ABSTRACT
The concerns of sixteenth-century governments were very limited, particularly in Ireland where the border's proximity imposed additional constraints on inadequate resources. Tudor government clearly made little progress in Tudor preoccupation was the maintenance of religious uniformity, even within the traditional English regions, and still less in Gaelic and border lands. Elizabeth's Irish bench had a poor reputation for impartial justice, the council was distracted by more urgent problems, and the frequent resort to martial law brought the whole system into disrepute. Tudor government failed in Ireland because it failed to appreciate the need for extraordinary remedies for exceptional problems. Moreover, in the early Tudor lordship the traditional techniques of English government had brought about a gradual improvement in conditions, discernible in the areas of justice, order and defence. The Kildare ascendancy proved that the late medieval lordship could be administered out of its own resources, even if the resultant standard of government was comparatively low.
