that had been developing apace (e.g. intermarriage, use of the Irish language and Irish dress). In the 15th century, the Dublin government remained weak, owing principally to the Wars of the Roses. Beyond the Pale, the authority of the Dublin government was tenuous. The Hiberno-Norman lords had been able to carve out fiefdoms for themselves but not to settle them with English tenants. As a result, in the 14th and 15th centuries, in the wake of Irish rebellion, Scottish invasion, the Black Death, and a lack of interest on the part of the London government, the territories controlled by those lords achieved a high degree of independence. The Butlers, Fitzgeralds, and Burkes raised their own armed forces, enforced their own law, and adopted Gaelic language and culture. Beyond those territories large areas of land previously held by authority of the English crown were taken by the resurgent Gaelic Irish, particularly in the north and midlands. Among the most important septs were the O'Neills (Uí Néill) in central Ulster (Tír Eóghain), flanked to their west by the O'Donnells (Uí Dhomnaill); the O'Byrnes (Uí Bhroin) and O'Tooles (Uí Thuathail) in County Wicklow; the Kavanaghs (Uí Chaomhánach) in County Wexford; the MacCarthys ((Uí) Mhic Chárthaigh) and O'Sullivans (Uí Shúilleabháin) in County Cork and County Kerry; and the O'Brien (Uí Bhriain) lordship of Thomond in County Clare. Henry VIII By 1500, English monarchs had delegated government of Ireland to the most powerful of the Hiberno-Norman dynasties – the FitzGeralds of Kildare – to keep the costs of running Ireland down and to protect the Pale. The King's Lord Deputy of Ireland was chief of the administration, based in Dublin Castle, but maintained no formal court and had a limited privy purse. In 1495, laws were passed during Poynings's Parliament that imposed English statutory law wholesale upon the lordship and compromised the independence of the Parliament of Ireland. The head of the Kildare FitzGeralds held the position of lord deputy until 1534. The problem was that the House of Kildare had become unreliable for the English monarch, scheming with Yorkist pretenders to the English throne, signing private treaties with foreign powers, and finally rebelling after the head of its hereditary rivals, the Butlers of Ormonde, was awarded the position of lord deputy. The Reformation also led to growing tension between England and Ireland as Protestantism gained sway within England. Thomas, Earl of Kildare, a Catholic,