royalists might have long maintained a sanguinary and perhaps doubtful conflict.  These entrenchments, however, whether the men were disheartened by a sudden panic, or deceived by offers of quarter—­for both causes have been assigned—­the enemy was suffered to occupy without resistance.  Cromwell (at what particular moment is uncertain) gave orders that no one belonging to the garrison should be spared; and Aston, his officers and men, having been previously disarmed, were put to the sword.  From thence the conquerors, stimulated by revenge and fanaticism, directed their fury against the townsmen, and on the next morning one thousand unresisting victims were immolated together within the walls of the great church, whither they had fled for protection.[1][c]

[Footnote 1:  See Carte’s Ormond, ii. 84; Carte, Letters, iv. 412; Philop.  Iren. i. 120; Whitelock, 428; Ludlow, i. 261; Lynch, Cambrensis Eversos, in fine; King’s Pamph. 441, 447; Ormond in Carte’s Letters, ii. 412; and Cromwell in Carlyle’s Letters and Speeches, i. 457.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1649.  Sept. 3.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1649.  Sept. 11.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1649.  Sept. 12.]

From Drogheda the conqueror led his men, flushed with slaughter, to the seige of Wexford.  The mayor and governor offered to capitulate; but whilst their commissioners were treating with Cromwell, an officer perfidiously opened the castle to the enemy; the adjacent wall was immediately scaled;[a] and, after a stubborn but unavailing resistance in the market-place, Wexford was abandoned to the mercy of the assailants.  The tragedy, so recently acted at Drogheda, was renewed.  No distinction was made between the defenceless inhabitant and the armed soldier; nor could the shrieks and prayers of three hundred females, who had gathered round the great cross, preserve them from the swords of these ruthless barbarians.  By Cromwell himself, the number of the slain is reduced to two, by some writers it has been swelled to five, thousand.[1]

Ormond, unable to interrupt the bloody career of his adversary, waited with impatience for the determination of O’Neil.  Hitherto that chieftain had faithfully performed his engagements with the parliamentary commanders.  He had thrown impediments in the way of the royalists; he had compelled Montgomery to raise the siege of Londonderry, and had rescued Coote and his small army, the last hope of the parliament in Ulster, from the fate which seemed to await them.  At first the leaders in London had hesitated, now after the victory of Rathmines they publicly refused, to ratify the treaties made with him by their officers.[2] Stung

[Footnote 1:  See note (D).]

[Footnote 2:  Council Book, Aug. 6, No. 67, 68, 69, 70.  Journals, Aug. 10, 24.  Walker, ii. 245-248.  King’s Pamphlets, No. 435, xi.; 437, xxxiii.  The reader must not confound this Owen Roe O’Neil with another of the same name, one of the regicides, who claimed a debt of five thousand and sixty-five pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence of the parliament, and obtained an order for it to be paid out of the forfeited lands in Ireland.—­Journ. 1653, Sept. 9.]