Henry was aware that the current French king, Louis XII was dying and wished to avoid war at all costs, as he would not be able to guide his country in his old, weak age, Henry realised that this was the ideal situation in which for him to launch an attack, he also had the support of the nobility, who were raring to have a fight. However, Henry’s early military campaigns achieved very little in terms of land gained, for he only managed to capture two relatively small towns, Tounai and Therouanne. His campaigns also appeared to be more beneficial for his “allies” than himself. We know that his reasoning to campaign in Aquitaine was persuaded by Ferdinand, so that he could go on and recapture Navarre from France. Another example of this is when Ferdinand and Maximilian revealed how seriously they took England when they signed a separate treaty with France (Despite
How accurate is it to say that the Yorkists kings restored authority in England in the years 1471-1485? Both Richard III and Edward IV, two of the Yorkist Kings between 1471 and 1485, went some way to restoring royal authority. However, their successes in restoring authority during their reigns were certainly limited. While Edward IV did remove much of the threat of the Lancastrians, he was unable to control the nobility which led to the usurpation of Edward V’s throne by Richard Duke of Gloucester in 1483. Moreover, Richard III was very good at politics, having a lavish court and is good at using propaganda, yet he is highly unpopular among both the people and the nobility; his reign only lasts two years before the throne is usurped by Henry Tudor.
Therefore the source suggests that Henry’s inability to enforce the ‘newly-imposed head tax’ contributed not only to a lack of funds for wars with France, but also his failure to combat the tax boycott ‘gave [James IV] hope of undertaking something’. Source 2 confirms what is being said in source 1 as it demonstrates that the threat was real, accounting how James did actually invade, taking advantage of Henry's absence, which confirms the suspicions of the Privy Council in source 1. Source 1 also implies that Henry may have had to abandon any plans made to invade France due to the possible Scottish invasion, 'against King Henry in his absence'. Yet the situation was double edged sword; if Henry chose to ignore the potential threat of a Scottish invasion and stayed to campaign in France, he risked the former actually coming true. If however, he decided to return to England in order to discourage James IV from attacking, he would lose progress in France.
During Cromwell's time the kings chamber was significantly weakened. Whilst Elton argues that this was due to a 'revolution' within government leading to a more bureaucratic government where power was no longer held between few people but more evenly spread out. The reality of this was that Cromwell had no master plan for reform. It was in an effort to protect his position that Cromwell weakened the position of the kings chamber due to the fact that it was one thing he could not control. This meant that the weakening of the kings chamber was practical politics rather than a preconceived plan for reform.
Henry’s lack of political skill played a huge part in the feud between York and Somerset, which started in 1950 when Rouen and Normandy were lost to the French. This feud started because York blamed Somerset for the loss of Normandy. Which in 1453, he made clear by putting Somerset on trial for treason in France. Henry failed to resolve the feud between the two nobles because his personality wasn’t strong enough. This eventually lost him the support of York, after countless amounts of times that York attempted to prove his loyalty, which played a big part in his downfall because York was a very important noble.
From 1485 to 1495 Henry attainted eight people who had committed crimes against the Crown. Thomas Howard was an example of this who lost the title of Duke of Norfolk and his family land after Bosworth. However the Acts of Attainder were reserved at times, he was reinstated as Earl of Surrey in 1489 to help calm an uprising in Northumberland. This gave Henry good control and power over any powerful nobles, being able to suppress them or use them to his advantage. Lastly his Kingship was strengthened through threats of magnates.
Pitt treated the colonists as allies rather than as servants that must follow orders. Rather than give orders, he would request the colonists to do something and even rewarded them when they would follow through on their word. Besides the aforementioned events, there were many battles during the war that altered the course of the war. When the French lost Fort Louisbourg the Indians lost faith that the French would prevail in the war and, therefore, discontinued most of their attacks on the English. Later Fort Niagara was captured which cut off the French’s pathway to heart of the colonies.
People expected John to be as good as his brother and when he didn’t meet their expectations, they gave him a hard time and called him a bad king. Another reason that John was called a bad king was because he lost a lot of land in France. Some say that this is because he was idle but when the matter is looked into, we discover that it was actually because he didn’t have the baron’s support. Afraid that they would lose their land in France, they betrayed John and promised that they would be loyal to Philip whilst over in France. John was not a typical medieval king; he was very interested in his people.
Henry did somewhat achieve this goal with his wars with France and Scotland. The battle of the Spurs (1513) and the Battle of Flodden (1513), although to some considered small skirmishes, did make the countries of Europe start to notice England as a possible threat and certainly now knew about Henry VIII. England didn’t really gain the Honour and Glory that Henry VIII claimed they had gained through these two battles but it certainly did make other countries start to notice England and Henry VIII. One big success that Henry VIII did manage to accomplish in the early years of his reign was that he was able to gain the French pension he felt England deserved. After the capturing of the two towns Tournai and Thérouanne Henry demanded the French compensate the English for the areas that had been previously under English
Introduction/Thesis Paragraph When the British landed and took New York, they could not have fulfilled General William Howe’s political objective of ending the rebellion in 1776. The primary reasons behind him being unable to bring this objective to fruition are because 1) he became reluctant to attack fortified enemy positions and 2) his belief that a decisive action would crush the will of the people was overblown. Reluctance of Attack At the conclusion of the Battle of Bunker Hill, although it was a victory for the British, General Howe sustained heavy casualties. These losses weighed heavily on General Howe and made his decision making much more conservative. For the rest of the war, Howe avoided a direct frontal attack on any American position, preferring to use flanking maneuvers instead.