Oliver Cromwell - Gods Executioner (Ep2)
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Ireland in the mid 17th century a troubled country torn apart by a bloody
00:11civil war that ravaged the three kingdoms England Scotland and Ireland a massacre of
00:19Protestants by Catholic rebels in 1641 fused with an underlying ethnic hatred of the native Irish
00:26provided the pretext for an English reconquest of the islands at the head of the invading army was
00:33Oliver Cromwell England's greatest general who vowed to seek revenge on the barbarous Irish this
00:40is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches who have improved their
00:46hands in so much innocent blood the massacres at Drogheda and Wexford were a shocking statement
00:54of intent the opposing coalition of Catholic Confederates and Protestant royalists under
01:04the Marquess of Ormond appeared unable to meet the threat
01:07all right Marshall but the Ulster Irish were now on the March a detachment of 2,000 men led by
01:20Hugh Dove O'Neill headed south to confront Oliver Cromwell
01:50although Cromwell's campaign had made an immediate and dramatic impact the military
01:57conquest would clear the way for even bigger changes in Ireland that would reverberate through
02:02the centuries to the present day after two months in Ireland Cromwell controlled much of the eastern and
02:15southern coastline he had hoped to use Wexford as a base but it was uninhabitable after days of pillaging by his troops
02:25as the weather worsened the new model army was forced to seek winter quarters elsewhere
02:30as winter closed in the weather worsened in Ormond's words the new model army began to feel the bite of
02:49of colonel hunger and major sickness worse was to follow
03:02Cromwell estimated that he had only 3,000 soldiers fit for battle clearly the new model army was not invulnerable
03:09A considerable part of your army is fitter for the hospital than the field the enemy know it
03:23yet they know not what to do
03:27Exposed to the heavy rains of October 1649 he pressed on to his next target Waterford
03:33As the rain continued to fall dirt roads turned into quagmires making it impossible for Cromwell to move
03:42his heavy siege guns over land he decided instead to make an approach by sea
03:52It was here at Duncannon that the new model army suffered its first major setback of the Irish campaign
03:59The garrison included the first detachment of Ulster troops to arrive in Munster
04:07and they provided much needed backbone to the demoralized royalist forces
04:13Cromwell's son-in-law Henry Ayrton attacked the fort with 2,000 men but was beaten back
04:19Despite the setbacks at Duncannon and Waterford
04:28Cromwell could reflect with some satisfaction on his progress over the previous four months
04:36As one contemporary commentator wrote he had passed like a lightning through the land
04:42Hear my prayer O Lord and let my cry come unto thee
04:54Hide not thy face from me and the day when I am in trouble
04:59Incline thy near unto me and the day when I call answer me speedily
05:05For my days are consumed like smoke and my bones are burned as a hearth
05:14My heart is smitten and withered like grass so that I forget to eat my bread
05:22The new year 1650 saw Cromwell receive badly needed reinforcements of troops and supplies from England
05:45The new model army it's not
05:46It's not qualitatively different from any other infantry formation what it has behind it
05:52I suppose I would summarize with four words
05:55Money, ships, siege guns, horses and a fifth word money again
06:01He has got the ability to bring men munitions and provisions anywhere on the Irish coast
06:07That gives him huge strategic flexibility and it's interesting when he moves away from the coast
06:12Things become more difficult
06:17In quick succession Cromwell captured a string of major royalist towns across Munster and South Leinster
06:24Including the former confederate capital at Kilkenny
06:29Kilkenny is captured and it capitulates ultimately but it was a hard fought siege
06:34The issues in the war have been clarified Cromwell has made clear he will not be granting religious toleration
06:40Many of the Protestants and the Protestants and English on the royalist side have either
06:47Moved over to the Cromwellian side or have withdrawn from the war
06:50So it's become more purely an Irish English ethnic conflict
06:54So there's a greater element of desperation in the resistance
06:58Only Limerick, Waterford and Clonmel still held out in Munster
07:03Cromwell's noose was now tightening around Clonmel
07:06He was confident that he could take the town without difficulty
07:11But events soon proved him wrong
