Becoming a governor in his region of Rome wasn’t good enough, he wanted to be crowned king and serve as a dictator for life, something that Rome didn’t have for five hundred years. His need for absolute power, to become greedy and to bring Rome under Monarchy corrupted him and altered his thinking. Instead of thinking about the Roman people, he was thinking about himself, and that made him a bad leader. Another reason that he wasn’t a good leader was that he was weak. Although he appeared to be strong to the commoners, he was seen as weak to his own Senate members, especially Cassius.
However, many other factors played a role in the demise of the Parliament such as the fact that they were ill-organised, the lack of popular support and their inability to enforce decisions. Frederick William IV was partially responsible for the failure of the Frankfurt Parliament as he was unwilling to accept the ‘crown from the gutter’. William IV was aware that acceptance of the leadership may lead to war with Austria. Austria had no wish to see a united Germany and wanted to keep it weak and divided in order to dominate. Frederick William shared this view and was unwilling to potentially cause a war with such a powerful state.
The loss of English territories in France was the main cause of York’s hatred of Somerset and worsened the relationship between Henry and York, whose relationship was already strained because of the court faction’s suspicions of York’s intentions and fears of attainder. York and the Neville’s wanted to see better governance and for Henry to regard them equally as the Beaufort’s. The feud between Somerset and York was because York felt dishonoured by Somerset’s easy surrender of Rouen and other lands of York’s appanage in 1450. As the son of Richard, Earl of Cambridge; who was executed for treason against Henry V, York was sensitive to the issue of family honour. He presented an article to the king in 1452, criticising Somerset for his failure to defend Rouen from attack and his surrender of Rouen in 1449 despite soldiers protesting.
How far do you agree that Henry VII’s relations with foreign powers were dertermined by his dynastic insecurity? Henry VII came to the throne in 1485, by doing so he came to the throne with an orthodox, therefore not having a strong dynastic claim. He claimed the throne, by defeated the previous king, Richard III during the battle of Bodsworth. Nevertheless, he had received foreign aid which helped him to achieve this. On the other hand, once he had claimed the throne, he established motifs, marriage alliances and treaties in order to strengthen his dynasty.
To what extent were Henry VI failings responsible for the outbreak of conflict in 1455? In some ways, Henry VI’s failings could be classed as wholly responsible for the outbreak of conflict in 1455. However, other factors remain and other people can be to blame for the eventual downfall of the monarchical state. Henry VI managed to fail not only in his political leadership but his military leadership as well. If it cannot be pinned on, what A.J Pollard can be quoted as calling, his overall astounding “antipathetic nature towards to the chivalric world his ancestors had adored”, it can definitely be blamed on what A.J Pollard called his “improvident, malleable, vacillating and partisan” personality.
Edward IV's reigns had faced many problems because of Warwick. Firstly Warwick believed Edward had not rewarded him enough by giving him the captain of Calais. Whilst other nobles such as William Herbert were also rewarded with high titles such as Lieutenant of South Wales. This had begun to create problems between Warwick and Edward, to add to insult Edward would not let Clarence marry Warwickshire daughter Isabel. As a result Edward decided to remove the Archbishop of York who had approved the marriage.
The failure of foreign policy in the years 1514-1525 can be attributed to many things. The combination of Henry's isolation from European affairs and the fact that his attempts to raise tax were ultimately unpopular failures, meant that he had no way to impose himself upon Europe. Even when he did manage to scrape together the finances needed for a strong foreign policy his reliance on his allies led to disaster. As soon as Henry took the throne in 1509, it was obvious that he was a king that wanted to fight a war. However, wars generally led to very expensive costs to the country.
This trigger is held highly among determinist historians as one of the reasons the republic was doomed to fail from the start. Article 48 was a major flaw in the constitution as it compeletely ignored the point of democracy, effectively turning the country into an autocratic rule. This left the country at the mercy of the President, and effectively bypassed the whole point of having a democracy entirely. This is one of the direct causes of the downfall of the democracy as it was this very article that granted President Hindenburg power to hire Adolf Hitler as chancellor against the concensus of the reichstag. It was this that was to be the final nail in the coffin of the Weimar Republic and therefore is one of the reasons for the downfall of the Republic.
The most important factor for Edward being able to take the throne was due to Henry’s weakness as if he wasn’t weak Edward would not have been able to usurp the throne. The loss of France was a massive blow to the English nobility. Wars in France gave them a sense of purpose and more land supporting them. The humiliating defeats there reflected badly on Henry VI. In 1450 England lost
I personally think that Henry failed in his foreign policy because he didn’t end up gaining a full grasp on France, this was the main precedence. The initial aim was to capture more land, gaining more land meaning capturing France and knowing Henry’s ambitious mindset, he most probably had his whole mind set on creating an empire and France was a good place to start. Had Henry been what he said he was ‘a warrior king’ he wouldn’t have been used as a toy twice throughout this unsuccessful foreign policy. Charles took advantage of Henry. At the Battle of Pavia, the French were defeated and Francis along with his strongest supporters were held captive.