English Civil War
On the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the parliamentary army, fighting at the Battle of Edgehill in October 1642, and at the Battle of Gainsborough in July 1643. He was made deputy-governor of the Isle of Ely by Cromwell and served under Manchester in the Yorkshire campaign and at the second Battle of Newbury, afterwards supporting Cromwell in his accusations of incompetency against the general.
On the night before the battle of Naseby, in June 1645, Ireton succeeded in surprising the Royalist army and captured many prisoners. The next day, on the suggestion of Cromwell, he was made commissary-general and appointed to the command of the left wing, Cromwell himself commanding the right. The wing under Ireton was completely broken by the impetuous charge of Rupert and Ireton was wounded and taken prisoner, but Cromwell charged and successfully routed the Royalists, freeing prisoners including Ireton.
Ireton was at the siege of Bristol in September 1645 and took part in the subsequent campaign that succeeded in overthrowing the royal cause. On 30 October 1645 Ireton entered parliament as member for Appleby. On 15 June 1646, during the siege of Oxford he and Bridget, daughter of Oliver Cromwell, were married. The marriage brought Ireton's career into parallel with Cromwell's.
Read more about this topic: Henry Ireton
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, english, civil and/or war:
“One of the greatest difficulties in civil war is, that more art is required to know what should be concealed from our friends, than what ought to be done against our enemies.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“We talked about and that has always been a puzzle to me
why American men think that success is everything
when they know that eighty percent of them are not
going to succeed more than to just keep going and why
if they are not why do they not keep on being
interested in the things that interested them when
they were college men and why American men different
from English men do not get more interesting as they
get older.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil countries in a thousand years have set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by etiquette; but the thought which they did not uncover in their bosom friend is here written out in transparent words to us, the strangers of another age.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Our young people have come to look upon war as a kind of beneficent deity, which not only adds to the national honor but uplifts a nation and develops patriotism and courage. That is all true. But it is only fair, too, to let them know that the garments of the deity are filthy and that some of her influences debase and befoul a people.”
—Rebecca Harding Davis (1831–1910)