IRELAND AND ENGLISH FOREIGN POLICY IN THE 1570S

IRELAND AND ENGLISH FOREIGN POLICY lN THE 1570s

WILLIAM PALMER

HAT IRELAND was one of the main engines driving English foreign policy T during the 1570s suggests important connections between the goals of the English in Ireland and the broader imperatives of English foreign policy. Several leading English policymakers saw an alliance with France as a solu- tion to the crown’s problems in governing Ireland. Prodded relentlessly by Sir Francis Walsingham, English ambassador to France in the early 157Os, in particular, the English agreed in 1572 to the Treaty of Blois with France. Ireland’s role in the formation of Tudor foreign policy has received little re- cent attention from historians. Yet even a cursory glance at either the Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, or the Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, suggests that the topic of Ireland and its ties to foreign powers frequently en- gaged the thoughts of Tudor policymakers. Concerns about Ireland were voiced in almost every foreign policy discussion, and such anxieties con- tributed to demands for a change in English policy.

In the 1560s the English had began to pursue aggressive policies in Ireland. Although these policies had antecedents, Sir Henry Sidney, who had been appointed deputy in Ireland in late 1565, pursued them most uncom- promisingly. Sidney persuaded the queen to give him fifteen hundred troops and pay them regularly. Once in Ireland, he installed English presidents in several provinces. Sidney sought to reduce the power of two lords with ex- tensive holdings in Munster, the Butler earls of Ormond and the Fitzgerald earls of Desmond. The earl of b o n d had a history of loyalty to English authority and a close personal relationship with the queen, but because he and the earl of Desmond had often clashed, Sidney regarded them both as dangerous. In mid-1566 Sidney issued a directive prohibiting the collection of coyne and livery, the system by which Irish lords exacted free food and lodg- ing from their tenants to maintain private armies. Although other Munster lords opposed giving up their rights to cope and livery, Ormond eventually agreed to its abolition in exchange for permission to increase the rents on certain groups of his tenants.

William Palmer is professor of history at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia.

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Sidney allowed several English adventurers, notably Sir Peter Carew, to advance claims to lands in Cork and Kerry, and the council in Ireland named Carew the lawful owner of the barony of Idrone. Ormond's brother, Sir Edmund Butler, held part of Idrone. Carew's appropriation not only was a serious threat to Butler but could endanger the power of other Irish lords. Butler ejected his new tenants; other Munster lords, resenting Ormond as much as Sidney, rebelled against English incursion in Munster and elected James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald (a cousin of Desmond, heaf ter referred to as Fitzmaurice) as their leader. In 1570 Fitzmaurice sent an envoy to meet with Philip II of Spain. The envoy presented Philip with a prodamation declaring that Elizabeth, against the wishes of the people of Ireland, was seeking to im- pose heresy on the nation. The declaration further requested Philip to nomi- nate a Catholic prince, who, on papal confirmation, would become king of Ireland. Sidney and the colonizers thus provoked a rebellion that would have intemational implications.1

By the end of the 1560s English foreign policy imperatives were begin- ning to shift as well. England's traditional enmity with France had been the driving force behind most foreign policy decisions for most of the 1560s. The Treaty of CateauCambresis, which made peace between Spain and France, left the French "bestriding the realm, having one foot in Calais, the other in Scotland," according to one Englishman. The treaty threatened England because, to a certain extent, it freed the French from the burden of constant vigilance against Spain and allowed them to harass England by exploiting the unstable political situation in Scotland. Also, a Catholic queen, Catherine d'Medici, and the Catholic Guise family dominated internal politics in France. With the outbreak of civil war in France in the 1560s and the triumph of the Protestant Lords of the Congregation in Scotland, however, English policymakers gradually understood that France was so deeply divided by in- temal problems that it posed less of a threat2

Spain, in contrast, was now perceived by the English as a formidable threat and compelled English policymakers to reconsider one of their most basic assumptions about foreign policy. For most of the sixteenth century the Spanish alliance, if occasionally shaky, had remained a cornerstone of English foreign policy. However, English fears of an international Catholic conspiracy against schismatic England began to undermine its close relationship with Spain. A distinctly anti-Spanish direction in foreign policy emerged after the duke of Alba arrived in the Netherlands in August 1567. Alba's arrival sig-

J. J. Silk, Ireland and Europe (Dundalk, Ireland, 196f3,lO. A much more detailed ac- count of events discussed in this paper can be found in W. G. Palmer, The Problem $Ireland in Tudor Foreign P o k y , 14854603 (Woodbridge, Surrey, 1994), chapters 5 and 6.

*Public Record Office, London, State Papers 12/1/66 (hereafter cited as PRO, SP); Wallace MacCaffrey, The Shaping of the Elizabethnn Regime (Princeton, 1968), 89.

