BOOK 1651. Their meet ing. Cromwel enters Lon umph. The commissioners met Cromwel on the eleventh a few miles beyond Aylesbury, to which place they returned with him, and spent the nightd. They had much discourse with him, and St. John more than all the reste. Cromwel gave to each of the commissioners a horse and two Scots prisoners for a present. Whitlocke says, that his horse was a very handsome, gallant young nag of good breed, and one of his prisoners a gentleman of quality. To both prisoners he gave their liberty, and passes to return to Scotlande. The next day they came to town together, bedon in tri ing met in the fields by the speaker with many members of parliament, the president of council, the lord mayor and aldermen, and many thousand persons of a certain quality and rank. Cromwel carried himself with great affableness and seeming humility, and in all his discourses about the battle seldom mentioned any thing respecting himself, but spoke of the gallantry of his officers and soldiers, and gave the glory to God. The sixteenth was the day of his public reception in parliament. Cromwel chancellor In winding up the transactions of the present of her year in England, we must not omit the election of Cromwel to the office of chancellor of the uni versity of Oxford. d Whitlocke. "Mr. Winwood's hawks met us and the general, and many officers went a little out of the way a hawking." XVI. 1651. versity of Oxford, which took place in January, CHAP. the appointment having remained vacant about one year, from the death of the earl of Pembroke, the late chancellors. Cromwel was at that time in Scotland; and the distinction was conferred on him immediately previous to his long and lingering sickness in the early part of this year. In the month of November, the earl of Manchester having declined to take the engagement to be true and faithful to the commonwealth of England, as now established without king or house of lords, he was deprived of the office of chancellor of the university of Cambridge, and chief justice St. John was elected in his room". St. John chancellor thanks The twenty-fourth of October was the day ap- Day of pointed for the public thanksgiving for the battle giving. of Worcester; and Owen and Goodwin were named to preach before the parliament on the occasion. On the twenty-fourth of September the Funeral of funeral of Popham, one of the three generals at sea, who had died on the nineteenth of August, took place at Westminster Abbey, and was attended by the speaker, the general, the council of state, and most of the members of parliament *. Popham. In the month of October a force was sent out Foreign for the reduction of the islands of Jersey, Guern- reduced. • Athenæ Oxonienses, Vol. II, Fasti, p. 92. h Carter, History of the University of Cambridge, p. 407. i Journals, Sept. 6, 19. * Ibid, Sept. 16. Whitlocke, Sept. 24. Heath, p. 303. settlements III. 1651. BOOK sey, and Man, which was with no great difficulty effected'. Barbadoes was at this time the richest of our West India possessions, and was governed by lord Willoughby of Parham, formerly a zealous presbyterian, but now a royalist. Sir George Ayscough was sent out early in autumn for the reduction of the place; and, arriving in October, his first exploit was the capture of fourteen Dutch merchantmen, which he found in the harbour. The islanders, being in disobedience to the government at home, had no way of exporting their produce, but through the instrumentality of these vessels. The island itself surrendered about the beginning of January. Virginia was in a similar situation. It had become a chosen retreat for expatriated royalists. The settlers had turned their whole attention to the improving their plantations, without so much as constructing a fort for their defence. The governor appointed by the parliament no sooner appeared among them, than they shewed themselves forward to admit him upon easy and advantageous conditions". New England had always been upon terms of the best understanding with the now triumphant party of the independents. 'Journals, Oct. 30, Nov. 6, Jan. 2, 1652. m Journals, Feb. 17, Apr. 23. Clarendon, p. 466. Whitlocke, Feb. 16, Mar. 15. Heath, p. 306, 307. "Journals, Aug. 31, 1652. Clarendon, p. 466, 467. 281 CHAPTER XVII. IRETON LORD DEPUTY OF IRELAND.-SIEGE OF IRETON. SEVERITIES EMPLOYED BY HIM. HIS DEATH. XVII. 1650. Ireton lord Ireland. CROMWEL, when he withdrew from Ireland at the CHAP. end of May 1650, left Ireton his substitute in the conduct of affairs there, with the title of lord deputy. The success of Cromwel in that country deputy of had been great and unparalleled, and may be said in some sense to have furnished the first ground, as an independent commander, of his military fame. He had reduced Drogheda, Wexford, Cork, State of that Kilkenny, Clonmel, and a multitude of other country. places, with almost incredible rapidity. He had for the most part cleared Leinster and Munster of the appearance of an enemy. Still there was much to be done. The Catholics possessed the whole province of Connaught, and disputed with the English the superiority in Ulster. They possessed Carlow, Waterford, Duncannon, Limerick BOOK and Nenagh, the first of these in the province of Leinster, and the others in Munster. III. 1650. Successes of the lord deputy. Ormond withdraws to the continent. Ferocity of Ireton was a man eminently vigilant and indefatigable in his military character. He was at the same time wary and cautious almost to a fault; and had little of the rapid and peril-defying character of his friend, qualities in no small degree dangerous, unless when combined with that felicity of genius by which error itself is often converted to good. The most considerable exploits of Ireton during the remainder of the campaign, were the reduction of Carlow, Waterford and Duncannon". He also took Tecroghan and Ne nagh. His talent was certainly not less in the cabinet, than the field. He set himself to foment the differences, which now raged between Ormond and the Catholic bishops; and it was probably owing to his intrigues that the king's lord lieutenant found himself obliged once more to quit Ireland in December, leaving his authority in the hands of the marquis of Clanricard®. Sir Charles Coote was the English president of Ulsterf; and, upon the death of O'Neile in November 1649f, Macmahon, bishop of Clogher, a busy and intriguing priest, but a man of no con |