07:20Clonmel was defended by 1200 Ulster Catholic troops under the command of Hugh O'Neill nephew of own role
07:28He is enormously experienced in siege warfare the siege warfare that was practiced in the spanish netherlands and he's a veteran of of warfare there
07:43So he knows his siege warfare 101
07:47When you see a breach being made in the walls you build a retrenchment or v-shaped retorade behind it
07:53Man the mouth and it decides and put a cannon firing case shot and chain shot at the end and wait for him to come in
08:00Clonmel boasted formidable defences
08:19Swampland to the east and west and the river sure to the south provided excellent natural protection
08:25Cromwell was forced to place his heavy cannon on the high ground to the north
08:33And after weeks of preparation he unleashed a savage bombardment against the town
08:55The artillery soon smashed a breach in the north wall
09:07The soldiers of the new model army prepared for a full frontal assault
09:11O'Neill anticipating the point at which the breach would be made created a classic killing ground
09:26Along narrow corridor here on short street blocked at one end where artillery and musketeers could fire at will into the massed ranks of advancing parliamentary troops
09:41So they fire at this side into the mass of troops pouring in
10:01They're elbow to elbow so that when these cannons fire firing chain shot they can't miss
10:15And what goes horribly wrong for Cromwell's troops at Clonmel is that not once but twice he sends in large bodies of troops into that death trap
10:31This is going on all day long
10:43There may be up to 3,000 men dead and wounded as a result of that day's business
10:49That's from an army of besiegers of perhaps 10,000 men
10:52There's no question about it, it's the biggest reverse he suffered in England or Ireland
10:58Allabout it.
11:04but I've given a couple years of family ministry
11:06This is a very important question about Household because
11:07There's no点, but in many ways.
11:08Those are students of all parties, including staff can touch us
11:12The Irishman dentist here is to talk to you
11:14Rarely.
11:14Both parties, roles, roles and bosses are gieurs
11:17We're properly involved in the Korean head
11:21I saw the Japanese stuff
11:22You may need to김 my nieuwe
11:25Well, everyoneご存知
11:26In one day, the new model army had lost more soldiers than in years of conflict during the English Civil War.
11:44But O'Neill's triumph proved short-lived.
11:47His forces exhausted after the day's fighting, their ammunition spent, and with no hope of relief, O'Neill decided to abandon the town.
11:57He crossed the River Shure under the cover of darkness and headed south towards Waterford,
12:02leading the mayor to negotiate surrender terms with Cromwell.
12:06Cromwell had had an amazing ten years of fighting without a major setback until he stormed Cromwell and was caught in a trap.
12:21I think he simply came up against a wily commander who induced him to overreach himself.
12:27Cromwell exposed Cromwell's limitations as a military commander.
12:32In a siege situation, he only had one tactic, full frontal assault.
12:38If that failed, there was no plan B.
12:43He's a good cavalry officer. He can spot a developing situation, he can spot an opportunity, and he can seize it.
12:50He's far less competent, I would even say he's incompetent, in siege warfare.
12:56And as we saw at Clonmel, dangerously so.
12:59Cromwell, unaware of O'Neill's flight, began to negotiate surrender terms with the town's mayor, John White.
13:11Tell me, does this you and he know of your presence here?
13:16He does not. He went two hours after dark with all his men.
13:20You knave. You served me this petition before, yet you only tell me this now.
13:26If His Excellency had demanded the question, I would have told him.
13:30Who is this O'Neill?
13:32Dove O'Neill. He's an overseas soldier, born in Spain.
13:36Damn you and you're overseas.
13:38I hope His Excellency does not break his conditions, or take them from him.
13:44Which is not the repute His Excellency has, but to perform whatsoever he has promised.
13:50It's really important in terms of his own argument, surrender and I will give you just terms.
14:02Refuse to surrender and I'll massacre you.
14:05Now, at Cromwell, he puts the test, will the English keep their word?
14:10And it's very, very important that he does keep his word.
14:14In a way, what he does at Cromwell is as important as what he did at Drogheda.
14:20Fierce Irish resistance in the early months of 1650 had forced Cromwell to adopt a more moderate strategy.
14:29He offered increasingly generous terms of surrender in order to avoid heavy losses, such as those at Clonmel.
14:36Cromwell's cavalry pursued O'Neill's retreating troops.
