Early Elizabethan England 1558-1588: Challenges Abroad

[Music] hi there guys welcome to the history teacher you find me today in 1558 back with Elizabeth on her Ascent to the throne we've been looking at some of the problems she's had when she became Queen so whizzing back out to the continent and to Elizabeth's problems in Europe she's got quite a few problems with different countries okay let's start with our nearest neighbor Scotland so Scotland has been an ally with France for quite some time Mary of geese who was James Fifth's Widow ruled Scotland on behalf of her daughter Mary Queen of Scots who kept French soldiers there who could attack England as you can imagine this didn't really go down very well with the English and it kind of destroyed the relationship between England and Scotland the alliance between France and Scotland was also further strengthened with the marriage of Francis II to Mary Queen of Scots in 1559 really the English have upset the Scots repeatedly and the Scots were also quite upset at the way Henry behaved when he was trying to get his divorce from Rome so really that relationship had been declining for some time so Scotland's Ally France our next nearest neighbor were also a bit of a problem for Elizabeth they're pretty rich in fact much much richer than England as you can guess because we've got so much debt but also they've got a bigger population so they can collect more taxes Mary who had then married Francis II had a good strong claim to the English throne and it's a bit concerning for Elizabeth that supporters of Mary might look to the French to get support for her another problem to do with France is that England's been arguing with France for years and years and years over Cal and under the Treaty of shat shambre England had finally lost Cal to France there was a lot of pressure on Elizabeth to try and claim it back but this would mean war war is really expensive and Elizabeth doesn't want to get into that kind of debt so early on in her Reign also France has ended its own war with Spain which meant that French military resources are no longer being spent on the war with Spain and Spain and France now become allies there is a possibility that France and Spain could unite against England because they're both Catholic countries to unite against the protestantism of England and that would mean absolute catastrophe for England if France and Spain had United England would have been totally demolished Elizabeth would have lost her throne and very likely they would have put Mary Queen of Scots in her place the other big problem of course is that Spain's got troops in the Netherlands because it's part of the Holy Roman Empire Netherlands is really really close to England as is Cal so if France decid to attack from Cal and the Spanish decide to attack from the Netherlands England could be in real trouble not only all of this but of course war is a really expensive business and the crown is in massive amounts of debt England does not want to go to war with anybody at this point because it's going to totally destroy the hard work that Elizabeth is putting into fixing the economy and make England's problems much much worse so how does Elizabeth deal with all of this well she does her usual thing she tries not to upset too many people she Treads really softly at the beginning of her rign she's really trying to keep as many people happy as possible to be as diplomatic as possible she knows that there has been unrest and confusion in the country for decades and she wants all of this to end so she tries to avoid war with France by signing the Peace of Troy in 1564 which basically once and for all says yet Cal belongs to France she deals with Scotland quite simply when Queen of Scots is forced to flee Scotland she puts her in prison and then keeps her in custody in England so she knows exactly where she is and exactly what she's up to also by imprisoning Mary and making peace with France Elizabeth only has one significant threat left and that is of course Spain as we know she then has to go and deal with that in a separate issue okay that's it for today guys thanks very much for watching if you've got any questions or comments please stick them in below if you want to contact me my Twitter and email are in the description see you next time [Music]