ABSTRACT
If the Lordship of Ireland was in many ways a pragmatically defined survival of a Norman conquest which had only very partially succeeded, its theoretical commitment to outward expansion remained. However Gaelicised they might be in their personal culture, the whole rationale of the baronage was the defence and expansion of the Lordship in general, and their own lordships in particular. The obvious device to set the pattern of conquest rolling forward again was to persuade or manipulate the king into sending regular supplies of troops and money to fuel the renewed advance. Though no doubt his subjects in the Lordship would have made a contribution to this exercise, they saw no reason why the rest of the English community should not contribute to this common enterprise. It was the king's job not to be conned into thus paying for the acquisition of real estate by the barons of the Lordship at rates cheap for them but ruinous for him in a frontier march already running at a loss. The lieutenancy of the Earl of Surrey in 1520-22, in a period when the Earl of Kildare was out of favour, was one in which these issues became a matter of debate between the king and his lieutenant. Henry VIII, like every other contemporary monarch, was intrigued by the idea of conquest on the cheap. Surrey was sent over the Irish Sea with six months' funding and vague instructions to arrange for the conquest of the Gaidhealtachd on a self-financing basis. The concepts were contradictory. Surrey was costing Henry £10,000 a year to do little more than hold the marches and establish control when in June 15 21 he sent his monarch a memorandum, reminding him that Edward I had The expansion of the Lordship and Kingdom of Ireland, 1525-1603 https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315845753/88acaac1-ce43-45dd-9c88-35a9c0888448/content/fig00003_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
