Biographical studies of the two Dukes of Ormonde illuminate aspects of the operation of political power in seventeenth-century Ireland, and, on a wider European stage, the predicaments facing the nobility. A valuable insight into the political and material world of Ireland's leading aristocratic family. HISTORY For much of their lives the two dukes of Ormonde dominated public events in Ireland, where they served the English sovereign as viceroy five times; they were also powerful presences in the Stuart court in England, and commanded armies both in Ireland and Europe. Later, they spent long periods on the continent as travellers and exiles. Yetdespite their importance in the public life of the age, neither duke has been the subject of a full modern biography, a gap which this collection of essays aims to fill, using key episodes and phases in the Ormondes' careers to investigate the larger picture. The dukes' lives as great nobles, landowners and converts to Protestantism raise problems specific to Ireland, but they also exemplify the predicament of nobles elsewhere in Europe. A particular focusis on the worlds that they and their wives created, often innovative and always dazzling, and on the clienteles who looked to them for preferment and on which a part of the Ormondes' political weight rested. Throughout, much newlight is cast on such vexed questions as the troubled and constantly changing relationship between Ireland and England, between public and private interests, and the roles of women. Dr TOBY BARNARD teaches at the University of Oxford. Contributors: G.E. AYLMER, T.C. BARNARD, EVELINE CRUICKSHANKS, DAVID EDWARDS, JANE FENLON, RAYMOND GILLESPIE, DAVID HAYTON, PATRICK LITTLE, RENE MOULINAS, EAMONN - CIARDHA, NATHALIE GENET ROUFFIAC