While the writer shows a slight element of a “prophet with a cause” this does not detract from his analysis. Clearly plantation studies have not been given the attention they deserve. These, Treadwell argues, can help to clarify the effect and consequences of the interaction of events arising from the widespread build up of a patronage network of the Villiers family and friends, with Buckingham at the top of the pyramid. This affected all aspects of domestic and foreign policy and created a disturbed state in Ireland. The whole edifice depended on Buckingham’s relationship with James I and Charles I. His death saw its disintegration, but it is cogently argued that its impact continued to be far-reaching. The reader is made to rethink the hitherto accepted approach to court and parliamentary policies, making a case for these policies affecting the history of Ireland to our own day. The research for this book and the arguments are well-organised and detailed. The Commissions of enquiry sent to Ireland in the 1620s were prompted by parliaments unhappy with Buckingham’s influence and activities, and not impressed with the debacles of Cadiz and La Rochelle which prompted religious fears: the commissions require careful study. The author sees these as crucial to an understanding of the situations. The commissions were to look at the errors of plantation and other grievances of the Irish and the Old English in the Pale. They were effectively sabotaged by Buckingham. This, and the need then for gaining the monarch’s ear via The Graces of 1628, indicates a deeply divided Ireland, leading up to and after the Civil War. The Ulster uprising of 1641 was a manifestation of this. Evidence advanced suggests that the adoption of reforms could have made for good relations with the majority of those living in Ireland, the Irish, the Old English and those involved in plantation undertakings.

This work has been meticulously researched, not for the faint hearted in the sense of the extent of detail derived from wide-ranging primary sources — it is indeed a work for the specialist. The breadth of secondary sources is impressive. Seventy pages of endnotes confirm and add much to the conclusion that Treadwell is at home with all his sources. The index matches the quality of the rest of the book. It is a pity that an overall well produced tome has some typographical errors. The map showing county boundaries, Scots settlements and plantation areas is a helpful reference for the reader. Without doubt the book throws important new light on the significance of the interaction between London and Dublin through Buckingham’s control of an extensive Irish patronage system, and his shaping of a revived plantation policy. It is especially to be recommended as an important contribution to revisionist history of the times.