ENGLISH FOREIGN POLICY 89

naled a Spanish decision to rule more forcibly in a distant territory. Moreover, Alba‘s brutal suppression of the Dutch rebels offended Enghsh Protestants, who were nervous about the presence of a Catholic threat just across the North Sea.

It is possible to downplay the severity of the Spanish threat. Philip continued to face a daunting number of problems on other fronts. Along with his new enterprise in the Netherlands, he had to confront the Morisco Rebellion in Granada, the continuing womes about France, and the presence of the Turks in the Mediterranean. It appears doubtful that Philip could have af- forded at this point to risk provoking a quarrel with the English.

Yet diplomatic relations between the two countries were undeniably changing. In 1568 Elizabeth confiscated from a Spanish ship a large shipment of bullion, which Philip had intended to use to pay Alba’s troops in the Netherlands. The queen also permitted her subjects to assist Protestant rebels in the Netherlands and did nothing to discourage the English seamen who harassed Spanish treasure ships. On the other hand, Philip, whom some Eng- lishmen already suspected of complicity with the Irish rebels, allowed his embassy to gain a reputation as a center of plots against the English government and supported Alba when he arrested all the English merchants in Antwerp and severed English trade from one of its aitical markets.

For the English, disruptions in the north of England compounded the problems presented by the changing face of international politics. Several northern lords resented Elizabeth’s leading advisor, William Cecil, whom they believed was responsible for instituting England’s pro-Protestant, anti- Spanish policies that excluded them from government office and expanded government bureaucracy. These conflicts over foreign policy and office hold- ing generated tensions that erupted into a rebellion in June 1569. When Elizabeth reaf f ied her support of Cecil, several other northern lords joined the rebellion.

Not surprisingly, problems involving suspeaed Catholic sub* in northern England led inevitably to Ireland. The queen had earlier rrcommended stepping up attacks on the rebels in the south of Ireland, then in the throes of the Fitzmaurice Rebellion. One correspondent alerted Cecil that Fimaurice, with considerable support, had mated disruptions in Keny, ”to the utter un- doing of her Majesty‘s subjects in those parts.” Another observer informed Cecil that English ”troubles in Ireland are great and perilous in appearance.” Almost immediately two hundred men were levied for service in Ireland.3

Queen to Lord Deputy, 10 February 1569, (PRO, SP 63/27/43); Andrew Skiddye to William Cecil, 20 June 1569 (Historical Manuscripts Commission, Salisbury Manuscripts, 1306-1571, 24 vols. (London, 1883-1976), 413 (hereafter cited as Hist.Mss.Comrn., Salisbury Mss.);Nicholas White to Cecil, 28 June 1569 (Hist.Mss.Comm., Salisbury Mss., 1572-1581,413); Warrant to levy 200 men for service in Ireland, 2 July 1569 (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 15474,338) (hereafter cited as Cal.S.Z?Dm.)

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The first stage of the Fitzmaurice Rebellion was subdued in 1569, but throughout the turmoil English statesmen perceived foreign powers con- tributing to the unrest. In July a statesman reported that some "unfaithful subjects'' of the queen were striving "very earnestly to bring a foreign army into her dominions." He also related that he had names of the Irish lords involved; "the Archbishop of Cashel solicits their cause," having already raised "1,OOO ducats yearly." Further, an Ulster lord who had been presumed loyal report- edly asked the king of Spain to send an army "to resist the Queen's power." At the same time the lord had supposedly promised "to give into Spanish hands all his castles and towns upon the condition that they shall restore him to his own again." A similar offer had supposedly been made to the French4

By August Sir Henry N o d , ambassador to France before Walsingham, believed that Ireland had been secured but reported that he observed the French "Cardinal of Lorraine's helping h a n d in the troubles there. In September Norris claimed to have recovered a letter sent from Spain that stat- ed that the Spanish intended some practice "against the Queen by nourishing the intestine wars in Ireland that they can no ways finish these wars in France than by troubling Ireland."5

The revolt of the northern earls ended with their defeat at Naworth in 1570. However, the Fitzmaurice Rebellion continued in Ireland, and two of the northern rebels went to Ireland to join Fitzmaurice. Fears of Catholic plotting against England multiplied in 1570 when Pius V issued the papal bull, Regnans in Excelsis, which represented a challenge to Eliibeth's authority. Besides declaring Elizabeth excommunicated, it called on loyal Catholics to remove her and absolved Englishmen from all allegiance to her. This provi- sion helps explain the increase in fears about Catholic plotting in the 1570s. The Spanish squadron in the channel in 1570, Spanish complicity in plots against Elizabeth, and Irish unrest could all be linked to Philip acting on Regnans in Excelsis.

