Organized Violence in the E lizabethan M onarchical R epublic

This article argues that the T udor concept of E ngland as a P rotestant commonwealth normally implied a belief in the legitimacy and necessity of armed violence against enemies of G od and the public good. In the absence of a standing army the instruments of such violence had to be mobilized partly through the voluntary efforts of subjects who regarded warfare as a form of public service. The article goes on to explore how ideas and practices of armed violence shaped government policies in E ngland and I reland. In E ngland the privy council constructed a system of county militias under the control of a cohort deemed loyal to the P rotestant state, and toyed with schemes for using martial law against vagrants and other groups who threatened public order. But in the absence of a successful invasion or major rebellion, this machinery of military control was never fully mobilized and a reaction eventually set in against its potential abuse. By contrast in I reland linguistic and cultural divisions, weaker institutions of civil government and the preponderance of C atholicism created situations in which brutal military coercion sometimes appeared the only effective method of maintaining ‘civil’ governance and P rotestant control. The weakness of royal supervision over the captains who carried out government policy on the ground also enabled freelance violence. E lizabethan brutality in I reland was not simply a product of colonial rule; it reflected the dark underside of commonwealth ideals of civility, political initiative and godly rule.