The five monarchs of the 118 year Tudor Dynasty in England (1486-1603) -- particularly Henry VIII (r.1509-47) and his daughter Elizabeth I (r.1558-1603) -- had an enormous impact on Ireland and its people. In addition to imposing Poynings Law on Ireland, they ousted the Catholic Church (with the Pope as its head), and replaced it with a Protestant Church (with the English Crown as its head), thereby sowing the seeds for centuries of religious conflict in Ireland; they extinguished the "Kildare Supremacy" and established the principle that the King of England automatically became King of Ireland; they partially destroyed Irish culture through an "Anglicization" program that imposed England's language, laws, culture and religion on Ireland; and they "re-conquered" Ireland by defeating the Gaelic lords at Kinsale, thereby extinguishing the old Gaelic order and paving the way for plantations and eventually for "union" with England.

The Tudor Dynasty began when Henry Tudor, a Lancaster, defeated Richard III, a York, at Bosworth Field in 1485, thereby ending the War of Roses (1455-85) between the royal Houses of Lancaster and York, who had been vying for the Crown. Tudor then took the throne as Henry VII, after which he united the two houses by marrying Elizabeth of York and executing all other potential heirs from the House of York.

Henry VII's major contribution to Irish history was forcing the Irish parliament to adopt Poynings' Law (1494). This law, which was prompted by Ireland's support of the Yorkist side in the Wars of the Roses, gave the English Privy Council a veto over legislation proposed in future Irish parliaments.

Henry VII died in 1509, and was succeeded by his second son, Henry VIII, the most colorful of the medieval monarchs. Almost immediately, Henry VIII determined to assert a greater degree of sovereignty over Ireland. He was uncomfortable with the fact that his chief deputy in Ireland, the Earl of Kildare, was an "English rebel" who did not even speak English, and who had become "more Irish than the Irish". More importantly, Henry was concerned that Ireland could be used as an ideal launching site for an invasion of England by sea. English monarchs had appreciated this danger for centuries, but the Hundred Years War (1338-1453) and the War of Roses (1455-85) had diverted attention away from Ireland. Now, with those wars over, the time seemed right to address the problem.

Thus in 1519, while Henry was still a fervent Catholic (and 14 years before he broke with the Catholic Church), he seriously considered "planting" Ireland with loyal English colonists who would constitute an English garrison in Ireland. However, Henry's feasibility study showed that a "plantation" program would require huge expenditures for an occupation army. Thus Henry settled instead for a coercive "Anglicization" program under which the English language and culture, and particularly feudal land law, would be forcibly imposed on Ireland. Its most important component was a "surrender and re-grant" program under which negotiations and military threats were used to coerce Irish lords to "submit" to the Crown -- i.e., to acknowledge subservience and surrender their lands -- but on condition the lords would receive back the same lands as feudal fiefdoms. The policy proved moderately successful. Meanwhile, by 1527, Henry was finding it expedient to address his marital problems, which quickly became entangled with the "Protestant Reformation".

On the Continent, the "Reformation" began about 1517, when Martin Luther disagreed with the Catholic Church on matters of conscience. In England, Luther's "Reformation" attracted only modest support until 1533 when Henry, in an effort to solve his marital problems, formally embraced it and officially established a "Reformed Church".

Shortly before his coronation (1509), Henry had married his brother Arthur's widow, Catherine of Aragon, who bore him a daughter, Mary. But by 1527, it had become clear that Catherine would not bear him a male heir to continue the Tudor line. Thus Henry asked Pope Clement VII for an annulment and a decree that he was free to marry his new inamorata, Anne Boleyn. When the Pope refused, Henry's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, engineered two Acts of Parliament (1533 and 1534) which ousted the Catholic Church and replaced it with a new and independent Church of England, which was headed by the Crown (Henry himself) in place of the Pope. Henry promptly appointed a new Archbishop of Canterbury, who annulled Henry's marriage to Catherine, after which Henry married Anne. Henry's new "Anglican" religion was identical to Catholicism in liturgy and theology, and was sometimes characterized as "Catholicism without the Pope".

