Henry VIII and Francis I: The Final Conflict, 1540-1547

Review "David Potter's magisterial study [...] chronicles the preparations, both military and diplomatic, and the conduct of the war in meticulous detail over more than 500 pages. [...] The range of sources deployed is deeply impressive [...]. The range of printed material is equally impressive; it is fair to say that scholarship of this depth and breadth is rarely seen in print nowadays. The publishers, Brill, are to be congratulated in supporting such a project and producing a handsome volume. This book [...] is of great service to students of Anglo-French relations and conflict, but it is also vital reading to all those seeking to understand the dynamic forces that shaped European states during the sixteenth century." - David Grummit, University of Kent, in: Renaissance Quarterly 65/4 (Winter 2012), pp. 1322-1234 [DOI: 10.1086/669445]"...Potter remedies the lack of scholarship on the last years of war between Henry VIII and Francis I with a meticulously researched study of the diplomatic, military, and economic aspects of the conflict..." - L. C. Attreed, College of the Holy Cross, in: Choice, February 2012 Product Description The aim of this book is to explore the neglected subject of the final war between France and England at the end of Henry VIIIs and Francis Is reigns. The relationship between these two monarchs has long fascinated historians and serious work has been done in the last generation, especially on the earlier period. Rather less has been done on the end of their reigns. The perspective is a dual one, from both that of England and France, with equal weight given to the reasons for conflict and the effects of war on both (on land and sea, in France and Scotland). For England, the military effort of the period proved to be extremely damaging and long-lasting, while France found itself at war on two fronts for the first time since the early 1520s. The book therefore asks why Henry VIII opted for the imperial alliance in 1542, thus committing himself to war in the long term, and why Francis I and his advisers did not do more to win over the English alliance. The Anglo-French war needs to be placed firmly in the context of the great Habsburg-Valois dual. The Anglo-French wars of this period have not received any serious modern analysis and the study of diplomacy in the period needs to be updated. Maps and plans are included and some illustrations. About the Author David Potter has published extensively on the history of France and on Anglo-French relations in the sixteenth century, including War and Government in the French Provinces: Picardy 1470-1560 (1993), and, more recently, Foreign Intelligence and Information in Elizabethan England: Two English Treatises on the State of France, 1579-84 (2004/5) and Renaissance France at War: Armies, Culture and Society, c.1480-1560 (2008).