ABSTRACT
When Elizabeth I succeeded her half-sister Mary as Queen of England inNovember 1558, she inherited a number of problems that would seriously test her ability to govern. War abroad, with France and Scotland, and economic recession at home are usually recognised as her main challenges. Not the least of her difficulties, however, was the mounting unrest and bloodshed afflicting her other kingdom, Ireland, and the spiralling cost of trying to control it. The trouble was that Ireland was quite unlike England. A kingdom more in name than reality, even in 1558 it retained many of the characteristics of a barely incorporated colony, with the majority of the population speaking Irish, not English, and following their own laws and customs under the rule of autonomous dynastic lords.
