Foreign Policy and the Parliament of 1576

Abstract

This article brings together scattered, but important, new evidence about foreign policy debates in and around the reconvened parliament of early 1576. It demonstrates that co‐operative parliamentary management did not exclude principled political differences from the Commons, but nor were members of the Commons trying to ‘seize the initiative’ when they initiated foreign policy discussion. The queen and her privy council, for a variety of reasons, had initially sought parliamentary support for a foreign policy guided by religious solidarity rather than dynastic legitimacy, but when they belatedly abandoned this plan they underestimated the strength of the expectations they had raised. Some zealous protestant members of the Commons felt encouraged to believe that parliament would act as the great council of the realm, to be consulted over important matters of state, and especially whether Elizabeth should accept the recently‐offered sovereignty of Holland and Zealand. The retreat from this position began with the arrival of Champagney, envoy of the Spanish viceroy in the Netherlands, Requesens. Champagney exploited the gap between Elizabeth's position and the committed protestants on her council, and especially Burghley's internal debate between his protestant idealism and his economic and strategic realism. Burghley's eventual withdrawal from the proposed arrangement to enlist virulently anti‐catholic Commons' members in support of the ambitious foreign policy bitterly disappointed large sections of popular protestant opinion in the ‘public sphere’, who virulently attacked both Burghley and Elizabeth. This enabled conservatives to mount increasingly effective responses against both radical protestantism and its dangerous propensity for foreign entanglements.

Unreliable Allies in an Uncertain World: Warnings from History in Marlowe’s The Massacre at Paris

“…18 Those against intervention on the side of the Huguenots and Dutch Protestants tended to be moderate, conformist Protestants, such as Archbishop Whitgift, Sir Christopher Hatton, Baron Buckhurst and Lord Cobham. 19 However, Puritan sympathisers, including notably Lord Burghley, Francis Walsingham, the Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Essex, felt that support for Navarre's campaigns was crucial for the defence of England. These sponsors of the godly at home were the most vociferous in their backing of Navarre, and they put considerable pressure on the often reticent Queen to support his forces.…”

How Protestant was the Elizabethan Regime?

“…107 Glyn Parry has recently argued that Hatton and other conservative courtiers and councillors played a key role in steering Elizabeth away from active involvement in the Netherlands in 1576. 108 While much has been made of the sometimes paranoid Protestant belief in a Catholic conspiracy against England, it is thus far from clear that Elizabeth and her more conservative councillors shared that worldview. 109 Even when Elizabeth did enter into war with Spain in 1585, she probably intended only a short-term intervention, and she considered making peace at several points.…”