Cromwell approached Kilkenny by Bennet’s Bridge and sent in his summons on March 22. Sir Walter Butler, a cousin of Ormonde’s, was governor of the town, and briefly replied that he held it for the King. A battery with three guns was accordingly planted at St. Patrick’s Church, and on March 25 about a hundred shot struck the wall near the castle. An attempt to carry the breach failed with the loss of a captain and twenty or thirty men, the garrison having erected earthworks and palisades inside. At the same time a thousand men were detached to attack the Irish town near the cathedral, where the wall was but weakly defended by the townsmen, and the Cromwellians entered with a loss of only three or four men. After this, the walled portion of the town on the other side of the Nore was easily taken, and the victors endeavoured to enter the main city over St. John’s Bridge, but they were driven back with a loss of forty or fifty men. In the meantime fresh guns were brought up, and the mayor sent to represent the difficult position of the citizens. No doubt, he wrote, Cromwell would be willing to grant them fair terms, but they were in the power of the garrison, and so ‘in danger of ruin as well from our own party as from that of your Honour’s,’ and it was reasonable that the soldiers should be included. To avoid further loss, and perhaps to get away from the plague, Cromwell after some discussion acquiesced in this view, and on the next day Butler saw that further resistance would be useless. Considering that Kilkenny had been the very centre of the lately powerful Confederacy, the terms granted were liberal enough. The garrison marched out with the honours of war, surrendering their arms two miles out of town and then going where they pleased. The citizens submitted to a payment of 2000l. in two instalments, in consideration of which Cromwell had ‘made it death for any man to plunder.’ Those who wished to remove themselves or their property might do so, ‘none excepted,’ within three months. There was no armistice during the negotiations, and the garrison of Cantwell Castle, now called Sandford’s Court—‘very strong, situated in a bog, well furnished with provisions of corn’—surrendered, though specially ordered by Sir Walter Butler to abandon their post and strengthen the scanty garrison of Kilkenny. They were allowed to go beyond sea.[172]

Leaving the plague-stricken city with a small garrison, Cromwell went to Carrick. ‘The goodness of God,’ says a contemporary newswriter, ‘was exceedingly manifested in preventing the plunder of the place, which must needs have hazarded the army by infection.’ None of the soldiers, in fact, suffered, which was ‘the Lord’s own doing and marvellous in our eyes.’ The clergy were not in any way excepted from the terms granted to the citizens, and there is no evidence that violence was done to any priests. But the churches suffered terribly, Bishop Ledred’s beautiful painted windows, which even Bale had spared, were broken in pieces, and Thomas Earl of Ormonde’s splendid tomb was totally destroyed. A special interest attaches to the fate of the bishop, the learned David Rothe, who had opposed Rinuccini. There is nothing to show that he suffered from violence, but he was seventy-eight years old, and it is not surprising that he died in great discomfort, and in concealment. Bishop Lynch, who wrote from Clonfert in August, says he was stripped and mocked by the soldiers, but allowed to enter the nearest house, where he died within three weeks of old age and disease. Archbishop Fleming, who was also in Ireland, and who wrote in June, says much the same thing.[173]