Even after the northern rebels had been subdued, the Spanish watched the Irish situation carefully. In June 1570 one Spanish observer noted that the Enghsh were "in great fear also that some trouble will come to them through Ireland, for it is certain that the whole of that island is deeply attached to our king, all the people being Catholics excepting the English the Queen has there . . . the whole of it could be overrun and subdued, espcially by the great help our people would receive." A few months later, Philip told his ambassador in London that "it is consequently very desirable that you should continue to advise me minutely of events in England, Ireland, and Scotland."

Robert Huggins to Henry Norris, 22 July 1569 (Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, 1569-71, 98) (hereafter cited as Cal.S.P.For.); Huggins to Noms, 22 July 1569 (Cd.S.PSor., 1569-71,98-9).

Norris to Cecil, 11 August 1569 (CaI.S.P.For., 1569-71, 110); Norris to Cecil, 23 September 1571 (Cal.S.P.For., 1569-71,125).


In December the duke of Alba received word that "in Ireland the people are all in arms against the English, as the Irishmen will not allow the Englishmen to colonize certain lands there."6

The international scene grew more and more confusing. The Northern Rebellion brought forth revelations that English Catholic subjects had dealings with the Spanish ambassador. In January 1570 the assassination of the Protestant, pro-English Regent Murray returned Scotland to political disorder and revived concerns about the possibility of French intervention there.

The possibility of French intervention in Scotland led inevitably to speculation about French and Scottish intrusions into Ireland. In April Cecil received word that an Ulster chieftain had "sent his wife for Scots . . ,

the English Pale [the area around Dublin under firm English control1 doth cry out against the cess [tax]." In June Norris related to Cecil his fears that an Irish earl was in league with the French. In a letter he wrote in August, Norris linked the troubles in Ireland with the Northern Rebellion and claimed that the Irish earl had promised "to deliver both forts and castles in Ireland to the French, and if that were refused, to make a like offer to the King of Spain."7

Norris had also received information that Thomas Stukeley had "arrived in Spain with a great ship and many gentlemen, and made an offer to the King about the conquest of Ireland." He was one of the sixteenth century's great soldiers of fortune. Once one of Sidney's captains, Stukeley had been dismissed from his post by the queen. He drifted into the service of Spain, devoted himself to raising a Catholic army to be sent to Ireland, and even suggested the recruitment of robbers and highwaymen to serve in return for pardons8

Throughout the early 1570s rumors that both Spain and France would invade England swirled about England. At the same time that Norris r e ported Stukeley's arrival in Spain, Cecil received copies of letters that indi- cated "the French intentions toward Ireland . . . that certain French ships are there furnished with a great number of men for descent on Ireland." English diplomats took these rumors seriously. In 1570 Cecil r e

Antonio de Guaras to Gabriel Zayas, 30 June 1570 (Calendar of State Papen, Spain, 1568-79, 256-7) (hereafter Cal.S.P.Span.); Philip to Guerau de Spes, 26 July 1570 (Cnl.S.P.Span., 15679,259); Guaras to the duke of Alba, 15 December 1570 (Cal.S.P.Span., 1568-79,449).

Nicholas Malby to Cecil, 8 April 1570 (PRO, SP 63/30/72); Noms to Cecil, 22 July 1570 (Cnl.S.P.For., 1569-71, 296); Noms to the earl of Leicester, 9 August 1570 (Cal.S.P.For., 1569-71,311).

Robert Hogan to Henry Noms, 12 August I570 (cal.S.P.For., 1569-71,315).

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ceived a draft recommending that Elizabeth make a French match so she could 'Tx more assured of Ireland."9

Sir Francis Walsingham's role is particularly interesting. Walsingham had been dispatched to France as England's ambassador in 1570 with a commission to negotiate an Anglo-French treaty by using a proposal of marriage between Elizabeth and Henry, duke of Anjou, Catherine d'Medici's second son. In 1571 Walsingham doggedly pursued the French alliance, with Ireland as his foremost consideration.

In February 1571 Walsingham wrote Cecil that "the enterprise of Ireland is of great consequence." Walsingham went on to describe the determination of malevolent forces such as the Guise, the papacy, the king of Spain, the greater part of the Irish nobility, and "divers in England of good quality" seeking to undermine English rule in Ireland. The next day Walsingham urged Cecil to consider "the advantages which would a c m e to both realms of England and France by having some firm league between the two princes and which she [Elizabeth] seemed by her answer to approve of." Walsingham added that the allegiance might work because "presently Spain is not very well inclined toward her majesty, neither has the French any very great liking for Spain." That same month the queen wrote Walsingham that she approved of the league with France, which she termed "benefiaal."lo

