Continuity and Change in Elizabethan Foriegn Policy - Part 1

The next theme I want to discuss is Elizabethan Foreign Policy and the degree of continuity and of change the policy represents from previous reigns. I will probably cover Power, Rebellion and Control in a later entry.

In 1558, when Elizabeth ascended the throne, her foreign policy reflected the traditional view that France was England's most dangerous enemy. Spain remained a friend, again a fairly traditional view. In 1603, when Elizabeth died, this had seemingly been reversed. Spain was the enemy, and had been for some time whilst France was now a friend. At face value this represents a dramatic change in the traditional foreign policy of her predecessors. But is this really the case.

To investigate this properly we need to go back and touch upon foreign policy of previous reigns. Ever since the Norman conquest of England in 1066, France and England had maintained a closely intertwined and troubled relationship. The Normans, Kings in the own right in England, were also landowners owing fealty to the King of France for their Duchy of Normandy. This led to a delicate relationship. Medieval and feudal society was based largely upon the relationships between a subject and his lord. The lord could call upon his subject to provide services, usually military, in payment for his land and titles. This was true of Kings to their Dukes/Counts/Barons as well as of Dukes/Counts/Barons to their knights and sires. But Kings did not owe allegiance or service to anyone. So at what level did the King of England owe service and fealty to the King of France? In reality he did not as the King of England, but he did as the Duke of Normandy.

Over time, this delicate relationship became more complex as a result of dynastic marriages, to the extent that the Angevin Kings of England (the first Plantagenets) starting with Henry II, owned/controlled more French land than the Kings of France. Relations between the two kingdoms remained strained as the French monarchy slowly clawed back territory from the English monarchy until the issue of fealty and allegiance boiled over into war, the Hundred Years War. The causes of the war are many and varied and I will not cover them here, this is merely an illustration of the troubled relationship between the two countries.

Troubled relations between England and France continued into Elizabeth's reign; her father Henry VIII, went to war against France on more than one occasion. The war with France that Elizabeth had to bring to a close at the start of her reign originated in the reign of her predecessor, Mary, who went to war against France in support of Spain.

Part of the problem with France was the ever present fear of invasion from France. This was complicated by the French friendship with Scotland and therefore the risk of French invasion by the "back door", or at the very least of Scottish interference whenever England was embroiled in war with France, as indeed did happen in 1513. French ambitions in the Low Countries (The Spanish Netherlands) were also a threat; if the French controlled the Netherlands then they would control the whole of the southern shore of the English Channel and therefore have even greater access to suitable invasion force embarkation ports.

The Netherlands also represented a very important trade for England in cloth and wool and this had been the case for several hundred years. A traditional English policy was to remain friends with the rulers of the Netherlands and to use this friendship to offset French ambitions here. In the past this had been the Dukes of Burgundy and this friendship had been used to severely weaken France. By the mid 16th Century, the Duke of Burgundy was also the King of Spain.

At this point a look at the French viewpoint is interesting. For France, the great threat was not England, but a Hapsburg (the rulers of Spain, Austria and the Holy Roman Emperor) encirclement. This seemed to the French a very real threat, given that the Hapsburgs ruled Spain on France's southern border and the Netherlands and Burgundy on France's north-eastern border as well as Austria further to the east. So French policy was frequently aimed at thwarting this encirclement, often by interfering in the Netherlands. This might seem perfectly logical to us looking at events through a 450 year lens, but to the rulers of the time, when information about neighbouring countries and their intentions was sparse if not non-existent, such actions could seem alarmingly hostile.