Sir Arthur Aston (1590–1649) was a soldier, most noted for his support for King Charles I in the English Civil War, and in folklore for the gruesome manner of his death in Ireland.

[1] Aston's father was a professional soldier who had served in Russia in the 1610s, and, being a Catholic, had caught the attention and trust of the Polish king Sigismund III.

Arthur Aston senior agreed to raise 2,000 British mercenaries for the Polish crown for the Turkish war of 1621.

In 1642, when the First English Civil War broke out, Charles initially refused to employ him on account of his Catholic faith, but Prince Rupert of the Rhine persuaded him to do so.

He was wounded when Reading was besieged (struck on the head by a falling tile), and was captured by the Parliamentarians under the Earl of Essex.

In 1648, Aston joined the Earl of Ormonde, who had recently been made Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Confederates and other Royalist forces in Ireland.

Aston was in Ireland, with Ormonde, in January 1647, when he petitioned the House of Lords for a pass to return to England, or to go beyond 'these Dominions'.

Drogheda was a Protestant town in The Pale and had previously supported Parliament through two sieges by Irish Confederates.