Henry Ireton

eldest son and heir of German Ireton of Attenton in Nottinghamshire Esq. and brother to Sir Jo. Ireton Lord Mayor of London 1658, was born there, or at least in that County, became a Gent. Com. of Trinity Coll. in the year 1626 and in that of his age 16, took one degree in Arts in 1629, but left the University without compleating that degree by Determination: At which time he had the character in that house of a stubborn and sawcy fellow towards the Seniors, and therefore his company was not at all wanting. Afterwards he went to the Middle Temple, learned some grounds of the common Law, became a man of a working and laborious brain, which in the end led him into some errors. When the grand Rebellion broke out, he, as a person natur’d to mischief, took up Arms against the King, and about that time married Bridget one of the daughters of Oliv. Cromwell then a Colonel of a Regiment, afterwards Lord Protector of England. By whose endeavours, he became first a Captain, afterwards a Colonel of a Regiment of Horse, and at length Commissary General upon the new modelling of the Army, in the beginning of the year 1645. About that time I find him an active man, and one very busie in breaking the Presbyterian Faction in the House of Commons, to the end that the Independents might get the King into their own clutches. His parts and abilities were such, his dissimulation so profound, and his mischievous designs had so clean a conveyance, that his Father-in-law Cromwell made frequent use of him when he was put to a push to compleat his wicked designs: And having always found him to be very capacious of overthrowing Monarchy, and a thorow-pac’d dissembler under the mask of Religion, (being absolutely the best Prayer-maker and Preacher in the Army) he, with Col. Joh. Lambert (who had likewise studied in the Inns of Court and was of a subtle working brain) did put him upon writing a Remonstrance on the Armies behalf for justice to be done on the King. Whereupon retiring in private for some days to Windsore Castle, as I have been informed, he drew up the Remonstrance, and after he had communicated it to Fairfax the Generalissimo (whom he and Cromwell made a stalking horse, and to believe any thing) and the prime Officers of the Army, they caused it to be delivered to the H. of Commons, by the hands of Col. Isaac Ewer and seven other Officers: Which done, it was printed under this title.

A Remonstrance of his Excellency Thomas Lord Fairfax, Lord General of the Parliament Forces, and of the general council of Officers held at S. Albans the 16 of Nov. 1648. presented to the Commons assembled in Parliament, the 20 instant, and tendered to the consideration of the whole Kingdom. Lond. 1648, in 9 sheets in qu. Which Remonstrance being read to his Maj. at Newport in the Isle of Wight, he propounded four Queries thereupon against the power of the Army, which may be seen in his Works printed 1662. p. 671. The said Ireton also who was about that time one of the Commissioners of the Navy, did write, or at least had a chief hand in a certain Pamphlet called

The Agreement of the people—meaning of the Army, published in the month of Jan. 1648; judiciously answer’d by Will. Ashurst Esq. a Parliament man for Newton in Lancashire and a Presbyterian. The said Agreement (with a Petition) was presented ((*))((*)) Bulstrode Whitlock in his Memorials of Engl. affaires, in Jan. 1648. p. 364. b. to the Parliament in the name of all the Army, by Lieut. Gen. Tho. Hammond, and divers chief Officers thereof, on the 20 day of the same month of Jan. He the said Ireton was chiefly employed also, and took upon him the business of the pen in all the Declarations, Desires, Modules, and Transactions of the Army, nay and in all or most Letters written by Fairfax the General to the Parliament, before the K. was beheaded, being esteemed a person full of invention and industry, and skill’d in the common Law. About that time he became a busie man to bring his Maj. to his Tryal, had a hand in drawing up the Ordinance for it, and the Precept for proclaiming the High Court of Justice, sate as a Judge among the rest when he was tried, and was one of the Committee that appointed the time and place of his Execution. Afterwards, in June 1649, he was appointed by Parliament the next Commander in chief under Cromwell in his Expedition for Ireland, that is to be Maj. General, and after his arrival, a Commission and Patent was sent to him to be President of Mounster. After Cromwell the Lord Lieutenant had given an account to the Parliament of affairs done there, he returned into England in June 1650, at which time he left Ireton his Deputy to prosecute the Parliaments Interest there, and acting highly against such that they called Rebels, was, in his way to Limerick, taken with a sudden disease, (some said the plague) on the 16 day of November: whereupon being conveyed in all hast to Limerick, died there on the 26 of the said month, in sixteen hundred fifty and one.1651. Afterwards Col. Edm. Ludlow, who was Lieut. Gen. of the Army there, did execute the Office of Deputy for a time by the appointment of the superior Power. On the 9 of Dec. the Parliament ordered a Bill to be brought in for the setling of 2000 l. per an. on the Wife and Children of Ireton, out of the Lands belonging to George Duke of Bucks, and on the 17 of the said month, his carcass being landed at Bristow, was pompously conveyed towards London, and laying in state for a time in Somerset house in the Strand, all hung with black, was hung over the common gate an Atchievment commonly called a Hatchment, with this Motto under his Arms depicted thereon, Dulce est pro patria mori, which was englished by an honest Cavalier thus, It is good for his Country that he is dead. On the sixth day of Febr. following, his body was interr’d with great state in the Chappel of K. Hen. 7. at Westminster; at which time John Owen Dean of Ch. Ch. in Oxon. preached (not without some blasphemy) on Dan. 12.13. and had about that time Elegies made on his death, and a stately tomb erected over his grave with the Effigies of him and his wife thereon. After the Restauration of K. Ch. 2. his body, with that of Oliv. Cromwell, were taken up on Saturday 26 Jan. 1660, and on Munday night following, were drawn in two several Carts from Westminster to the Red Lyon in Holbourne, where they continued that Evening. The next morning the carcass of Joh. Bradshaw President of the High Court of Justice (which had been with great solemnity buried in S. Peter’s Church at Westminster 22 Nov. 1659.) was carried in a cart to Holbourn also: and the next day following that, (which was the 30 of January, on which day K. Ch. 1. was beheaded in 1648.) they were drawn to Tybourne on three several Sledges, followed by the universal outcry of the people. Afterwards they being pulled out from their Coffins, were hanged at the several angles of that triple tree, where they hung till the sun was set. After which, they were taken down, their heads cut off, (to be set on Westminster Hall) and their loathsome trunks thrown into a deep hole under the Gallowes, where they now remain. At the same time Iretons tomb was broken down, and what remained over the Graves of Cromwell and Bradshaw, were clean swept away, and no footstep left of their remembrances in that royal and stately burial place of our English Kings. While this Ireton lived came out a Pamphlet intit. Independency stript and whipt: or, Ireton’s Petition, &c. 1648. qu. and after his death another called The Kingdom of Christ to the Parliament, from 1649 to 1652, with the name of Hen. Ireton Deputy of Ireland in the Title page. But these I have not yet seen.