A ‘note of all suche presents’: gift-giving and Sir Henry Sidney’s cess controversy of 1578

Abstract This article uses the by-products of material culture to explore the breakdown in social cohesion between governor and the governed. Examining an unexplored list from 1578 detailing food gifts given to the lord deputy Sir Henry Sidney to commemorate the St George’s feast and comparing it with the household accounts of Dublin Castle for 1574–5, the financial records of the earl of Essex in the same years and a list of horses gifted to Sidney in 1575, it is possible to track the ways in which a viceroy created or lost a clientele. Having alienated the majority of the Pale populace through heavy-handed tactics — proclamations against traditionally loyal subjects, high taxation and martial law — Sidney attempted to counteract the dissent against his unpopular policies through ceremonial feasting. Though gift-exchange was meant to be disinterested and done for honour alone, those who did contribute had clear material incentives for giving. The lack of sustaining food gifts, rather than the abundance of them, highlights the growing chasm between the crown and the formerly loyal Anglo-Irish Pale community in the last quarter of the sixteenth century.