In the meantime Ennisnag Castle was taken, ‘where were gotten a company of rogues which had revolted from Colonel Jones. The soldiers capitulated for life and their two officers were hanged for revolting.’ Adjutant-General Sadleir, with two guns, took all the castles in the Suir valley from Clonmel to Waterford without resistance except at Poulakerry, five miles below the former town. This was taken by assault, thirty or forty being killed, ‘and the rest remaining obstinate were fired in the castle.’ On April 27 Cromwell came before Clonmel, and offered favourable terms, which were promptly rejected by the governor, Hugh Boy O’Neill, a nephew of Owen Roe, who had about 1500 Ulster men with him. O’Neill, whom Cliffe describes as ‘an old surly Spanish soldier,’ had expected to be attacked as far back as February, and Ormonde had written from Ennis at the beginning of March to say that he would ‘draw all the forces of the kingdom into a body for the town’s relief.’ But he could do nothing, for the Commissioners of Trust were more anxious to thwart him than Cromwell, and would not allow a levy to be made in the county of Limerick. An attempt to send an expedition from the county of Cork was foiled by Broghill, and Clonmel was left to its fate. Preston had promised, but failed, to send ammunition from Waterford, and with Carrick in an enemy’s hand it is not easy to see how he could have done so. O’Neill and the mayor, John White, made a last appeal to Ormonde. The long threatened attack had come at last, and the preservation of the town was almost Ireland’s last hope. ‘It is,’ they wrote, ‘our humble suit that the army, if in any reasonable condition, may march night and day to our succour.’ But no such army was available, and Cromwell planted his battery without hindrance. Reynolds and Theophilus Jones had a force in the field sufficient to prevent Castlehaven from giving any trouble. Approaches were made from the north side of the town, and there were many sallies and much fighting before the breach was practicable. A comparison of extant accounts fortified by local tradition seems to indicate that the spot was near a gate which stood a little to the eastward of St. Mary’s Church. The assault was made about eight in the morning of May 9, and the storming party entered without difficulty, but found that their work was still to do. O’Neill had manned the houses and erected two breastworks of ‘dunghills, mortar, stones and timber,’ making a lane about eighty yards inwards from the breach with a masked battery at the end. The ‘British Officer,’ who got his facts ‘not only from officers and soldiers of the besiegers,’ but also from the besieged, describes what followed. The stormers poured in and found themselves caught in a trap. Those in front cried ‘Halt,’ and those behind ‘Advance,’ ‘till that pound or lane was full and could hold no more.’ Two guns hailed chain-shot upon this dense mass, while a continual fire was kept up from the houses and the breastworks. Volleys of stones were thrown, and great pieces of timber hurled from slides which O’Neill’s ingenuity had provided, ‘so that in less than an hour’s time about a thousand men were killed in that pound, being atop one another.’ Colonel Culham, who led the stormers, and several other officers were among the slain, and the survivors were driven out again through the breach. Contemporary accounts estimate Cromwell’s total loss at Clonmel at somewhere from 1500 to 2500. This repulse, said Ireton afterwards, was ‘the heaviest we ever endured either in England or here.’ His own regiment lost most of all. It is stated that Major Fennell, who commanded the few cavalry within the town, had plotted, like Tickle at Kilkenny, to open one of the gates. This was certainly believed at the time, but if there was such a plot it came to nothing.[174]

O’Neill had not ammunition to continue the defence, and he knew that there was no hope of relief. About 9 o’clock the same night he slipped out quietly by the bridge and made his way to Waterford, advising the mayor to make the best terms he could. White accordingly capitulated both for the inhabitants and for the garrison. All arms and ammunition in the town were surrendered, the civil population being guaranteed protection ‘for life and estate, from all plunder and violence of the soldiery.’ Next morning the besiegers marched in, and though Cromwell was angry at being outwitted, the conditions were kept. The garrison were pursued and stragglers cut off, amongst whom there were probably some women and at least one priest. On reaching Waterford admission was denied by Preston to O’Neill’s men. There was plague both in his camp and in the city, and after a time he ordered his foot soldiers to shift for themselves. He and Fennell, with the horse, made their way to Limerick.[175]

Inchiquin was in Kerry in January, whence he invaded Limerick with three regiments of cavalry, sweeping away the cattle and devastating most of the county. Broghill and Henry Cromwell fell upon his camp towards the end of March, and drove him across the Shannon ‘with more cows than horses.’ Inchiquin’s men were chiefly English, and some of the officers were shot as deserters from the Parliament. After this Broghill joined Cromwell, who was then preparing to attack Clonmel, and was detached by him to deal with a force of 4000 foot and 300 horse which had been raised in Kerry, chiefly by the exertions of Boetius Egan, Bishop of Ross, an Observant friar promoted by Rinuccini. The Irish, bent on relieving Clonmel, advanced to Macroom, and garrisoned Carrigadrohid Castle on the Lee, which Broghill reached on April 8. He had 1500 cavalry, and hurried on, leaving a like number of foot to guard his rear. He seems to have had no guns with him, but the Irish probably thought he had, for they burned Muskerry’s castle at Macroom, and assembled in the park. They were raw levies and probably badly armed, for they were routed in a very short time, ‘though in a place,’ says Broghill, ‘the worst for horse ever I saw, and where one hundred musketeers might have kept off all the horse of Ireland.’ Several hundred were killed, and among the prisoners were the bishop and Lord Roche’s son, the high sheriff of Kerry, who was in equal authority with him. Carrigadrohid was taken by parading pieces of timber with teams of oxen, as if they were guns. ‘I gave orders,’ says Broghill, ‘that if the garrison in it delivered it not up, we should hang the bishop before it. The former not being done the latter was.... The bishop was wont to say there was no way to secure the English but by hanging them. That which was his cruelty became his justice.’ The castle was then surrendered on fair terms, and Broghill went back to the siege of Clonmel.[176]

