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Ireland under Tudors and Stuarts, 1485-1688
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Ireland under Tudors and Stuarts, 1485-1688
Ireland under the Tudors
We turn from Scotland to survey the history of Ireland under the Tudors and Stuarts. When Henry VII ascended the English throne in 1485, Ireland was in a deplorably backward condition. The Renaissance and all the movements connected with it had left Ireland completely untouched. Learning had perished. Religion had no real hold upon the people. The country was covered with forests and bogs which made communication difficult, and roads were almost non-existent; and it is reckoned that of the three-quarters of a million people inhabiting the land, at least two-thirds led a wild and uncivilized existence. "The Pale"—the district where English jurisdiction was actually established — had been gradually reduced till it only included a stretch of country, some thirty miles wide, from Dundalk to Dublin; outside this area Irish customs and the Irish language prevailed, and each Irish chieftain was supreme in his own district. The descendants of the Anglo-Normans who had conquered the country in Henry II's day had become Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores—more Irish than the Irish themselves. Of these the chief families were the Butlers, under the Earl of Ormonde in the south-east, and the FitzGeralds or Geraldincs, under the headship of the Earl of Desmond in Munster, and under that of the Earl of Kildare in Leinster. Of the old Irish families perhaps the most important were the O'Neills and the O' Donnells in Ulster.
Ireland under the Stuarts
Soon after James I came to the throne, an opportunity arose of developing the system of "plantation" begun in the reign of Elizabeth. In 1607 the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel) the heads of the two great Irish tribes in Ulster, fearing that they were about to be attainted for treason, fled from the country. The Government then proceeded to confiscate the lands of these two clans. It held that the lands belonged to the two eails, the heads of the tribes; but, by Irish theory and custom, these lands belonged to the tribe, and it is difficult to justify the course pursued by the English Government Some of the lands — the worst part of them — were restored to the Irish; but over half a million acres were given to settlers from England and Scotland and to the City of London and its twelve City Companies. Nor was Ulster the only province affected. Adventurers flocked over to Ireland, inquired into the titles of land in various districts, and, where they were non-existent or defective, obtained the grant of them from the Government The next important stage in the history of Ireland is marked by the rule of Sir afford (1633-40). In many ways his government was admirable. He made the officials attend to their business, and endeavoured, with some success, to put a stop to jobbery. He found an army half-clothed and half-armed, undrilled and unpaid; he transformed it into an efficient fighting force well disciplined, well officered, and well paid. The Irish Sea, before his rule, was full of pirates; but under Strafford piracy was sternly and successfully repressed (Strafford himself experienced the inconveniences of piracy, for a pirate ship, the Pickpocket, of Dover, captured linen belonging to him worth £500).
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Chronology
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