New Adquisition: Ireland 1649-52

Michael McNally, 1649-52: Cromwell's Protestant Crusade.
Bought in: Waterstone's, Oxford Street.
Price: 25 pounds (pricey, I know, specially for 96 pages, but I had a whim)

Having about a third of my novel set during Cromwell's campaign of Ireland I realized I knew very little about the actual military intricacies of that period of the war. Military strategy is by far my weakest subject so after a really crappy day it felt good to spend an unreasonable amount of money (I could have got the book for less than half at Amazon) on a glossy book. Not to be indulging in clichés but I always enjoy the fish-out-of-the-water feeling I get whenever I spend some time in the Military History section of a bookshop. I look around me and mostly I see middle-age men. Sometimes younger, but definitely always men. I feel like such an impostor, browsing the shelves for ulterior motives and not because of a true passion for German tanks.


Self-conscious bookshop experiences aside, this little book is exactly what it says on the tin, which was what I was looking for. Part of the Osprey Campaign military series, it provides with (mostly) clear information and useful maps and things like list of the officers in the regiments (which is very inspirational if you are trying to pick names for the supporting characters). I did not mind too much that the author's take on the Cromwell campaign in Ireland was so different from mine - he glossed over Cromwell's military skills and overlooks the atrocities he comminted. But I don't get bummed over these things anymore, after reading 20+ books on the subject, I've started to tune those things off.

It is a rather slim and basic volume but since I intended to use it as a tool that was exactly what I was looking for. A good buy, despite the price.

Links: One interesting review at Wikio, where the user summarizes the content in detail.

Summary (from Random House):

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Following the execution of King Charles I in January 1649, the English Parliament saw their opportunity to launch an assault on the Royalist enclave in Ireland. Oliver Cromwell was appointed as Deputy of Ireland to lead a campaign to restore direct control and quell the Confederate opposition.

The first battle in Cromwell's bloody offensive was at Drogheda, where an assault on the city walls resulted in the slaughter of almost 4000 defenders and inhabitants. The Parliamentary troops then proceeded to Wexford where battle once again lead to a massacre. After Cromwell returned to England, his son-in-law, Henry Ireton, continued the operation which ended with the surrender of Galway in 1652 and led to the Act for the Settlement of Ireland, in which Irish Royalists and Confederates were evicted and their lands 'settled' by those who had advanced funds to Parliament.

Inspiration: The poetry of Andrew Marvell

Andrew Marvell is an intriguing one might even say mysterious figure, like some kind of 17th century's answer to Christopher Marlowe. He was a spy and politician, a womanizer, and the author of the famous poem "To My Coy Mistress". But he also witnessed the ups and lows of the English Civil War in first row. He was friend and colleague of John Milton, and together with him, he served under Oliver Cromwell as Latin secretary.

From Parangon Review: "Little is known about Marvell's early life. He was born in 1621 at Winestead, Holderness, where his father was rector. He was probably educated at Hull Grammar School, though there is no firm evidence for this. He went to Trinity College, Cambridge, as a sizar and graduated in 1638. He seems to have stayed at Trinity, but left before the opening of the Long Parliament in 1641. The next ten years of Marvell's life are obscure. He probably spent the years 1642-1646 abroad, but historians are only able to suggest his return to England by 1649 because of the publication of two of his poems in that year. In 1650 he was appointed by Thomas Fairfax as tutor to his daughter, Mary, and so Marvell returned to Yorkshire, spending two years at Nun Appleton. His association with Fairfax brought him into close contact with Cromwell and the political machinations of the Commonwealth. After years on the continent Marvell was a fine linguist and on 21 February 1653 Milton recommended that Marvell be appointed as his assistant (Milton was blind by this stage) in the secretaryship for foreign languages. He was also appointed by Cromwell as tutor to William Dutton, his ward.

Marvell's support for Oliver Cromwell was made most evident in his Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's return from Ireland written in the summer of 1650. However, it has been argued that one stanza of this poem indicates his Royalist rather than Cromwellian sympathies. And the fact that Marvell first became MP during the Interregnum but went on being an MP after the Restoration has kept the debate about his political sympathies alive. Marvell's letters as MP, written to the Hull Corporation, as well as to the masters of Trinity House Hull, survive in far greater number than his personal letters. However, as a source of information about Marvell's political and religious inclinations they are not very revealing. This has made historical research into Marvell's politics and religion difficult and the results are often controversial."

Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland

The forward youth that would appear
Must now forsake his Muses dear,
Nor in the shadows sing
His numbers languishing.

'Tis time to leave the books in dust,
And oil th' unused armour's rust,
Removing from the wall
The corslet of the hall.

So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,
But through advent'rous war
Urged his active star:

And, like the three-forked lightning, first
Breaking the clouds where it was nursed,
Did thorough his own side
His fiery way divide.

For 'tis all one to courage high,
The emulous or enemy;
And with such, to enclose
Is more than to oppose.

Then burning through the air he went,
And palaces and temples rent;
And Caesar's head at last
Did through his laurels blast.

'Tis madness to resist or blame
The force of angry Heaven's flame;
And, if we would speak true,
Much to the man is due,

Who, from his private gardens, where
He lived reserved and austere,
As if his highest plot
To plant the bergamot,

Could by industrious valour climb
To ruin the great work of time,
And cast the Kingdom old
Into another mould.

Though Justice against Fate complain,
And plead the ancient Rights in vain:
But those do hold or break
As men are strong or weak.

Nature, that hateth emptiness,
Allows of penetration less;
And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits come.

What field of all the Civil Wars
Where his were not the deepest scars?
And Hampton shows what part
He had of wiser art;

Where, twining subtle fears with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope
That Charles himself might chase
To Carisbrook's narrow case;

That thence the Royal Actor borne
The tragic scaffold might adorn:
While round the armed bands
Did clap their bloody hands.

He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,
But with his keener eye
The axe's edge did try;

Nor called the Gods with vulgar spite
To vindicate his helpless right;
But bowed his comely head
Down as upon a bed.

This was that memorable hour
Which first assured the forced pow'r.
So when they did design
The Capitol's first line,

A Bleeding Head, where they begun,
Did fright the architects to run;
And yet in that the State
Foresaw its happy fate.

And now the Irish are ashamed
To see themselves in one year tamed:
So much one man can do,
That does both act and know.

They can affirm his praises best,
And have, though overcome, confessed
How good he is, how just,
And fit for highest trust;

Nor yet grown stiffer with command,
But still in the Republic's hand:
How fit he is to sway
That can so well obey!

He to the Commons' feet presents
A kingdom for his first year's rents:
And, what he may, forbears
His fame to make it theirs:

And has his sword and spoils ungirt,
To lay them at the Public's skirt.
So when the falcon high
Falls heavy from the sky,

She, having killed, no more does search,
But on the next green bough to perch,
Where, when he first does lure,
The falcon'r has her sure.

What may not then our Isle presume
While victory his crest does plume!
What may not others fear
If thus he crown each year!

A Caesar he ere long to Gaul,
To Italy an Hannibal,
And to all states not free
Shall climacteric be.

The Pict no shelter now shall find
Within his parti-coloured mind;
But from this valour sad
Shrink underneath the plaid:

Happy if in the tufted brake
The English hunter him mistake,
Nor lay his hounds in near
The Caledonian deer.

But thou, the War's and Fortune's son,
March indefatigably on;
And for the last effect
Still keep thy sword erect:

Besides the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night,
The same arts that did gain
A pow'r must it maintain.

More: Andrew Marvell is the lead character of the wonderful novel The Green and the Gold by Christopher Peachment.

New Book: "Cromwell to Cromwell"

The History Press has just published "Cromwell to Cromwell: Reformation to Civil War". From their website:

The English reformers of the 1530s, with Thomas Cromwell at their head, continued to have a strong belief in kingly rule and authority, despite their radical approach to the power of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. Resisting the king was tantamount to resisting God in their eyes, and even on a matter of conscience the will of the king should prevail. Yet just over 100 years later, Charles I was called the 'man of blood', and Oliver Cromwell famously declared that 'we will cut off his head with the crown on it'. But how did we get from the one to the other? How did the deferential Reformation become a redical revolution? Following on from his biography of Thomas Cromwell, John Schofield examines how the English character and the way it perceived royal rule changed between the time of Thomas Cromwell and that of his great-great-grandnephew Oliver.

It's an interesting concept for a book, and if I had the money I'd run to buy this at the nearest bookshop. Both Cromwells were key figures in the shaping of Modern England, both leaders of religious revolutions that ultimately benefited the land-owning middle-classes.

John Schofield is the author of "The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell: Henry VIII's Most Faithful Servant" (the hyperbolical title almost makes me smirk) to which this "Cromwell to Cromwell" serves as sequel.