Abstract
For the sixteenth-century, as for the medieval, sovereign, the making of foreign policy was unquestionably part of the royal prerogative. It was not susceptible to routine political controls or to popular participation. The relations between states were, strictly speaking, the relations between dynastic rulers. On the other hand, like other domains of governance, it was subject to the loose convention that the ruler act by taking the good counsel of his advisers, although a ruler with sense was able to recognise the difference between the possible and the desirable. The conduct of diplomacy and the waging of war were inseparable, the risks taken in foreign relations high and the cost of war was a fact bound to involve interests wider than those of the court and the aristocracy. These basic propositions generate most of the debate that has developed about the nature of Henry VIII’s conduct of his relations with foreign powers, notably over the extent of the king’s actual control of his own policy. No ruler in Henry’s position could possibly manage his foreign relations alone; he was bound to take advice and it is in the nature of that advice and the extent to which the king could be manipulated that some of the main problems lie. Henry was particularly preoccupied by foreign policy and, judging by the periods of well-documented exchanges with ministers, took more interest in war and diplomacy than in most other areas.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
The most essential sources for Henrician foreign policy in the state papers at the PRO, BL and other collections are to be found variably summarised in LP, though these must sometimes be treated with caution over dating. Many, though not all, of the most important documents were published in extenso in a slightly earlier compilation, StP. In particular, some of the important exchanges between the king and his chief ministers, notably Cardinal Wolsey, are to be found in vol. I of StP and the correspondence with ambassadors in part V (vols VI-XII), foreign correspondence. LP also calendars a wide variety of correspondence between foreign ambassadors in England and their home governments from the early 1520s onwards. Much of this material was published separately as CSPSp (dealing with Habsburg documents from a number of different archives). French ambassadors’ reports are calendared for the most part in LP but three main French publications are important: Ambassades en Angleterre de Jean du Bellay, ed. V.L. Bourrilly and P. de Vaissi ère (Paris: Picard, 1905) followed by La correspondance du cardinal Jean du Bellay, ed. R. Scheurer, Soci ét é de l’Histoire de France, 2 vols so far (Paris: Klincksieck, 1969–74) and the Correspondance politique de MM. de Castillon et de Marillac, ed. J. Kaulek (Paris, 1885).
It was Sir John Seeley in The Growth of British Policy (2 vols, Cambridge UP, 1897) who emphasised the importance of what he called the ‘British problem’ in English diplomacy of the sixteenth century, the idea that England should ‘close the back door’ to foreign powers by assuring its dominance of Scotland. Both A.F. Pollard in Henry VIII (London: Longmans, 1902, 1925)
and R.B. Wernham in Before the Armada: The Growth of English Policy, 1485–1588 (London, 1961) pursued this idea that Henry VIII consciously, especially in his later years, sought in this policy the counterpart to internal consolidation. Wernham went on to argue that the reign of Henry VIII, in showing the final failure of English territorial ambitions in Europe, opened a new era of ‘oceanic strategies’ for England in the Elizabethan era. This was the same tradition in which P.S. Crowson produced the disappointing Tudor Foreign Policy (London: Black, 1973) a book too overshadowed by English experiences in the twentieth century and containing maps of a remarkable inexactitude. More recent historians of the Henrician period, led by Sir Geoffrey Elton in his incisive critique of Wernham’s book, have been increasingly reluctant to accept the reality of such grand strategies. Old nostrums, however, linger on.
Much recent interest has concentrated on the shaping of foreign policy by the king and his councillors. For foreign policy, the wider debate initiated in the different interpretations of the king’s role in G.R. Elton, Henry VIII (London: Routledge, 1962)
and J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (London: Eyre 8c Spottiswoode, 1968)
and reviewed by Elton in ‘King of Hearts’, Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government (4 vols, Cambridge UP, 1974–92) pp. 100-8 is important. It is continued by D. Starkey, The Reign of Henry VIII: Politics and Personalities (London: George Philip, 1985).
All these are of importance for the near-impossible task of assessing the degree to which Henry VIII shaped policy. A.F. Pollard, Cardinal Wolsey (London: Longmans, 1929)
advanced the theory that Wolsey’s personal ambition shackled English policy to the Papal See, a view effectively demolished in D.S. Chambers, ‘Cardinal Wolsey and the Papal Tiara’, BIHR, 28 (1965). More recently P. Gwyn, The King’s Cardinal. The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1990) has provided a sustained argument for the view that Wolsey’s chief preoccupation was to serve the king and maintain his honour. Ultimately, the strings lay in the king’s hands.
Gwyn’s views are largely shared by G. Bernard, War, Taxation and Rebellion in Early Tudor England: Henry VIII, Wolsey and the Amicable Grant of 1525 (Brighton: Harvester, 1986)
one of the best recent studies of English foreign policy in the early 1520s. The importance of the king’s honour in Wolsey’s calculations is also stressed by the work of S J. Gunn on the subject, notably his ‘Wolsey’s foreign policy and the Domestic Crisis of 1527–8’ in S.J. Gunn and P. Lindley (eds), Cardinal Wolsey, Church, State and Art (Cambridge: CUP, 1991) one of the most richly documented and incisive studies of policy in the late 1520s. In comparison, the 1530s and the policies of Thomas Cromwell in foreign affairs have not attracted much attention despite the great work of Sir Geoffrey Elton, although there is now R. McEntegart, ‘England and the League of Schmalkalden 1531–1547: faction, foreign policy and the English Reformation’, London School of Economics PhD thesis, 1992. On the 1540s, there is as yet only D. Potter, ‘Diplomacy in the Mid-Sixteenth Century: England and France 1536–1550’, Cambridge PhD thesis, 1973.