In 1533, Anne Boleyn bore Henry a daughter, Elizabeth. She was declared heir to the throne in place of Catherine's daughter, Mary, who was now regarded as illegitimate. Anne Boleyn also failed to bear a son, however. For this reason, and because of her alleged infidelity to the king, she was executed in 1536. Finally, Henry's third wife, Jane Seymour, bore Henry a son, Edward. Jane Seymour died in 1537, shortly after Edward's birth. Henry had three more wives, none of whom bore children  *.

Shortly after his success in ousting the Catholic Church, Henry summoned Garrett Og, the Earl of Kildare, to England for negotiations intended to expand the Crown's control in Ireland, while curtailing the "Kildare Supremacy". While the Earl was in England, his son, Thomas Fitzgerald, invaded the Dublin Parliament, surrendered the sword of state and announced that he was no longer the King's deputy but his enemy **. Thomas' men wore a silken fringe on his jacket, inspiring his nickname "Silken Thomas". Henry imprisoned the Earl in the Tower of London (where he died a year later), and dispatched an army to Ireland. Henry's army introduced cannons to Ireland and quickly forced Kildare's forces at Maynooth to surrender, after which the survivors were given the "pardon of Maynooth", i.e., they were executed. "Silken Thomas" himself escaped, but eventually he surrendered and was sent to the Tower of London. After two years Thomas was executed, along with five of his brothers, thereby terminating the celebrated 69 year "Kildare Supremacy". Thereafter, no English monarch ever appointed an Irishman as his chief deputy in Ireland.

In 1537, the Irish Parliament declared the Anglican religion to be the "established" (i.e., official) religion of the Church of Ireland. Anglicism also became a part of he "English culture" that Henry was forcibly imposing on Ireland. But this complicated the task enormously because there was virtually no indigenous sympathy for "reform" among either the Gaelic-Irish or the Norman-Irish, who remained totally committed to the Pope.

In 1541, Henry had himself declared King of Ireland.

Henry died in 1547. Although he earlier had sponsored legislation excluding both daughters from succession, Henry's will, which provided for the succession of his three children in classic order, was honored. Thus Henry was succeeded by his son, Edward VI (r. 1547-53), who had little impact, particularly in Ireland. Edward was succeeded by his half-sister, Mary I (r. 1553-58), the daughter of Catherine of Aragon. Mary remained a Catholic and officially restored the Catholic religion, but during her short 5 year reign, she was hostile to Ireland for reasons other than religion, and in fact imposed England's first plantation on Ireland. Mary was succeeded by her sister Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603) who reigned for 43 years, and proved to be one of England's strongest monarchs ever.

Elizabeth adopted the Anglican religion, instituting the "Book of Common Prayer", and imposing "recusary fines" on individuals (of whatever religion) who failed to attend Anglican Church services. In Ireland, the Catholicism of the Norman-Irish (a.k.a. "English Rebels") became another factor distancing them from the Crown, but overall, Elizabeth was remarkably tolerant of her otherwise loyal Norman-Irish subjects, in part because she feared they might align with France and/or Spain, both Catholic and both enemies of England.

