative part of the world for him, it's a really beautiful, even now, you know, full of fields. It was John Major's old constituency. And they're very, very proud of this sort of Cromwellian roots that they had.

6:30And just very recently, they had an exhibition about Cromwell's head. And his body was briefly at the end of my road in London. Yes, that's right. Yes, that's right. Right. So look, Ireland, we haven't spoken about. So we've got an idea of what England looked like. But what about Ireland? How is Ireland faring as young Oliver Cromwell is growing up? Well, in Ireland during this period, it's been militarily conquered. And it's all about how Ireland is now made English. So there are attempts to make the majority, a Catholic population, Protestant, but also then to civilise Ireland. When I say civilise, I have inverted quotes, because that really means how can Ireland be anglicised?

7:10How can the English language be introduced, the English legal system, how Ireland can be commercialised? And we talked about that when we talked about dairy. But English is the language of the courts, of commerce, and it becomes increasingly the lingua franca. And it's very much associated with the Irish being civilised, again, in inverted commas. But during this period, there are a number of minor rebellions. But one reason why Ireland has been pacified because of the destruction on the foot, not just of the Nine Years' War, but then the flight of the earls. And what you find is that there's the exercise of martial law during this period.

7:48And so imperialism is all about the exercise of power and violence and a bed of pikes underpins English rule in Ireland including the first half of the 17th century. And we should remind people if you haven't heard the previous episodes with Jane do go back I mean a solid solid gold stuff in there but the flight of the is basically the entire opposition that could have stood up to the English and to colonialism takes off and heads for the continent and so Ireland is sort of bereft of leadership at that time of any kind of meaningful resistance. Absolutely, Anita. And not only that, because you see if you want the leadership fly to the continent, obviously, they're hoping to come back, but that then paves the way for the plantation of Ulster and the consequences of that we'll be talking about today.

8:32We said he sort of came from quite a gentrified background. He also gets power at a reasonably early age because you see Oliver Cromwell become an MP for Huntington, in his hometown at the age of 29. Is there any evidence early on in his parliamentary career or in his speeches that he has a bigotry towards Catholics or indeed an antipathy towards Ireland? The simple answer is no. He is anti-Catholic, but he actually also then is somebody who believes in what we would call religious toleration, in other words, toleration of other Protestant sects, basically. He himself is what we would call today a Puritan.

9:08In other words, a hard line Protestant, more like maybe Presbyterians, they believe you want to get away with the trappings associated with Catholicism. In Ireland, the majority population is Catholic, 80 % at least. So if he's not set in stone at the beginning of his career, it is probably the Irish rebellion of 1641 that wakes something up in him. So first of all, I mean, just tell us what happens in 1641 and why it's important. So basically, in October 1641, a major rebellion breaks out in Ireland, whereby the Irish Catholic insurgents seize major strategic places around the island. They fail to take Dublin.

9:51Because a drunk reveals the plot as Owen O 'Connolly gets drunk and tells everybody what's about to happen. Sadly, yes, the stereotype comes in there. However, very quickly, the Irish insurgents are able to control huge swathes of the country. Now, that military force that's shown is accompanied by extreme violence. So we see the wholesale massacre of Protestant colonists. And this then triggers equally vicious attacks by government forces against the Catholics. We would call it today ethnic cleansing, verging on genocide, the sort of violence that is unleashed, obviously triggered by the Catholic rebellion, but met with force far greater.

10:38Do we have any idea of numbers? I mean, you know, when you're talking about ethnic cleansing and genocide, those are hefty terms. What are the numbers involved? Let's be very clear, that word ethnic cleansing and genocide are never used in the context of the 17th century. What we're seeing, they're later terms, what we're seeing are thousands and thousands of people losing their life. We don't have precise figures and people have tried over the years and all it does is, if you want, fuel propaganda mills. But we should recognise that despite the fact that these atrocities are played up by the English and become the excuse for counter atrocities, that they do exist.

