Do You Agree with the View That Henry Viii’s Foreign Policy in the Years 1514-1525 Failed Because He Lacked the Resources to Fulfil His Aims?

1088 Words5 Pages
Do you agree with the view that Henry VIII’s foreign policy in the years 1514-1525 failed because he lacked the resources to fulfil his aims? The failure of Henrys foreign policy in the years 1514-1525 could be blamed on a number of different reasons, with the countries lack of resources certainly playing a large part as he was unable to fund battles with other countries. Other factors contributing to this failure however were the unreliability of his allies and his indecisiveness in regards to allying with other countries. Sources 4 and 6 agree with the statement that the foreign policy failed due to a lack of resources but sources 4 and 5 also give other reasons as to why it failed, such as the unreliability of his allies and great changes in power that he could not control. Henry’s foreign policy was a failure due to England’s lack of resources. This is shown by the Treaty of Bruges, where Henry and Wolsey promised that English forces would invade France unless Ferdinand agreed to make peace. This was a huge problem as England had no money or resources to carry out an attack of France, and so Wolsey managed to negotiate a delay in England entering the war for a couple of years. This however backfired as the French king was faced with a rebellion from his own people in 1523, and England was dragged into a three-pronged assault. This was a huge failure because the English army ended up falling apart due to a lack of supplies and had to return home with nothing being achieved. Another reason pointing towards a lack of resources being to blame for Henry’s foreign policy being a failure is shown in source 4. The source says, ‘The young warrior finally accepted the fact that royal finances could not support a repetition of the campaign of 1513.’ This statement suggests that even Henry knew himself that he was unable to defeat the other countries on his own because he
Open Document