How Far Did Henry Viii Achieve His Aims in the Period from 1509-1514?

How Far Did Henry Viii Achieve His Aims in the Period from 1509-1514?

  • Submitted By: sw24th
  • Date Submitted: 11/24/2013 6:29 AM
  • Category: History Other
  • Words: 1093
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How far did Henry VIII achieve his aims in the period from 1509-1514?

Henry VIII was crowned the King in 1509 and as an energetic young man, he had ambitious plans in his mind which he wanted to achieve during his reign, such as to repeat the glory of Henry V and to be different to his father. It was undoubtedly that his reign was one of the most colourful ones in British History, in large part due to Henry’s matrimonial adventures. During the early period of his reign, he launched two large campaigns against France and a significant defeat of the Scots. However, in order to assess his achievement in his aims, we need to understand first what were his aims and what he did to achieve them. This essay will approach to the topic from two sides: his foreign policies and his domestic policies; which at the end will try to reach a reasonable judgment of how successful of Henry VIII in achieving his aims.

Henry VIII who was influenced greatly by his ancestor, Henry V, wanted to repeat England’s glorious history as a proud military country, which the King of England was also crowned the King of France. As a result of that, in Henry VIII’s early reign, he launched two campaigns against France, one in 1512 and the other in 1513. At the early stage, Henry was unable to convince the Parliament to go to war because the advisors such as Bishop Fox still wanted to carry on the old policy to avoid unnecessary costs. Therefore, Henry spent money on building the military strength of England such as buying weapons form the Netherland. These helped to secure trade with the Netherland as she was the major export of English cloth. At the mean time, Henry sought for alliance. Henry was an intelligent man who knew that France had increased greatly in wealth and military since a few generation ago but England, due to years of civil wars, was much more behind France in both military and natural resources. In 1512, a joint attack on France with Spain was established. The plan was to...

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