4 Complaint, reform and conflict
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David Heffernan
Abstract
This chapter proposes a revision of our understanding of political discourse in late Elizabethan Ireland and public policy there more generally. Previously it has largely been contended that officials in Ireland at this time began to believe that the country was beyond ‘reform’ and that a harsh brand of military subjugation would have to be employed to create a tabula rasa on which an English society could be constructed. Converse to this the chapter argues that officials were actually deeply critical of Tudor policy in Ireland itself at this time. Accordingly they argued that what was needed was a more conciliatory approach to the governance of the country and reformation of the gross levels of militarisation and corruption which had become endemic there. These views were clearly laid out in a literature of complaint which emerged in the ‘reform’ treatises being written at this time. The chapter is primarily an exploration of this literature of complaint. It also examines the treatises attendant upon the inception of the Munster Plantation. Finally, it examines attitudes towards the problem posed by Ulster in the 1580s and early 1590s and queries what policies were promoted for the province in the years preceding the outbreak of the Nine Years War in 1594.
Abstract
This chapter proposes a revision of our understanding of political discourse in late Elizabethan Ireland and public policy there more generally. Previously it has largely been contended that officials in Ireland at this time began to believe that the country was beyond ‘reform’ and that a harsh brand of military subjugation would have to be employed to create a tabula rasa on which an English society could be constructed. Converse to this the chapter argues that officials were actually deeply critical of Tudor policy in Ireland itself at this time. Accordingly they argued that what was needed was a more conciliatory approach to the governance of the country and reformation of the gross levels of militarisation and corruption which had become endemic there. These views were clearly laid out in a literature of complaint which emerged in the ‘reform’ treatises being written at this time. The chapter is primarily an exploration of this literature of complaint. It also examines the treatises attendant upon the inception of the Munster Plantation. Finally, it examines attitudes towards the problem posed by Ulster in the 1580s and early 1590s and queries what policies were promoted for the province in the years preceding the outbreak of the Nine Years War in 1594.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- List of figures and tables viii
- Series editors’ preface ix
- Acknowledgements x
- Abbreviations xii
- Note on conventions xiv
- Preface xvi
- Introduction 1
- 1 Conquest or conciliation? 26
- 2 ‘Reform’ treatises and the inception of the Tudor conquest in midsixteenth-century Ireland, 1546–1565 77
- 3 Treatise writing and the expansion of Tudor government in mid-Elizabethan Ireland, 1565–1578 122
- 4 Complaint, reform and conflict 174
- Conclusion 217
- Select bibliography of primary sources 223
- Index 231
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- List of figures and tables viii
- Series editors’ preface ix
- Acknowledgements x
- Abbreviations xii
- Note on conventions xiv
- Preface xvi
- Introduction 1
- 1 Conquest or conciliation? 26
- 2 ‘Reform’ treatises and the inception of the Tudor conquest in midsixteenth-century Ireland, 1546–1565 77
- 3 Treatise writing and the expansion of Tudor government in mid-Elizabethan Ireland, 1565–1578 122
- 4 Complaint, reform and conflict 174
- Conclusion 217
- Select bibliography of primary sources 223
- Index 231
