Henry VIII was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage annulled. His disagreement with Pope Clement VII about such an annulment led Henry to initiate the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from papal authority. He appointed himself Supreme Head of the Church of England and dissolved convents and monasteries, for which he was excommunicated by the pope.
The House of Tudor was an English and Welsh dynasty that held the throne of England from 1485 to 1603. They descended from the Tudors of Penmynydd, a Welsh noble family, and Catherine of Valois. The Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and the Lordship of Ireland for 118 years with five monarchs: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. The Tudors succeeded the House of Plantagenet as rulers of the Kingdom of England, and were succeeded by the Scottish House of Stuart. The first Tudor monarch, Henry VII, descended through his mother from the House of Beaufort, a legitimised branch of the English royal House of Lancaster, a cadet house of the Plantagenets. The Tudor family rose to power and started the Tudor period in the wake of the Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), which left the main House of Lancaster extinct in the male line.
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, was a prominent English politician and nobleman of the Tudor era. He was an uncle of two of the wives of King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, both of whom were beheaded, and played a major role in the machinations affecting these royal marriages. After falling from favour in 1546, he was stripped of his dukedom and imprisoned in the Tower of London, avoiding execution when Henry VIII died on 28 January 1547.
Shane O'Neill was an Irish chieftain of the O'Neill dynasty of Ulster in the mid-16th century. Shane O'Neill's career was marked by his ambition to be the O'Neill—sovereign of the dominant O'Neill family of Tír Eoghain. This brought him into conflict with competing branches of the O'Neill family and with the English government in Ireland, who recognised a rival claim. Shane's support was considered worth gaining by the English even during the lifetime of his father Conn O'Neill, 1st Earl of Tyrone. But rejecting overtures from Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, the lord deputy from 1556, Shane refused to help the English against the Scottish settlers on the coast of Antrim, allying himself for a short time instead with the MacDonnells, the most powerful of these settlers. Shane viewed the Scottish settlers as invaders, but decided to stay his hand against them with hopes of using them to strengthen his position with the English. However, tensions quickly boiled over and he declared war on the Scottish MacDonnell's defeating them at the Battle of Glentaisie despite the MacDonnells calling for reinforcements from Scotland. The Scottish MacDonnells would later assassinate Shane O'Neill and collect the bounty on his head.
Succession to the British throne is determined by descent, sex, legitimacy, and religion. Under common law, the Crown is inherited by a sovereign's children or by a childless sovereign's nearest collateral line. The Bill of Rights 1689 and the Act of Settlement 1701 restrict succession to the throne to the legitimate Protestant descendants of Sophia of Hanover who are in "communion with the Church of England". Spouses of Catholics were disqualified from 1689 until the law was amended in 2015. Protestant descendants of those excluded for being Roman Catholics are eligible.
The Irish Sailing Association, also known as Irish Sailing, is the national governing body for sailing, powerboating and windsurfing in Ireland.
Gerald FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond, also counted as 15th or 16th, owned large part of the Irish province of Munster. In 1565 he fought the private Battle of Affane against his neighbours, the Butlers. After this, he was for some time detained in the Tower of London. Though the First Desmond Rebellion took place in his absence, he led the Second Desmond Rebellion from 1579 to his death and was therefore called the Rebel Earl. He was attainted in 1582 and went into hiding but was hunted down and killed.
Alexander Seton Montgomerie, 9th Earl of Eglinton was a Scottish peer, lord of the Eglinton Estate.
George Gordon, 9th Marquess of Huntly,, styled Lord Strathavon until 1795 and Earl of Aboyne from 1795 to 1836, was a Scottish peer and soldier.
David Fitz-James de Barry, 18th Baron Barry, 5th Viscount Buttevant (1550–1617), sided initially with fitz Maurice, the rebel, in the 1st Desmond rebellion but changed sides and fought against the rebels. He also fought for the crown in the Nine Years' War.
Edmund Maurice Burke Roche, 4th Baron Fermoy was a British Conservative Party politician who held a title in the Peerage of Ireland. He was the maternal grandfather of Diana, Princess of Wales.
The Tudors is a historical fiction television series set primarily in 16th-century England, created and written by Michael Hirst and produced for the American premium cable television channel Showtime. The series was a collaboration among American, British, and Canadian producers, and was filmed mostly in Ireland. While named after the Tudor dynasty as a whole, it is based specifically upon the reign of King Henry VIII.
MylesByrne was an insurgent leader in Wexford in the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and a fighter in the continued guerrilla struggle against British Crown forces in the Wicklow Hills until 1802. In 1803 collaborated closely with Robert Emmet in plans for a renewed insurrection in Dublin. After these misfired, he took a commission in Napoleon’s Irish Legion, seeing action in the Low Countries, Spain and at the Battle of Leipzig. Under the Bourbon Restoration he was deployed to Greece, and retired as a chef de bataillon. In his later years, he was the Paris correspondent for the Young Irelander paper The Nation, and dictated his memoirs. In these, he advanced the image of the United Irishmen as a cohesive revolutionary organisation dedicated to the achievement of a national democratic government.
Sir John Basset, of Tehidy in Cornwall and of Umberleigh in Devon was Sheriff of Cornwall in 1497, 1517 and 1522 and Sheriff of Devon in 1524. Although himself an important figure in the West Country gentry, he is chiefly remembered for his connection with the life of his second wife and widow Honor Grenville, who moved into the highest society when she remarried to Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle KG, an illegitimate son of King Edward IV, and an important figure at the court of King Henry VIII, his nephew.
Sir Richard Pyne was an Irish landowner, barrister and judge. He held office as Lord Chief Justice of Ireland from 1695-1709.
Richard Power, 1st Earl of Tyrone (1630–1690) was an Irish Jacobite nobleman.
Sir Charles MacCarthy, 1st Viscount of Muskerry, also called Cormac Oge, especially in Irish, was from a family of Irish chieftains who were the Lords of Muskerry, related to the Old English through maternal lines. He became the 17th Lord of Muskerry upon his father's death in 1616. He acquired a noble title under English law, becoming 1st Viscount Muskerry and 1st Baron Blarney under letters patent. He sat in the House of Lords in both Irish parliaments of King Charles I. He opposed Strafford, the king's viceroy in Ireland, and in 1641 contributed to his demise by submitting grievances to the king in London. Muskerry died during this mission and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
David Roche, 7th Viscount Fermoy (1573–1635) was an Irish magnate, soldier, and politician.
Maurice Roche, 8th Viscount Fermoy (1597–1670) was an magnate and soldier in southern Ireland, and a politician of the Irish Catholic Confederation. He joined the rebels in the Irish Rebellion of 1641 in January 1642, early for Munster, by besieging Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, a Protestant, in Youghal. He fought for the Confederates in the Irish Confederate Wars and sat on three of their Supreme Councils. He fought against the Parliamentarians in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland and was excluded from pardon at the surrender in 1652. At the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 he recovered his title but not his lands.
Donal MacCarthy Reagh of Kilbrittain was an Irish magnate who owned the extensive lands of Carbery in south-western County Cork.
