within the single province of Connaught.  In the nature of things, that business, or indeed any actual prevention of the exercise of the Catholic Religion wherever Roman Catholics abounded, was impracticable.  It was enough, in the Lord Protector’s view, that the land lay quiet, the Roman Catholics and their faithful priests not stirring too publicly, the English soldiery keeping all under sufficient pressure, and English and Scottish colonization shooting in here and there, with Protestant preaching and Protestant farming in its track.  On the whole, Fleetwood’s Lord-Deputyship, if not eventful, was far from unpopular. [1]

[Footnote 1:  Godwin, IV. 447-449.]

It had occurred to Cromwell, however, that more could be done in Ireland, and that his son-in-law Fleetwood was perhaps not sufficiently energetic, or sufficiently Oliverian, for the purpose.  Accordingly, about the same time that Fleetwood had been raised to the Lord-Deputyship, Cromwell’s second son, Henry, had been appointed Major-General of the Irish Army.  The good impression he had made in his former mission to Ireland (Vol.  IV. p. 551) justified the appointment.  Not till the middle of 1655, however, did he arrive in Ireland.  His reception then was enthusiastic, and was followed by the sudden recall of Fleetwood to London, professedly for a visit only, but really not to return.  The title of Lord-Deputy of Ireland was still to be Fleetwood’s for the full term of his original appointment; but he was to be occupied by the duties of his English Major-Generalship and his membership of Oliver’s Council at home, and the actual government of Ireland was thenceforth in the hands of Henry Cromwell.  The young Governor, whose wife had accompanied him, held a kind of Court in Dublin, with Fleetwood’s Councillors about him, or others in their stead, and a number of new Judges.  The diverse tempers of these advisers, among whom were some Anabaptists or Anti-Oliverians, and his own doubts as to some of the instructions that reached him from his father, made his position a very difficult one; but, though very anxious and sensitive, he managed admirably.  In particular, it was observed that, in matters of religion, he had all his father’s liberality.  It was “against his conscience,” he said, “to bear hard upon any merely on account of a different judgment.”  He conciliated the Presbyterian clergy in a remarkable manner; the Royalists liked him; he would not quarrel with the Anabaptists; and he was as moderate as possible towards the Roman Catholics.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Godwin, IV. 449-458; Milton Papers by Nickolls, 187-138; Carlyle, III. 108-109, and 133-140 (Letters from Cromwell to his son Harry).]