Richard Stanihurst's de Rebus in Hibernia Gestis

The De Rebus in Hibernia Gestis of Richard Stanihurst is an account of the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169. It follows closely Stanihurst's 1577 contribution to Holinshed's Chronicles, which in turn follows Edmund Campion's Two Bokes of Irish History. Its principal source is the Expugnatio Hibernica of Giraldus Cambrensis but a study of the text reveals two things: (i) the influence of his humanist education on Stanihurst's style and vocabulary; and (ii) a discernible subtext by which Stanihurst reads the Expugnatio in order to comment on the plight of his own people, the Anglo-Irish nobility of the Pale, who were caught in the politics of the Counter-Reformation.