The reign of Edward VI in Ireland: some political, social, and economic aspects

Abstract

The final Henrician policy towards Ireland, involving ‘surrender and regrant’ and overtones of conciliation and redress is a familiar part of Irish history. What actually happened to that policy in its early phase is not so familiar. In a paper setting forth the importance of Henry’s Irish policy Robert Dunlop felt obliged to say something concerning its fate and the reasons for its failure. Having rejected a religious explanation, or any ‘conflict between tribal and feudal ideas’, he placed the blame on the Irish chiefs themselves. While admitting that a weak central government was ‘unable to enforce its decrees without constantly appealing to the sword’, he stressed most that ‘the easy indifference with which the Irish accepted Henry’s plan was fatal to its success’. Had their chiefs been more willing to surrender some of their authority the policy, so well devised, would have succeeded. ‘Their inability or unwillingness to do so compelled the use of more drastic measures, and was the cause of all their subsequent misfortunes.’ Dunlop’s conclusions have an air of vagueness, and there were actually very concrete reasons, besides the general character of the Irish, why the policy did not achieve more immediate success. Those reasons are to be sought in Edward VI’s reign as it manifested itself in Ireland.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 40 citations exist upstream.