Cromwell quitted Ireland on May 26, leaving Ireton as his deputy. His last extant letter before going was to Hewson, in favour of young Lord Moore, son of the brave soldier who was killed at Portlester, and grandson of Lord Chancellor Loftus. Moore had fought against Cromwell, who nevertheless ordered that he should be ‘fairly and civilly treated, and that no incivility or abuse be offered unto him by any of the soldiery, either by restraining his liberty or otherwise; it being a thing which I altogether disprove and dislike that the soldiers should intermeddle in civil affairs farther than they are lawfully called upon.’ Necessity afterwards devised the major-generals, but it was to civil justice, to a Matthew Hale rather than a Desborough, that Cromwell looked for real improvement. It was a crime, he said, ‘to hang a man for six and eightpence, and I know not what—to hang for a trifle and commit murder.’ In Ireland particularly much might be done for the poor people by the cheap and impartial administration of justice. They had suffered more by the oppression of the great than any ‘in that which we call Christendom. And indeed they are accounted the bribingest people that are, they having been inured thereto.’ And he rightly considered that the best guarantee for purity was to pay good fixed salaries to the judges and to get rid of the fees and perquisites which had been a ‘colour to covetous practices.’[177]

Some papers, which Broghill thought important, were found in Bishop Egan’s possession. An anonymous correspondent of Hyde’s says one of them was a letter in which Inchiquin proposed during the latter part of 1649 to go over to Cromwell. Carte, without giving his authority, says that some such letter was forged by Antrim, who was perhaps tricky enough to do it, and the editor of the Clarendon State Papers adopted Carte’s account. Probability seems against Inchiquin having made any such overtures, but his position after Rathmines was very uncomfortable, for his men left him and he knew that the Irish would always hate him for his proceedings at Cork, Cashel, and elsewhere. He admitted that he had talked too freely to one of the enemy’s trumpeters, and it may be that he asked questions which gave rise to the idea that he was wavering. But in April 1650, when Kilkenny had fallen and Ormonde had no army in the field, Protestant Royalists grew tired of the hopeless struggle, and Cromwell was ready enough to meet them halfway. Nor did Ormonde make any difficulties. Sir Robert Sterling, Colonel Daniell, and Michael Boyle, Dean of Cloyne, made the first advances ‘on behalf of the Protestant party in Ireland now under the command or obedience of the Lord Marquis of Ormonde.’ They were all, whether soldiers or civilians, allowed to go where they pleased on engaging not to act against the Parliament, taking all their movable property except horses, arms, and ammunition, and even these they might sell to the army or to English Protestants. Questions of land were reserved for the decision of Parliament, and until that was given were referred to the Commissioners for Revenue, and those who gave assurance of fidelity to the Parliament might enjoy their estates in the meantime. Colonel Wogan and the officer who helped him to escape from Cork were the only persons excepted. Lord Montgomery surrendered at Enniskillen, Sir Thomas Armstrong at Trim, and Colonel Daniell at Doneraile. Dean Boyle had strict orders not to make any overtures on behalf of Ormonde or Inchiquin, but Cromwell nevertheless sent them both passes to go beyond seas. Admiral Penn, whose squadron lay in the Shannon, was directed to make it easy for any of the Protestants who came in his way. Ormonde contemptuously rejected the safe conduct, which was civil enough in point of form, adding that if he ever had to return the compliment he would not use it ‘to debauch any that commanded’ under Cromwell. Inchiquin was angry, but his wife had already been allowed to depart with her family and servants under convoy to Middleburgh.[178]

