SE Academic Review 2023

9 . 68 ST EDWARD’S, OXFORD

Richard III and foreign policy: an attempted resurrection of the Hundred Years War? By Patrick Maxwell Rulers of the 15th century quite literally lived and died by their conquests. It was an age when foreign communication was slow and foreign lands largely unknown, but every English king of the century was defined in large part by their foreign exploits.

Introduction

conflict fostered and eagerly speculated upon by the same foreign powers. His foreign policy would therefore be turned towards its rejuvenation. The strategy and sentiments of the Hundred Years War did not therefore disappear after 1453, the Battle of Castillon and the formal end of the War (Webster, 1998). The binary nature of Anglo-French antagonism remained, as did the mutual suspicion of rulers on both sides. What had changed was the comparable military power of England - which was weakened - and the volatility of the monarchy - which was strengthened. The Wars of the Roses were a direct result of Anglo French conflict, and they would be ended by a battle of the same cause, only on a different side of the English Channel.

The first half of the 15th century in England was lived against the background of one conflict: the Hundred Years War, which had ensured Anglo-French antagonism since the 1340s. The defeat of the English in the early 1450s, however, did not put an end to the mindset, rhetoric or motives of rulers on both sides of the English Channel. It can be seen that the main premises of the foreign policies pursued by successive English rulers and on the continent were beset by the same problems in the following decades as they had been during the formal period of the conflict. For Richard III, the Hundred Years War was a humiliating legacy, and its failure had led to the beginning of the Wars of the Roses - an internal