IBDP History Internal Assessment
Section 1: Identification and evaluation of sources
This study will investigate the question 'Did Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army target civilians during the Siege of Drogheda in 1649?'. The first source to be analysed is Irish historian Tom Reilly's book 'Cromwell Was Framed', which was published in 2014. This source is particularly relevant as Reilly's work argues against the common perception that Cromwell targeted civilians at Drogheda, and claims there is no proof of civilian deaths. Secondly, I will evaluate Thomas Wood's eyewitness account of the Siege, published in 1772 in Ireland. This source is of paramount importance, as it gives us detailed insight into this soldier's experience at Drogheda.
'Cromwell Was Framed' by Tom Reilly
- This book's origin is of value as it was published by a local historian from Drogheda, who has had the opportunity to investigate a range of primary documents in the area. Furthermore, Reilly also founded the Drogheda Heritage Centre, which shows his deep interest and knowledge in his city's history. However, Tom Reilly is only an amateur historian and couldn't pass his history course in secondary school, which questions the extent of his general historical knowledge. The purpose is to persuade the Irish public that Cromwell was not the tyrannical monster many of us think he was, which is valuable as it gives balance to the historical debate of Cromwell's actions and potential war crimes. Nevertheless, the author can be dismissive of conflicting source material, making the book somewhat biased. Regarding the content, one value is that it makes use of numerous primary sources which are featured within the main text, rather than in an appendix. This allows the reader to interpret these documents themselves, without prejudice. However, the content also has limitations, as the book lacks a structured format, instead simply moving from source to source, making it difficult to follow sometimes.
Thomas Wood's eyewitness account of the Storming of Drogheda
- This account has the value of being one of the only surviving first-hand accounts of the siege. However, its origin is limited in the fact that it may not be a true primary source. This is because the account was actually published 123 years after the event. Additionally, before publication, it was edited by numerous writers, including Wood's brother who was a staunch Royalist. Therefore, the text may be exaggerated and biased against the Parliamentarians. The original purpose was to show the brutality of the siege which is valuable, as an historian would learn how the siege was carried out. However, the brutality is possibly exaggerated as Andrew Wood, Thomas's brother, wanted to condemn Cromwell for his actions, and therefore make Cromwell seem as cruel as possible in the published version of the account. Regarding content, Wood's account is valuable as it gives a detailed description of how Cromwell's soldiers brutally robbed and killed a young innocent girl in Drogheda. On the other hand, the excessively descriptive detail has led some to question the extent to which the account is literal rather than merely symbolic of the cruel manner in which Cromwell attacked Drogheda.
Section 2: Investigation
Throughout the 20th century, the history curriculum in Irish schools has explicitly taught pupils that Oliver Cromwell was a barbaric war criminal who murdered thousands of innocent civilians in Ireland. A secondary school textbook, Timeline, simply states, "He [Cromwell] first laid siege to Drogheda. When he captured it he slaughtered the entire population". Recently, however, historians such as Tom Reilly have questioned the evidence suggesting there were civilian casualties at Drogheda, and have claimed that the current Irish perception of Cromwell is an inaccurate and prejudiced view. Nevertheless, traditional historians, including Michéal Ó Siochrú, have vehemently defended their position, and argue that Cromwell did ruthlessly murder hundreds of civilians during the Siege. This investigation will uncover whether or not civilians were targeted at Drogheda in 1649, by considering Oliver Cromwell's aims in Ireland, the reports sent by Cromwell and his officials to Parliament, and several first-hand accounts of the Siege.
