Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland
1649 CE to 1653 CE
The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland refers to the re-conquest of Ireland by the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
Cromwell landed in Ireland with his New Model Army on behalf of the English Parliament in 1649.
Since the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Ireland has been mainly under the control of the Irish Confederate Catholics, who in 1649, signs an alliance with the English Royalist party, which had been defeated in the English Civil War.
Cromwell's forces defeat the Confederate and Royalist coalition in Ireland and occupy the country - bringing to an end the Irish Confederate Wars.
He passes a very harsh series of Penal laws against Roman Catholics and confiscates almost all of their land.
The Parliamentarian reconquest of Ireland is extremely brutal, and it has been alleged that many of the army's actions during the reconquest would today be called war crimes or even genocide.
Cromwell is still a hated figure in Ireland.
It has recently been argued by one historian that many of the actions taken by Cromwell were within the then-accepted rules of war, or were exaggerated or distorted by later propagandists, but these claims are not accepted by most historians.
The Parliamentarian campaign, which Cromwell largely heads, is estimated to have resulted in the death or exile of about 15-20% of the Irish population.
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This control is further consolidated during the wars and conflicts of the seventeenth century, which witnesses English and Scottish colonization in the Plantations of Ireland, the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the Williamite War.
Irish losses during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (which, in Ireland, include the Irish Confederacy and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland) are estimated to include twenty thousand battlefield casualties.
Two hundred thousand civilians are estimated to have died as a result of a combination of war-related famine, displacement, guerrilla activity and pestilence over the duration of the war.
A further fifty thousand are sent into indentured servitude in the West Indies.
Some historians estimate that as much as half of the pre-war population of Ireland may have died as a result of the conflict.
Northwest Europe (1648–1659 CE): Regicide, Commonwealth, and Maritime Expansion
England: Execution and Commonwealth
The conflict between Charles I and Parliament reached its dramatic conclusion with the trial and execution of the king in 1649, an unprecedented event that shocked Europe. Following the execution, the monarchy was abolished, and England became a republic known as the Commonwealth, governed initially by the Rump Parliament and later dominated by the military leadership of Oliver Cromwell, who assumed the title Lord Protector in 1653. Cromwell's rule saw strict moral and religious policies enforced, including the suppression of theaters and other forms of public entertainment. The principal members of the House of Stuart lived in exile in mainland Europe during this period.
Ireland: Cromwellian Conquest
In Ireland, Cromwell undertook a brutal military campaign from 1649 to 1653, known as the Cromwellian Conquest, aiming to suppress Catholic resistance and consolidate English rule. The campaign featured notorious sieges and massacres, notably at Drogheda and Wexford in 1649. This conquest resulted in large-scale confiscation of Catholic-owned lands and the transplantation of populations, dramatically altering the demographic and socio-political landscape of Ireland.
Scotland: Conflict and Incorporation
Scotland resisted the English Commonwealth, crowning Charles II as King of Scots in 1651. However, English forces decisively defeated Scottish royalist armies at the Battles of Dunbar (1650) and Worcester (1651), forcing Charles II into exile and bringing Scotland under direct English control. Scotland was formally united with England under the Commonwealth regime, a union deeply resented by many Scots.
Maritime and Colonial Expansion
The English East India Company continued its aggressive commercial expansion in Asia, fortifying its presence along key trade routes. By 1658, the company secured greater autonomy and territorial control, significantly advancing its trading privileges in Bengal under Mughal patronage. Concurrently, English maritime power was further solidified through the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–1654), which challenged Dutch dominance in global trade, ultimately securing advantageous trade terms for England despite heavy losses on both sides. The East India Company established numerous factories, including prominent forts such as Fort William in Bengal, Fort St George in Madras, and Bombay Castle, facilitating their dominance in trade.
Scandinavia: Shifting Alliances and Territorial Adjustments
Denmark-Norway under Frederick III grappled with ongoing military and economic pressures. The kingdom suffered a significant territorial loss following the Treaty of Roskilde (1658) to Sweden, which ceded territories such as Skåne, Halland, and Blekinge, marking a substantial reduction in Danish territorial control.