CHAPTER XXXIII

ORMONDE’S LAST STRUGGLES, 1650

The Anglo-Irish Catholics had been drawn into the war against their will in many cases, and in many others only in the hopes of obtaining religious toleration. They were genuine Royalists, though the interests of the sovereign did not always seem to be theirs. But the Celts cared extremely little for the Crown and a great deal for the Church; even more perhaps for the land which they had lost. Rinuccini’s whole influence went to widen the difference between the two sections. The dominant faction among the clergy were quite ready to submit to a foreign protector, and Ormonde’s last struggles were with the bishops. The Clonmacnoise decrees having failed to secure union, he summoned twenty-four prelates along with the Commissioners of Trust to meet him at Limerick, whither he went after finally leaving Kilkenny. They met accordingly on March 8, and five days later presented him with a paper of advice. They suggested that a Privy Council should be appointed consisting of ‘peers and others, natives of this kingdom, at once spiritual and temporal,’ to sit daily with the Lord Lieutenant and determine all weighty affairs. The answer to this was easy: that the appointment of Privy Councillors belonged to the King alone, and that in the actual condition of affairs the Commissioners of Trust were quite Council enough. There were vague charges of preferring Protestants to Catholics, and suggestions made as to the rendering of accounts and the administration of justice, very suitable for peaceful times, but not at all applicable to the desperate state of affairs really existing. Ormonde’s immediate object was to place a garrison in Limerick, and there all was refused to him, Lord Kilmallock, Catholic though he was, being imprisoned by the citizens for quartering part of his own troop within the walls by the Marquis’s orders. Some of the bishops made a faint attempt to reconcile the townsmen; but Ormonde went away to Loughrea on March 18, and the prelates and Commissioners followed him thither next day. It had been represented to him by some of them that all would be right if he would only get rid of Inchiquin; while others told the latter that he, as a chief of the ancient Irish, was the proper person to command, if only he would separate from Ormonde. The two lords compared notes, and easily perceived that the real object in view was to get rid of them both.[179]

By the fourth article of his agreement with Owen Roe O’Neill, Ormonde was bound to give the command in Ulster to the person nominated by the nobility and gentry of that province, who assembled for that purpose at Belturbet in March, under the presidency of Eugene Swiney, who had been Bishop of Kilmore since 1628. Antrim, who had already been in communication with Cromwell and was soon to be in alliance with Ireton, was a candidate, and had many supporters among the officers. It was thought that Sir George Monro and his Scots might follow him, though they would dislike an Irish and especially a clerical general. Hugh O’Neill, who would have been by far the fittest man, was absent in Munster; and Daniel O’Neill was practically disqualified by being a Protestant. The other candidates were Sir Phelim O’Neill, who had never shone as a soldier, Owen Roe’s son Henry, General Ferrall, and Bishop Macmahon of Clogher. The bishop professed no great anxiety for the post, but there seems little doubt that he left no stone unturned. These intrigues were successful, and Ormonde signed his commission on April 1. He was, says the ‘British Officer,’ ‘a great politician, but no more a soldier fit to be a general than one of Rome’s cardinals.’

Before the end of April, Monro surrendered Enniskillen to Coote ‘for 500l. and other trivial things.’ At the beginning of May the Bishop began his active campaign. Toome, at the foot of Lough Neagh, was surprised, and, though it was retaken not long after, this prevented Coote from besieging Charlemont; and the Irish army got between his garrison at Londonderry and that of Venables at Coleraine. A council of war was held at Loughgall in Armagh to decide whether the attack should be on the Belfast district or on Londonderry. According to the ‘British Officer,’ the latter course was taken owing to the secret practices of Sir George Rawdon, who wished to keep the war away from his own country. Macmahon summoned Dungiven, which was defended by Colonel Beresford with about sixty men, to whom he wrote, ‘if you shed one drop of my soldiers’ blood, I will not spare to put man, woman, and child to the sword.’ The place was taken by assault, the soldiers mounting the ramparts by means of short sticks thrust into the sods, and all found in arms were killed, except Beresford himself, who was sent wounded to Charlemont, where he recovered. The women, among whom, according to the ‘British Officer,’ were Lady Coote and Mrs. Beresford, were sent safely to Limavady, which was maintained by the successor of Sir Thomas Phillips. The Bishop hoped that some Scots would join him on Royalist grounds; but he got rid of all Englishmen, and a declaration was published by himself and the Bishop of Down, which was signed by twenty-nine officers, every one of them with Celtic names.[180]

