How Many Catholics Were Killed During Cromwell and Henry VIII In England?

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[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

My daughter who is named Chelsea after Thomas Moores residence is doing a Research Paper for History on Saint Thomas Moore.

In one of his late letters he referrs to the death of 4000 Catholics in the small port town of Chelsea, but we are having a hard time coming up with a total number of Catholics killed as a result of Henry VIII's and Cromwells reformation.

All the encyclopedia's cover the number of his wifes, how much money he "borrowed" from the Church, but nowhere can I find the number of Catholics killed.

[AnAmericanMother]

My bet is that his dad would have legitimated him by Act of Parliament and placed him in the succession as of the date of his legitimation . . . because he had already given the son a place at court and Edward was always a sickly child.

[potlatch]

Max, do you know anything about this?

[Palladin]

Cromwell was a bloody butcher, the likes of Stalin or Milosevic. t Drogheda, e gave the order to kill every Irish baby, because "Nits make lice". Nis soldiers skewered infants and toddlers on their pikes; bashed out the brains of young children against the stone walls; and hanged infants at the breast in the long tresses of their mothers, after the mothers were strung up on trees.

Unfortunately those who wrote the first accounts were all in the employ of the British Throne. And their lies and sanitizations persist to this day among the uneducated.

From hoganstand.com :


Cromwell's Bloody Campaign

Oliver Cromwell landed in Dublin on August 13th 1649 as Lord Lieutenant and Commander in Chief of the Parliamentarian army. The Royalists had suffered defeat some weeks earlier and the previous Lord Lieutenant and his Royalist troops retreated to Drogheda. Cromwell marched northwards and besieged the town on September 10th-11th. The walls were breached and the Cromwellians inflicted dreadful slaughter on the townsfolk, some of whom had taken shelter in St. Peter’s Church, but this was burned down around them and they all perished. This was one of the most dastardly acts ever perpetrated on an Irish town in all of Ireland’s chequered history, yet Cromwell wrote shortly afterwards: - “This was a righteous judgement of God upon these barbarous wretches.” For Irishmen everywhere, the Cromwellian atrocities at Drogheda in 1649 have gone down in the annals of infamy.

Because of this massacre, several other towns immediately submitted to the Cromwellians but some in the south still held out. Cromwell attacked Wexford in October and a similar fate awaited the citizens of Wexford as befell the people of Drogheda. Waterford was next and, despite courageous resistance, it also fell. The death of Owen Roe O’Neill in Cavan in November was probably the greatest set-back suffered by the Irish forces at this stage, and by the end of the year the entire east and south-east was in Cromwell’s hands. Kilkenny and several other Munster towns fell shortly afterwards, but it was at Clonmel in May 1650 that Cromwell suffered one of the worst defeats and set-backs of his entire campaign.

Hugh Dubh O’Neill, nephew of Owen Roe, was in command of the Irish forces in Clonmel. He had previously served with distinction in Spain and had returned to Ireland with his uncle in 1642. Displaying great skills as a soldier and tactician, Hugh Dubh cunningly permitted the Cromwellians to enter Clonmel by one of the gates in the town walls, only to lead them into a long narrow laneway, stoutly defended by the Irish on the walls on both sides. Attacked from above and from both flanks, the invading force was slaughtered unmercifully. When those at the front realised that they were trapped they cried out “Halt, Halt”, but those at the rear, thinking the command came from the Irish shouted “Advance, Advance.” The more dense the crush became, the greater their rout.

Cromwell suffered much greater casualties in that one incident in Clonmel that he did during the rest of his entire Irish campaign. Hugh Dubh O’Neill, however, realising that the town would eventually fall to far superior forces, sought surrender terms and these were granted. On entering Clonmel the following day, however, Cromwell discovered that O’Neill and his men had escaped from the town during the night. Despite his anger, Cromwell was forced to acknowledge the soldierly qualities of his enemy and duly kept his word so that the lives of the towns people were spared.