Throughout 1571 and 1572 English policymakers' concerns about Ireland mounted. Stukeley's intrigues now took center stage. To Philip XI, Stukeley offered to "reduce Ireland to your majesty's obedience" with the assistance of northern earls. Ceal received information in February 1571 that Stukeley was "ready to depart into Ireland with 10,000 men" and intended to employ them to undermine the forts of Doyle, Wexford, and Waterford, promising more entertainment than the French king had. Walsingham wrote Cecil that Stukeley's purpose was "to deal with the King of Spain about the reducing of Ireland into his government whereby heresy might be expelled and true religion planted." Walsingham reminded Cecil that Fitzmaurice's son was also in Spain. On the same day Walsingham wrote a second letter to Cecil, urging him to cultivate the duke of Anjou since "it would be very expedient the Queen should seek by liberality to win certain about him, to use them as

9 Brief of Matters to be resolved for Ireland, April 1570 (PRO, SP 63/30/94); William Fitzwilliam to Cedl, 5 and 11 February 1570 (PRO, SP 63/31/18-24); Fitzwilliam to Cecil and Queen, 7 April 1570 (PRO, SP 63/31/24); Certificate by Sir Moms Berkeley, Sir Ralph Hopton, and others, commissioncrs for the aty of Somerset, April 1570 (Cnl.S.P.Dom., 1547-80, 372); Proposed mamagc of thc Quccn and the duke of Anjou, 1570 (Cal.S.P.For., 1569-71, 383).

lo Francis Walsingham to Cecil, 8 February 1571 (PRO, SP 70/116/%9); Walsingham to Cecil, 8 February 1571 (PRO, SP 70/116/74); Queen to Walsingham, n.d. (PRO, SP 70/116/80).


means to win him to consent to such articles as shall be propounded for her own and her people’s contentment.”ll

Walsingham had displayed little interest in Ireland in the early days of his diplomatic service. By 1571, however, he became convinced that a compliant Ireland was critical to English security. In April he attempted to negotiate a pardon for the renegade Archbishop of Cashel, gained an audience with the Cardinal of Lorraine, and urged the queen to send an ambassador to Spain because ”there were many traitors in Ireland and [among] the English soldiers there.” Only a foreign threat of enonnous magnitude could have in- duced such a sturdy Protestant as Walsingham to embrace Catholic forces on such a scale.12

By August Cecil was prepared to take the French alliance more seriously. Cecil speculated that such an alliance, while difficult to engage, was critical to England’s security because ”Ireland, being as easy to be taken by Spain, as defended by England, for as soon may Spain send an army by sea to the south of Ireland as England can.” He advised against trying to use the alliance to recover part of the Netherlands, since “Ireland would be of more moment to a king of Spain, for thereby would become a more potent prince on the sea than England.” Cecil was not simply indulging in aimless speculation. The French, too, expressed interest in Ireland.l3

While Cecil was deliberating, Walsingham continued to urge an Anglo- French alliance. Contending that the alliance was necessary to circumvent the possibility of a Spanish-French union, Walsingham remarked that France and Spain ”grow to accord by the devilish practices of those who seek the utter subversion of the gospels, that as well as religion, her Majesty‘s safety shall be in great peril.” He expressed his “earnest” wish that “some encouragement be given to France to proceed in this enterprise.” If the league should not go forward, Walsingham surmised, ”the House of Guise are like to bear sway, who will be as forward in preferring the conquest of Ireland . . . as the other side is contrariwise bent to prefer the conquest of F1anders.”l4

11 Fitzwilliam to Cecil, 5 and 11 April 1570 (PRO, SP 63/31/18); Lord Justice Fitzwilliam to Queen and Council, 9 April 1570 (PRO, SP 63/31/24); Intelligence by Rowland Brittan, 31 October 1571 (Cal.S.P.Dom., 1547430,427); Calendar of State Papers, Rome, 1572-8,19 (hereafter cited as Cal.S.l?Rome); Oliver Kynge to Cecil, 18 February 1571 ICal.S.P.For., 1569-71,406); Walsingham to Cecil, 26 March 1571 (PRO, SP 70/117/50-1); Walsingham to Cecil, 26 March 1571, (PRO, SP 70/117/531.

l2 Walsingham to Cecil, 4 April 1571 (PRO, SP 70/117/107).

l3 Considerations for a lcague with France, 22 August 1571 (PRO, SP 70/119/110); Duke of Montmorency to Cecil, 25 May 1571 (Cal.S.P.For., 1569-71,454).

l4 Walsingham to Cecil, 26 September 1571 (Cal.S.P.For., 1569-71,539).

