8 Magnificence and massacre
-
Hiram Morgan
Abstract
The first Earl of Essex’s ‘Enterprise’ proved unsuccessful. Hiram Morgan’s chapter covers the full chronology of this colonial fiasco, from the planning stages to its ignominious failure in practice. Court machinations were always central to Essex’s plan: it was hatched by him as a means to aggrandise himself in the eyes of his queen and above his peers, and the revival of the medieval earldom of Ulster was a critical component of that court competition. But such ‘paper-based’ ventures conceived as much to affect the relative status of English elites as to effect ‘civility’ in the western realm proved terminal to some of the figures involved and toxic to any emergent affinities binding Irish lords to the central state.
Abstract
The first Earl of Essex’s ‘Enterprise’ proved unsuccessful. Hiram Morgan’s chapter covers the full chronology of this colonial fiasco, from the planning stages to its ignominious failure in practice. Court machinations were always central to Essex’s plan: it was hatched by him as a means to aggrandise himself in the eyes of his queen and above his peers, and the revival of the medieval earldom of Ulster was a critical component of that court competition. But such ‘paper-based’ ventures conceived as much to affect the relative status of English elites as to effect ‘civility’ in the western realm proved terminal to some of the figures involved and toxic to any emergent affinities binding Irish lords to the central state.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Series editors’ preface x
- Acknowledgements xi
- Abbreviations xiii
- Introduction – Contiguous court societies 1
- I Indigenous court society in Ireland 27
- 1 Bouncers, stewards and gatecrashers 29
- 2 Court society in the south of Ireland, c.1430–c.1620 45
- 3 The Gaelic court and Irish country-house poetry 65
- 4 Latin letters and Renaissance civility in sixteenth-century Ireland 86
- II Made in Whitehall 103
- 5 Debating Irish policy at the court of Elizabeth I, c.1558–80 105
- 6 How to govern Ireland without leaving your armchair 123
- 7 Court discourse, the mid-Elizabethan polity and Ireland, 1571–75 142
- 8 Magnificence and massacre 166
- 9 Counsel in extremis 195
- III Positioning Ireland in the Renaissance court world 213
- 10 Our men in Scotland 215
- 11 Ireland’s militarised itinerant court and the Tudor state 238
- 12 ‘Winning hearts and minds’ 261
- 13 From court to courtliness 278
- Index 297
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Series editors’ preface x
- Acknowledgements xi
- Abbreviations xiii
- Introduction – Contiguous court societies 1
- I Indigenous court society in Ireland 27
- 1 Bouncers, stewards and gatecrashers 29
- 2 Court society in the south of Ireland, c.1430–c.1620 45
- 3 The Gaelic court and Irish country-house poetry 65
- 4 Latin letters and Renaissance civility in sixteenth-century Ireland 86
- II Made in Whitehall 103
- 5 Debating Irish policy at the court of Elizabeth I, c.1558–80 105
- 6 How to govern Ireland without leaving your armchair 123
- 7 Court discourse, the mid-Elizabethan polity and Ireland, 1571–75 142
- 8 Magnificence and massacre 166
- 9 Counsel in extremis 195
- III Positioning Ireland in the Renaissance court world 213
- 10 Our men in Scotland 215
- 11 Ireland’s militarised itinerant court and the Tudor state 238
- 12 ‘Winning hearts and minds’ 261
- 13 From court to courtliness 278
- Index 297
