Henry Ireton


Ireton, Henry

 

Born 1611; died Nov. 26, 1651. Figure in the English bourgeois revolution of the 17th century; ideologist of the moderate Independents; associate of O. Cromwell.

Ireton was one of the organizers of the new army (the so-called New Model Army), in which he served as commissary general. In 1645 he was elected to the Long Parliament. Ireton was the main opponent of the Levellers at the conference in Putney in 1647; he supported the continuation of the king and the House of Lords and opposed the ideas of the Agreement of the People. However, in the fall of 1648, when it became clear that the Independents could not retain power without executing the king, Ireton became one of the organizers and participants in the trial of Charles I. He set out on the Irish campaign in 1649 as an aide of Cromwell and remained in Ireland as lord lieutenant.

REFERENCE

Ramsey, R. W. Henry Ireton. London, 1949.