How many soldiers attacked drogheda in 1649

The war in Ireland that raged from to was confused and confusing. In one sense it was inextricably tied to the civil war in England between Royalists and Parliamentarians.

In another sense it was a separate, Irish, religious war, a contest between native Catholic and settler Protestant, for control of power, land and religious hegemony. In October , a small group from the Irish Catholic elite rose in revolt , in the name of the King, Charles I, to redress Catholic grievances in Ireland.

Not only did their coup fail, but they unleashed the passions built up in the Kingdom of Ireland since English dominance there had been established in the reign of Elizabeth I. Catholics, displaced by Protestant settlers, turned on the newcomers, killing around 4, and looting and expelling tens of thousands more from their homes.

The response of the King and of his representatives in Dublin was at first implacable — Scottish and English armies were both sent to Ireland in early and paid back, with at least equal ferocity, the massacres of Protestants in on the Catholic population.

But within months, authority in the centre of the Three Kingdoms had collapsed. Civil war broke out in England between the King and Parliament, with the Scottish Covenanter regime allied with the English Parliament. Neither party trusted the other enough to allow it access to an army capable of imposing its solution to political conflicts. The war in England meant that no one power was strong enough to intervene decisively in Ireland.

The Catholics managed to set up their own provisional administration at Kilkenny and to form a sort of parliament — the Confederate Catholic Association of Ireland — in order to co-ordinate their war effort and to negotiate with the King. Irish Catholic loyalty to the Stuart monarchy was pragmatic but also heartfelt. Irish Catholic loyalty to the Stuart monarchy was in one sense pragmatic — the King was far less hostile to Catholicism than were his puritan enemies — but also heartfelt.

For those of Gaelic origin, it was widely believed the Stuarts were themselves Gaels on account of their Scottish origins. The Catholic Confederates held most of the centre of Ireland but around the coast were series of Protestant-held enclaves, at Dublin, Cork, north-east Ulster at Carrickfergus and west Ulster around Derry. These were themselves divided among themselves between English and Scottish, Royalist and Parliamentarian.

Very broadly speaking, the English Royalists in Ireland represented those Protestants less hostile to Catholicism and willing to deal with the Confederates on behalf of the King, whereas the Irish Parliamentarians such as Charles Coote represented the hard-line settler-Protestant interest. Cork, under the command of Protestant Irishman Lord Inchiquin, changed sides from King to Parliament in and the Royalist Earl of Ormonde handed over Dublin to a Parliamentarian invasion force in rather than see it fall into Catholic hands.

Meanwhile, the civil war in England had ended in victory for the Parliament, which was committed to re-conquering Ireland and — through the Adventurers Act of — a massive confiscation of Catholic owned land.

The King was put on trial for treason and in early executed. The Royalists and Irish Confederate Catholics, who had negotiated inconclusively throughout the s, were finally thrown together out of necessity by defeat. About 4, Protestants had been killed, but Parliament put the figure nearer , As a consequence Cromwell — who thought Catholic beliefs were wrong — went to do a great work against the barbarous and blood thirsty Irish.

Cromwell spent just nine months in Ireland:. Many historians accuse Cromwell of:. Other historians point out that:. It was also around this time that King Charles I fell out with his parliament and ended up at war with them. Drogheda found itself in a strange see-saw situation concerning the military occupants, during the ten years of the s.

The English Civil War began on 22 August and meant that England was now preoccupied with its own war. The Irish gained plenty of ground at this time. Titchbourne remained as governor of Drogheda until 19 June This is a key point and a little publicised fact when it comes to Cromwell at Drogheda. The military garrison now became parliamentarian. He could have strolled into the town at any time during the following two long years with no opposition.

No incident of any significance took place while parliament was in control during this two year period. To all intents and purposes the people of the town went about their daily business as they had done under Titchbourne.

In fact the day that Cromwell got up out of bed to travel to Ireland, 11 July Drogheda was not included on his itinerary as it was under the control of his party.

