The Struggle for Mastery in Ireland, 1442-1540

A reassessment of the rivalry between the two great Anglo-Norman magnate families in late medieval and early modern Ireland, putting forward a new interpretation of events. The Fitzgerald Earls of Kildare and the Butler Earls of Ormond were the foremost old colonial magnates in the late medieval Lordship of Ireland. Rivals for power and influence throughout the island but in particular for the post of chief governor, the principal representative of the English crown in Ireland, their struggle fo