Cromwell in Ireland
had got away. Pursuit was ordered; but only a couple of hundred stragglers were overtaken, and these—most of whom were wounded or women—were killed. "Cromwell," says Whitelock, "found in Clonmel the stoutest enemy his army had ever met in Ireland, and never was seen so hot a storm of so long continuance, and so gallantly defended, neither in England nor in Ireland."
Ten days later Cromwell embarked at Youghal for Bristol.
On the 31st May he entered London. A great concourse of people went out to meet him, guns fired, the Lord Mayor and the train-bands were present.
As the cortege was passing the gallows-tree at Tyburn, near what is now the Marble Arch, someone sitting in the coach remarked upon the crowd which had come out to do him honour. "Yes," said Cromwell, "but how many more would have come to see me hanged on yonder tree."
So much for Cromwell's personal share in the Cromwellian War in Ireland. Time has constrained me only to deal with the salient features of the campaign. I have not told you of the unnumbered acts of burnings and hangings, of
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