11:13I mean, I've got estimates in front of me here that in some areas from 17 to 43 % of Protestant settlers are killed, maybe 4 ,000 people. Does that sound right to you? That does. It's funny, I'm involved in a big project at the moment where we're actually trying to give some estimates of people who lost their lives. We don't actually know, but we've got an amazing archive called the 1641 Depositions, which are like eyewitness testimonies of what happened in 1641. Now, there are documents of conquest in that they're collected to justify the subsequent expropriation of Irish land. But they nonetheless give us these incredible insights into what life was like in colonial Ireland because people list all of their losses.

12:00And having listed their losses, they go on then to say what their own experiences of the war were and what then allegedly happened. So we've got eyewitness testimony. Then we've got hearsay testimony. And we're able to now systematically go through all of these depositions, there's about 8 ,000 of them, and estimate, we hope with some degree of accuracy, the numbers of deaths. But just for your information, going back to Willie's figure, people have suggested that over the course of the 1640s, about a third of the population of Ireland died, either in the original massacres or in the subsequent war.

12:38Many of them would have been on the foot of the actual military incursions, but many thousands died because of the famine, the plague that followed the armies and the slash and burn techniques that were used. You also have attacks on the Irish in England, don't you? There are counter atrocities of Irish emigrants living in London and around the country. Yeah, well, what happens is, of course, the English propagandists use the outbreak of war in Ireland to feed this anti-Catholic, anti-popery is how you'll see it in the records, hysteria. And that is used very effectively by the parliamentarians.

13:16And this is what Cromwell would have been seeing in whipping up this hysteria against Irish Catholics. So then we're seeing sectarian attacks in Wales and England, particularly on the foot of other military incursions, Naseby or some of the big battles. Right. And also, I mean, this coalesces when the parliamentarians are grabbing all these headlines and using them and you've got this frenzy of anti-Catholicism. Attention turns to Charles I because there is the perception, certainly among many English parliamentarians, that he has too many Catholic sympathies. I mean, first of all, why do they say that about Charles?

13:53And is it true? He's a committed Anglican. However, his wife, Henrietta Marie, is a French princess. And she, over time, would have allied very closely with the Irish Confederates, as the Irish insurgents are later known. So Charles himself, though, is a committed Anglican. I think it's unfair to describe him as a Catholic, but he has many friends as well. And he's not sympathetic to the Irish cause to begin with, but over time he turns to Ireland for support. And that, of course, then fuels the anti-Catholic hysteria around him. And just to get the dates established, 1641 is the Irish Rebellion, 1642 the English Civil War begins.

14:32And it's really at the end of the Civil War that Cromwell turns his attention to revenge on the Irish. And the reason he does that, William, is because Ireland is always a strategic threat to England. It's the back door to England. And he knows that Charles will look to Ireland and particularly the viceroy or the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Ormond, one of the great butlers who is in charge of the royalist cause there. Butler being the family name rather than he wasn't carrying wine around restaurants. No, I guess once upon a time he might have in terms of the royal court. But no, he's an Anglo-Norman settler who's been there for centuries.

15:12James Butler, Duke of Ormond, he really runs the show in Ireland for much of the 17th century. And Cromwell realises that he has to take out that royalist army if he's ever going to secure the peace in England. Well, so this is the leap. You know, parliamentarians are often men who have very long lunches, they're soft bodies. But the image that we have of Cromwell is a man who dons armour, sits on a horse and leads the charge. So at what point does he turn from parliamentarian to soldier? Remember in the 1630s, there are no parliaments. And that's one of the big gripes against the king is that he doesn't call parliament.

15:48So I don't think Cromwell's a particularly effective politician. However, he's a very effective military commander. And this really happens after 1642. And entirely self-taught. He hasn't got a military training. No, no, no. And again, it's just quite extraordinary. But it's really Cromwell who sets up the first, if you want, professional army in England. It's called the New Model Army. And this New Model Army, say by 1646, has become a formidable force. And they're very much professionally trained, but they're also infused with this sense of being godly troops, especially any of the troops around Cromwell.

