Frontiers and Power in the Early Tudor State
Monarchs could do anything – or could they? Steven Ellis examines what happened when commands from the centre had to he executed in practice in the remoter parts of the kingdom.
In May 1534 Henry VIII began a major overhaul of Tudor provincial government which lasted throughout the 1530s. He replaced the key officials in charge of the more remote provinces by other, more trusted men, and he later reorganised the provincial councils and other administrative structures for these regions. In Ireland the Earl of Kildare was dismissed as governor and replaced by a military captain, Sir William Skeffington; in the north, Lord Dacre was removed from the wardenship of the west marches towards Scotland and replaced by the Earl of Cumberland; and in Wales Bishop Rowland Lee replaced Bishop Vesey of Exeter as president – all in the same month. Dacre and Kildare indeed found themselves charged with treason, allegedly because of their contacts with the king's Scottish and Irish enemies.
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