Home
The First Two Stuarts and their Foreign Policy
The First Two Stuarts and their Foreign Policy; Part 7
|
The First Two Stuarts and their Foreign Policy; Part 7
It must be confessed that England's foreign policy during the first half of the seventeenth century was both inglorious and ineffective. Many explanations may be offered. There was no standing army, and consequently no force behind English diplomacy; and if England went to war, her hastily trained levies had little chance against more experienced soldiers. Parliament again, though keen for war, did not, as a matter of fact, provide either James or Charles with sufficient money to wage it effectively—though in the case of Charles it was, as we shall see, largely his own fault for not explaining what he intended to do. Moreover, ill fortune attended the English efforts. But the chief cause of the futility of English policy lay in the characters of James and Charles; the indecisive and timid policy of the one and the tortuous and contradictory policy of the other could only result in failure. Nor must we forget that England's failure enabled France, by becoming the ally of the German Protestants, to establish a predominance which was before the end of the cenÂtury to threaten the independence of nearly every other country in Europe.
|
Chronology
|