On warfare in the period, S.J. Gunn, ‘The French Wars of Henry VIII’ in J. Black (ed.), The Origins of War in Early Modern Europe (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1987)
provides a useful overview and the campaigns of the early years are covered in G. Cruickshank, Army Royal. Henry VIII’s Invasion of France in 1513 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969)
and The English Occupation of Tournai, 1513–19 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971). Military organisation is covered by two important theses: C.S.L. Davies, ‘Supply Services of the English Armed Forces, 1509–50’ (Oxford: OUP, 1963)
and J. Goring, ‘The Military Obligations of the English People, 1511–58’ (London, 1955). Some aspects of dealings with mercenaries are covered in J.G. Millar, Tudor Mercenaries and Auxiliaries, 1485–1547 (Charlottesville: Virginia UP, 1980).
The 1523 campaign is meticulously handled in SJ. Gunn, ‘The Duke of Suffolk’s March on Paris’, EHR, 101 (1986) 496–558
and the 1544 campaign newly discussed by L. Macmahon, ‘The English Invasion of France, 1544’, MA thesis, Warwick, 1992. Calais and its problems are examined in P. Morgan, ‘The Government of Calais, 1485–1558’, Oxford, DPhil thesis, 1966. On the navy, D. Loades, The Tudor Navy. An Administrative, Political and Military History (Aldershot: Scolar, 1992), while pointing out the continuities with Henry VII’s navy, brings out the remarkable expansion in the first half of the reign of Henry VIII.
Studies of a more specialist kind that throw light on particular periods may be found in J. Russell, The Field of the Cloth of Gold. Men and Manners in 1520 (London: Routledge, 1969)
and Russell, ‘The Search for Universal Peace: the Conferences of Calais and Bruges in 1521’, BIHR, 44 (1971); P. Gwyn, ‘Wolsey’s Foreign Policy: the Conferences of Calais and Bruges Reconsidered’, HJ, 23 (1980) 755–72.
G. Jacqueton, La politique ext érieure de Louise de Savoie. Relations diplomatiques de la France et de VAngleterre pendant la captivit é de François 1er (1525–6) (Paris: Boullon, 1892) remains essential for the mid-1520s. R. Scheurer, ‘Les relations franco-anglaises pendant la n égociation de la paix des Dames (1528–9)’, in P.M. Smith and I.D. McFarlane (eds), Literature and the Arts in the Reign of Francis I (Lexington, 1985) exploits the du Bellay correspondence of which he is the editor. The role of Anglo-French relations in the divorce problems of Henry VIII was explored by V.-L. Bourrilly, ‘François 1er et Henry VIII: l’intervention de la France dans l’affaire du divorce’, Rev. d’hist. moderne et contemporaine, 1 (1889) 271–84. Involvement in the Baltic region has been explored by K.J.V. Jespersen, ‘Henry VIII of England, Lubeck and the Count’s War, 1533–35’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 8 (1981).
There are many. biographies of English courtiers and diplomats that shed light on the foreign policy of the period, including: S.J. Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988)
W.S. Richardson, Stephen Vaughan, Financial Agent of Henry VIII (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State UP, 1953)
E.F. Rogers (ed.), The Letters of Sir John Hackett, 1526–34 (Morgantown, 1971); G. Redworth, In Defence of the Church Catholic. The Life of Stephen Gardiner (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990)
S.R. Gammon, Statesman and Schemer: William, first Lord Paget (London: David & Charles, 1973)
A.J. Slavin, Politics and Profit. A Study of Sir Ralph Sadler, 1507–47 (Cambridge: CUP, 1966); B. Ficaro, ‘Nicholas Wotton, Dean and Diplomat’, University of Kent, Canterbury, PhD thesis, 1981.
On the practice of diplomacy, the classic interpretation is G. Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy (London: Cape, 1955)
J. Russell, Peacemaking in the Renaissance (London: Duckworth, 1976).
These need to be supplemented by C. Giry Deloison, ‘La naissance de la diplomatie moderne en France et en Angleterre au debut du XVIe si ècle (1475–1520)’, Nouvelle Revue du seizi ème si ècle (1987) and Deloison, ‘Le personnel diplomatique au d ébut du XVIe si ècle’, Journal des Savants (1987). See also, D. Potter, ‘Diplomacy in the Mid-sixteenth Century’ (above) ch. 6; C.B.A. Behrens, ‘The Origins of the Office of English Resident Ambassador at Rome’, EHR, 49 (1934) 640–58.
On England and Scotland there is an overview in D.M. Head, ‘Henry VIII’s Scottish Policy: a Reassessment’, Scottish Historical Review, 61 (1982) 1–24
on the earlier part of the reign, see R.G. Eaves, Henry VIII’s Scottish Diplomacy, 1513–24; English Relations with the Regency Government of James V (New York: Exposition, 1971)
Eaves, Henry VIII and James V’s Regency Government, 1524–28 (London, Lanham: UP of America, 1987).
On the 1540s, M. Merriman, ‘The Assured Scots’, Scottish Historical Review, 47 (1968) 10–34; Merriman, ‘War Propaganda during the Rough Wooing’, Scottish Tradition, IX-X (1979–80); E. Bonner, ‘The First Phase of the Politique of Henri II in Scotland, its Genesis and the Nature of the “Auld Alliance”, 1547–54’, University of Sydney PhD thesis, 1993.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1995 D.L. Potter
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Potter, D. (1995). Foreign Policy. In: MacCulloch, D. (eds) The Reign of Henry VIII. Problems in Focus Series. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24214-6_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24214-6_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-57857-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-24214-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)