Nativity of Henry Ireton, b 3 November 1611

We end the day with a quiet contemplation of the career of Henry Ireton, who is most notable round here in that he gave his name to the road in Holloway which the Archdruidical Londoner-grandparents inhabited. Perhaps it is appropriate for a man who would not have wanted earthly honours, that the road was flattened in the 70s and replaced with a park.


I cannot help but be amused by this British Civil Wars page's comment that " Ireton's tireless efforts in supervising military operations in Ireland apparently exhausted him".  I would hate anyone to apply the same pedantry to my own scribblings, but if the efforts exhausted him, one would imagine they were not so much tireless as tiring. Perhaps "sustained" would be a better word?


Ireton was humourless, devout and a ratbag. He wanted no monument except the eternal one that awaits us in the heavenly realms. He wanted only a heavenly kingdom, and yet helped to destroy an earthly one. In the pursuit of a creed of love, he butchered many. Years after his death, he ended up with his head on a stick. He would have wanted it that way.