Debating Tudor policy in sixteenth-century Ireland

Reform' treatises and political discourse

David Heffernan

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781526118165
• eBook ISBN: 9781526118189
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Irish History
• Index: History

Ireland was conquered and gradually colonized by the Tudors during the sixteenth century. This much is clear but whether or not this was the actual goal of English policy in Ireland at that time has long been debated by historians. Debating Tudor policy in sixteenth-century Ireland examines a set of sources which provide a unique insight into English rule in Tudor Ireland. These are policy papers or treatises written at the time on how to 'reform' Ireland and bring it under greater crown control. The study constitutes the first systematic study of the approximately six-hundred such treatises to have survived. In doing so it sheds light on how the Tudors arrived at the policies they decided to implement in Ireland and examines how English officials and other parties within Ireland viewed the Irish and the country at that time.

1

Conquest or conciliation? The policy debate in Henrician Ireland, c.1515–1546¹

As with so much else in the Tudor dominions the reign of Henry VIII was of critical importance in defining how government policy was shaped in Ireland during the sixteenth century. Historians of the period, long aware of this fact, have closely examined a number of treatises written on Ireland at the time with a view to determining how the Tudor conquest of Ireland or indeed efforts to constitutionally ‘reform’ the country came about. This focus has not been entirely wayward as the treatises written at this time introduced the great majority of policy options which would be attempted in Tudor Ireland. However, there has been a wayward tendency in the historiography of Henrician Ireland to focus on the more benign aspects of government policy at the time.² In part this is owing to a failure to correctly identify what senior officials and other interested parties in Dublin, the Pale and further afield actually wanted to happen in Ireland. They were, with few exceptions, seeking a renewed programme of regional conquest beginning in those areas immediately adjoining the Pale which were controlled by Irish septs such as the O’Byrnes, O’Tooles and MacMurrough Kavanaghs in Carlow and Wicklow, or ‘south Leinster’ as they termed it, and the O’Connors and O’Mores in the midlands of Ireland. When the whole range of treatises written during this period and other government correspondence and papers are consulted this becomes quite clear. Admittedly, these same officials could put forward more conciliatory proposals aimed at introducing English law and resort to the courts. For instance, some began to suggest that regional councils should be established in Munster, Connacht and Ulster with the aim of extending the common law into those regions. Others argued that the king should attempt not to conquer the foremost Irish lords such as O’Neill and O’Donnell in Ulster but should have them take their lands of him and attempt to have them anglicise their lands. Yet this was seen, to a large extent, as a cheap means of pacifying these greater lords so that they would not interfere if the crown attempted to militarily reduce south Leinster and the midlands.

What follows demonstrates that the approach which was overwhelmingly canvassed for in the treatises produced in the decade following the Kildare Rebellion, by both Old English and New English officials alike, was to undertake a programme of regional conquest beginning in south Leinster. Despite a flood of treatises to England promoting this approach, though, the king baulked at the cost. Subsequently, a cheaper strategy of conciliation, now known as ‘surrender and regrant’, was developed in the late 1530s and from late 1540 was implemented by Anthony St Leger and Thomas Cusack. This approach though was only followed energetically until 1543. Thereafter thoughts turned once again to military conquest with the midlands lordships of the O’Connors and O’Mores now increasingly viewed as a region for possible intervention.Coercive military engagement was the approach overwhelmingly favoured throughout this period by ‘reform’ treatise writers.

The course of religious reform under Henry is also examined in this chapter, highlighting the emergence of a number of the key policies utilised to aid the spread of the Protestant faith in sixteenth-century Ireland. Finally, the emergence in the treatises of a number of strategies for dealing with regional problems such as the incursions of the Scots in the north-east and the weakened state of crown rule in Munster are explored. However, before addressing the course of policy debate in the decade or so after the Kildare Rebellion we first need to turn to the earliest ‘reform’ treatises largely dating to the years 1515–1534, for the ideas expressed in these papers were to exert an enormous influence not just on how policy developed in Ireland during the sixteenth century but even on how the Irish polity was viewed and conquest thereof justified right down to the end of the century.

DISCOVERING THE STATE OF IRELAND: THE EARLY TUDOR TREATISES, C.1515–1534

It is generally assumed that individuals who turned their thoughts to Ireland in the sixteenth century had sources from which to derive ideas, above all in the writings of the twelfth-century polymath, Gerald of Wales.³ However, few treatises written on Ireland in Tudor times evince the influence of Gerald or other works such as those of the fourteenth-century Benedictine monk, Ranulph Higden, whose Polychronicon included sections on Ireland.^{4 5}Indeed, as Christopher Maginn and Steven Ellis have demonstrated, the early Tudors were markedly ignorant of even the geography and landscape of Ireland. The reasons for this were alighted onto in one of the earliest Tudor ‘reform’ treatises. Here it was argued that the kings of England in the fifteenth century had ‘not substantially seen to the land’ as a result of ‘the dissention in England betwixt the houses of Lancaster and York for the title of the crown … whereby they have not had opportunity to provide for Ireland’.⁶ But as the Wars of the Roses drew to a close, and Henry VII consolidated his hold on England, Ireland became the object of renewed attention.⁷ Accordingly, the earliest Tudor treatises (which became foundational texts for later writers) were crucial in providing the elementary details of the history, geography and political landscape of Ireland to future writers.