The Bishop of Clogher styled his followers ‘the confident, victorious Catholic army of the North,’ but its career of success was not long. Ballycastle, on the northern shore of Antrim, was taken without resistance, and garrisoned; but it could be of little use, and the army, amounting at this time to about 4000 foot and 400 horse, returned through the mountains. The Foyle was crossed at a little-frequented passage below Lifford, Coote being encamped higher up with a much inferior force. A smart skirmish took place in which the Irish had the best of it, Captains Taylor and Cathcart being killed. If the Bishop had followed up this success, he might have gained a great victory, for Coote had to retire by a narrow causeway through bogs. The Scotch settlers were numerous between Lifford and Londonderry, and agreed to give some provisions to the Bishop’s army; but Coote persuaded them all to retire into Inishowen with their cattle, so that there was little left for the enemy to eat. Macmahon occupied Lifford, which Major Perkins surrendered as soon as he saw Ormonde’s commission, and remained there for a week, when supplies began to run short. He then imprudently weakened his force by sending a large detachment to take the remote castle of Doe on Sheephaven, and smaller ones to forage about the country, so that when he took up a position at Scariffhollis on the Swilly, some two miles above Letterkenny, he had not with him more than 3000 foot and 400 horse. In the meantime, Coote was growing stronger: 1000 foot, under Colonel Fenwick, came to him from Venables at Belfast, and every available man was drawn out of Enniskillen, so that he had a large force by the fatal 21st of June. The principal officers in the Irish army were for adhering to the Fabian tactics of their late chief, his only son among them. Their arguments were sound and based on experience; but we may be sure that the speech put into Henry O’Neill’s mouth is very different from that uttered by him. The report occupies little more than a page, but in it are mentioned by name Mars, Ulysses, Ajax, Antiochus, Hannibal, Fabius Cunctator, Scipio Africanus, Scanderbeg, Spinola, and Maurice of Nassau. The Bishop retorted by actually accusing him of want of courage; and after that there was nothing left but to fight. They were, says Coote, posted on a mountain-side, ‘inaccessible to either horse or foot,’ but descended on the enemy’s appearance into ground ‘which was extreme bad,’ but yet possible to traverse. The infantry on both sides were perhaps nearly equal, but the English had a great superiority in cavalry, so that when the Irish broke after an hour’s hard fighting it was easy to pursue them in all directions. About 3000 were killed, including a large part of the officers, and few unmounted men can have escaped. Sir Phelim O’Neill got away to Charlemont, and the Bishop managed to keep some 200 horse together, with which he fled southwards. All his colours, arms, ammunition, and baggage fell into the victors’ hands. Coote’s casualties of all sorts were under a hundred, and only one officer was killed outright. Colonel Fenwick, who fell at the first fire, afterwards died of his wounds. ‘Now the reader may observe,’ says the British Officer, ‘the sequel of making the Bishop a general that was nothing experienced in that lesson, nor becoming his coat to send men to spill Christian blood; and how that for want of conduct and prudency in martial affairs he lost himself and that army that never got a foil before he led them.’[181]

