Forced conversion of the Irish by Cromwell

Cromwell was a man of genuine religious and political convictions and would have found the idea of forcible conversion repugnant. Exactly the sort of thing that he had been fighting against. Yes he was anti -Catholic and regarded Catholicism as a perversion of true Christianity but he was very tolerant of Quakers and Baptists for his time. Forcible conversion is a tool of those who see religion as a mechanism for social control. Cromwell genuinely saw it as a pathway to God and a means of fulfilling God's Will. He wasn't the nicest of men but he was genuine in his beliefs and fairly honourable in his dealings. This course of action literally wouldn't have occurred to him. Totally out of character for him.
 
Cromwell was a man of genuine religious and political convictions and would have found the idea of forcible conversion repugnant. Exactly the sort of thing that he had been fighting against. Yes he was anti -Catholic and regarded Catholicism as a perversion of true Christianity but he was very tolerant of Quakers and Baptists for his time. Forcible conversion is a tool of those who see religion as a mechanism for social control. Cromwell genuinely saw it as a pathway to God and a means of fulfilling God's Will. He wasn't the nicest of men but he was genuine in his beliefs and fairly honourable in his dealings. This course of action literally wouldn't have occurred to him. Totally out of character for him.

Actually, Cromwell wasn't even all that anti-Catholic by the standards of his time. Catholics during the Protectorate didn't fare noticeably worse than they had under the previous regime, and Cromwell in Ireland didn't treat the locals any worse than contemporary armies usually treated civilians during wartime.
 
Actually, Cromwell wasn't even all that anti-Catholic by the standards of his time. Catholics during the Protectorate didn't fare noticeably worse than they had under the previous regime, and Cromwell in Ireland didn't treat the locals any worse than contemporary armies usually treated civilians during wartime.

I have to question this assertion, given the degree to which Ireland despises Cromwell to this day.
 
One of the reasons that Cromwell is so despised is that he adhered to the laws of war pretty well, took prisoners and honoured surrenders. Thereby he left people behind to curse his name. Lord Leonard Grey was much much nastier than Oliver Cromwell but anyone who got on the wrong side of him was exterminated root and branch so he isn't cursed and despised or even remembered. Go figure!
 
One of the reasons that Cromwell is so despised is that he adhered to the laws of war pretty well, took prisoners and honoured surrenders. Thereby he left people behind to curse his name. Lord Leonard Grey was much much nastier than Oliver Cromwell but anyone who got on the wrong side of him was exterminated root and branch so he isn't cursed and despised or even remembered. Go figure!

That is complete horseshit. Genghis Khan destroyed his enemies root and branch, and in China, Persian, and Russia he is a figure reviled.

Furthermore, Lord Leonard Grey didn't kill up to 25% of Ireland, and he wasn't the ruler of his country.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
That is complete horseshit. Genghis Khan destroyed his enemies root and branch, and in China, Persian, and Russia he is a figure reviled.

Furthermore, Lord Leonard Grey didn't kill up to 25% of Ireland, and he wasn't the ruler of his country.

Cromwell didn't kill 25% of the population, the war led to a 25% reduction in the population through famine and economic disruption. The war was not a whim of Cromwell, it was the result of a situation in which powerful Irish people threw in their lot with Charles II, and it was far from the first example of a brutal conflict in Ireland. The parliamentarians felt they were avenging the massacres of Protestants in 1641, which were real, despite their use in later propaganda (see also, Spain in the New World).
 

Teejay

Gone Fishin'
Converting the great bulk of the Irish population to Protestantism would be extremely difficult, the counter-reformation affected Ireland quite deeply. It wasn't if people were trying to convert the Catholic Irish to Protestantism, since many of the colonists in Ulster were Gaelic speaking or were in recent memory and they attempted to evangelize the Catholics to Protestantism in OTL.

In OTL the main aim of Cromwell's campaign in Ireland was to wipe out any Royalist opposition to the Commonwealth regime. For example the massacre at Drogheda was mostly of English Royalist troops (who were Anglican). A good POD would be more extensive settlement of Protestant settlers in provinces outside Ulster after the Cromwellian conquest which would produce a Protestant majority in Ireland as a whole (instead of those counties which eventually become Northern Ireland in OTL).
 
Last edited:
That is complete horseshit. Genghis Khan destroyed his enemies root and branch, and in China, Persian, and Russia he is a figure reviled.

