ABSTRACT
The last half of the sixteenth century witnessed a series of efforts by the English government to establish its authority in Ireland. Experience revealed that a forceful attempt to assert government influence in all quarters of the country would prove altogether more arduous and expensive than Queen Elizabeth would countenance, but those soldiers and officials who had been introduced to the country in the forays of the mid-century were anxious to pursue an aggressive forward policy that would present them with the opportunity to seize and develop land in areas controlled by Gaelic Irish families. Because of their manifest greed, these soldiers and officials can be likened to Drake, Raleigh, and the other English adventurers who were then trying to colonize Virginia, and like them too they were strongly motivated by Protestant zeal.