Tom Reilly claims that Cromwell merely wanted to regain control of Royalist and Confederate administered cities in Ireland, and that he wished to cause no harm to any civilians during this conquest. This aim is well reflected in Cromwell's orders, shown in his declaration to his soldiers, which reads "I do hereby warn and require all Officers, Soldiers … not to do any wrong or violence toward Country people". Considering these orders, which are of considerable value as they came from Cromwell himself, Cromwell's soldiers would not have targeted any civilians during the Siege, assuming they adhered to them. Furthermore, an account from Drogheda reveals that two soldiers stole a few hens from a woman near Drogheda. Once Oliver Cromwell heard of this, he immediately ordered their hanging. While this account may be limited in its accuracy, considering that other versions exist claiming five men were hanged, or only one chicken was stolen, this source demonstrates that Cromwell planned to abide by the moral standards he set, and that he would not allow the killing of any civilians.
Nevertheless, John Morrill points to Cromwell's justification to parliament as an indication of civilians being targeted. In his statement, the Lord-Protector says "I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgement of God on these barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands with so much innocent blood". The phrase 'barbarous wretches' is widely interpreted as referring to the garrison at Drogheda. Despite this, as Cromwell demonises the garrison by claiming that they were guilty of killing innocent people, one could imagine that Cromwell would have taken revenge by killing the civilians the garrison were protecting in Drogheda. This theory is supported by the Lord-Protector's claim that his ruthlessness would "tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future". No direct reference to civilians is made, however this statement makes it clear that Cromwell's actions at Drogheda were so cruel, that following towns would simply surrender immediately out of fear. Whilst this brutality may have been limited to killing the garrison, one must consider that by ruthlessly killing hundreds of civilians, Cromwell would truly frighten the rest of Ireland into submission.
Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence implying that civilians were targeted and killed in Drogheda is Cromwell's report to Parliament which states that the deceased included "many inhabitants". John Morrill and Michéal Ó Siochrú, highly-respected professors of history at Cambridge University and Trinity College Dublin respectively, see this as a clear indication of civilian casualties. Reilly, however, questions the report's authenticity as there are several anomalies which suggest Cromwell himself never wrote "many inhabitants", indicating that these words have been added by another person. The first page of the report features Cromwell's letter to parliament and is signed by the Lord-Protector. However, the following page which features the list of casualties including "many inhabitants" is not signed by Cromwell. Furthermore, Drogheda is spelt as "Drogheda" in one section of the report and as "Tredagh" in another section. These types of inconsistencies certainly do raise questions, and open up the possibility that another individual altered the report.
Nonetheless, Professor Jason McElligott maintains that Cromwell himself reported "many inhabitants" among the fallen at Drogheda. McElligott claims that Reilly's analysis is quite poor in reality, which is evident in the fact that Reilly presents no evidence as to why another party would want to change the wording of Cromwell's report, and offers no explanation of why this party was not punished for accusing Cromwell of such a deed. Whilst the anomalies do raise questions, McElligott's arguments are somewhat more convincing as one would expect there to be evidence of Cromwell's response to such a false accusation. Alternatively, traditional historians point to the Lord-Protector's war advisor, Hugh Peter's, report of 3,552 deaths at Drogheda. Hugh Peter was one of Cromwell's most trusted advisors, so there is no reason to believe that Peter would purposefully make inaccurate claims to put Cromwell in a bad light. However, he estimates that only 2,782 were military deaths, which implies that there were 700-800 civilian deaths too. Considering this source in combination with Cromwell's original claim, it seems very probable that many civilians were targeted during the Siege.
Thomas Wood's account of the Siege has led Michéal Ó Siochrú to argue that civilians were undoubtedly targeted in Drogheda. Wood's account describes an innocent young girl begging for her life, but instead of showing mercy, a soldier "ran his sword through her belly". This anecdote demonstrates the ruthlessness with which the New Model Army acted but, more importantly, directly implies that civilians were targeted. Despite this, as the account was written by Thomas's brother, Anthony Wood, a staunch royalist, Tom Reilly voices concern regarding the reliability of the source. However, the implication drawn from Wood's account is supported by others from the time, such as that of Dean Nicholas Bernard. Thirty protestant civilians had found refuge in Bernard's house during the Siege, however the Dean's account reads that suddenly "The soldiers broke into the house, discharging their weapons". Only one civilian was killed before the soldiers stopped firing - recognising that the civilians were Protestants. Nevertheless, this account makes it clear that the New Model Army did target non-combatants in Drogheda. Furthermore, Michéal Ó Siochrú concludes that "the implications of this sequence of events for the town's Catholics do not require any further explanation", strongly suggesting that many more civilians in Dean Bernard's home would have been slaughtered were they not Protestants.
