right to note that Catholics were not then permitted to reside in the city.) Within a few days Cromwell was joined by other detachments of troops, and found himself ready to take the field at the head of a well-appointed army of some 17,000 men, amply supplied with artillery and military stores, and a military chest of £200,000. His generals were Ireton, Jones, Monk, Henry Cromwell, Blake, Ludlow, Waller, and Sankey. On 24th August he issued a proclamation, notifying he had assumed the supreme command, and promising protection until January to all "well-minded persons" who were willing to supply the army with provisions at a fair rate, and stay peaceably in their homes. The 15th to the 31st was mainly occupied in resting and drilling the troops; upon the latter date he took the larger division of the army across the Liffey, and encamped near Finglas. The following day he marched for Drogheda, the possession of which was of the first importance—it being an open seaport, barring communication with the north. Ormond had entrusted the command to Sir Arthur Ashton, an Englishman, who had distinguished himself at home and abroad, had served under King Sigismund against the Turks, had led the Royalist cavalry at Edgehill, and had been Governor of Oxford. The garrison of Drogheda consisted of 3,500 men, mostly Irish. Cromwell arrived before the town on 3rd September, and put his batteries into position. Upon the l0th he opened fire, his summons to surrender being disregarded. What follows cannot be better told than in his own words: "Upon Tuesday, the l0th of this instant, about five o'clock in the evening, we began the storm; and after some hot dispute we entered, about 700 or 800 men; the enemy disputing it very stiffly with us-and indeed, through the advantages of the place, and the courage God was pleased to give the defenders, our men were forced to retreat quite out of the breach, not without considerable loss; Colonel Castle being there shot in the head, whereof he presently died; and divers officers and soldiers doing their duty killed and wounded. There was a tenalia to flanker the south wall of the town, between Duleek Gate and the comer tower before mentioned, which our men entered. Wherein they found some 40 or 50 of the enemy, which they put to the sword; and this tenalia they held; but it being without the wall, and the sally-port through the wall into that tenalia being choked up with some of the enemy which were killed in it, it proved of no use for an entrance into the town that way. Although our men that stormed the breaches were forced to recoil,… yet being encouraged to recover their loss, they made a second attempt, wherein God was pleased so to animate them, that they got ground of the enemy, and, by the goodness of God, forced him to quit his entrenchments; and after a very hot dispute—the enemy having both horse and foot, and we only foot, within the wall—they gave ground, and our men became masters both of their retrenchments and of the church; which indeed, although they made our entrance the more difficult, yet they proved of excellent use to us; so that the enemy could not now annoy us with their horse; but thereby we had advantage to make good the ground, that so we might let in our own horse, which accordingly was done, though with much difficulty… Divers of the enemy retreated into the Mill Mount, a place very strong and of difficult access, being exceedingly high, having a good graft, and strongly palisaded. The Governor, Sir Arthur Ashton, and divers considerable officers being there, our men getting up to them were ordered by me to put them all to the sword. And indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any that were in arms in the town; and I think that night they put to the sword about 2,000 men." Sir Arthur Ashton was killed among the first; "he had his brains beaten out," says one who was present, "and his body hacked and chopped to pieces." Sir Edward Varney, Colonels Warren, Fleming, and Byrne, were slain. "I don't believe," writes Cromwell, "that any officer escaped with his life, save only one lieutenant, who, I hear, going to the enemy said that he was the only man that escaped of all the garrison." As every part of the town was commanded from the Mill Mount, further resistance was useless; Cromwell's troops poured in through the breaches, crossed the bridge, and were soon in possession of the whole of the north side. The work of slaughter was continued. Hugh Peters, Cromwell's chaplain, who gave the first account of the victory to the Parliament, sets down the number of the garrison at 3,350—none spared. "About 100 of them," says Cromwell, "possessed St. Peter's Church steeple,… these being summoned to yield to mercy, refused,… whereupon I ordered the steeple… to be fired, when one of them was heard to say in the midst of the flames,… 'I burn, I burn.' The next day the other two towers were summoned, in one of which was about six or seven score ; but they refused to
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