The “Strong Hand” of the Scots in Ulster: Anglo-Scottish Diplomacy and Marian Policy in Ireland, 1553–58

This paper will explore how events in Ulster affected diplomatic relations between England and Scotland during the reign of Mary I. It analyzes how competing concepts of race, nationality, and sovereignty in Ulster soured Anglo-Scottish relations, and contributed to the outbreak of hostility between England and Scotland in 1557. It also examines how Tudor ministers in Ireland saw violence with Scottish soldiers and settlers as a unifying element, useful to the construction of an overarching Anglo-Irish identity centered on the Tudor monarch. Between the end of the Rough Wooings in 1551 and the entrance of England into the Hapsburg-Valois conflict in 1557, Anglo-Scottish relations wavered precariously between peace and war. Both crowns sought amity for economic and political reasons, but the inability of the Tudor and Stewart royal governments to implement uniform policy in the frontiers was a threat to friendly diplomacy. Scottish soldiers from the Western Highlands, under the command of the 4^th Earl of Argyll, Archibald Campbell, aided Calvagh O’Donnell in a Gaelic uprising against his father, which threatened Tudor policy and regional stability. Additionally, Scottish settlers were establishing homesteads in Ulster. In both cases, the Scots acted without permission or approval from either the Tudor or Stewart crowns. Tudor ministers in Ireland during the 1550s considered the presence of Scottish soldiers and settlers a major threat to Tudor strategies for Irish incorporation, and made expulsion of the Scots their military priority. Thomas Radcliff, 3^rd Earl of Sussex and Lord Deputy in 1557, saw the expulsion of the Scots as an opportunity to create greater unity among existing ethnic groups in Ireland, particularly in the warring classes: the Gaelic Irish lords, the Old English landowners, and the New English soldiers. Radcliffe, thus, considered war against the Scots to be an occasion for fostering a unified Anglo-Irish identity.