14:42They failed to overtake the main force, but killed hundreds of the camp followers.
15:06While Cromwell had sworn to pursue O'Neill, he would in fact never meet his Irish nemesis in battle again.
15:20The conquest of Ireland was far from complete, but Parliament demanded Cromwell's immediate return.
15:27Trouble was brewing in Scotland.
15:29Charles Stuart, whose father had been executed by Cromwell in Parliament, had made an alliance with the Scottish Presbyterians.
15:37He was determined to regain his father's throne by invading England.
15:42As the Scots assembled a large army north of the border, Parliament decided on a pre-emptive strike to be led by Cromwell.
15:50Ireland was once united to England.
16:02Englishmen had good inheritances, which many of them purchased with their money and good leases.
16:08They lived peaceably and honestly among you.
16:12You broke this union.
16:15You, unprovoked, put the English to the most unheard of and most barbarous massacre, without respect of sex or age that ever the sun beheld.
16:26It is a fig leaf of pretense that they fight for their king.
16:31When really they fight in protection of men of so much prodigious blood.
16:36Men who have declared the ground of their fighting to be belem prelatecum et religiosum.
16:43You are a part of Antichrist, whose kingdom the scripture so expressly states, shall be laid in blood, yea, in the blood of the saints.
16:52We are come to ask an account of the innocent blood that hath been shed.
17:03We come to break the power of a company of lawless rebels.
17:07We come, by the assistance of God, to hold forth and to maintain the lustre and glory of English liberty in a nation where we have an undoubted right to it!
17:17He denied that he had come to wipe out the ordinary Irish people, but failed to acknowledge that his soldiers had killed many unarmed civilians.
17:43For many people, Cromwell's campaign on Ireland begins and ends with those notorious massacres.
18:02But they only form part of the story.
18:04In England, the parliament had already begun to lay the groundwork for legislation that would change Ireland forever.
18:11But before any measures could be implemented, the Irish had to be defeated militarily.
18:18The task of completing the conquest now fell to Cromwell's son-in-law, Henry Ayrton, the new parliamentary commander-in-chief.
18:29Henry Ayrton, who of course is Cromwell's son-in-law, had been very close to him for about ten years.
18:38He'd been a loyal lieutenant from the very early months of the war.
18:42He himself came from a very similar social background, slightly better educated, he's much more systematic than Oliver.
18:50And I think that comes across in Ireland too, that I think he is the one who is thinking much more deeply, not simply about the need to punish those responsible for the previous rebellion, but what form that punishment should take.
19:02He adopted a more cautious approach to the campaign, moving slowly but relentlessly inland towards the final natural line of defence available to the Irish, the River Shannon.
19:17In Ulster, however, news of Hugh Dove's success at Clomwell, followed closely by Cromwell's departure, gave the native Irish a new found confidence.
19:28With Hugh Dove still in Munster, army officers elected the charismatic Bishop of Clahar, Heber MacMahon, as their new leader.
19:39A talented politician with no military experience, he now commanded the only force that could face the parliamentarians in the field.
19:47On the 21st of June, at Scarif Hollis near Letterkenny, MacMahon faced a parliamentary army commanded by an Irish Protestant, Charles Coote.
20:01But MacMahon, ignoring the advice of more experienced officers, made a catastrophic blunder and ordered his troops to attack Coote on the lower ground.
20:17The Irish fought bravely, but eventually were overwhelmed.
20:40Thousands were killed on the battlefields.
20:44Coote lost just 100 men.
20:47The hopes of the native Irish died on the battlefield of Scarif Hollis.
20:52The hopes of the native Irish died on the battlefield of Scarif Hollis.
21:00MacMahon managed to escape, but was subsequently captured and hanged.
21:06Oanro's only son, Henry, was also taken prisoner and dragged before Coote,
21:11who ordered his immediate execution, along with other leading officers.
21:16Give!
21:18Fire!
21:20McMahon's entire force had been destroyed.
21:25Never again would they take the field against the new model army.
21:32Instead, they resorted to a guerilla war, using the mountains, bogs and woods as cover to attack the parliamentarians.
21:40These soldiers were now called Tories, from the Irish word for outlaws.