Scientific and Intellectual Developments
The Royal Society, established in the previous era, continued to foster significant scientific discourse and experimentation. Innovations in natural philosophy advanced, driven by the empirical methodologies championed by figures such as Robert Boyle, whose research into chemistry and physics marked substantial scientific progress. Intellectual debate intensified around governance, law, and society, informed heavily by the turbulent political context.
Cultural and Literary Expression
Literary and cultural expressions mirrored the political turbulence of the era. The era saw the continued productivity of John Milton, who published significant political tracts advocating republicanism and freedom of conscience. His seminal political treatise, Areopagitica (1644), argued eloquently against censorship, while his later poetry began to develop the foundations for his epic masterpiece, Paradise Lost.
Religious and Social Context
The Jews of England were no longer subject to any restrictions on their activities or particular obligations regarding residence or clothing from this period onward. Organized primarily into two communities, the Portuguese-origin Sephardim engaged in trade with Latin America, while the Ashkenazim, originating from Central and Eastern Europe, specialized in trade with India.
Legacy of the Era
By 1659, Northwest Europe had experienced radical political transformation and social upheaval. England's unprecedented republican experiment was increasingly unstable, as Cromwell’s death in 1658 left the Commonwealth vulnerable. Ireland endured deep and lasting scars from Cromwellian rule, and Scotland chafed under imposed union. Maritime and colonial successes positioned England to emerge as a significant global power, shaping future trajectories of empire and commerce. This era laid complex foundations for subsequent restoration, revolution, and imperial expansion.
England experiences great social unrest in 1649.
The Parliamentarians have won the First English Civil War between forces loyal to Charles I and those led by Parliament’s Oliver Cromwell but fail to negotiate a constitutional settlement with the defeated King Charles I.
When members of Parliament and the Grandees in the New Model Army are faced with Charles' perceived duplicity, they try him and execute him.
Cromwell assumes power under Parliament and England is proclaimed a republic.
Cromwell invades Catholic Ireland and tries to clear away the Irish for English settlement.
Sugar prices decline slowly as production becomes multi-sourced, especially through English colonial policy.
Formerly an indulgence of the rich, sugar becomes increasingly common among the poor.
Many people are active in English politics, suggesting alternative forms of government to replace the old order.
These range from Royalists, who wish to place King Charles II on the throne; men like Oliver Cromwell, who wish to govern with a plutocratic Parliament voted in by an electorate based on property, similar to that which was enfranchised before the civil war; agitators called Levellers, influenced by the writings of John Lilburne, who want parliamentary government based on an electorate of every male head of a household; Fifth Monarchy Men, who advocate a theocracy; and the Diggers led by Gerard Winstanley, who advocate a more radical solution.
Winstanley and fourteen others have published a pamphlet in which they call themselves the True Levellers to distinguish their ideas from those of the Levellers.
Once they put their idea into practice and started to cultivate common land, they had become known as "Diggers" by both opponents and supporters.
The Diggers' beliefs are informed by Winstanley's writings, which encompass a world view that envisions an ecological interrelationship between humans and nature, acknowledging the inherent connections between people and their surroundings.
An undercurrent of political thought which has run through English society for many generations and resurfaced from time to time (for example, the Peasants' Revolt in 1381) is present in some of the political factions of the 1600s, including those who form the Diggers, and hold the common belief that England had become subjugated by the "Norman Yoke."
This legend offers an explanation that at one time a golden Era had existed in England before the Norman Conquest in 1066.
From the conquest on, the Diggers argue, the "common people of England" have been robbed of their birthrights and exploited by a foreign ruling class.
The Council of State receives a letter in April 1649 reporting that several individuals had begun to plant vegetables in common land on Saint George's Hill, Weybridge near Cobham, Surrey at a time when food prices reach an all-time high.
They intend to pull down all enclosures and cause the local populace to come and work with them.
They claim that their number will be several thousand within ten days.
