Steven Ellis's careful political reinterpretation of English government in Ireland is based on a detailed institutional analysis of its administrative machinery. By frequent comparisons with other areas of Tudor rule, he offers important insights into both the operation and, more generally, the effectiveness of Tudor government. Instead of an embattled and ungovernable colony increasingly swamped by Gaelic customs and only nominally controlled by the antiquated Dublin administration, Dr Ellis describes a political society which is recognisably English, responsive to royal authority and governed through a subordinate central adminstration closely modelled on that of England. His researches vigorously challenge nationalist assumptions about interaction between English and Gaelic society in Ireland and the emergence of a Hiberno-Norman civilisation there. He also suggests a new framework for the political history of the medieval lordship and, demonstrates its survival into the sixteenth century as a meaningful political entity.