Do You Agree with the View That, in 1511-25, English Successes in Foreign Policy Outweighed the Failures?

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Do you agree with the view that, in 1511-25, English successes in foreign policy outweighed the failures? I agree with the view that English successes in foreign policy outweighed the failures in the years 1511-25 to a certain extent. In this essay I will be looking at three sources and weighing up the two sides of the argument. I will be looking at information which agrees with the statement, e.g. England managing to successfully pursue a policy of peace making in the years 1514-21 and how Wolsey was very sly and flexible in his diplomacy and arguments which disagree with the statement, for example it could also be seen that Henry’s chief aim, the invasion of France, was unpopular with people at the time and that Henry’s foreign policy was too costly when compared with the few benefits it brought to England. Henry’s allies often let him down and were much more interested in their own aims and not so much of England’s. A point in support of the view that the successes in foreign policy outweighed the failures is that England had successfully delivered a policy of peace making in the years 1514-21. This is seen in source 4, in which M.D. Palmer writes about how Wolsey successfully brought about peace between England and France in 1514, and that he engineered the universal peace of London in 1518. Wolsey also planned the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520 and negotiated peace between the Empire and France at Calais in 1521. Wolsey’s peaceful approach also benefitted England in that it reduced costs at a time when the country could not afford another war, and successfully made England a major ‘player’ in Europe, which was a desire of Henry’s. Another point in support of the view that the successes in foreign policy outweighed the failures is that Wolsey was sly and flexible in his diplomacy. We can see this in source 4, which shows us how Wolsey used the
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