British conscience: Blood and Soil

Ben Kiernan is fair in Blood and Soil in his treatment of Christians and genocide. But the ones calling for moderation and peace and neighborly treatment, e.g. Erasmus, didn't prevail against those "sword of the Lord" types, e.g. Cromwell, in England's assault on Ireland.

A moderating influence on English policy was the European Renaissance humanist tradition of Erasmus, who had urged missionary rather than military action and “fatherly charity” even to non-Christian Turks, for “they also be men” and respond to “kindness.” The English Reformation thinker Thomas Starkey believed human nature to be essentially good and the intellect its prime agent. In 1536, he criticized Henry VIII's government for its harsh actions against opponents and urged a policy based on persuasion. However, another early Reformation tendency, exemplified by Henry's chief minster, Thomas Cromwell, laid greater stress on obedience and coercive authority. In largely Catholic Ireland, greater difficulty faced religious reform. St. Leger, lord lieutenant from 1540-51, and the bishop of Meath preferred persuasion, according to Bradshaw, but Dublin's Archbishop Browne stressed control. The archbiship from 1567, Adam Loftus, agreed, seeking conformity however people felt “inwardly in their consciences.”
A more extreme form of the coercive policy won out...In Ulster assisting Sussex in campaigns agaisnt local Scots, his brother-in-law, Sir Henry Sidney, wrote of camping with his forces on Rathlin Island “until we had spoiled the same of all mankind, corn, and cattle in it.”
Despite an expanding military presence and heightening repression, the Irish remained recalcitrant...Increasing use of scorched-earth policies only exacerbated “the failure of the state-sponsored religion to take root in any section of the indigenous population.” (188)

Famine is a frequent method of genocide because it only directly dirties ones hands with soil and not blood as if that somehow diminishes their judgment in heaven.
More posts on genocide, history, book reports, and church.