The Chief Governors: The Rise and Fall of Reform Government in Tudor Ireland 1536–1588 (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History) - Softcover

Brady, Ciaran

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521520045 ISBN 13: 9780521520041

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2002

Synopsis

This book offers a fundamental critique of conventional views of sixteenth-century Irish history that have stressed the centrality of colonization and military confrontation. It argues that reform rather than conquest was the aim of Tudor policy-makers, but shows that the immense difficulties faced by the reformers in pursuing their objectives forced them to make administrative innovations that ultimately contradicted and undermined their original policy.

About this title

Book Description

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 argues that they 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 during the middle of the 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.

From the Back Cover

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 as conventional interpretations have assumed, but argues that they 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 seeks to explain the course of this exceptional failure, and it identifies a distinct administrative style which evolved in Irish government during the middle of the century under a complex set of pressures acting on the would-be reformers both in Ireland and at the Tudor court. It argues that it was this distinctive, highly centralised and intensely activist mode of government that inadvertently undermined the aims of reform policy and provoked the alienation and hostility that was precisely the opposite result to that which was originally intended.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521520045
• ISBN 13: 9780521520041
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 344