Furthermore, Lord Leonard Grey didn't kill up to 25% of Ireland, and he wasn't the ruler of his country.
Lord Leonard Grey managed a kill rate of 95-100% in rebellious areas. Genghis Khan never achieved those kind of numbers. If he had he wouldn't be a reviled figure because the Chinese, Persians and Russians would be obscure semi-extinct nomadic tribes in Greater Chosen and the Swedish and/or Polish Empires and he someone that a medieval history student might have heard of.
 
Lord Leonard Grey managed a kill rate of 95-100% in rebellious areas. Genghis Khan never achieved those kind of numbers. If he had he wouldn't be a reviled figure because the Chinese, Persians and Russians would be obscure semi-extinct nomadic tribes in Greater Chosen and the Swedish and/or Polish Empires and he someone that a medieval history student might have heard of.
  1. Rebellious areas arent the whole country
  2. Genghis did that to the Western Xia
  3. The Chinese arent a single ethnic group, they are at least 2
  4. If someone murders 95-100% of Russians, I assume you mean Kievan Rus', Persians, and the Chinese, I assume you mean Han, that would be talked about, because
  5. Those kill numbers are impossible for a population the size we are talking, they have never been done, and could never be done
  6. Even if he was truly genocidal, as you suggest he should be, the Han for example would have fled south and folded into the Cantonese, meaning the Hatred would still be transmitted.
  7. Something similar would happen to the Persians and Russians
Overall I kind of feel like you are being really wankish towards Lord Leonard Grey, I mean if you tell an Irishman about him they will still hate him, it is just Cromwell's kill count is higher and he was more important, so he is known for longer.

I think also the reason for this is the reasons behind the killing. Lord Grey, was a conqueror, Cromwell, was a religious fanatic attempting to create a pseudo-Theocracy, which is more long lasting in the minds of the Irish, than just another English Oppressor.
 
No you are missing the point. Cromwell was religious but not a fanatic, indeed as noted above he was relatively religiously tolerant for his era. His name is cursed today because he obeyed the rules of war honoured surrender terms etc. And so left some of his enemies alive. Leonard Grey not only believed in killing his enemies but their wives children and neighbours. Leaving no-one with a grudge to pass it on down the generations
 

A series of laws in force over several centuries, none of which were actually passed by Cromwell himself.

I have to question this assertion, given the degree to which Ireland despises Cromwell to this day.

Ireland despises Cromwell because nineteenth- and twentieth-century Irish nationalists played up his evilness for political reasons. Sacking enemy cities which refused to surrender was standard practice in war up until the 19th century, but most sacks aren't really mentioned nowadays because it's not politically advantageous to remember them.

Furthermore, Lord Leonard Grey didn't kill up to 25% of Ireland, and he wasn't the ruler of his country.

The 25% figure includes all casualties, including disease, non-Parliamentarian killings, and the like; Cromwell was personally responsible for only a small proportion of the casualties. Nor was he ruler of his country when he fought in Ireland.
 
No you are missing the point. Cromwell was religious but not a fanatic, indeed as noted above he was relatively religiously tolerant for his era. His name is cursed today because he obeyed the rules of war honoured surrender terms etc. And so left some of his enemies alive. Leonard Grey not only believed in killing his enemies but their wives children and neighbours. Leaving no-one with a grudge to pass it on down the generations

Cromwell was a Fanatic, his first Parliament, Bare-Bones, was named for the religious fanatic that ran it. Cromwell was tolerant to Protestants so long as they werent Episcopalian, and wasnt at all to Catholics. Also his name is cursed for many reasons, one of which is his genocidal tendencies, the second is his republicanism. Thirdly, Grey is probably still known to Irish Nationalists and they most likely still hate him.

A series of laws in force over several centuries, none of which were actually passed by Cromwell himself.

Ireland despises Cromwell because nineteenth- and twentieth-century Irish nationalists played up his evilness for political reasons. Sacking enemy cities which refused to surrender was standard practice in war up until the 19th century, but most sacks aren't really mentioned nowadays because it's not politically advantageous to remember them.

The 25% figure includes all casualties, including disease, non-Parliamentarian killings, and the like; Cromwell was personally responsible for only a small proportion of the casualties. Nor was he ruler of his country when he fought in Ireland.

