many worse rulers and few better than her first English military governor. [Sidenote: 1655.] [Sidenote: 1657.] [Sidenote: 1654-1658.] In Ireland, after Cromwell's departure, the reduction of the country to order was carried on also by a number of flying columns. Of their leaders but two of the most successful need be named, namely Robert Venables and John Reynolds, the latter Cromwell's kinsman by marriage and sometime captain in his regiment of horse. Ireton had been appointed Lord Deputy on Cromwell's departure, but dying in November 1651 was succeeded by another soldier, Charles Fleetwood. Though a valuable man when under the command of a strong officer Fleetwood was soon found to be useless when invested with supreme control, and he was soon practically superseded by Henry Cromwell, the Protector's second surviving son. Henry had entered the army at sixteen, had fought with his father in Ireland, and had become a colonel at two-and-twenty. He was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland at the age of twenty-eight. The country was quiet enough at his accession so far as concerned open rebellion; the Tories had been mercilessly hunted down from bog to bog, and the Irish fighting men had been transported in thousands by recruiting officers to the armies of Spain and of France. What gallant service they did under Lewis the Fourteenth, for they did not greatly love the service of Spain, has been told with just pride by Irish writers; and we too shall encounter some of their regiments before long. Henry Cromwell's difficulties lay not with the native Irish but with his own officers, the veterans of the Civil War, who were alike jealous of his appointment and insubordinately minded towards the Protector. Immediately on Henry's arrival some of these malcontents held a meeting, wherein they put it to the question whether the present government were or were not according to the Word of God, and carried it in the negative. The very members of the Irish Council, old field-officers who should have known better, were disloyal to him, but being old comrades of Oliver's could not be dismissed. Young as he was, however, Henry gave them clearly to understand that he intended to be master, and therewith proceeded to the difficult, nay impossible, task of executing what is known as the Cromwellian settlement of Ireland. He showed conspicuous ability in extremely trying circumstances, abundant firmness and foresight, and a tolerance of spirit towards the men of other creeds, even Catholics, which was as rare as it was politic. The military governor of Ireland under the Commonwealth was assuredly not a man of whom the British Army need feel ashamed.[184]