The first extant ‘reform’ treatise for the Tudor period, the anonymously authored ‘A Description of the Power of Irishmen of this land of Ireland’, dates to sometime in the early-to-mid-1490s. It may well have been commissioned as part of an abortive attempt by Henry VII, with the backing of Pope Alexander VI, to launch a comprehensive programme for the ‘reform’ of Ireland following the conclusion of Edward Poynings term as lord deputy in December 1495.⁸ If the ‘Description’ was not commissioned as part of the preparation for this stillborn ‘reform’ programme then the date of composition is suggestive that the paper was drawn up by an individual in response to these early Tudor attempts at revitalising crown rule in Ireland. The ‘Description’ began by asserting that English power in Ireland now prevailed only within the four counties of the Dublin-centred Pale. An anatomisation of Ireland beyond this bastion of English rule followed. Beginning with Leinster the chief lords of each province with the names of the countries they controlled were given, followed by a listing of the number of horsemen, galloglass and kern which each commanded. As such the forces of the chief lords of Leinster, Desmond, Thomond, Connacht, Ulster and Meath were given in detail. The ‘Description’ concluded with a number of points on the allegedly highly militarised and anarchic nature of Irish society. These were epitomised in the failure to adopt succession through primogeniture and in the lords’ taking of goods from their tenantry. Hence, in this the earliest surviving Tudor ‘reform’ treatise many of the standard characteristics of that discourse began to emerge, notably a view about the backwardness of Gaelic society and the exaggeratedly militarised nature of the country. But, more substantially, the anatomisation of the country into lordships and their description according to the military power available to each took hold. Not only did this feature in dozens of treatises written over the course of the sixteenth century, but the names, figures and lay-out found in the ‘Description’ were being copied verbatim as late as the 1590s.⁹

A number of noteworthy documents were composed in the years that followed. Writing to the seventh earl of Ormond in 1498, the sometime chief baron of the exchequer, John Wise, called for the ‘reform’ of Ireland and proposed both the putting away of ‘coign and livery’ and the erection of a fort near Carrick-on-Shannon to ‘resist all the Irishemen in this land’.¹⁰ Wise made note of his having recently written to Henry VII providing information on Ireland and he may well have also been the compiler of the ‘Description’.¹¹ Sometime late in the reign of Henry VII one Edmond Golding sent a letter to Ormond in which he expressed dismay at the cultural degeneracy of the Pale. He noted, in particular, that the Gaelic practice of riding without a saddle had been widely embraced and that English apparel had become less common even in the Pale. Accordingly, he urged Ormond to act to curb the encroachments of Gaelic military retinues into the four counties. Golding was the father-in-law of Patrick Finglas and he singled out William Darcy of Platten for praise in his letter as an English cultural stalwart.¹² Both figures would shortly play a central role in early Tudor discourse on Ireland. Writings are extant for one further figure around this time. Christopher Cusack, who served as sheriff of Meath in 1511, entered a series of treatises into his commonplace book around this time listing the principal landowners of the county and their military capabilities.¹³ This closely paralleled the concerns of the ‘Description of the Power of Irishmen’ and may have been designed to demonstrate the resources available should direct crown rule be reintroduced in Ireland.

While these writings are the earliest extant documents for a ‘reform’ discourse in Tudor Ireland the origins of the ‘reform’ movement have understandably been traced to 1515. At least five treatises may have been composed at this time, a burst of writing which was possibly due to rumours of Henry VIII visiting Ireland and plans for a parliament.¹⁴ Somewhat important is a brief ‘Description of Ireland’ which attempted to define Ireland’s geographical extent, before breaking down the five ‘portions’ of the country into cantreds, hundreds and baronies. The purpose of this was to emphasise the revenue that could be generated in Ireland if the king was able to collect a subsidy of half a mark (6s. 8d.) on every ploughland.¹⁵ The ‘Description’ was a widely read piece in the sixteenth century, with the geographical description it provided copied into many other treatises, notably versions of the late Elizabethan viceroy, John Perrot’s highly significant ‘Discourse’ written in 1581.¹⁶ Though brief and concerned with rather more mundane matters than the other treatises written around this time the ‘Description’ should possibly garner more attention than it has, for, crucially (together with the earlier ‘Description of the Power of Irishmen’), it provided observers with the basic information on the physical and political geography of Ireland needed to allow them to further analyse the country.

While the ‘Description’ has been relatively ignored, the importance of the series of ‘Articles’ submitted by William Darcy at Greenwich on 23 June 1515 has been well noted.¹⁷ This brief paper was primarily concerned with the degeneracy of those of English descent in Ireland.¹⁸ This was witnessed most forcefully in the adoption of the system of Gaelic bastard feudal exactions by the great English lords sinc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Series editors’ preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Note on conventions
• Preface
• Introduction: Debating Tudor policy in Ireland: The ‘reform’ treatises
• 1 Conquest or conciliation? The policy debate in Henrician Ireland, c.1515–1546
• 2 ‘Reform’ treatises and the inception of the Tudor conquest in mid-sixteenth-century Ireland, 1546–1565
• 3 Treatise writing and the expansion of Tudor government in mid-Elizabethan Ireland, 1565–1578
• 4 Complaint, reform and conflict: Treatise writing in late Elizabethan Ireland, 1579–1594
• Conclusion
• Select bibliography of primary sources
• Index