I guess then that Edmund Ludlow was wrong that his tactics showed "extraordinary severity". Secondly the majority of deaths were due to famine, which was caused by Ireton, Cromwell's son-in-law. Also actually I am wrong the Death Count is 40%, which was mainly due to the Famine, i.e. due to the actions of Cromwell's army, which he was the head of. Secondly, the Penal Laws, are but one part. The law of Settlement, i.e. to pay for the war. Made it a crime to have failed to support the Cromwellian Army, and reduced most of Ireland to tenancy, this can be compared to the mass enslavement of a population. However this law was only applied to Catholics, and not to the Scots who had supported the Royalists, they merely payed a fine. Overall the effect on land ownership is that by percentage Protestants doubled their share, from 60/40 to 20/80, protestant to catholic. If this is not incredibly harsh you are off your head.
 
I guess then that Edmund Ludlow was wrong that his tactics showed "extraordinary severity". Secondly the majority of deaths were due to famine, which was caused by Ireton, Cromwell's son-in-law. Also actually I am wrong the Death Count is 40%, which was mainly due to the Famine, i.e. due to the actions of Cromwell's army, which he was the head of. Secondly, the Penal Laws, are but one part. The law of Settlement, i.e. to pay for the war. Made it a crime to have failed to support the Cromwellian Army, and reduced most of Ireland to tenancy, this can be compared to the mass enslavement of a population. However this law was only applied to Catholics, and not to the Scots who had supported the Royalists, they merely payed a fine. Overall the effect on land ownership is that by percentage Protestants doubled their share, from 60/40 to 20/80, protestant to catholic. If this is not incredibly harsh you are off your head.

You're acting as if Cromwell was personally responsible for everything the English did in Ireland during this period, which just isn't true: he was only in Ireland for part of the war, and the Act of Settlement was passed before he became Protector.
 
You're acting as if Cromwell was personally responsible for everything the English did in Ireland during this period, which just isn't true: he was only in Ireland for part of the war, and the Act of Settlement was passed before he became Protector.

As commander-in-chief he is responsible for all military actions, so the crop burnings and the massacres, unless of course he court martialled perpetrators.
 
Ireland despises Cromwell because nineteenth- and twentieth-century Irish nationalists played up his evilness for political reasons. Sacking enemy cities which refused to surrender was standard practice in war up until the 19th century, but most sacks aren't really mentioned nowadays because it's not politically advantageous to remember them.
IIRC it also has a lot to do with English histories depiction of the era, the English monarchy had their own reasons to paint Cromwell as a vile monster with no humanity, and why shouldn't they encourage the Irish to hate the personification of republicanism in England rather than the monarchy that suborned Ireland in the first place? It's rather suspicious I should think that Cromwell is the one painted as the devil incarnate whereas Elizabeth I (as well as the other Tudors) is hardly brought up by the Irish despite her generals being abnormally brutal to that country even for the time period. Just take a gander at the wikipedia page of Humphrey Gilbert for example.
 
Cromwell was a Fanatic, his first Parliament, Bare-Bones, was named for the religious fanatic that ran it. Cromwell was tolerant to Protestants so long as they werent Episcopalian, and wasnt at all to Catholics. Also his name is cursed for many reasons, one of which is his genocidal tendencies, the second is his republicanism. Thirdly, Grey is probably still known to Irish Nationalists and they most likely still hate him.



I guess then that Edmund Ludlow was wrong that his tactics showed "extraordinary severity". Secondly the majority of deaths were due to famine, which was caused by Ireton, Cromwell's son-in-law. Also actually I am wrong the Death Count is 40%, which was mainly due to the Famine, i.e. due to the actions of Cromwell's army, which he was the head of. Secondly, the Penal Laws, are but one part. The law of Settlement, i.e. to pay for the war. Made it a crime to have failed to support the Cromwellian Army, and reduced most of Ireland to tenancy, this can be compared to the mass enslavement of a population. However this law was only applied to Catholics, and not to the Scots who had supported the Royalists, they merely payed a fine. Overall the effect on land ownership is that by percentage Protestants doubled their share, from 60/40 to 20/80, protestant to catholic. If this is not incredibly harsh you are off your head.[/QUOTE
1. I have lived in Ireland for 49 years and only ever encountered any mention of Lord Leonard Grey in a history module at University.
2. Cromwell was not a fanatic by any reasonable definition of the term. Yes he was anti- Catholic but he maintained normal diplomatic relations with Catholic European powers and generally avoided pogroms. Nor did he "control "
 
Top