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In April 1572 England and France concluded the Waty of Blois, which was in many ways a landmark settlement. England had reached a peace with its most troublesome enemy of the last three centuries and achieved a defen- sive league with France as a counterweight against Spain Without the lure of marriage. Mary Queen of Scots was for all practical purposes abandoned by the French, and the Spanish threat to Ireland was seemingly negated. As an advisor informed Elizabeth, "if Spain will now threaten . . . it will be afraid hereafter, seeing such a wall enjoined . . . if the House of Burgundy will be a friend."l5

Within months events rendered the Treaty of Blois meaningless. The St Bartholomew's Day massacre in France in 1572 introduced a frightening and ultimately divisive element into Anglo-French relations. Influend by the politique Admiral Coligny, Charles IX of France encouraged an ill-fated Huguenot raid on the Netherlands in July. Alba aushed the raid. Colignfs influence at court and a militant Huguenot foreign policy angered French Catholics. In August Charles deserted Coligny and cast his fortune with the Guise, who, along with Catherine &Media, persuaded Charles to approve the assassination of Coligny and the key Protestant leaders. The plot raged out of control and resulted in the slaughter of nearly ten thousand Protestants in and around Paris.

English leaders were horrified, as the massacre confirmed their worst fears about Catholic rule. Cecil viewed the event as a visitation of divine wrath, in which "the devil is suffered by the Almighty God for our sins to be strong in following the persecutions of ChrisYs members." One of Walsing- ham's correspondents, referring to the episode as "so strange, and beyond all expectation," lamented that "our merchants be afraid to go now into France, and who can blame them." Walsingham reluctantly concluded, "I think [it] less peril to live with them as enemies than as friends."'6

St. Bartholomew's Day influenced English popular opinion as well as that of policymakers. The French ambassador in London reported "how much this news has touched nearly all" and noted that the hostility in London alone was so great that Eliibeth was prepared to break off her alliance with France and renew her previous ties with Philip I1 of Spain. Elizabeth briefly considered marrying the duke of Alenqon, Catherine d'Medici's youngest son, but the massaa-e ignited the civil wars in France and the AlenCon match became politically impossible. The French ambassador characterized the situation in the English Privy Council in the summer of 1574 as a struggle between pro-French and pro-Spanish factions. Hence

15 R. B. Wemham, Before the Armada: The Growth of English Foreign P o k y , 1485-1588

16 Wallace MaKaffrey, Queen Elivlbeth and the Muking of Policy, 1572-1588 (Princeton,

(London, 1966), 317.

1981), 171; Dudley Digges, ed., The Complete Ambassador (London, 1655), 252,258.


forth, the Privy Council would often be divided between those members who favored England allying with anyone who served English interests re- gardless of conviction and those members who wished to ally only with those who held similar ideological positions.17

Pursuit of a limited alliance with France was only one of several new a p proaches to Ireland. Sidney having been recalled from Ireland in 1571, the new deputy, Sir William Fitzwilliam, subdued the Fitzmaurice Rebellion. Even before it had been quashed, the English were able to resume their c o b nization. In Ulster a venture to colonize the Ards peninsula began in the late summer of 1572. Others were more ambitious. The 1573 expedition led by Walter Devereaux, the earl of Essex, amounted to a national undertaking, supported by the queen and Privy Council, and attracted the sons of many aristocratic families. Moreover, the colonization efforts reflected the mounting pessimism of English leaders that a compliant Ireland could be secured by persuasion. The English colonizers pursued their goals with astonishing ferocity, executing Gaelic chiefs who had professed loyalty, massacring or starving to death entire segments of the native population, and committing numerous acts of symbolic violence that were designed to intimidate the Irish into obedience. A pamphleteer who accompanied one group to Ireland justified such actions because "through the terror which the people conceived thereby it made short wars."18

One historian, arguing that these actions signaled a new era in Irish history, attributes the change in English behavior to the shock colonizing Eng- lishmen felt as they came into contact with Gaelic Irishmen in their natural environment. English colonizers came to believe that in dealing with the native Irish population, "they were absolved from all normal ethical restraints." Many of these Englishmen were fervent Protestants and their horror at the lack of religion in Gaelic areas eventually led them to believe that they could disregard moral constraints in their dealings with the Irish.19

The English colonizers' savagery must also have been related to the anxieties and international tensions generated by the diplomatic conflicts of the 1560s and early 1570s, when Spain emerged as a formidable and contentious foe, Mary Queen of Scots loomed ominously in the background, and the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre proved the brutality of foreign Catholic pow-

l7 A. Teulet, ed., Correspondence Dipfomufique de la Mothe-Fenelon, 7 vols. (Paris and London, 1840), v, 112-5, 115-8; MacCaffrey, Queen Efiznbeth and the Making of Policy, 182.

l8 Nicholas P. Canny, The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: A Pattern Established (Hassocks,

l9 Canny, Elizabethan Conquest ofIrelnnd, 122,123-6; For a different perspecbve see Steven G. Ellis, "Historiographical Debate: Representations of the Past in Ireland: Whose Past and Whose Present?" Irish Historical Studies 27 (1991): 289-308; Ellis, ''Henry WI, Rebellion, and the Rule of Law," Historical Journal 24 (1981): 513-31.

