The massacre of Drogheda did not suffice to arrest the bloodshed. Wexford defended itself in the same manner and suffered the same fate. In the parts in which success was more easy, it was yet sullied by great cruelties. Meanwhile the strictest discipline reigned in the army; the country districts were quiet, and the soldiers were careful to pay for everything they took. Cromwell had secretly recommenced his intrigues, at times causing the projects of his enemies to miscarry through their own dissensions, by means of the skillful agents whom he introduced among them. This man, who boasted of having slain all the friars of Drogheda, made useful service of the ecclesiastics as secret emissaries. His seductive efforts reached even the Marquis of Ormond, for whom he manifested great esteem, often saying, "What has Lord Ormond to do with Charles Stuart, and what favors has he received from him?" At the same time, and by an act of shrewd foresight, he authorized recruiting in Ireland for the service of foreign powers. { 213} In a few months this little Catholic kingdom, which had with great difficulty furnished an army of eight to ten thousand men for the service of the king, sent to France and Spain more than fifty thousand soldiers, fierce enemies of Protestantism and Parliament. The republican chiefs, in London, began to find that the absence of Cromwell and his new glory dangerously enhanced his greatness; they urged him to return to London, placing a part of Whitehall and of St. James's Palace at his disposal. Cromwell was profuse in his acknowledgments, but he delayed returning to England as he had delayed leaving it. Fresh events were preparing which were about to furnish him with an opportunity for displaying both his skill and genius.
Charles II. had left Ormond to fight for him in Ireland. At the first news of his defeat before Dublin, he had for a moment desired to throw himself in the midst of the struggle. It was represented to him that the moment was ill-chosen; that it was not well to go there to take part in a defeat. "Then I must go there to die," he nobly replied, "for it is shameful for me to live elsewhere." Recovering from this courageous impulse, he lived elsewhere, leaving his friends to die in Ireland. The same fate was soon to overtake in Scotland the most brilliant and devoted of his adherents.