One of the Maguires, who knew all the short cuts, hurried off to Enniskillen as soon as he saw the result of the fight, and warned Major John King that the Bishop was coming his way. King got out one hundred fresh horsemen and fell upon the fugitives, who were in no condition to resist. Macmahon’s leg was broken in the scuffle, and he was taken prisoner. During his captivity he made a good impression, bewailing his many shortcomings and foretelling the course of events. King tried to save his life, but he was hanged after some weeks and his head fixed upon one of the gates of Londonderry. The responsibility for this must be shared between Ireton and Coote, but particulars are wanting. ‘I do not know,’ says the historian Lynch, ‘what the Bishop foretold, but I am certain that our nation never experienced worse calamities than she has done since he was taken from our midst.’ Ormonde praised him long afterwards as a truthful man who kept to his agreements. Several officers of rank were put to death by Coote after the battle, some of them, if we accept O’Neill’s Journal, with circumstances of great brutality. Henry O’Neill was among them, who reminded Coote that his father had saved him when he was near having to surrender Londonderry. To this Sir Charles replied that those services had been paid for at the time, and that he owed him nothing. The Irish accounts say that these officers had all been received to quarter and should have been treated as prisoners of war; and it is remarkable that the English accounts say nothing about it, though Ludlow notes that there were few prisoners, ‘being for the most part put to the sword.’ It is never possible to ascertain exactly what happened in a battle, but the probability is that immediate quarter for life given on the field was not supposed to cover acts of treason or rebellion, and all Coote’s victims would have come within those qualifications of the subsequent Act of Settlement which barred pardon for life and estate.[182]

Ormonde has been blamed by many Irish writers for not supporting the Bishop of Clogher; but he had no army with him and no means of raising one. Inchiquin’s force had disappeared in the manner already described, and Castlehaven could do little with his small following. Meanwhile, the Shannon estuary was at the mercy of the Parliamentary fleet. Kilrush and Tarbert were burned and all country boats destroyed, so that Clare was cut off from the rest of Munster. The possession of Limerick was absolutely necessary to keep up the communications between Connaught and the other provinces, and Limerick was contumacious. To those who criticised him for keeping the few soldiers he had in scattered country quarters instead of concentrating them in important garrisons, the Lord Lieutenant sarcastically answered that the towns themselves were responsible, ‘wherein we cannot yet prevail, nor ever could, till by the enemies’ lying at one end of the town we were, not without articling and conditioning, permitted to put such men as we could then get in at the other end.’ He summoned a general assembly to meet at Loughrea on April 27, enclosing a copy of the young King’s letter, which permitted him to leave Ireland if he could not secure obedience. He had a vessel ready in Galway Bay, but the conciliatory attitude of the assembly, owing to the presence of a lay element, induced him to dismiss her and to stay on in Ireland a little longer. The Archbishop of Tuam and Sir Lucas Dillon went to Limerick with directions to settle matters between the town and Ormonde, who in consequence received a rather halting invitation from the mayor, John Creagh. He came within four miles of Limerick, and agreed to visit the city on condition that he should be received with the respect due to a Lord Lieutenant; that he should have military command within the walls, and that he should be attended by his own guard of fifty horse and one hundred foot, all Roman Catholics and old soldiers of the Confederacy. The mayor would have agreed, but Dominick Fanning and a friar named Wolfe possessed themselves of the keys, collected a number of young men, who had already distinguished themselves by plundering Ormonde’s papers on board a ship, and admitted Colonel Murtagh O’Brien with an Irish regiment consisting largely of recruits. Clanricarde, supported by the Commissioners of Trust, called upon the Bishop of Limerick to excommunicate Fanning and O’Brien; but, of course, this was not done. Ormonde offered to remain in Limerick during the coming siege and take his chance with the rest, provided he was allowed to put in a proper garrison and strengthen the works as he thought fit; but his efforts were all in vain, and Galway was equally determined not to admit Clanricarde.[183]

