Tudor Frontiers and Noble Power: The Making of the British State

This controversial book offers a novel perspective on Tudor government and British state formation. It argues that traditional studies focusing on lowland England as 'the normal context of government' exaggerate the regime's successes by marginalizing the borderlands. Frontiers were normal in early-modern Europe, however, and central to the problem of state formation. England's peripheries were more extensive than the core and provide the real yardstick by which the effectiveness of government can be measured. Ellis demonstrates their importance by means of a detailed comparative study of two marches - Cumbria and Ireland - and their ruling magnates. He demonstrates the flaws in early Tudor policy, characterized by long periods of neglect, interspersed with sporadic attempts to adapt, at minimal cost, a centralized administrative system geared to lowland England for the government of outlying regions which had very different social structures. Ellis analyses the 1534 crisis in crown-magnate relations, reassesses the resulting policy of centralization and uniformity, and identifies the central role of these developments in establishing a British pattern of state formation.

About the Author :
Ellis is author of: Tudor Ireland: Crown, Community and the Conflict of Cultures 1470-1603 (Longman 1985, reprinted 1987. 1992, 1993, 398 pages), and Reform and Revival: English Government in Ireland, 1470-1534 (The Royal Historical Society; the Boydell Press, Woodbridge; St. Martin's PRess, New York, 1986, 269 pages).

Review :
`a very personal scholarly statement ... The author has been well known for a number of years as an incisive and objective historian of Tudor Ireland. It is hard to quarrel with his detailed and painstaking research, or with the cautious and intelligent way in which his conclusions are presented.' History Today `E. has written yet another highly accomplished monograph: less ambitious in range but more sophisticated in planning and execution of its aims than previous publications by other researchers ... The monograph is well written, closely argued and likely to provoke the kind of healthy debate that promotes further research endeavours rather than demolishing other historians as irredeemable enemies.' Archive for Reformation History `With this fine study Ellis augments his earlier contributions to the once neglected history of the Tudor borderlands and their impact on political relations between England on one hand and Ireland, Scotland, and Wales on the other.' William B. Robinson, Southeastern Louisiana University (Hammond) Sixteenth Century Journal XXVII/1 (11996) `well executed and interesting ... a very personal scholarly statement ... It is hard to quarrel with his detailed and painstaking research, or with the cautious and intelligent way in which his conclusions are presented. Professor Ellis establishes with considerable learning that there was an aristocratic marcher culture.' David Loades, History Today, August 1996 `Ellis has written an important comparative study of the administration of the borderlands from 1485-1540 ... profoundly scholarly, this book should be accessible and interesting even to general readers.' W.B. Robison III, Southeastern Louisiana University, Choice, February 1996, Vol.33 No. 6 `an engaging and scholarly contribution to our knowledge of two important frontiers ... Ellis's scholarship is meticulous ... his ongoing move away from court-based or indeed Anglocentric history is a good example for British historians to follow.' Maureen M. Meikle, University of Sutherland, History 83/269