The First English Empire

Law, Legislation, and Consent in the Plantagenet Empire: Wales and Ireland, 1272–1461

“…As R. R. Davies put it, "[r]oyal authority within this kingdom was ubiquitous and, on its own terms, exclusive; taxes, justice, governance, coinage, and law were more or less universal; political power was ultimately court-centred; [and] a single assembly-the great council or parliament-represented a national, unitary conclave of the political nation with its king." 47 The county gentry and urban oligarchies of England were fully assimilated into this polity, and their outlook was governed by a respect for the law, the preservation of social hierarchy, and wealth accumulation. Welsh society, on the other hand, while undergoing a rapid process of Anglicization following the conquest, retained many of the characteristics of its pre-conquest existence.…”

“…Welsh society, on the other hand, while undergoing a rapid process of Anglicization following the conquest, retained many of the characteristics of its pre-conquest existence. 48 It also remained fundamentally "foreign" to the English observer 49 and "colonial" in its organization. 50 In essence, the English parliament was a product of the English socio-political and economic system and could not easily be projected into other lands.…”

Reasons for leaving: The effect of conflict on English landholding in late thirteenth-century Leinster

“…19 His case, moreover, was merely symptomatic of a more general and alarming process of withdrawal from the lordship in the period between 1280 and 1306 which included the families of de Marisco, de Vescy, de Mohun and Bigod. 20 Whilst there is no doubting Davies' insight into the difficulty of traversing between a political and cultural world centred on the English shire and one which encompassed the march lands of Ireland or Wales, the importance of this psychological and practical difficulty as a factor in the withdrawal of English lords from Ireland may have been overplayed.…”

“…19 His case, moreover, was merely symptomatic of a more general and alarming process of withdrawal from the lordship in the period between 1280 and 1306 which included the families of de Marisco, de Vescy, de Mohun and Bigod. 20 Whilst there is no doubting Davies' insight into the difficulty of traversing between a political and cultural world centred on the English shire and one which encompassed the march lands of Ireland or Wales, the importance of this psychological and practical difficulty as a factor in the withdrawal of English lords from Ireland may have been overplayed. Not only was Pipard at least moderately successful in bridging the divide between the Anglo-Irish and Gaelic Irish worlds, 21 his world and the decisions he made in it would have been influenced by other factors such as the desire to provide for his son, John and to ease the problems of administering a cross-channel estate; his own preoccupation with England, and his participation in the king's wars in Wales and Scotland; his anger at his son's undertaking to sell the family lands to no-one but the Butler family; his ill-health which made the maintenance of estates spanning the Irish Sea all the more difficult when he felt he could no longer trust his son; and the declining value of his Irish lands.…”

1066: does the date still matter?*

“…In relation to the British Isles and Ireland, the chief contributors to a new and brilliant historiography, the late Rees Davies and John Gillingham, have labelled its results in terms of 'The first English empire' and 'The foundations of a disunited kingdom'. 53 1066 was analysed in terms of colonization over thirty years ago by John Le Patourel and, even if one might argue about terminology and the explanation of the dynamic, the image retains its potency. 54 As with so much else, the expansion throughout the British Isles which followed 1066 must be placed very firmly within a framework of pre-1066 power relations.…”