SE Academic Review 2023

71 ACADEMIC REVIEW 2023

2. From usurpation to invasion: Richard’s foreign policy from 1483 Richard came to the throne hoping to maintain political peace in England, while looking to revive the spirit of the Hundred Years War by military means at a later date. By his death less than three years later, he had failed in his attempts at diplomatic coalitions, united enemies against him from north and south, and failed to marshal enough domestic loyalty to put off a foreign-backed invasion, aided in monetary and military terms by the country’s greatest enemy. It is with this damning reality in mind that Richard’s foreign policy must be seen. Many historians have highlighted the dire nature of the situation he faced upon ascending the throne in 1483, but few have ever tried to present his overall strategy - diplomatic, political, military - as anything but an abject failure. Richard’s foreign policy had three aims - to eliminate Henry Tudor, establish diplomatic and military support for a coalition against France, and to prevent the usual encirclement of England by enemies north and south in the form of the Auld Alliance. In all three he failed. These three aims were materially distinct from the Hundred Years War, but they were products of the context which that conflict had defined, and Richard’s mindset in approaching foreign policy can be seen as a clear result of the same. Having come to power with the intention of resurrecting foreign warfare, Richard was defeated on English soil by an army led by his greatest foe, paid for by France, helped by the Scottish, and backed by the dissident Welsh (Griffiths, 1986, pp. 197-199). An essential fact of medieval kingship is the necessity of foreign warfare. The nobility, even during the Wars of the Roses, saw that it had much to gain in wealth, land and glory from exploits abroad. As Alexander Grant puts it, ‘for late mediaeval English kings good relations with the political community depended on victorious foreign warfare’, and by taking the hearty pension of the French at Picquigny in 1475, Edward IV ‘did not channel the English nobility’s aggressive instincts into foreign warfare’ (Grant, 1993, pp. 113-114). Richard, if given the chance, certainly intended to do so. He was thereby acting fully within the mindset of English kings of the last two hundred years: focusing on the growth of English territory beyond Calais in France (with the claim to the throne still standing), and the retaking of land lost in Scotland.

With regards to France, English policy was based on a simple choice: between hostility and neutrality. This had been the enduring binary decision that had dogged both countries’ fortunes for two centuries, and it was the same one which faced Richard when he came to power. Louis XI was seen as expansionist, and a king firmly moulded in the school of hostility towards the English of the Hundred Years War. Despite simmering divisions which played into the ‘Mad War’ of the later 1480s, France was stronger militarily and politically than England, and the Auld Alliance with Scotland was ripe for rejuvenation. Edward left a conflict in the north, having pursued the recapture of Berwick and entry into Edinburgh in 1482 (Ross, 1988, p. 191). Though no immediate action was taken by Richard to incite these nascent conflicts, his ‘foreign image’ suggested that he was ready to do so once his tenuous hold on power was consolidated. It can be seen, however, that it was in Brittany that Richard made his first foreign policy misjudgement. Rather than clearly deciding to support the nearest mutual foe of France, Richard tacitly backed the increase in piracy against Breton ships in the English Channel which occured after Henry Tudor’s first invasion attempt in 1483. Richard had noticed the increasing concentration of English dissidents in Brittany, circling around Tudor. Taking possession of the Spanish ship La Garcia showed the clear intent of the English to make their message clear to the Bretons (Ross, 1988, p. 197). Yet the plan failed, and by 1484 Richard had to resort to ‘diplomatic inducement’ to persuade the Bretons to drop their support for Tudor. Having been busy waging naval warfare against the Bretons, Richard’s sudden turn towards negotiation did not bode well for a productive relationship. One of the lessons of the Hundred Years War was the importance of exploiting an enemy’s internal divisions; Richard’s failure to create any such fruitful relationship with Brittany was to have dire consequences when the real foe, France, took the initiative.