While Ormonde persevered in his hopeless task, Ireton was gradually reducing the few strongholds which held out to the east of the Shannon after Cromwell’s departure. The first to fall was Tecroghan, in the south-west corner of Meath, which capitulated on June 25, only four days after the disaster at Scariffhollis. That strong castle belonged to Sir Luke Fitzgerald, whose daughter married the ill-fated Henry O’Neill, and had been Ormonde’s headquarters when Cromwell came to Drogheda. Reynolds besieged Tecroghan about the middle of May, the garrison being commanded by Sir Robert Talbot, a kinsman of Lady Fitzgerald, under Ormonde’s orders. This appointment displaced Major Luke Maguire, and the everlasting jealousy between the native Irish and the men of the Pale caused great dissension between the partisans of the late and present governor. In order to relieve the place, Clanricarde came to Tyrrell’s Pass with 2000 foot and 700 horse, under Castlehaven’s command. Several miles of bog had to be crossed, and a council of war was disinclined to move; but Castlehaven offered to march with the foot, leaving the cavalry to distract the enemies’ attention, if possible. The latter part of the advance was along a narrow causeway with deep ditches on either side, and the rearguard, under Captain Fox, was ordered to face about and protect the convoy. ‘He turned to his men,’ says Castlehaven, ‘and spake something in Irish that I did not know, and, marching two or three hundred paces in such a fashion that I could not tell whether he intended fighting or running away. At last he did run away, and all his party followed.’ The van marched on into Tecroghan, but without the provisions and ammunition; and Castlehaven with difficulty got back. Fox was tried by court-martial and shot. No further attempt could be made to relieve Tecroghan, which capitulated on honourable terms, the garrison marching out with the honours of war, and protection was given for the property of Lady Fitzgerald and some of her friends. By a special article, half the guns in the castle were to remain with Talbot, provided he took them within eight weeks. Carte says this was not done, and calls it a shameful breach of faith; but it is very likely that the pieces were not claimed within the specified time.[184]

Ireton summoned Carlow on July 2, having already thrown a bridge over the Barrow. Major Bellew, who commanded a garrison of about 200 men, asked for three days’ truce, which were granted, to communicate with the Bishop of Dromore and with Preston at Waterford. Further negotiations then took place, and it seems evident that the news of Scariffhollis had greatly damped the ardour of the defenders. Ireton took the bulk of the army with him to Waterford, leaving Sir Hardress Waller to take Carlow, which capitulated as soon as a tower near the bridge had been battered and carried by assault. The terms were as good as those granted to Tecroghan, and Ireton, says Ludlow, ‘caused them punctually to be executed, as his constant manner was.’[185]

After the fall of Clonmel and the departure of Cromwell, Waterford was almost isolated, though Duncannon was still in Irish hands, and communication by the river could not be altogether prevented. But Ireton had control of all the county of Waterford and of Carrick, where was the lowest bridge over the Suir. It was therefore practically impossible to relieve the city, and a small force encamped at some distance was probably enough to stop the introduction of cattle or other provisions by land. When Carlow was once invested, Ireton could spare a larger force, and he left that place early in July to press the siege of Waterford, having first sent a summons to offer fair terms. The garrison were to march out and surrender their arms within four miles of the town, officers and gentlemen retaining their swords and pistols. Cannon were not to be removed. Private property of all kinds was protected, and two months given to carry it away. Civilians were to be disarmed, but not otherwise interfered with in any way, and the soldiers might go where they pleased on promising not to serve against the Parliament in England or Ireland. No obstacle was placed in the way of taking service under any foreign government. These terms were rejected, and a further summons was sent after the surrender of Carlow. Preston or his son, Sir James, then made a sporting offer to admit Ireton’s infantry and let them do what they could inside the town. There is a good deal of grim humour in the letters exchanged on this subject, Ireton suggesting that ‘old General Preston’ must be dead. Of course, this came to nothing. More importance attaches to the murder of a man named Murphy, who was going out of Waterford into the country with 80l. in his pocket. A major and a cornet were implicated, and Ireton had them both shot. At last, after much correspondence, Sir James Preston and others came out upon safe conduct dated the last of July. The place of meeting was then called New Cross, just outside the town on the south-east side and close to the Suir. It was probably the news of Carlow having fallen that decided Preston to surrender, for Ireton seems not to have been ready for an assault, though he could annoy the town with his artillery. The terms were virtually the same as those offered a month before, and on August 10, says Ireton, ‘there marched out about 700 men, well armed, the townsmen more numerous than before we believed, and the town better fortified in all parts and more difficult to be attempted than our forces conceived, there being many private stores sufficient to have maintained them a long time.’ Duncannon, which it was now evidently useless to defend, capitulated seven days later.[186]