Kirjahaku

This controversial book offers a novel perspective on Tudor government and British state formation. It argues that traditional studies focusing on lowland England as 'the normal context of government' exaggerate the regime's successes by marginalizing the borderlands. Frontiers were normal in early-modern Europe, however, and central to the problem of state formation. England's peripheries were more extensive than the core and provide the real yardstick by which the effectiveness of government can be measured. Ellis demonstrates their importance by means of a detailed comparative study of two marches - Cumbria and Ireland - and their ruling magnates. He demonstrates the flaws in early Tudor policy, characterized by long periods of neglect, interspersed with sporadic attempts to adapt, at minimal cost, a centralized administrative system geared to lowland England for the government of outlying regions which had very different social structures. Ellis analyses the 1534 crisis in crown-magnate relations, reassesses the resulting policy of centralization and uniformity, and identifies the central role of these developments in establishing a British pattern of state formation.

A key duty of the Renaissance monarchy was the defence of its subjects. For the English monarchy, the rule and defence from enemies beyond the long-landed frontiers in Ireland and the English far-north proved an intractable problem. It was not, however, a duty which was accorded a high priority by successive Yorkist and early Tudor kings, nor is it an aspect of state formation which has attracted much attention from modern historians. This study assesses traditional arrangements for defending English ground, the impact of the frontier on border society, and the way in which the topography and patterns of settlement in border regions shaped the character of the march and border itself. Defending English Ground focuses on two English shires, Meath and Northumberland, in a period during which the ruling magnates of these shires who had hitherto supervised border rule and defence were mostly unavailable to the crown. Unwilling to foot the cost of large garrisons and extended fortifications, successive kings increasingly shifted the costs of defence onto the local population, prompting the border gentry and minor peers to organize themselves through county communities for the rule and defence of the region. This strategy was generally successful in Ireland where the military threat presented by 'the wild Irish' was not so formidable, but in the English far-north Tudor reform, centralized control, and the burden of defence against the Scots soon led to 'the decay of the borders'.

The second edition of Steven Ellis's formidable work represents not only a survey, but also a critique of traditional perspectives on the making of modern Ireland. It explores Ireland both as a frontier society divided between English and Gaelic worlds, and also as a problem of government within the wider Tudor state. This edition includes two major new chapters: the first extending the coverage back a generation, to assess the impact on English Ireland of the crisis of lordship that accompanied the Lancastrian collapse in France and England; and the second greatly extending the material on the Gaelic response to Tudor expansion.