Why was Henry's foreign policy in the 1520s less successful than it had been before?

After a relatively "successful", if unimpressive, first ten years of foreign policy, Henry faced
a much less satisfying period of European relations during the 1520s, stemming mostly from
the changing climate of Europe at the time, in which Henry and England were made obsolete
by the emerging Habsburg-Valois rivalry, but also the fact that Henry was extremely over-
ambitious in his policies considering the size and relative weakness of England. The
combination of Henry's isolation from European affairs and the fact that his attempts to raise
tax were ultimately unpopular failures meant that he had no way to impose himself upon
Europe, and when he did manage to scrape together the finances needed for a strong foreign
policy his reliance on his allies led to disaster. Ultimately it was the rise of Charles V that led
to Henry's lack of success in foreign policy, as not only did his strength in Europe blot out
any need for Henry on the European stage, but his influence throughout the continent
eventually led to the failure of Henry's foreign policy when he changed his main priority, to
divorce Charles' aunt Catherine. Indeed even his "successful" policies of the 1510s can be
picked apart upon closer inspection, as although they achieved Henry's initial aims, they
achieved less than Henry's propaganda would claim and in truth had little lasting impact. 

Henry's take on foreign policy was vastly different to that of his father's, as he tried to fit the
image of the "renaissance prince" from a fairly weak position. As a result his foreign policy
was often unsuccessful, especially in the 1520s, as his situation and resources had changed
vastly; his main problem was that deaths amongst the major European powers had led to a far
less complicated situation than before, with more concentrated in the hands of fewer leaders,
meaning his alliance was not really needed. The two main powers came in the forms of
Charles V, the most powerful man in Europe, who had first inherited Austria, then Spain and
then the Holy Roman Empire in 1519, as well as Burgundy, Naples and the Netherlands, and
Francis I, who had inherited the French throne. It was between the two families of these
major powers that the most intense rivalry of the period started; that of the Habsburgs and
Valois. This rivalry started in around 1521 with the Italian Wars and would dominate
European affairs throughout the 1520s, effectively sidelining Henry for most of the time. This
emergence of the unequal spread of European power caused Henry a major problem when he
changed his priority in foreign policy from seeking honour and glory in warfare to searching
desperately for a divorce from his wife Catherine of Aragon, who was now infertile. After
Charles had won the battle of Pavia in 1525 and captured Francis, Henry appealed to Charles
to let him have the French crown and create an alliance against Francis however Charles
refused both requests, as with his new power he had no need for Henry. So after having
originally sided with Charles in his attempts to repeat his original “successes” against the
French, Henry supervised a diplomatic revolution or “volte-face”, in response to the current
European situation, in which England made peace with France, in the Treaty of More, and
helped to finance the League of Cognac, which strove to remove Charles from Italy and was
made up of France, the Papacy, Venice, Milan and Florence, in an attempt to reduce the
power of Charles and re-establish European peace. However the League was unsuccessful, as
by 1527, exactly the same year Henry began divorce proceedings, Charles’ troops had sacked
Rome, so Pope Clement was effectively living as an Imperial prisoner. Just two years later,
1529, Charles’ victory in the battle of Landriano served as Francis’ decisive defeat in Italy,
and the Treaty of Barcelona effectively removed Francis from the war, leaving Charles in
total control of the Italian peninsula. Having supported Charles’ enemies, Henry was left
completely isolated from European affairs and was also left frustrated in his divorce; as
Catherine’s nephew Charles would obviously disapprove of the annulment that Henry sought
from his aunt, and following his recent victories in Italy, he now controlled the one man that
could give Henry the approval he needed, Pope Clement. Thus Henry was unable to gain
backing from the Pope to get his marriage annulled and was unsuccessful in his main foreign
policy priority, as the European climate had changed, and Henry had backed the wrong
power.

