Politically he was controversial but his military career was phenomenal. Even the Irish historian at Drogheda wrote of him as an “honorable enemy”. It is now seen that in Ireland Cromwell was not anti-Irish but anti-Royalist and the Irish war coalitions included Protestant and Catholic on both sides. It was an Irishman, Richard Harris, that played Cromwell sympathetically in the film CROMWELL.>
I’ve been reading Antonio Fraser’s bio for a whole now. Really good, but really bogged down in details. One of these days I’ll actually finish it.
Did the historian (Thomas Reilly?)say that before or after Cromwell's troops slaughtered about four thousand people at Drogheda including about seven hundred civilians? The Sack of Wexford saw more civilian slaughter at the hands of Cromwell's troops.