In the same month, the Diggers issued their most famous pamphlet and manifesto, called "The True Levellers Standard Advanced".
The commander of the New Model Army, Sir Thomas Fairfax, at the behest of the local landowners, duly arrives with his troops and interviews Winstanley and another prominent member of the Diggers, William Everard.
Everard is astute enough to see that the Diggers are in serious trouble and soon leaves the group.
Fairfax, having concluded that they are doing no harm, advises the local landowners to use the courts.
Winstanley, true to his convictions, remains, however, and complains about the treatment they had received.
The harassment from the Lord of the Manor, Francis Drake (not the famous Francis Drake, who had died more than fifty years before), is both deliberate and systematic: he organizes gangs in an attack on the Diggers, including numerous beatings and an arson attack on one of the communal houses.
The Diggers, following a court case in which they had been forbidden to speak in their own defense, are found guilty of being Ranters, a radical sect associated with liberal sexuality (though in fact Winstanley had reprimanded Ranter Laurence Clarkson for his sexual practices).
Having lost the court case, if they do not leave the land, the army can be used to enforce the law and evict them; so in August 1649 they abandon St. George's Hill, much to the relief of the local freeholders.
Prince Rupert of the Rhine, a younger son of Frederick V, Elector Palatine and Elizabeth Stewart, and the nephew of King Charles I of England, who had created him Duke of Cumberland and Earl of Holderness, had on January 11, 1649, following a degree of reconciliation with Charles II, led eight undermanned ships to Kinsale in Ireland in an attempt to prevent the Parliamentarians taking Ireland from the Royalists.
Blake has blockaded Rupert's fleet in Kinsale from May 22, ...
...allowing Oliver Cromwell to land on August 15 at Dublin.
Drogheda, by the time Cromwell lands in August 1649 in Ireland to reconquer the country on behalf of the English Parliament, is garrisoned by an English Royalist regiment under Arthur Aston and Irish Confederate troops—a total strength of about thirty-one hundred (roughly half of them English; the other half Irish).
Cromwell has around eighteen thousand men, of whom twelve thousand are brought to Drogheda, and eleven heavy, forty-eight-pound siege artillery pieces.
Cromwell had become known in the English Civil War as an excellent soldier, particularly as a commander of cavalry, but he has little expertise in siege warfare.
Rather than go through the lengthy process of blockading a fortified place into surrender, which in any case is not an option because he cannot afford to get stuck at Drogheda, he prefers the more risky but quicker option of assault.
He positions his forces on the south side of the river Boyne, in order to concentrate them for the assault and because he is not worried about whether supplies would enter the town from the north.
In addition a squadron of Parliamentarian ships blockades the harbor of the town.
Upon Aston’s refusal to surrender, Cromwell opens the bombardment.
His cannon batter two large breaches in the town's medieval walls from long range and on September 11, 1649, Cromwell orders the assault.
Two Parliamentarian attacks are repulsed before Cromwell's men fight their way into the town.
The garrison is massacred as are any Catholic clergy found within the town.
The New Model soldiers after breaking into the town pursue the defenders through the streets, killing them as they run.
A group of defenders has barricaded themselves in Millmount Fort, overlooking the town's eastern gate and holding out while the rest of the town is being sacked.
They negotiate a surrender, but are then disarmed and killed.
Another group of soldiers in St. Peter's church (at the northern end of Drogheda) are burned to death when some Parliamentarian soldiers led by John Hewson set fire to the Church.
Aston is reportedly beaten to death with his own wooden leg, which the New Model Army soldiers thought had gold hidden in it.
Richard Talbot, the future Jacobite Duke of Tyrconnell, is one of the few members of the garrison to survive the sack.
Only one hundred and fifty Parliamentarians are killed in the attack.
The two hundred Royalists who survive are deported to Barbados.
Although Cromwell himself denies that his troops had killed civilians at Drogheda, this massacre becomes infamous in Ireland and, alongside Cromwell's subsequent Sack of Wexford, remains so today.