Following his defeat - and humiliation - at Clonmel, Cromwell left the country and returned to England, leaving his son-in-law Ireton behind him to complete the conquest of Ireland. Following the death of Owen Roe O’Neill on 6th November 1649, leadership of Ulster army was entrusted to Bishop Heber McMahon, the bishop of Clogher. In 1650 McMahon took Dungiven, but the Irish forces were then routed at Scarrifhollis, near Letterkenny, in June of that same year. Very soon afterwards, Bishop McMahon was captured and hanged in Enniskillen, while Sir Phelim O’Neill was also captured and hanged. By August all resistance in Ulster had finally petered out when their last stronghold at Charlemont Fort surrendered. Sporadic guerrilla fighting continued for another six months but even this ended when Philip O’Reilly surrendered in April 1653. By then the Cromwelliam Settlement was well under way.

The Cromwellians had required more than two million acres of land to honour their debts and this was done by the confiscation of the remaining ‘un-planted’ lands in Ireland, which were now divided up into estates and given to Cromwell’s soldiers as payment for their services to the Parliament during the wars. Many of these, of course, had no intention of ever settling in Ireland and quickly sold their new estates to adventurers, who bought up the confiscated territories at very cheap rates.

The ‘Cromwellian Settlement of 1652’ as it came to be called, was the worst political disaster ever to afflict Ireland and was second only in magnitude to the Great Famine of the 1840s. All Irish owned estates east of the Shannon, which had not hitherto been declared ‘confiscate’ were now ‘planted’. The Irish landowners were evicted en masse and were ordered to cross the Shannon by a certain date or face death. In addition, famine and plague now swept over the land prompting Richard Lawrence to write: - “ a man might travel twenty or thirty miles and not see a living creature, either man, beast or bird.” Wolves, which were then common, also increased in numbers and it was reported that they fed on the bodies of dead children which littered the ditches along the roadways.

Executions were a daily occurrence and it was also estimated that nearly 15,000, mainly children, were transported to the West Indies as slaves. Yet another result of this mass confiscation of lands was a huge increase in the number of rapparees, mostly young men who had been dispossessed but who refused to leave. Instead they took to the hills and woods, gathered groups of willing assistants and constantly preyed on the new settlers, repeatedly “robbing the rich to feed the poor,” who were even worse off than they were. The only people allowed to remain east of the Shannon were those who could prove that they had been faithful to the parliamentary cause. The mass exodus westwards was a sad sight and the order “To Hell or to Connacht” became the regular heart-rending cry throughout the other three provinces.

[It's me]

What a waste of bandwith

[rustbucket]

I found him listed by one author as Frizroy, but I suspect Fitzroy is more correct. Fitzroy fits with the old meanings of the Fitz and Roy/Roi names.

[AnAmericanMother]

Fitzroy is correct. Here is some more information about him. I note the following:

Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, died of consumption at St. James Palace, soon after Anne Boleyn's execution and just as an act was going through Parliament to enable the King to nominate him as the heir to the throne.

So my surmise was correct (and I didn't peek - I just figured that if ol' Henry thought it was o.k. to bastardize and then re-legitimize some of his other kids, it would have been AOK for Fitzroy . . )

[Verginius Rufus]

Only legitimate children count--which is why Henry VIII was in such a hurry to get rid of Catherine of Aragon once Ann Boleyn became pregnant, in case the child was a boy.

When James II was king, some people wanted an illegitimate son of Charles II to become king instead, but despite James' remarkable ability to alienate people, he survived that threat to his rule.

[wimpycat]

I suspect Henry was keeping that option open only as an absolute last resort, not only because Fitzroy was sickly, but because he still had hopes of siring an heir from Anne Boleyn.

Even so, Fitzroy as heir would still have been a ticklish situation. Henry had other relatives at the time of Anne Boleyn's death, whose claims to the throne could have been seen by many as more valid (such as his nephew James V of Scotland?) even if they were Catholic--it may have caused the very trouble Henry was hoping to avoid. Well, since the boy died, we'll never know. And Henry finally did get his male heir by marriage, the validity of which no one disputed.

[rustbucket]

Only legitimate children count...

Depends. Tell that to Henry VIII's father who defeated the legitimate king in battle.