Although relatively tolerant in matters of religion, Elizabeth was the most brutal of all English monarchs in crushing other challenges to the authoritarian power of the Crown. Elizabeth and her generals devised a "scorched earth" policy under which they executed every human being who could be found, including innocent women and children, and then, to starve the survivors, they burned all crops, killed all animals, and destroyed every structure. Even the preeminent British historian W.E.H. Lecky, deplored the indiscriminate butchery: "[Complete authority of the Crown within Ireland] dates only from the great wars of Elizabeth, which . . . crushed the native population to the dust . . . The suppression of the native race . . . was carried on with a ferocity which . . . has seldom been exceeded in the page of history. . . . The war . . . was literally a war of extermination. . . . Not only the men, but even the women and children who fell into the hands of the English, were deliberately and systematically butchered. . . . Year after year over a great part of Ireland, all means of human subsistence were destroyed, no quarter was given to prisoners who surrendered, and the whole population was skillfully and steadily starved to death. . . . Long before the war had terminated, Elizabeth was assured that she had little left to reign over but ashes and carcasses. . . [I]n six months, more than 30,000 people had been starved to death in Munster, besides those who were hung or who perished by the sword." Thus when disputes over land and religion precipitated the "Desmond Rebellion" (1579), Elizabeth's generals suppressed it with their "scorched earth" policy; and once the Native-Irish were driven out, Munster was "planted" with loyal English subjects.

The Norman-Irish lords generally were intimidated by Elizabeth's "scorched earth" tactics, and reluctantly accepted the "surrender and re-grant" offer initiated by her father. In Ulster, however, the Gaelic chieftains had no intention of submitting to Elizabeth without a full scale war. As early as 1562, Shane the Proud, an Ulster O'Neill, challenged Elizabeth directly. Although willing to acknowledge Elizabeth's sovereignty, he adamantly refused to permit within Ulster the feudal land system, the English language, or any other part of her "Anglicization" program. Surprisingly, Elizabeth backed down.

The Ulster Gaels brought their defiance to a head in 1595. Led by Hugh O'Neill (1550-1615), 2d earl of Tyrone, and his young ally, Red Hugh O'Donnell (1571-1602), they mounted a major rebellion. Fighting began in Ulster, where O'Neill used classic guerilla tactics to achieve a series of successes, including a stunning victory over England's Earl of Essex at Yellow Ford in 1598. In 1600, Essex was replaced by a better soldier, Lord Mountjoy, whose first initiative was to inflict a severe "scorched earth" policy on the Ulster countryside. Then help for O'Neill arrived from Spain: Money, ammunition, and a small Spanish force of 4,000 troops under Don Juan de Aguilla, which landed at Kinsale in September 1601. O'Neill marched south to meet Aguilla. The Spanish and Irish troops did not fit well together, in part because O'Neill's guerrillas were not familiar with the frontal warfare methods of the Spanish. Nevertheless, their combined forces engaged Mountjoy at the Battle of Kinsale (1601). O'Neill and Aguilla had 9,000 troops and 500 horse against Mountjoy's 6,300 men, but Mountjoy's well trained force carried the day. O'Neill himself survived and held out for another 15 months, but in practical effect, Kinsale had decided everything; the six year war was unexpectedly over.

O'Neill submitted pursuant to the Treaty of Mellifont on March 1603, six days after the death of Elizabeth, who is credited with completing the re-conquest of Ireland. James I, her successor, was willing to let the Gaelic lords live on their ancestral lands as English-style nobles, but not as petit kings within the old Gaelic social system. He pardoned them, but only on condition they accept the "surrender and regrant" program.

The celebrated "Flight of the Earls" occurred four years later. Dissatisfied with their new roles, and still fearing retaliation, O'Neill and virtually the entire remaining Gaelic leadership (99 leaders in all), secretly boarded a ship at night at Loch Swilley and sailed for the Continent, never to return. The date was September 14, 1607.


PART 6 FOOTNOTES:

*  Henry's fourth marriage, to Anne of Cleves, was negotiated by Thomas Cromwell. But Henry was displeased with Anne's appearance and divorced her almost immediately, after which Cromwell was charged with treason and executed. Henry then married Catherine Howard, who was beheaded in 1542 for alleged unchastely. Henry's last wife, Catherine Parr, survived him.

**  Historians disagree on the motivations of "Silken Thomas". One theory is that Thomas was reacting to false information from the Earl of Ormond that his father the Earl had been imprisoned by Henry. The other interpretation is that Thomas and his father were implementing a planned conspiracy to persuade Henry that he could not afford to abandon his reliance on the Kildare earls in governing Ireland.