U.K., 1976), 122.

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ers. When these elements were combined with the Fitzmaurice Rebellion and the activities of Stukeley and Fitzmaurice on the Continent, Englishmen could readily connect the designs of international Catholic power on Mand. In the first half of 1574 alone, the queen had to instruct justices in Berkshk, Oxfordshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Stafford, Derby, and Shpshire as well as the lord president of Wales to levy troops for Ireland. Between 1572 and 1575 the crown spent €130,000 in Ireland with little evident gainzo

With Fitzwilliam pleading to be recalled and expenses mounting there was another scramble for office in Ireland. Sidney gained appointment by boldly promising to make Ireland self-supporting in three years for IR fb0,OOO and eleven hundred troops. Once in Ireland Sidney offered to abolish the cess tax in return for a composition rent of IR E5 per ploughland. By 1575, however, plague and successive bad harvests had devastated Ireland. The magnates balking at Sidney's offer, he was forced to fall back on another sur- render and regrant scheme. The queen's recall of Sidney in 1578 signified not simply his personal failure, but the general failure of English initiatives to extend their influence beyond the Pale.

Throughout the 1570s, the rebellions of Fitzmaurice remained a policy consideration. He visited the courts of the pope and various other Catholic potentates, repeatedly touching nerves at Elizabeth's court. In 1572 the ag- gressively militant Gregory Xm had replaced the relatively unpolitical Pius V. Gregory was willing to employ any means available, moral or otherwise, to eradicate heresy and reclaim Protestant states for Rome. Although a vari- ety of circumstances prevented Gregory from developing a coordinated strat- egy to undermine the Protestant cause, he frenetically encouraged almost anyone interested to take up the sword of the Counter Reformation. He also recognized the value of Ireland in the crusade against England.21

The international scene remained difficult to read. By 1578 Philip was slowly solving some of the difficulties that had hampered his ability to ma- neuver during international crises. In 1575 he had declared bankruptcy, a condition compounded by the mutinies of his armies the following year. Given the weakening of Spanish troops the populace of the Netherlands rose to defend itself. The Dutch convened a meeting of the States General at Ghent and resolved not only to restore order but to expel all Spanish influence. By 1576, Philip's finances had improved, and he dispatched Don John of Austria, one of the age's most accomplished soldiers, to restore order. To English policymakers Don John was an ominous choice, because he also entertained dreams of invading England and marrying Mary Queen of Scots. Once in the Netherlands, Don John defeated the States General's forces at

2o Cal.S.l?Dorn., 1517-80,474,481,486; Steven G. Ellis, Tudor Ireland: C m , Community

21 Cal.S.P.Rome, 1572-8,78,106,116,186,297,311.

and the Conflict of Cultures, 1485-2603 (London, 19R5), 268.


Gembloux early in 1578. Although Don John suddenly died that year, his successor, Alexander Famese, the duke of Parma, followed up on his initial successes. By 1579 Spain appeared to be on the verge of restoring its authority in the Netherlands.

Elizabeth responded to the international situation with her customary vacillation. Although her privy councillors largely agreed on an anti-Spanish, pro-Protestant policy, they disagreed over its implementation. Cecil and Sussex preferred caution; Walsingham and Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, urged military intervention in the Netherlands. Elizabeth pursued a series of uncoordinated initiatives: after Charles K s death in 1574, she had renewed the Treaty of Blois, but secretly sent aid to French Huguenots; following Philip‘s bankruptcy, she appeared ready to support military intervention in the Netherlands; when Leicester boasted that he was ready to lead the great- est anny to leave England’s shores in forty years, Elizabeth balked when the Privy Council seriously considered an AngleDutch entente and reverted to a curious policy of mediation with Philip 11 that she combined with an extend- ed courtship with the duke of Anjou.22

The possibility of an Anjou match again raised the question of a pm- French foreign policy. With the death of Charles IX, his strongly Catholic brother Henry, formerly duke of Anjou and the subject of the earlier marriage negotiations, acceded to the French throne as Henry III. Henry‘s younger brother, Francois de Valois, known for his Huguenot sympathies, became duke of Anjou. The English took the possibility of an Anjou match seriously. In 1576, one of Elizabeth’s agents in the Netherlands wrote that the fate of Christendom appeared to rest on the shoulders of three men: Don John, William of Orange, and Anjou.23

Among its many advantages, the Anjou match still held the promise of negating Spanish and French designs on Ireland as signs of the inefficacy of English policy in Ireland became obvious. In 1577 the usually cooperative Sir John of Desmond was arrested for complicity with a revolt in Connaught. Angry and disillusioned, he raised troops, refused to pay taxes, and ignored summonses. Sidney eventually appeased him, but in the Pale, where Sidney had pressed hard for his composition rent scheme, many of the landowners simply would not pay it and organized themselves in opposition. By the time Sidney was recalled in 1578, his administration was deeply in debt after gen- erating great ill will.

