However, nowhere is Cromwell's legacy more controversial than in Ireland, after the massacres in Drogheda and Wexford. At Drogheda Cromwell, in the heat of battle and very angry at what he saw as the useless shedding of the blood of his men, ordered the defenders not to be spared. Almost 3,500 Royalist soldiers were killed, and some civilians died in the chaotic events after the battle. At Wexford Cromwell did not, in fact, give an order for a massacre but nor did he punish those who took part. He may have been remembering events a few years earlier, when the Protestants in the town had been violently persecuted by the Catholic majority. These massacres were not the only ones to take place in the Civil Wars. For example, the people who lived in Bolton, in Lancashire, were massacred by Royalist troops in 1644. The infamy of Drogheda's and Wexford lies in how they affected the future violent history of Ireland.