Henry failed in his aims initially in the 1520s because he was overly-ambitious with the
resources he had, as his finances did not warrant the aggressive foreign policy he had
previously pursued. When he tried to raise money to invade France in 1525 after the battle of
Pavia using the Amicable Grant, no one responded to his call for taxes, and his efforts led to
widespread revolts in England, most notably in East Anglia.  Even when Henry did manage
to raise the funds needed to pursue his idea of "glorious foreign policy", he was too reliant on
his allies in Europe, who often proved to be fickle or simply incapable. This is best shown by
the 2nd French War, Henry's disastrous attempt to invade France during the years of 1522 to
1525 as part of the Grand Enterprise. Following the Treaty of Bruges in 1521 in which
Charles agreed to attack France with England, Henry decided to try to recreate his original
success in France, firstly with a small unsuccessful campaign under the Earl of Surrey in
1522 that entailed just two failed sieges and aimless raiding, and secondly with a much larger
campaign led by the Duke of Suffolk in 1523. The war cost England £400,000, a huge
amount of money for the time, and achieved nothing, as Henry relied too much on his allies,
Charles and the Duke of Bourbon, who were supposed to help Henry attack France in a three-
pronged invasion. Unfortunately, the Duke of Bourbon's revolt failed to gain momentum and
Charles instead decided to capitalise on a chance to take Navarre. It was because Henry had
wasted so much money for so little gain that he was unable to raise any more taxes using the
Amicable Grant, as the population was tired of giving money for useless warfare.

Even if the earlier part of his reign was considered to have had more success than his reign in
the 1520s, it is not to say that it was conventionally successful in terms of foreign policy, but
that his foreign policy initially achieved Henry’s primary objectives: in terms of achieving
honour, glory and imperial expansion, it was the first French War that seems to have been
most successful, at least in Henry’s eyes. The war did gain honour and glory for Henry, as
well as briefly putting him at the forefront of European affairs and gaining a marriage
alliance, through Mary to Louis, and a pension as a payment from France. However very little
happened in military terms, as only two French citadels were besieged and the only “pitched
battle” – the Battle of the Spurs – had originally been referred to as a minor skirmish against
a small French cavalry force by Henry, the importance of which he overemphasised in an
attempt to highlight the significance of the war. His attempt to gain equal footing with other
European monarchs was largely successful in the early part of his reign, but mostly through
appearing to be a peacemaker of Europe, rather than a leader of a considerably powerful
nation. Good examples of this come in the form of the Treaty of London, probably Henry’s
most successful piece of foreign policy, and the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The Treaty of
London was of Wolsey’s design and although it had little lasting impact and Wolsey and
Henry had different aims from the treaty (Wolsey wanted peace to avoid the agitation
associated with the cost of war and Henry wanted to appear as an equal mediator between the
European powers) it was very successful in terms of putting Henry on equal standing with his
European continental counterparts, as it made him seem like a type of peacemaker with the
interests of Christianity in mind, (as it was a non-aggression pact between the European
powers so as to counter the spread of the Muslim Ottoman Empire) with power out of all
proportion of the size and wealth of his kingdom. Similarly the Field of the Cloth of Gold in
1520 allowed Henry to be compared with Francis and although the meeting had little lasting
effect (it was designed to improve Anglo-French relations after the truce of 1514, but by 1522
Henry had declared war once again) the splendour of it helped to give Henry glory and
recognition on the European stage. Indeed it can be argued that all his achievements in his
early foreign policy were, to quote the historian Guy, like a “cardboard castle” – seemingly
glorious but limited in substance and built on weak foundations.

Henry’s consistent aims of glory, honour and equality with other European monarchs were
always overly ambitious given the size and wealth of England at the time, as its population
was just a seventh of the size of France’s and France’s crown revenue was £650,000 more
each year than England’s. The only reason that Henry was less successful in his foreign
policy in the 1520s than in the 1510s is because the state of Europe during the 1520s, the
uneven spread of power amongst the leaders, hindered Henry from punching above
England’s weight in European diplomacy, whereas on the 1510s the situation had been more
complex, allowing Henry to appear as a mediator of European affairs.