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Richard Cromwell had succeeded his father as lord protector in September 1658. He was formally lord protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, but the arrangement depended upon the cooperation of an army whose officers distrusted civilian parliaments and resented the uncertain constitutional direction of the new regime. In Ireland, Henry Cromwell had supplied much of the practical strength that Richard lacked. He had governed with relative competence and had won the confidence of many Protestant settlers and officials, while remaining committed to the Cromwellian settlement.
Henry Ireton, Oliver Cromwell’s son-in-law and successor as commander of the parliamentary army in Ireland, began the campaigning season with a formidable military position but demanding tasks. Cromwell had left Ireland in 1650. Ireton now commanded the army as well as helping to shape the new Commonwealth administration. The remaining resistance was fragmented: Catholic confederates, Irish royalists, English royalists and local garrisons could still co-operate, but their political aims, religious commitments and personal rivalries did not always coincide.