21:49The model that we see of the Cromwellian Reconquest is of the apparently inexorable capture of towns.
21:55The movement of the front lines from east to west.
22:00That's a false way of looking at it.
22:02Because as the Cromwellians advance, it's like they're pushing through a sea that closes behind them.
22:07They're leaving a countryside which is largely in the control of the remnants of the Irish royalist forces, or Tories if you will.
22:15In the face of successive defeats, the Loose Coalition, headed by the Marquess of Ormond, began to fall apart.
22:30Protestant royalists made their peace with parliament, while Catholics became increasingly critical of their leader.
22:36These military failures begin to breed in the native Irish.
22:44Such aversion to your majesty's authority, and to me, to whom all their misfortunes, the negligence, cowardice and treachery of others, are attributed.
23:01Ormond's position had become untenable.
23:04He fled to France at the end of the year.
23:11The conflict in Ireland, therefore, became a more straightforward struggle between Irish Catholics and English Protestants.
23:23An increasingly bitter conflict now centred on the city of Limerick, commanded by Hugh Dove O'Neill,
23:29hero of Clomel and nemesis of the new model army.
23:34The scene was now set for another epic encounter.
23:36Having succeeded Cromwell as the parliamentary commander in Ireland, Henry Ayrton made his approach towards Limerick.
23:51In June 1651, Ayrton crossed the Shannon north of the city, while the navy transported the crucial heavy artillery to the siege.
24:05I want this town completely surrounded.
24:08Despite a prolonged bombardment, the heavily reinforced walls could not be breached.
24:13Instead, Ayrton settled for a long siege, encircling the city with close to 11,000 men.
24:19Limerick would be starved into submission.
24:23Our message should be made perfectly clear.
24:26We are not leaving until these people submit to our will.
24:32Trapped within the walls of Limerick, 28,000 people were now crammed into a city built to hold 5,000.
24:39As Ayrton's cordon tightened around the city, the supply of food ran low.
24:46Many resorted to eating horse flesh or whatever else was available.
24:55Hugh Dove O'Neill's task is to stretch out his food supplies as long as possible.
24:59And predictably, although rather cold-heartedly, Hugh Dove tried to get rid of what are often called useless mouths from the city.
25:10Older people, women and children.
25:13And he physically drove them from the city.
25:16Hundreds of civilians tried to flee, but Ayrton hanged scores of these unfortunate refugees from makeshift gallows within sight of the walls.
25:24There was another reason why Ayrton wanted to prevent a civilian exodus from Limerick.
25:31One that filled all the protagonists with terror.
25:35The plague.
25:36The plague had come to Ireland on a Spanish merchant ship in the summer of 1649, preceding Cromwell's arrival by a few short weeks.
25:57It spread quickly throughout the country, thriving in the cramped urban areas.
26:02Soon, the disease was rampant among the undernourished and overcrowded population of Limerick.
26:11Despite crude protective measures such as plague masks stuffed with herbs, there was little doctors could do for the victims of this terrible disease.
26:20Initially, when plague broke out in the Irish quarters, the Cromwellians took this as a sign of God's favour towards their cause, that God was intervening on their behalf.
26:33But, predictably, plague and other epidemic diseases broke out on their side as well.
26:51So if you can imagine thousands of men encamped in the same area, it becomes a hotbed of epidemic disease.
26:58Summer turned to winter.
27:04Hopes for reinforcements from the Duke of Lorraine began to fade.
27:08And news reached Limerick of Cromwell's crushing victory over Charles II at the Battle of Worcester.
27:14The last possibility of help from abroad had gone.
27:17Hugh Dove was left with no choice and he finally surrendered to Ireton on 27 October 1651.
27:30The siege had exacted a terrible toll on the city's population.
27:34As many as 8,000 people had died.
27:38Most of the surviving soldiers were allowed to march away unharmed.
27:42But Ireton singled out over 20 officers, civic officials and clergy for execution.
27:49A court-martial would decide the fate of Hugh Dove O'Neill.
27:52Whereas the army belonging to the Parliament of England has appointed a tribunal of justice for the trying of Hugh Dove O'Neill on the charge of the obstinate holding out of the city of Limerick and prolonging unnecessarily this war against the army of the Parliament of England and for other terrors.
