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182 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
beliefs, differences in the mode of succession to land and chieftainship, and the introduction of the brutal policy of confiscating and callously planting tribal territory are responsible, either separately or collectively, for the almost continuous strife and internecine turmoil of subsequent times.
In 1558, while her ruthless war of extermination and plantation was still in its early stages, a childless Mary died, and was succeeded to the throne by her half-sister, the highly- educated and cunning Elizabeth. The only child of Henry V111 and Ann Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth 1 was to carry the abusive and injurious policies of her father and siblings in Ireland to a further bloody stage.
Elizabeth I in her coronation robes, patterned with Tudor roses and trimmed with ermine
Elizabeth’s accession in 1558 heralded the re-establishment of the Protestant religion. A Dublin Parliament of 1560 sanctioned the adoption of the English ecclesiastical system: the Acts of Mary’s reign were repealed; the Act of Supremacy confirming the new Queen as Supreme Head of the Church in Ireland and requiring all Irish “judges, justices, mayors, and temporal officers to take the Oath of Supremacy” was passed, as was an Act of Uni- formity which required the use of the New Book of Common Prayer by all clergy.
The historian David Ross described the England of Elizabeth as being “an aggressive, dynamic, mercantile society, one of the strongest Protestant powers of Europe, with a pirati- cal attitude to other countries’ possessions and a fiercely acquisitive approach to unclaimed or contestable ground.”
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