The Chief Governors
The Rise and Fall of Reform Government in Tudor Ireland 1536–1588
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Published:6th Jun '02
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
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- Hardback£114.00(9780521461764)
A revisionist account of Irish history under the Tudors.
This book offers a fundamental critique of conventional views of sixteenth-century Irish history. It argues that reform rather than conquest was the aim of Tudor policy-makers, but shows that immense difficulties forced them to make administrative innovations which contradicted their original policy.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.
'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
ISBN: 9780521520041
Dimensions: 227mm x 152mm x 21mm
Weight: 616g
344 pages