Conquest or conciliation? The policy debate in Henrician Ireland, c.1515–15461

Abstract

The first chapter examines the ‘reform’ treatises written more or less during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII and how they impacted upon the development of government policy in Ireland up to 1546. I argue that most writers were overwhelmingly in favour of a programme of renewed conquest, beginning in those parts of Leinster immediately adjoining the Dublin-centred Pale, and that they believed this would finally be initiated following the Kildare Rebellion in the mid-1530s. However owing to Henry VIII’s unwillingness to fund such a conquest a cheap strategy of conciliation known as ‘surrender and regrant’ was briefly experimented with in the early 1540s. The chapter also examines the policy debate, and treatises written on, religious reform and regional reform of Munster and Ulster through the establishment of provincial councils and settlement of colonies.