ABSTRACT
When one compares England immediately before the Reformation crisis and in Edward III’s later years, the most striking difference which one sees is that it was no longer a Continental power. Apart from a small enclave at Calais, which was to remain in English hands for a further generation, the lands over which Henry VIII ruled were entirely insular. The loss of the old French lands in the second quarter of the fifteenth century had been followed by years of domestic unrest, which had made it impossible to mount any campaign to recover them, and it seems clear that by the time of the Tudors the kings were prepared to accept the loss as irreversible. The most important implication of this transformation into a purely island power for the first time since the eleventh century was that English rulers now could choose whether or not to become involved in Continental affairs, whereas previously a refusal to defend their ancient rights could have led to a serious loss of face with their subjects; a king was expected to defend lands to which he had a title irrespective of the cost, even if his people had little interest in supporting him and were reluctant to give him financial assistance. Henry VII was able to avoid European entanglements in a way that would have been impossible a century earlier, and although Henry VIII and Wolsey did try to play the game of international power politics, they did so more from choice than from necessity.
