Editing Elizabeth I (section)

===Ireland===
{{Main|Tudor conquest of Ireland}}
[[File:The Image of Irelande - plate12.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The Irish [[Gaels|Gaelic]] chieftain [[Turlough Luineach O'Neill|O'Neale]] and the other [[Kern (soldier)|kerns]] kneel to [[Henry Sidney]] in submission.]]

Although Ireland was one of her two kingdoms, Elizabeth faced a hostile, and in places virtually autonomous,{{Efn|One observer wrote that [[Ulster]], for example, was "as unknown to the English here as the most inland part of Virginia".<ref>Somerset, 667.</ref>}} Irish population that adhered to Catholicism and was willing to defy her authority and plot with her enemies. Her policy there was to grant land to her courtiers and prevent the rebels from giving Spain a base from which to attack England.<ref>Loades, 55.</ref> In the course of a series of uprisings, Crown forces pursued [[scorched-earth]] tactics, burning the land and slaughtering man, woman and child. During a revolt in [[Munster]] led by [[Gerald FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond|Gerald FitzGerald, Earl of Desmond]], in 1582, an estimated 30,000 Irish people starved to death. The poet and colonist [[Edmund Spenser]] wrote that the victims "were brought to such wretchedness as that any stony heart would have rued the same".<ref>Somerset, 668.</ref> Elizabeth advised her commanders that the Irish, "that rude and barbarous nation", be well treated, but she or her commanders showed no remorse when force and bloodshed served their authoritarian purpose.<ref>Somerset, 668–669.</ref>

Between 1593 and 1603, Elizabeth faced her most severe test in Ireland during the [[Nine Years' War (Ireland)|Nine Years' War]], a revolt that took place at the height of hostilities with [[Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604)|Spain]], who backed the rebel leader, [[Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone]].<ref name="Loades, 98">Loades, 98.</ref> In spring 1599, Elizabeth sent [[Essex in Ireland|Robert Devereux]] to put the revolt down. To her frustration,{{Efn|In a letter of 19 July 1599 to Essex, Elizabeth wrote: "For what can be more true (if things be rightly examined) than that your two month's journey has brought in never a capital rebel against whom it had been worthy to have adventured one thousand men".<ref name="Loades, 98"/>}} he made little progress and returned to England in defiance of her orders. He was replaced by [[Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy|Charles Blount]], who within three years defeated the rebels who were supported by the Spanish. The decisive battle took place at [[Battle of Kinsale|Kinsale in 1602]]; Elizabeth lauded the victory, hailing Mountjoy a hero. The financial cost of the Irish war however was considerable and Elizabeth's realm only just avoided bankruptcy. O'Neill finally surrendered in 1603 at the [[Treaty of Mellifont]], a few days after Elizabeth's death.<ref>Loades, 98–99.</ref>