Henry VIII’s foreign policy between the years of 1509 – 1529 revolved around his fantasy of becoming a famous “warrior King.” His main aim was to conquer France, as he believed that the French crown was rightfully his, he was not however successful in this aim, despite capturing obscure towns in France such as Tournai. Henry went through three phases of foreign policy during these years: Initial aggression in his first French war between ending in 1514, the following a rather unsuccessful French campaign, entered a stage of diplomacy where he attempted to gain allies and achieve European peace through the treaty of London, 1518. But it can be argued that little success came from this period either with very few significant agreements made in the Treaty of London or the Field of the Cloth of gold except for minor prestige for Henry and England, but at huge costs. As well as this, any hopes of finally conquering France in Henry’s second aggressive phase were crushed due to financial and political obstacles. 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.
This is William and Mary , a joint reign. They were a constitutional monarchy because they simply wanted not the total power over their people, but to give them freedom. They replaced James II & VII, Mary's father and William's uncle and father-in-law, who was "deemed to have fled" the country. Parliament offered William and Mary a co-regency. They signed the English Bill Of Rights, which stop many conflicts between the crown and parliament and the end of the idea that England would be restored to Roman Catholicism, King William being a Protestant leader.
source 2 is different to sources 1 and 3 as it backs up the idea that Scotland was a threat to henry’s ambitions. it shows that England was able to deal with this threat effectively in source 1 we learn that henry was unable to raise a head tax in the northern counties in 1513, and that he did not deal with the counties to pay as of fear of rebellion. not only would the failure to raise money jeopardise henry’s aims and ambitions in France, his ability to wage war in France was also threatened by the prospect that James VI might take advantage of the rebellion in the north to invade, therefore henry had to “strive” to keep his subjects loyal, “supisious” says Vergil of James’s intentions. Vergil writes about the instability of henry’s rule in the north and the strength of the Scottish
On the contrary, the marriage would safeguard England as any heir Mary and Philip may have produced would have inherited the Netherlands and England. This could potentially become a secure and substantial empire; therefore at this point in time, Spain was an ally to England. However, Spain was soon to become much less of an ally to England, demonstrated by Philip’s actions soon after their marriage. He only visited England in 1556, when he wanted England to join Spain in war with France in 1557. Spain had already defeated France when England captured St Quentin and the war soon led to England losing its last foothold in Europe - Calais.
By withholding exports of cotton to Europe, the South was hoping to pressure European nations into supporting their cause.1 This idea backfired for many reasons, one of which was that, even though prices soared, Europe had a surplus of cotton for its textile mills because of the bumper crops of the late 1850s. The tactic of withholding cotton to European nations, most importantly England, was doomed to fail as there was no way this powerful nation was going to give into what amounted to economic blackmail. England found alternative ways to supplement their cotton needs through India and Egypt. Even with the cotton shortage at its worst in England in 1862, when workers in the textile mills were suffering,
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.
This is referring to Henry’s absence from England due to him going into battle with France. They wanted to make sure any problems were sorted out to prevent going to battle in the king’s absence. Most of the nobles and the best of the army would be at the battle in France with Henry, and England’s leadership wouldn’t be as strong due to regents taking the place of Henry whilst he was away, so England may not have been able to handle a battle in these circumstances, which would have in turn threatened Henry’s ambitions in France as sorting out England would be more important than going to battle with France. The counties that had refused to pay the tax were near the border with Scotland. This meant that if there was ever an uprising against the King there, Scotland could take the opportunity to get her foot in the door and attempt to seize land.
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.
William also had to be sure that Scotland did not become a problem during his war with France, and so agreed to a Presbyterian settlement of the Scottish Church in 1690, in return, the Scottish parliament agreed to fund 28 months of William's war against the French. Now, the Scottish parliament had to decide whether to accept William and his wife Mary as their new King and Queen. Protestants had become concerned about James VII and II because both he and his wife were Roman Catholics. On April 11th 1689, the Scottish parliament produced the Claim of Right, which offered the crown to William and Mary on the condition
Margaret of Burgundy was the sister of Henry’s Yorkist predecessors, Edward IV and Richard III, and as such she wished for a return of Yorkist rule to England. She supported the Simnel and Warbeck rebellions, going as far as to harbour Warbeck at Flanders. Rather than declare war on Burgundy, Henry imposed economic sanctions on Burgundy in 1493 wherein no trade would take place between England and Burgundy, which was economically damaging to both, but Henry needed to ensure his security. In 1496 the Magnus Intercursus was signed between the two countries, stating that, amongst other things, trade would resume between them (though this will tilted in Henry’s favour so much that the native Burgundians called it “Mallus Intercursus”) and that they would not harbour enemies of each other respectively, meaning that people such as the De La Poles and Warbeck. Though initially this was an economic failure because of the three years of