Counsel in extremis: Sir James Croft's A Discourse of 1583 and Elizabeth I's reform of Irish policy

This chapter sheds new light on the role of courtier-councillors in the creation of policy in the wake of both the first Earl of Essex's spectacular failure colonising Ulster and the even bloodier breakdown of relations between the Crown and the English-Irish Earl of Desmond. Through close analysis of a previously overlooked reform treatise - Sir James Croft's A Discourse for the Reformacon of Irland (1583) - David Edwards reveals how first-hand knowledge of Ireland could sway the regime to reconsider martial rule in Ireland in favour of more conciliatory efforts. Given that Croft operated below the level of Council or Irish Viceroy, his influence on the Queen and her favourites has been overlooked. Recovery of the role he played in late-Elizabethan approaches to 'Ireland matters' speaks more widely to one of this collection's central theses - the importance of the wider court in determining the character of English-Irish relations in the early modern period.