16:22He uses Protestantism to fire them up. And so it's an army, a very formidable army that he brings to Ireland. And it's a veteran army. These guys now have been seasoned in English warfare. And he deploys them along with a large war chest to Ireland in 1649. So again, just for clarity, 1641, the rebellion, 1642, the Civil War breaks out. January 1649, Charles I gets executed. And it's at that point that Cromwell gathers the army and takes them across the sea to Ireland. So tell us what happens. They land where? So it's in August 1649, Cromwell's army, and we're talking about 55 ,000 men, and a vast war chest land very close to Dublin.

17:13So they immediately secure Dublin. And then they want to take out the cream of Ormond's army, the Duke of Ormond's army, which is stationed at a place called Drogheda, which is north of Dublin on the edge of the Pale, this area that would have been traditionally controlled by the English. So he immediately marches north and Drogheda is besieged. It's besieged between the 3rd and the 11th of September 1649. When it refuses to surrender, the troops obviously just charge the city and we see a bloodletting just that has never been seen before in Ireland. Something like 3 ,000 royalist troops are killed in hot and cold blood.

17:58All of the Catholic clergy and any Catholic religious are murdered, along with an unknown number of civilians, probably around 500. And much of this is done in cold blood. In other words, it's a premeditated massacre that's occurring here. I'd love to read his speech, which gives a measure of his sort of slightly messianic quality. This is him in Dublin, just before he goes to Drogada. And he talks about his purpose as the great work against the barbarous and bloodthirsty Irish, and all their adherents and confederates for the propagating of the gospel of Christ, the establishment of truth and peace, and the restoring that bleeding nation to its former tranquility and happiness.

18:43He very much sees himself as God's own sword, doesn't he? But you know, it also reminds me of Delhi and what happens in Delhi as well, you know, this kind of bloodletting. And there's an account. 1857, you're talking, yeah. Yeah, 1857, a lot later. But you've got sort of an account by a man called Morrill, who describes Cromwell riding in on his horse and in his armour, and seeing piles of bodies of his men. And the blood is up. And he says, and this is a direct quote, it was the site of fallen comrades that was the occasion of Cromwell issuing the order for no quarter. In Cromwell's words, in the heat of action, I forbade them, meaning his soldiers, to spare any that were in arms in the town.

19:22And that night they put to the sword about 2 ,000 men. That does not include the women and children who also get caught up in this bloodlet. Here's another quote again, showing his sort of extraordinary sense of being the sword of God. He wrote to a friend that truly our work is neither from our brains nor from our courage and strength. But we follow the Lord who goeth before and gather what he scattereth, that so all may appear to be from him. So when he's doing this effusion of blood, he's seeing it as God's work. Yeah, they did, and including Cromwell himself. And it's really interesting to see how he justifies what he's done at Droghideh.

20:04He says, it's a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches who've imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood. So it's a direct reference back to 1641. Again, God is telling him to do it, and it's in punishment. We're punishing them for the rebellion of 1641. But Cromwell then goes on to justify the massacres on the grounds that it would terrorise other royalists and Irish confederates into surrender. So I think there's also, you know, he wants to make an example, if you want, of Strada. But it's not Christian behaviour, shall we put it that way? We've talked about the massacres at the Innocence.

20:39That's one interpretation, but it's very much seen by him to be Christian behavior. However, there are acts of enormous betrayal, which nobody can justify as Christian behavior. For example, there is a man, a governor, who is promised that he will live and leave with 200 men if they surrender. And so they do. And so what happens instead is that they are disarmed, they're taken to a windmill, and they're killed about an hour after they surrender. the said governor himself, they take his wooden leg and beat him to death with it because they believe it's filled with gold. Now, that is both venal, that is deceptive.

