27. Getting Beat to Death With His Own Wooden Leg
Sir Arthur Aston had an authoritarian style of command, learned on the continent. It was unpopular in England, leading his troops to view him as a martinet and hate his guts. Aston was wounded and captured in 1642, then released in a prisoner exchange, after which he was appointed governor of Oxford, headquarters of the royalist cause. There, he was severely injured in a fall from a horse, lost a leg, and used a wooden prosthetic leg thereafter. While recovering, he was relieved of his command and pensioned off.
In 1648, he joined the royalists in Ireland, and was made commander of Drogheda. He was besieged in 1649 by Parliamentary forces led by Oliver Cromwell, who stormed and captured the town on September 11th. Aston was captured, and Cromwell’s soldiers, convinced that his prosthetic must contain hidden gold, demanded that he show them how to access its secret compartment. They refused to believe his denials, and frustrated at his perceived stubbornness, beat him to death with his own wooden leg.