I thought it was worth noting that today in 1558 was the date that Queen Elizabeth I ascended to the throne. In many ways, her reign marked marked the confirmation of the reconquest of Ireland by England. Her father, Henry VIII had driven the idea of a reconquest for a number of reasons:

Henry VIII. was anxious to complete the conquest of Ireland even before he had broken with the Pope, but after the separation of England from Rome he realised more clearly the dangers that might ensue unless the Irish and Anglo-Irish princes were reduced to submission. As things stood, Ireland instead of contributing anything was a constant source of loss to the royal treasury, and, were an invasion attempted by some of his Continental rivals, Ireland might become a serious menace to England’s independence. The complete overthrow of the Geraldine rebellion (1535) had prepared the way for a more general advance, but the failure of the Deputy to capture the young heir to the Earldom of Kildare was as displeasing to the king personally as it was dangerous to his plans. The boy was conveyed away secretly by his tutor, a priest named Leverous, who was advanced afterwards to the See of Kildare, and was brought for safety to the territory of O’Brien of Thomond. When Thomond was threatened by the rapid advance of the Deputy, the young Earl of Kildare was conveyed to his aunt, Lady Eleanor MacCarthy of Cork, who on her marriage to Manus O’Donnell, Prince of Tyrconnell, brought the boy with her to Donegal (1538).

O’Connor of Offaly and O’Carroll had been compelled to sue for peace (1535). In the following year Lord Grey made a tour of the south-eastern parts of Leinster, proceeded through Tipperary, and directed his march against the strongholds of O’Brien of Thomond. Partly by his own skill and boldness, partly also by the treachery of one of the O’Briens, he succeeded in capturing some of the principal fortresses including O’Brien’s Bridge. Had it not been for a mutiny that broke out among his soldiers Lord Grey might have succeeded in forcing O’Brien to make terms, but, as it was, he was obliged to desist from further attack and to retreat hastily to Dublin. O’Brien soon recaptured the positions he had lost; O’Connor of Offaly took the field once more, and the unfortunate Deputy, harassed by his enemies on the privy council and blamed by the king for his failure to get possession of the hope of the Geraldines, found himself in the greatest difficulties. But he was a man of wonderful military resource, and knowing well that failure must mean his own recall and possibly his execution, he determined to put forth all his energies in another great effort. So long as the Irish in the Leinster districts were active it was little use for him to undertake dangerous expeditions towards the more remote districts, and for this reason he turned his attention to O’Connor of Offaly. Before many months elapsed he forced the MacMurroughs, the Kavanaghs, the O’Moores, the O’Carrolls, MacGillapatrick of Ossory, and O’Connor to sue humbly for peace. (1)

Henry broke the power of the Kildares. Popular thought tends to think of this as a move against the Irish and to associate a degree of romance with the Rebellion of Silken Thomas but in truth it might be better to think of this in terms of a centralising monarch cutting down to size an over powerful vassal much as the Tudor dynasty had tried and succeeded in doing to English vassals throughout its reign.

If Henry had shown himself unwilling to tolerate an overly powerful Hiberno Norman vassal he was wily in his dealings with the Gaelic Lordships too, using Surrender & Regrant to muddy the waters of title and right to land and to undermine the traditional rights and legal traditions of Gaelic society. It was Elizabeth who oversaw the real destruction of the Gaelic Lordships, the undermining of those Hiberno Norman magnates that remained and, in the final years of her life, brought the last chance of an authentic native Garlic leadership to an end by defeating the forces of O'Neill and O'Donnell in the struggle that was the Nine Years War.

Image with thanks to Flickr user Scorpions and Centaurs and cc