Sidney’s failure made Fitzmaurice’s continental adventures more wom- some. As Fitzmaurice was pleading his case to Catholic states, the English

22 Wallace MacCaffrey, ‘The Anjou Match and the Making of Elizabethan Foreign Policy,” in Peter Clark, Alan G. R. Smith and Nicholas Tyacke, eds., The English Common- wmlth, 1547-1640: Essays in Politics and Society (New York, 1979,130.

23 MacCaffrey, ’The Anpu Match,“ 59.

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ambassador in France, Amyas Paulet, monitored his activities carefully in 1577. Paulet informed Walsingham that the pope had promised Fitzmaurice eight galleys and that Fitzmaurice was prepared to ask the French king for further assistance. In June, Paulet reported that the pope‘s ambassador had been summoned to the French court to dismiss Fitzmaurice, who was now said to have twenty thousand horsemen. The queen took this intelligence seriously enough to confront the French ambassador with letters from Fitzmaurice and his wife ”wherein he [the French king] set down in plain terms what pretense of aid he had conceived of him for his intended invasion of Ireland.” The queen’s displeasure with the French comfort given to Fitzmaurice was well known. In August, Leicester told Walsingham that the queen wanted ”to take some good occasion to let the French king understand she has cause to think he means not well to her: which may be costly done for, you see, rebels are here now countenanced behind the case of Fit~maurice.”~*

The prospect of a united Catholic Europe against England was nightmar- ish for English policymakers. In Paris, Ambassador Paulet grew increasingly concerned about the gravity of the international situation. In January 1578 he wrote the secretaries that the ”holy league” between the pope, the kings of Spain and France, and other potentates of Italy had been renewed in Rome. Paulet also claimed to have letters from Rome stating that ‘Thomas Stukeley has a galley furnished with 800 men at the charge of the Pope, and intends to repair to do great things with the help of such intelligences as he hopes to find.” In February Paulet told the semetaries that ”there is no doubt that the French are coming by sea in Bordeaux, Brittany and other parts . . . it may be feared that Spain’s preparations mentioned in my last letter will join with the forces of the realm [France].’’ Paulet further reported that Stukeley had “a great sum of money from the Pope to do something in Ireland.” He condud- ed by warning that the general view was that although ”these attempts will be in favor of the Queen of Scots, it does not impugn the judgment of those who affirm that the enterprise is against Ireland because no doubt that the least spark of division that shall be kindled in any part of her majesty‘s dominions may be dangerous to all other parts of her imperial crown.”25

Paulet continued to supply English policymakers with feverish intelligence throughout 1578, and there is evidence that PauleYs warnings about Ireland were taken seriously. Walsingham complained of ”beiig at present greatly encumbered with the affairs of Ireland in seeking to make it less

24 Amyas Paulet to Walsingham, 9 June 1577 (Cal.S.P.For., 1575-77, 594); Paulet to Walsingham, 25 June 1577 (Caf.S.P.For., 157577,601); see also Intelligences from France, 16 April 1577 (Cufendar of State Papers, Ireland, 1574-85, 112) (hereafter Cnf.S.Z?Zre.); Queen to Paulet, 13 July 1577 (Cnl.S.P.For., 1577-78, 15); Robert Dudley, earl of Leiceister to Walsingham, 16 August 1577 (Cal.S.P.For., 1577-8,81).

25 Paulet to Secretaries, 24 January 1578 (Cuf.S.P.For., 1577-78,470); Paulet to Secretaries, 12 February 1578 (Cal.S.P.For., 1577-78,494).


chargeable to the crown.'' A wide range of Catholic powers appeared to be en- gaged in designs against England or Ireland in the fall of 1579. Walsingham was even informed of rumors that five thousand Portuguese had landed in Mand. In April another correspondent claimed that Fitzmaurice had been entertained in Rome and that he was "certain that 1200 Fmch under de la Roche and six full ships" were prepared to invade in England. 'Spain and Portugal will assist," the correspondent concluded. In May Sidney wrote the queen expmsing the need for a standing army in Ireland.26