28:10What does the prisoner have to say in his defense?
28:15This war was long on before I came over.
28:18I came at the invitation of my countrymen and I have always conducted myself as a fair enemy.
28:24You encouraged this city to hold out even when there was no hope of relief.
28:28I always advised a timely surrender and I hoped I would enjoy exemption under the articles that were agreed.
28:34Confident of this, I faithfully delivered up to you the keys to the town with all the arms, ammunition and provisions without embezzlement.
28:43And my own person also to your mercy.
28:46The exchanges at Limerick over what to do with O'Neill is very, very interesting.
28:51And I think, again, show that there was mutual respect between the combatants by the end of the war.
28:57They say, no, we must be men of our world. We respect this man.
29:01This man gave us a fair fight and we gave him generous terms and we can't subsequently renege on those promises.
29:12It is consented to save the life of the prisoner.
29:16Yet this court doth a judge, let he be conveyed into confinement in England.
29:21I think it's a huge event in the war. Thereafter, the Irish continue to fight, but they're not fighting to win.
29:34Any realistic chance of winning has by then vanished.
29:38They're fighting out of desperation, fighting to secure acceptable conditions, some form of acceptable capitulation with the English Commonwealth.
29:46Arden's euphoria at the capture of Limerick didn't last long.
29:56He contracted a fever and died just a few weeks later.
30:00Ironically, Hugh Dove O'Neill accompanied the body to London as a prisoner.
30:06His war was over.
30:07Hugh Dove spent three years in the Tower of London, but was eventually released and lived out the remainder of his days in Spain.
30:19Galway, the only sizeable town still in Catholic hands, surrendered early the following year.
30:26But the fighting continued.
30:27Large Tory bands, sometimes numbering many thousands of men, continued to wage guerrilla war in the hope of forcing better terms from Parliament.
30:46Faced with an ongoing guerrilla war, the parliamentarians targeted the local Catholic population for supplying the Tories.
30:53The dividing line between civilians and soldiers became increasingly blurred, and many of the atrocities of the war date from this period.
31:03The land was divided into protected areas and enemy zones earmarked for destruction.
31:20As they advanced westwards, the new model army used a scorched earth strategy, reducing large parts of the country to a state of famine.
31:32Their response was drastic.
31:35Attack the agricultural infrastructure, slash and burn.
31:40Kill cattle, steal cattle, drive out the peasants, insist that they not live within those areas.
31:45And if they do so insist, or do so attempt, kill them.
31:50Hundreds of civilians were hanged in Tipperary alone.
31:54Their only crime? To be found within an enemy zone.
32:05Travelers in the countryside witnessed scenes of total devastation.
32:08The execution is being killed in the land of a bus.
32:09The execution is now inside of a bus.
32:11They cost us very soon to the sea.
32:12The transport?
32:14A transport?
32:15A transplant?
32:17A mawr in the fire?
32:18Shoot him?
32:19Kill him?
32:20Strip him?
32:21T Roll him?
32:22A tory?
32:23Hack him?
32:24Hang him?
32:25A rebel?
32:26him, kill him, strip him, tear him, a tory, hack him, hang him, a rebel, a rogue, a thief,
32:36a priest, a papist. There was now a startling new development, one that challenges traditional
32:43perceptions of the Cromwellian conquest. Despite the ethnic and religious hatreds that had
32:51infused the war, significant numbers of Irish Catholics now began to join the new model
32:56army. They did so as a result of physical necessity rather than political conviction.
33:05Starving and desperate, at least in the army, there were guaranteed regular meals and protection
33:10from persecution. Their own forces ravaged by disease, the parliamentarians gladly accepted
33:16these new recruits. Unable to defeat the Tories, parliament eventually gave them the option
33:23of emigrating overseas into the service of foreign armies. As many as 40,000 Irishmen went into
33:34voluntary exile. Most never saw their native land again.
33:46In April 1653, the last remaining Irish stronghold at Clough Oechdor in County Cavern surrendered.
33:53The war was effectively over.
33:59In the four years since Cromwell's arrival, the population of Ireland had declined by as much
34:15as a quarter, through hunger, disease and fighting. The extent of the destruction was such that Ireland
34:22had become a blank slate, upon which the Cromwellians could write whatever they chose.
