"Murdering Heart...Murdering Hand": Captain Thomas Lee of Ireland, Elizabethan Assassin
Captain Thomas Lee of Castle Rheban, co. Kildare, Ireland, enjoyed a dubious reputation as the Crown's creature, a successful mercenary and assassin eager to expunge certain Irish leaders who opposed England's colonial designs. A character of many skills and abilities, and great energy, Le...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, Inc.
1991
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| In: |
The sixteenth century journal
Year: 1991, Volume: 22, Issue: 1, Pages: 47-60 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
Non-electronic |
| Summary: | Captain Thomas Lee of Castle Rheban, co. Kildare, Ireland, enjoyed a dubious reputation as the Crown's creature, a successful mercenary and assassin eager to expunge certain Irish leaders who opposed England's colonial designs. A character of many skills and abilities, and great energy, Lee was far from unique among the "Irish Elizabethans," for assassination had long played its sinister role in Tudor Ireland. But our generous disposition to see good Queen Bess' Irish adventurers at worst as boisterous, heavy-handed, somewhat insensitive colonists, soldiers, and bureaucrats audaciously securing what England rationalized as her western boundary has also inclined us to pass over unequivocal and still rather substantial evidence that the Tudors indeed resorted to assassination as a matter of course, albeit in extreme situations where negotiation and open warfare had already proved futile and too expensive. What makes Lee so intriguing and so useful to the historian is the degree to which he epitomized this tacit extension of Elizabethan policy in Ireland. And what makes him so instructive to us in a more general way is the clarity with which he illuminates the almost tragic paradoxes helping to shape the assassin's persona. |
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| ISSN: | 2326-0726 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The sixteenth century journal
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/2542015 |