In 1579, with the Anjou match a possibility, at least one statesman warned that if the Queen did not marry Anjou, "the French . . . shall re- continue their plot to send a small force into Ireland, where, finding people discontented, the French may . . . endanger the whole state there. . . . From Spain, like dangers, by giving aid to more troubles in Ireland, whereof the present aiding of James Fitzmaune already with ship and money is a manifest argument." The same points were urged in October during a meeting at Greenwich to consider the queen's mamage to Anjou. In his notes of the meeting, Cecil summarized the prevailing point of view, reporting that if the queen failed to make this match, "nothing could be looked for from abroad but displeasure both from France, Spain, and the Pope . . . who would show great wisdom by sending some part of their forces to England, Scotland, and Ireland to stir up civil wars in each of those countries of which Scotland has already shown a disposition to quarrel with her majesty." As late as 1580 Cecil's son continued to urge the queen to make the Anjou match in order to prevent "the stirring up of rebellion in Ireland . . . [and] to take away the fear of conquest of late deeply grafted in the hearts of the wild Irish, and to walk at certain private disorders which do not properly offend the crown, and have by custom long been used in that realm."27

The Anjou match, as with Mary Tudor's marriage to Philip of Spain, made sense diplomatically, but not domestically. With one stroke the Enghsh could have eliminated the French threat to Ireland and acquired an ally with a reliable tradition of antipathy toward the Spanish. The Anjou match was not made because the memory of St. Bartholomew's Day remained too vivid. Public dissatisfaction with the Anjou match erupted in September 1579 with a publication by John Stubbes, a Cambridge-educated lawyer and a member of

26 William Davison to Walsingham, 19 August 1577 (Cal.S.P.For., 1577-78, 82); Intelli- gences from France, 16 April 1577 (Cal.S.P.lre., 1574435,113); Henry Sidney to the Queen, 20 May 1577 (PRO, SP 63/58/92-3).

27 Paulet to Secretaries, 7 May 1578 (Cnl.S.PSor., 157778,667); Paulet to Queen, 23 June 1578 (Cnl.S.P.For., 1578-79, 28); Walsingham to Davison, 12 November 1578 (Cal.S.PXor., 1578-79,283); Remedies sought to preserve her majesty, 13 April 1579 (Hist.Mss.Comm., Salisbury Mss., 2251); Consultations at Greenwich respecting the Queen's mamage, 2 October 1579 (HistMss.Comrn., Salisbury Mss., 267); Sir Thomas Cecil to the Queen, 28 January 1580 (Hist.Mss.Comm., Salisbury Mss., 309).

100 THE HISTORIAN

Lincoln's Inn. His tract, A Discovery @a Gaprng Gulf whereinto England is like to be d l o w e d by another French marriage, if the Lord forbid not the banns by letting her Majesty see the sin and punishment there@, was a skillful and shrewdly conceived work, addressed to an informed audience. In the text Stubbes ham- mered away at the potential evils of Fmch Catholic rule. He condemned the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and denied that the Anpu match would re- sult in any added security for Ireland. After all, Stubbes pointed out, the F m c h had allowed Fitzmaurice at their murt and done nothing to discourage his activities.%

The sheer virulence of Stubbed tract m m d e d attention. And, although Bishop Aylmer claimed to have succgsfully thwarted London sermons against the match, he expressed no doubt that public opinion opposed it. Ever sensitive to public opinion, Elizabeth ultimately decided against the match.29

In July 1579 Fitzmaurice landed at Smerwick in the company of a priest and six hundred men in the pay of the pope. Fitzmaurice's landing represents something of a watershed in early modern Irish history. Throughout the Tudor period, rumors of foreign invasions of Ireland had appeared, becoming most serious during the Kildare Rebellion of 1534 and continuing through the 1560s and 1570s. With Fitzmaurice's landing those rumors actually came true. Although Fitzmaurice's promise to restore the Catholic faith had little dis- cernible impact in Ireland, his landing was the most visible manifestation of the power politics of the Counter Reformation coming to bear on Tudor policy in Ireland, a theme that would shape considerations of Ireland for the next quarter century. Tudor policymakers no longer doubted that, in light of the Counter Reformation, rebellion in Ireland was much more than an uprising against the policies of a particular deputy.

The power politics of the Counter Reformation had increased dramati- cally Ireland's place in English foreign policy considerations. At two key points in the 1570s, Irish considerations directly affected the debate about the most vital elements of foreign policy and helped compel a fundamental change in English foreign policy by driving England toward France, its traditional enemy of the last three centuries. Both Cecil and Walsingham, but espe- cially Walsingham, urged the conclusion of the Treaty of Blois to protect English interests in Ireland. The Anjou match remained viable partly because some policymakers perceived the manifest benefits that a French match would have for the English position in Ireland. If the English and the Fmch had managed to forge a workable alliance in the 1570s, one that led to re- duced English anxiety about Ireland, the history of early modem Ireland might have been very different.

28 Lloyd E. Berry, ed., john Stubbs' Gaping Gulf with Letters and Other Relevant Documents

29 MaCCaffrey, 'The Anpu Match," 65.

(Charlottesville, 1968), 14,80, et. seq.