34:27Ireland was increasingly perceived as the unstable element in the three jurisdictions of England, Scotland and Ireland.
34:41Ireland was increasingly perceived as the unstable element in the three jurisdictions of England, Scotland and Ireland.
34:48And therefore major changes have to be introduced in the ownership of the ownership of property and in the control of the population to ensure that an insurrection similar to what had occurred in 1641 never happens again.
35:09While the last bitter phase of the war was being played out, the English parliament put the finishing touches to an act for the settling of Ireland.
35:21It would be unlike any other piece of legislation Ireland had ever seen.
35:27Irish Catholic landowners, their families and dependents were to be transplanted west of the Shannon, corralled into an enclosed area, sealed off from the sea, from which they could no longer threaten their conquerors.
35:41Irish Catholic landowners, their families and their families and their families and their families and their families.
35:59To Heller or to Connacht?
36:01The choice of Connacht as a kind of a native reservation, as it were, was based on Cromwellian perceptions of the importance of the Shannon Line, that Tome under Clare and Connacht together could be controlled or corralled.
36:19The act of settlement which follows the conquest of Ireland is one of the most radical pieces of legislation ever passed in the history of the British Isles.
36:27It attempts to carry out a complete social revolution on the scale of the French Revolution.
36:32It's something which never happens in England, dispossessing the majority of the landowners in the country.
36:37That's the Catholics and handing over their land mostly to English newcomers in theory.
36:42And that there is this kind of idea that when the landowners go, the native population drift away as well.
36:48They can be persuaded to depart, leaving room for the English to settle.
36:52Which is certainly a final solution and all the dread implications of that term to the Irish problem.
36:57Initially indeed, it was proposed to transplant the entire, to extirpate, to uproot the entire Irish population and send them to the native reservation, as it were, behind the island.
37:15Shannon in Tome in Tome and Connacht and Connacht.
37:29That didn't happen on the scale envisaged or on the scale envisaged largely because, I suppose, a mixture of humanitarian motives and also practical motives that the new incoming settlers needed a labour supply.
37:43In the context where, albeit, there was huge migration from England, it wasn't sufficient to populate the countryside.
37:50Economically, they're a hugely significant period and we see the economic superiority as well as obviously the political superiority of London.
38:04Ireland is no longer a kingdom, it really is a colony.
38:08There's an enormous transfer of land and wealth from, the native population owned something like 60% of Ireland's soil in 1641.
38:18By the time the Cromwellian settlement is finished, that's down to maybe 10%, 12%.
38:24That's an enormous transfer of wealth, resources and political power which proves enduring.
38:29The Protestant ascendancy of the 18th and early 19th century was established by Cromwell.
38:38It is the war that finishes Ireland.
38:40It's the great shift from being a nation which socially and economically is dominated by Catholics
38:47to one which was in the hands of the Protestants, save for a short blip around 1690, until 1922.
38:59During the 1650s, thousands of Catholic women and children, many of them destitute and homeless, were shipped across the Atlantic.
39:07Their fate, to work on the sugar plantations in the Caribbean.
39:14This trade in human cargo also served as a means of clearing the country of vagrants and convicts.
39:22Estimates suggest that by the 1660s, as many as 50,000 Irish had been transported to the New World.
39:29Having defeated the Scots and the Irish, Cromwell ruled over the three kingdoms for much of the 1650s as a virtual military dictator,
39:42with the title of Lord Protector.
39:47On the 3rd of September 1658, Oliver Cromwell died in his bed, surrounded by family members,
39:54a privilege denied to most of his Irish opponents.
39:58He received a lavish state funeral and was buried at Westminster Abbey.
40:08With Cromwell gone, Charles II seized the opportunity to return from exile.
40:14Large crowds welcomed him back to London in May 1660.
40:19The King ordered the bodies of Cromwell and Arton to be exhumed,
40:24put through the ritual of execution and dumped in an unmarked grave.
40:29An ignominious end that few of his Irish victims would have mourned.
40:34It would be 200 years before Cromwell's reputation was re-evaluated by his own countrymen.
40:41Charles II effectively restored traditional monarchical government, as though the civil wars had never happened.