Then again, in Henry VIII's case, the question is whether divorce was an English matter or one that only the Pope could decide. This sounds like the current debate over our needing UN approval to act in the interests of the country. Charles V of Spain, the nephew of Catherine of Aragorn, had just invaded Rome, and the Pope apparently was in his power.

In such a circumstance, it is perhaps not surprising that the Pope did not agree to an annulment of Henry's marriage. Earlier, of course, the Pope had granted Henry a special dispensation to marry Catherine in the first place, although the Catholic Church held the position that it was incest for someone to marry his brother's widow.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Thank you. An excellent read as well is Madden's column on the Crusades.

[Xenalyte]

I wonder what would have been the fate of Henry VIII's illegitimate son, Henry Frizroy, the son of one of Henry's mistresses, Elizabeth Blount, had he survived.

Believe you me, he turned out to be a decadent little bastid. Can't keep himself away from the hooch.

[RaceBannon]

You seem to ignore all the murders and atrocities that cause Cromwell to invade in the first place.

But I think you, this is the first article I have read about Cromwells so called atrocities, since it is written by those in service to the Pope, I can assume it is slanted? Just like you claimed those who wrote of the accounts that made his invasion necesary were in service to the Throne?

[rustbucket]

Catherine of Aragorn

Ha. Sorry. Too much LOTR.

[Palladin]

ROFL! "In service to the Pope." You crack me up. True Irishmen are in service to no one but God and Eirinn.

[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

Books recommended by Ronald Miller, a born-again Bible-believing Christian, Graduate of Biblical Theological Seminary, and Elder in the Bible Fellowship Church

http://www.sunlink.net/~brron/bookstor/chu-hist.htm

"Fox's Book of Martyrs W.B. Forbush (Editor) Zondervan Paperback 1978 - A good book, used devotionally for many years in some circles. However, you must read it with a grain of salt. Some of the stories are historically unreliable. The stories are written the way they were passed down through the ages, and include some of what must simply be called legend. "

Comment: Unless of course you want to use it as definitive historical reference for your own slanted view of history...

[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

Hey RB:

Maybe you should look at some Protestant history books written in the last 50 years or so.

Of course you could watch some movies about the Heros of the English Reformation:

Like A Man For All Seasons

Braveheart and The Patriot were good for capturing the great English Ethical Behavior.

Of course no one would doubt that with Cromwell and Henry VIII now there are some moral men and great spiritual leaders!

PS- You can generally bet that historical references that use the term popish might be a clue to what your getting is slightly slanted.

It would be like a Catholic view using the term: pagan reformers or reprobate protestants.

It would be hard to find a surving Catholic source that used the terms, but I'm sure that they existed before the 20th century.

But even if we were to by chance find them, I doubt if any FREEPERS would use them!!

Sorry to throw out what you consider I'm sure your BEST Sources...

[quadrant]

Elizabeth was a "figure head" for no one. One of her greatest opponents said she was the "greatest prince in Christendom", quite an accomplishment for a woman in the 16th Century.

Elizabeth insisted on outward conformity but cared nothing about an individual's religious beliefs. She once said that she had no desire to "make windows into men's souls."

The Book of Common Prayer was not composed to control the private devotions of individuals but to control the actions of the clergy.

Mary I had no reason to order Elizabeth's execution because Elizabeth was careful never to give her sister a reason such an action.
Mary was a fanatic but she was not foolish enough to order the judicial murder of her presumptive successor.

To order the execution of an innocent person was considered a crime - especially if that person was family member and a member of the royal family - even in the 16th Century.

[Ben Bolt]

Here you go !

[mercy]

Teaching RC children to hate. Now what does this remind me of ........

[Palladin]

Contemporary sources are very revealing about the Massacre at Drogheda:

Arthur Wood, the historian of Oxford, gives us a narrative compiled from the account of his brother who was an officer of Cromwell's army, and who had been through the siege and sack of Drogheda. It throws an interesting sidelight upon the British methods, and the quaint point of view of the most cultured of them.

"Each of the assailants would take up a child and use it as a buckler of defence to keep himself from being brained or shot".

"After they had killed all in the church, they went into the vaults underneath, where all the choicest of women had hid themselves."

He goes on to describe the rape and slaughter of the women.