In spite of this, Reilly, among other historians including Jeremy Black, continue to reject this view by referencing the population changes in Drogheda during this time. According to Reilly, Drogheda's municipal records show that thousands of Drogheda's inhabitants were still alive during the 1650s. Moreover, those who had owned property in the town before the Siege, still owned it afterwards. Apparently, all citizens simply "went about their daily business following Cromwell's military takeover". However, as Reilly determines this information by "reading between the lines" of the town's records, the accuracy of these generalisations could be questioned. If life truly continued as it had done before, civilians may not have been targeted during the Siege. However, Tom Reilly gives no reference to the actual records from which he obtains these trends in population, making this claim difficult to evaluate effectively.
Taking all evidence into account, it is clear that Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army most probably did target civilians during the Siege of Drogheda. Whilst Cromwell's original aims in Ireland seemed moral, his later justifications clearly suggest his actions were not. Furthermore, the combination of Cromwell's and Hugh's reports, and the primary accounts of the Siege also point towards civilians being killed and therefore probably being targeted too. Whilst Tom Reilly does raise some reasonable doubts about the legitimacy of some source material, his own arguments regarding town records lack concrete evidence, whilst his analysis of other sources often seems to be focused on cherry-picking random aspects, rather than rationally developing an evaluation. For this reason, I would be inclined to agree with the traditional perspective on Cromwell's actions and would conclude that Oliver Cromwell did target civilians in Drogheda in 1649.
Section 3: Reflection
Through this investigation I have become aware of the numerous limitations and challenges historians face in writing history. I have used historical methods such as evaluating sources through their origin, purpose and content, analysing evidence to come to a balanced conclusion, and discussing and critiquing the arguments of other historians.
I came across a limit to these methods when evaluating Wood's account of the Siege, as I could not be sure to what extent I was really reading a text written by Thomas Wood. The account was undoubtedly changed by his brother, Anthony, however this made evaluating the source more complicated as I did not know how far the document had been altered. Regarding Cromwell's report regarding civilian deaths, I had the issue of not knowing who the true author of the death record was. Part of the text's content made it unclear whether Cromwell or in fact another author had written the list of dead. For these reasons it proved difficult to critique the views of other historians objectively, due to the unclear primary material being discussed.
Furthermore, when discussing Drogheda's municipal records, access to primary evidence appeared to be a major limitation. As I did not have access to these records, I relied on the information provided by Reilly, which was evidently somewhat biased even though it came from a factual source, as he drew conclusions from the records by "reading between the lines". There is a possibility that history was misused in this case, if this historian could not draw an objective conclusion from simple statistics. This type of dishonesty is very unhealthy for a discipline, and these actions play a considerable role in Anglo-Irish tensions, which is ever more relevant today as Brexit approaches and issues such as the Irish border are still far from settled.
Yet, historians can never be definite in their conclusions drawn from their analysis, as primary material often falls short of proving an event occurred, such as Dean Nicholas Bernard's account. This makes neutrality difficult to achieve, as historians subjectively choose which evidence they draw their conclusions from. In fields such as science this problem does not exist as new evidence can be created through experimentation, however historical evidence cannot be made up on the spot like this. Through this process I learned that historians should give a balanced overview of a historical event including a range of different perspectives and sources, in order to inform the public in a balanced manner.
Bibliography
Reilly, Tom. Cromwell Was Framed: Ireland 1649. Winchester, UK: Chronos Books, 2014.
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