It was only on that day 11th that the town was besieged by Irish royalists and eventually fell to them after negotiations on the 15th. Ormonde had returned to represent the heir to the throne, Charles Stuart junior his father having been executed by an exasperated English parliament in January of that year and had despatched Inchquin to take Drogheda. Lord Moore was soon appointed as governor, but then Ormonde gave Sir Arthur Aston, an English royalist with a reputation for cruelty, total command of the Drogheda garrison.

Cromwell had earned an extraordinary military reputation during the English Civil War. At this time he was still a small cog in a big wheel - his superior officers still had control over him. He reported directly to parliament whose commander-in-chief of the army was Lord Fairfax. The reason he was so successful in battle was because he was different to most commanders of the day. The reason he was different was because he had three simple rules. They were: discipline, discipline, discipline.

Upon arriving in Ireland, the first thing that he did was enforce this discipline. He issued his criteria to his troops for his Irish Campaign.

By now, force was required to take Drogheda back. On September 3, Cromwell arrived on Sunnyside hill with 12, parliamentarian soldiers. His mission in Ireland was simple. He had four main objectives. He was to reduce the very real menace of an Irish army posing a threat to the newly established Commonwealth government. He was to ensure that the recently extricated Protestant planters could return safely to their estates.

On the march to Drogheda two of his soldiers apparently stole some hens from an old woman. As soon as Cromwell heard of this he had them hanged. Nobody was allowed to break his rules. This old woman should have been protected by his clear instructions to his troops. As a deterrent to the others he made them pay the ultimate sacrifice. Aston had approximately 3, men.

The circumstances surrounding the military conflict is well documented. This issue when taken out of context seems appalling. But this was a time when such atrocities were not at all new. They had been happening in war-torn Ireland for some time and on the continent in the Thirty Years War. But the massacre at Drogheda was on a different scale to anything in which Cromwell had been involved before. No mercy whatsoever was shown by him to the royalist garrison.

Sir Arthur Aston boasted that anyone who could take Drogheda could capture Hell itself. The Marquis of Ormond hoped that Aston would gain time for the Royalists by a prolonged defence that would weaken the Parliamentarian army through disease and attrition. Cromwell was also aware of this possibility and wasted no time in deploying his siege guns to blast breaches in the walls in preparation for storming the town. A summons to surrender was issued on 10 September, which Aston rejected.

The Parliamentarian batteries were situated on the south side of Drogheda. The first battery was aimed at the southern wall between the Duleek Gate and St Mary's Church, whose tower was used as an observation post by the Royalists. The second battery was placed to the east of St Mary's to fire across a ravine which ran along the eastern wall. The batteries were placed so that the breaches they made would allow the two columns of assault troops to converge in the south-eastern corner of the town and mutually support one another once they had gained entry.

Aston ordered the construction of additional defensive earthworks when he realised where Cromwell intended to concentrate his fire. The bombardment began as soon as Aston had rejected Cromwell's summons.

By noon on 11 September, the heavy siege guns had blasted breaches in the southern and eastern walls and demolished the steeple of St Mary's Church. Around five o'clock that evening, Cromwell ordered the storming to begin. The regiments of Colonel Castle and Colonel Ewer attacked the southern breach while Colonel Hewson 's regiment crossed the ravine and attacked in the east. Hewson's men met with fierce resistance at the eastern breach. Their first assault was thrown back and they began to retreat back down the ravine.

However, the regiments of Colonel Venables and Colonel Phayre came up in support and the Parliamentarians succeeded in forcing their way into the town.

The assault on the southern breach met with similar resistance and faltered when Colonel Castle was shot in the head and killed during a Royalist counter-attack.

Cromwell himself moved into the breach to rally the wavering Parliamentarians. When the Royalist commander Colonel Wall was killed, the defenders lost heart and fell back as the Parliamentarians poured through the breaches and overran the Royalist entrenchments.

Sir Arthur Aston and about three hundred of his men fell back on Mill Mount, an artificial mound that was the motte of a long-demolished twelfth century castle.