The reign of the first Elizabeth will always be remembered for the Armada. But it was the Irish, not the Spanish, who came closest to destroying the security of the Elizabethan state. Between 1560 and 1602, only superior military force - allied with ruthless subjugation - preserved England's throne against a succession of rebellions and uprisings throughout Ireland.Now republished for the first time in nearly twenty years, Elizabeth's Irish Wars is Cyril Falls's crucial account of the half century that changed the course of Anglo-Irish history. To contemporary observers, the danger to the English crown was acute. Many of the queen's foremost professional soldiers served in Ireland, among them Essex and Mountjoy, her leading military tactician. Ireland, too, found her heroes in O'Donnell, Fitzmaurice, Tyrone and O'Neill.The Elizabethan wars in Ireland involved the collision of two civilisations, in which the older went down. This masterly account of the campaigns gives a vital perspective to the broad sweep of Anglo-Irish relations. - from Amzon