Modern historians have stressed that factionalism was one of the great weaknesses of the colony and contributed to its inexorable decline, but it is possible to exaggerate this development. Royal authority certainly diminished in the late Middle Ages, but factionalism was hardly the principal cause. Admittedly the development in its place of strong local lordships centered around the earldoms of Kildare, Ormond, and Desmond led to intense competition for control of the office of chief governor. From 1414, there was a prolonged struggle for political power between the earl of Ormond and the Talbot family. When the Wars of the Roses gripped England from the 1450s, the opposing houses of Lancaster and York became identified in Ireland with the earls of Ormond and Kildare, respectively. This Geraldine-Butler feud continued into the early modern era. However, the intricacies of these various conflicts have only casually been studied, and we should be cautious about attributing to them the “decline” of English lordship in Ireland. The great lineages survived in frontier conditions by employing unorthodox but expedient methods. Their private armies and networks of power admittedly could be used for destructive purposes, both against each other and against the administration. However, although they were technically illegal, it was arguably these methods that ensured their survival and contributed to the endurance rather than decline of the "Irish Lords" control over much of Ireland.
Source
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The earlier Tudors: 1485-1558, Oxford history of England 7 pg . 73-75 by Mackie, J.D.
The Battle of Stoke Field 1487 by Roberts, D.E
The Geraldines and medieval Ireland: The making of a myth by Peter Crooks & Seán Duffy
Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant. Volume III pg p. 83 by Cokayne, George Edwar
A Compendium of Irish Biography pg Webb, Alfred.
The Earls of Desmond, The Rise and Fall of a Munster Lordship by Gerald O'Carroll
The Earldom of Desmond, 1463-1583: The decline and crisis of a feudal lordship by Anthony M. McCormack
The Perkin Warbeck Conspiracy, 1491-1499. by Arthurson, Ian
Elizabeth Woodville. by Baldwin, D.
The Making of the Tudor Dynasty by Thomas, Roger S.
The Wars of the Roses by Pollard, A. J.
The Wars of the Roses: Military Activity and English society, 1452-97 by Goodman, Anthony
31 дек 2021
