“An Earnest Instrument of Peace”: Irish Noblewomen's Diplomatic Participation in the English Reconquest

In 1571, during the English reconquest of Ireland, Lady Agnes Campbell wrote to Queen Elizabeth on behalf of her husband, Irish chieftain Turlough O’Neill, asking her to grant him his rights as a Lord and arguing that she only wished for peace and tranquility. Two years later, the Lord Justices of Ireland accused Agnes of raising a rebellion against the English and traveling to Scotland to recruit mercenary troops. Despite this accusation, Agnes impressed the English. In 1575 one English official characterized her as “noble, wise woman and as dutifully uses herself to further the Queen’s service every way.” The Earl of Essex, governor of Ulster and marshal of English forces in Ireland, agreed to peace with Turlough O’Neill in the same year because he thought Agnes was “a wise and a civil woman, and an earnest instrument of peace.”

Agnes Campbell personifies the diplomatic role that Irish women of the nobility held, but she was just one of the many women in Ireland who performed diplomatic duties in the sixteenth century as the English attempted to assert control over the Ireland through military action and negotiations with Irish lords and chieftains. Noble women negotiated with English officials as recognized representatives of their husbands or clans. Irish noble women also acted to forge alliances, both with other clans and with Catholic powers like France, Spain, and the Papacy. Irish women’s diplomatic roles also allowed English noblewomen in Ireland to participate in diplomacy. This presentation will examine the various ways that noble women in Ireland participated in diplomacy during the English reconquest of Ireland and the effects of their actions had on English rule in Ireland