The Chief Governors
The Rise and Fall of Reform Government in Tudor Ireland 1536–1588

A revisionist account of Irish history under the Tudors.

Ciaran Brady (Author)

9780521461764, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 February 1995

344 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 3 cm, 0.651 kg

'The Chief Governors is a compelling book, lucidly and elegantly written … this is a hugely important book which no one interested in early modern Ireland can afford to ignore. It should set the terms of debate for years to come.' Andrew Hadfield, Irish Studies Review

This book offers an extended reinterpretation of English policy in Ireland over the sixteenth century. It seeks to show that the major conflicts between Tudor governors and native lords which characterised the period were not the result of a deliberate Tudor strategy of confrontation, but arose from a failed experiment in legal reform and cultural assimilation which had been applied with remarkable success elsewhere in the Tudor dominions. The book identifies a distinct administrative style which evolved in Irish government in the mid-sixteenth century under a complex set of pressures acting on the would-be reformers both in Ireland and at the Tudor court, and argues that it was this highly centralised and intensely activist mode of government that undermined the aims of reform policy and provoked alienation and hostility.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Prologue: Ireland in the wake of the Kildare rebellion, 1536
Part I. The Course of Reform Government, 1536–1578: 1. Reform as process: the viceroyalties of Lord Leonard Grey and Sir Anthony St Leger, 1536–1547
2. Ireland and the mid-Tudor crisis, 1547–1556
3. Reform by programme: the viceroyalties of the earl of Sussex, 1556–1565
4. Reform on contract: the viceroyalties of Sir Henry Sidney, 1566–1578
Interlude: government in Ireland, 1536–1579
Part II. The Impact of Reform Government, 1556–1583: 5. Reform government and the feudal magnates
6. Reform government and the community of the Pale
7. Reform government and Gaelic Ireland
Epilogue: reform in crisis: the viceroyalty of Sir John Perrot, 1584–1588
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1]