This strategy was the primary non-violent method for Crown officials in the Dublin Castle administration to subjugate Irish clan leaders during the conquest.
The policy of surrender and regrant was led by King Henry VIII of England (r. 1509–1547) in a bid to extend and secure his control over the island of Ireland.
Essentially St. Leger's idea was to transform and assimilate the more autonomous leaders of Gaelic Ireland into something akin to the political and constitutional system of England, where everyone was theoretically equal at law under the monarch.
In 1541, Brían Óg Mac Giolla Phádraig became the first Irish lord to take his seat in the Dublin Parliament as Baron Upper Ossory.
[2] Other clans who partook in the process included the O'Neills of Tir Eoghain who were created the earls of Tyrone and as such sat in the Irish House of Lords from 1542.
Many of the regranted clan chiefs remained Roman Catholic after the death of Queen Mary in 1558, which, after the final split between England and Rome in 1570, meant that their new legal status was still rather tangential in the eyes of conformist officials.
[7]: item 68, 1592 [failed verification][non-primary source needed] The overlord in the Barony of Carbery to Donovan of Clan Cathail, the MacCarthy Reagh, who surrendered his sept lands in 1606, also never received any titles under this system.
[11] Consequently, a large number of ancient Irish family trees were recorded and stored at the castle and later held at Trinity College Dublin.
That caused internal feuding, which was often exploited by English officials based in Dublin, seeking to limit a clan's power or to take some or all of its lands.