40:47In Ireland, however, the confirmation of the Cromwellian land settlement meant there would be no turning back.
40:53Curse of Cromwell is a modern invention.
40:58It wasn't that Cromwell was popular with the Irish at the time.
41:03He was certainly complained about and resented and feared.
41:07What changes everything is that in the 19th century the British make Cromwell a hero for the first time.
41:13Until he was a villain, the Irish don't have much reason to pick on him in particular.
41:18If the English don't like him, you may as well go for someone like William III, William of Orange, who actually is a hero to the English.
41:38But the Victorians turn Cromwell into the epitome of the democratic, godly, imperialist Englishman.
41:46Which is why he's got the statue in front of the door to the House of Commons and nobody else has.
41:50And being thus elevated by the English as their 17th century hero,
41:54it is absolutely inevitable that the Irish nationalists will take him out in response.
41:59And that's what happens. That's why he becomes a curse at that time.
42:02For the English historian, AJP Taylor, writing on the 300th anniversary of Cromwell's death,
42:12Ireland was the one great blot on the man's reputation.
42:16And his actions there, beyond all excuse, are explanation.
42:21Taylor believed that the curse of Cromwell would still be remembered
42:25when all his other achievements had long been forgotten.
42:32Cromwell's greatest legacy in Ireland is twofold.
42:36The first is the Protestant descendancy, which is there until the 20th century.
42:40There is no doubt about that.
42:42This is the time at which Protestants are installed as the major landowners,
42:45the pretty well-sold political power, the masters of the island.
42:50But there's also the double legacy, that no real attempt is made to convert the natives.
42:56They are simply left as serfs, as producers for the new masters,
43:03which is creating a situation of inherent instability.
43:07It's two nations, it's two religions, it's two societies.
43:11And sooner or later it's got a blow.
43:13It is not a viable long-term regime.
43:16And that's precisely what Cromwell sets up.
43:19It's very easy for Cromwell to take the blame for what was done by the English more generally.
43:29I mean, part of my worry is that if you blame Cromwell,
43:32you don't, as it were, distribute blame broadly enough.
43:35I mean, there is a horrendous outcome,
43:38which is that over 40% of the land was transferred from Catholics born in Ireland
43:44to Protestants born in England.
43:45That's not one man's doing.
43:47And it's not one man's responsibility.
43:50So if we move away from an obsession with what happened at Drogheda
43:54to the much more broader question of the horrendous long-term consequences
44:00for the inhabitants of this island, of the English conquest,
44:06then we need to place responsibility far more generally on the English
44:11and on all kinds of different groups within England.
44:17If you look at Cromwell's war guilt, if you want to use that contemporary phrase,
44:23I would look less to Drogheda and Wexford than to the whole war.
44:29The war was enormously costly in civilian lives,
44:33who either died directly or more, much less indirectly,
44:37as a result of famine and famine-related epidemics.
44:40This famine was a result of the counterinsurgency campaign,
44:44the long protracted program of reconquest.
44:48Why was it so protracted?
44:50Because Cromwell insisted on unconditional surrender.
44:55And he didn't have to do so.
44:56And by insisting on unconditional surrender,
44:58that led inevitably to a very protracted war.
45:01And in that sense, I think there's a direct link
45:04between the severity of the war and the human cost,
45:07which is, in my view, of the order of one-quarter to one-fifth
45:12of the native population perished in the years 1650, 51, 52 and into 53.
45:19That is Cromwell's legacy.
45:26Cromwell's uncompromising attitude to all Catholics,
45:30Native Irish and Old English alike,
45:32helped forge a common identity in adversity
45:36and lay the foundations for modern Irish nationalism.
45:40And this, unquestionably, is one of his most important legacies.
45:45A warrior of Christ somewhat like the Crusaders of medieval Europe,
45:54he acted as God's executioner, exacting revenge and crushing all opposition,
46:00convinced throughout of the legitimacy of his cause
46:03and striving to build a better world for the chosen few.
46:08In many ways, therefore, he remains a remarkably modern figure,
46:20relevant to our understanding of both the past and the present.
46:24Somebody to be closely studied and understood,
46:28rather than revered or reviled.
46:31A Ms. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E.