Cromwell in Ireland
ready to join him, and his coming this way is a great joy to all"; and then Aston goes on to beseech Ormond to be allowed to turn Lady Wilmot and her malignant family out of the town, for, "though she be my grandmother, I shall make poudher of her, if she play me such foul play, for they are very dangerous company | as the case stands." Lucky indeed it would have been for this old cavalier veteran if he could have carried out his threat, and turned the traitoress beldame into gunpowder, for he was most miserably deficient in that indispensable article. Six days before Cromwell's arrival he reports having received only "ten barrels of powder, but very little match, and that is a thing most wanting here, and for round shot, not any at all." "I beseech your Excellency," he writes Ormond, "to be pleased to give speedy orders for some; and also for the sudden coming of men and monies. Belly food will prove scarce among us, but my endeavours shall never be sparing."
Three days later Lady Wilmot and her family were removed from Drogheda by order of Ormond. It was one of his many mistakes. Cromwell's soldiers did not always draw distinctions in Irish sieges between men and women. This, then, was the state of Drogheda three days before Cromwell attacked it. There was
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