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All the king's men: the impact of the crown's Irish soldiers on the English civil war*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2017

Joyce Lee Malcolm
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Extract

In the second year of the English civil war both king and parliament sought and received substantial military assistance from outside the kingdom: Charles concluded a truce with the Irish rebels and began the importation of troops from Ireland; parliament negotiated the introduction of an army from Scotland. Historians of the period are agreed that these parallel steps had quite opposite results. While the Scots army is invariably viewed as a ‘big factor in turning the scales against the king’, Charles's importation of Irish soldiers is regarded as having an insignificant impact on his military situation and a disastrous effect upon his popular standing. Parliament's alliance with the Scots has therefore been acclaimed necessary and prudent, Charles's acquisition of Irish help a terrible blunder. Samuel R. Gardiner, in his classic history of the English civil war, singled out the king's importation of Irish troops to England as the act which did most to weaken his authority.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 83 , March 1979 , pp. 239 - 264
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1979

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Footnotes

*

A version of this article was presented to the Rocky Mountain British Studies Conference, October 1977.

References

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39 ‘ The complete intelligencer and resolver’ no. 3 (London, November 1643), Thomason Tracts E. 75; ‘ The complete intelligencer and resolver’ no. 2 (London, November 1643), Thomason Tracts E. 74, p . 20; ‘ The kingdom's weekly intelligencer’ no. 32 (London, November 1643), Thomason Tracts E. 76, p. 244; Whitelock, Bulstrode, Memorials of the affairs from the beginning of the reign of Charles the First to the happy restoration of King Charles the Second (Oxford, 1853), i, 226 Google Scholar; ‘The kingdom's weekly intelligencer’ no. 31, p. 241. But see Lindley, , ‘Impact of 1641 rebellion’, pp 172-3.Google Scholar

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43 Ormond to Bridgman, 11 November 1643 in Carte, Ormond, v, 505-6. Only two officers refused to take the oath, one of whom was George Monck,

44 Ibid.

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46 Ormond to Digby, 29 April 1644 in Carte, Ormond, vi, 102-103.

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48 The statistics used in compiling the accompanying list were derived from the following sources. In the few instances where the only reference is to numbers of regiments rather than total numbers of men I have taken a conservative view of regiment size, estimating a regiment of foot at 400 men whereas a full regiment would have totalled 1,200 men: Ormond correspondence from October 1643 through June 1644 in Carte, Ormond, v and vi; Symonds, , Diary, pp 254-6Google Scholar; Chadwyck-Healey, C. H. (ed.), Bellum civile: Hopton's narrative of his campaign in the west, 1642-1644, and other papers, Somerset Record Society xviii (1902), p. 63 Google Scholar; Cal.S.P.Ven., 1643-47, PP 39, 49, 52, 58, 63, 71, 75, 81, 85, 101, 138, 167; Clarendon, , History, iii, 311 Google Scholar note 1; Latimer, John, Annals of Bristol in the seventeenth century, (Bristol, 1900), p. 191 Google Scholar; Philip, I. G. (ed.), Journal of Sir Samuel Luke, 1642-1644, Oxfordshire Record Society (Oxford, 1950-53)Google Scholar especially pp 190–269; Lowe, ‘Irish royalist army’ especially pp 47. 52-5, 59, 72; Tucker, , North Wales, pp 43, 49Google Scholar; Gardiner, , History, i, 247, 251 and ii, 401Google Scholar.

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53 Tucker, North Wales, p. 23. Given the continual pleas for more aid for the protestant Irish and the difficulty of getting volunteers this figure may be high. See Clarendon, , History, i, 438 Google Scholar. A contemporary history from Ireland claims that parliament sent 70,000 men to Ireland but had only 500 left at the time of the cessation; both figures are wildly improbable. See Gilbert, , Contemp. hist., 1641-52, i, 73 Google Scholar.

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58 Byron to Ormond, 6 February 1644 cited by Gardiner, Hist i, 296.

59 Ormond to Digby, 8 March 1644 in Carte, Ormond, vi, 53 ; Ormond to Digby, 13 January 1644 in Carte, Ormond, vi, 8 ; Extract of letter O'Neill's, 2 March 1644 in letter Digby to Ormond, 14 March 1644 Carte, Ormond, vi, 43-6.

60 Cal.S.P.Ven., 1643-7, p. 75. If true then the 11,000 men who transported from Ireland after this date must have been Irish. The agrees with the estimate, based on the size of the English army in Irela that at least half of these troops sent to England, Scotland and were Irishmen.

61 Ormond to Digby, 13 January 1644 in Carte, Ormond, vi, 8.

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89 Ibid., p. xi.

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91 Malcolm, ‘English people and crown's cause’, chap. 6.

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99 See Rushworth, Historical collections, v, 671. Burne and Young have suggested that at this time the king had 5,500 foot and 4,000 horse but Symonds, who was present at Woodstock where the rendezvous took place, reported 6,000 foot including officers and nearly 5,000 horse. See Burne, and Young, , Great civil war, p. 149 Google Scholar; Symonds, , Diary, p. 18 Google Scholar.

100 Symonds, , Diary, p. 45 Google Scholar; Walker, , Historical discourses, p. 42.Google Scholar

101 Walker, , Historical discourses; p. 82.Google Scholar