Elizabeth I on Rebellion in England and Ireland: semper eadem? - Brendan Kane, University of Connecticut February 17, 2012

Center for Early Modern History
1210 Heller Hall

Brendan Kane is a professor of History at the University of Connecticut, where his research interests include Gaelic Irish views of England and the English, Sir James Ware, and early modern historiography. Some of his recently published work includes The Politics and Culture of Honour in Britain and Ireland, 1541-1641 (2010), “Scandal, Wentworth’s deputyship, and the breakdown of ‘British’ honor politics” (2011), “A dynastic nation? rethinking national consciousness in early seventeenth-century Ireland” (2010), and "Domesticating the Counter Reformation: bridging the bardic and Catholic traditions in Geoffrey Keating's The Three Shafts of Death" (2009).

This paper explores Elizabeth I’s views of rebellion and its suppression in different parts of her realms. It focuses on one fundamental question: did Elizabeth see unrest in Ireland as one more variety of “Tudor rebellion” or as something markedly different? Driving this investigation is the seeming historiographical assumption that Irish rebellions were regarded by contemporaries as fundamentally different: those in England were matters of law, order, and state building; those in Ireland issues of colonialism/imperialism and resistance. It is not clear, however, that those on the ground at the time saw these instances of unrest in such starkly different frames. In part this lack of clarity on the issue stems from the absence of any comparative study of Tudor-era rebellions that spans both kingdoms. This paper offers a first attempt at such a study by considering the reactions of Elizabeth I – recently credited with having been much more politically engaged and activist than previously believed – to the Northern Rebellion in England of 1569, the Desmond Rebellions in the south of Ireland commencing in 1569 and 1579, and Tyrone’s Rebellion in Ulster which began in 1594. Through attention to the Queen’s letters and proclamations, this study asks whether a distinction can be made between an exercise of traditional (pre-modern?) monarchical authority in the suppression of English troubles and a “modern” imperial authority in dealing with those in Ireland. It is hoped that this investigation will appeal to those interested in queenship and power, early modern imperialism/colonialism, political thought, and religion and popular politics.

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