21:15I mean, nobody can argue that. But do people know that that kind of thing is happening at the time? Or is this something that we discover later? Well, people in Ireland know. And obviously, that's very much part of popular memory. And the other thing to remember is of those who die, lose their lives in Drogheda, the vast majority of them are actually Protestants. In other words, it's not actually Catholics that he's killing. It's the cream of Ormond's army. And that includes Irish Protestants who have been serving the royalist cause, Charles I. He feels no sense of conscience at all at the murder of these captives.

21:49He says, I believe we put to the sword the whole number of the defendants. I do not think 30 of the whole number escaped with their lives. Those that did are in safe custody for the Barbados. In other words, they're going to be shipped off to become plantation slaves in the West Indies. And you know, before we go to Barbados, it might be worth noting that he does what he does in Drada and then he does the same again in Wexford. So it's not a one-off. On the contrary, he goes to Wexford and another 2 ,000 people are killed again, many civilians, and it's just an absolute massacre. And the reason he goes to Wexford is because Wexford is where the Navy is stationed.

22:29So, I mean, let's talk a little bit more about the expulsions and what happens to those who are then shipped off out of Ireland, never to see their home again? What happens is after these big military victories at Drada, at Wexford, Cromwell then goes on basically to clear the other Irish towns. It does take a long time. He leaves Ireland and leaves his son-in-law, Henry Ayrton, to finish the business. But what he also institutes is the transportation of thousands of Irish, mostly Catholics, to Barbados. And then after 1655, to Jamaica. But this is effectively a death sentence for the thousands.

23:10Initially, it's men. And then with time, it's women and children as young as five who are also shipped to the Caribbean to work on the sugar plantations there. Remember, at this point, Britain has a number of colonies there. Well, with a third of the Irish population now killed, shipped off or suffering in some terrible way, what is to become of Ireland? Join us after the break.

23:40Welcome back. Jane, we were just looking at the collapse of the Royalist Army, the incredible death toll and the mass emigration, forced emigration that takes place after this. Just give us an idea, what sort of estimates would you give to the death over the whole period of the 1640s? Who is suffering? Which bit of the population is being wiped out by these wars? Death's numbers are always guesstimates, William, but we reckon about 300 ,000 people. and it's obviously men, women and children because they're not just dying as a result of the insurrection or military action. Thousands of people are dying from famine, from plague.

24:19There's a particularly brutal bout of plague in 1650 which is of course then spread by these armies and as always it's the most vulnerable that bear the brunt of war. I'm doing a big project on women and we can see women literally carrying the war on their backs. So the Irish population is now much diminished and the Catholic population is reduced to its knees by the Cromwellian conquest, which actually is only completed in 1652. And again, I just wonder what the English made of all of this, because certainly when news of, again, 1857 and the massacres that took place after the mutiny come back, there is a mixed reaction.

25:01There are some people saying, this is going too far. This is just awful. Some people saying, bravo, well done, you need to teach them a lesson. I have seen etchings from this time. So pictures were coming back of the kind of desperation of absolutely emaciated ribs sticking out children and their desperate hollow-eyed mothers. They knew. They knew what was happening. Anita, you might be talking about some of the famine etchings, but there are woodcuts that are done in an amazing pamphlet called The Tears of Ireland from 1642, which basically show some of the atrocities committed allegedly by Catholics against Protestants.

25:38So these are propaganda images. So that's all they got. We know from there are so many descriptions, and this is where the 1641 deposition archive is just incredibly important, is that both sides suffer dreadfully and especially non-competence, the women, the children. So those later images are appropriate here because the level of suffering would have just been absolutely ghastly. Right, okay. Just to take forward Anita's analogy with what was happening in 1857. In 1857, you have got a Times war correspondent in Delhi and reports are going back to London of what's happening. And people are fulminating.