Arguably James' foreign policy was wiser that the foreign policies favoured by both Parliament an Charles. However James pacivity caused many tensions, that became intransigent in Charles relationship with Parliament making military intervention necessary. However the failure of La Rochelle, Cadiz and continental commitments emphasises that overall James' foreign policy was wiser.Up until the outbreak of the thirty years war James mediation and want to establish himself as "rex pacificus" can be seen to be wiser than the foreign policies of his contemporises. The calling for peace with Spain through the 1604 Treaty of London allowed fro a great trade expansion that increased Britain's ...view middle of the document...
Similarly it could be argued that James allowance of Arminianism to rise allowed it to become a religious grievance of Charles's reign that shaped the apathy of parliament as they were more interested in resolving domestic grievances. This high lights that James foreign policy was wiser to only a limited extent.Conversely, the naval war revered by Parliament was highly naive. Parliament was largely unaware of the dilapidated state of the navy caused by the squandering of naval funds through James extravagance and entrenched corruption. Their impeachment of Cranfield to remove what they associated to be the main point of opposition to action, ironically contributed to the rise of Buckingham, who they respectively perceived to represent everything that was wrong with the Jacobean court. It was the influence of Buckingham who shaped the ill-conceived foreign polices of Charles' reign. Therefore parliaments methods of encroaching on foreign policy can be viewed to be far less wise than James.The narrowed and more formalised Carolean Court when compared ot that of James, coupled with Buckingham's block over the pathways of communication between Charles and Parliament can be identified as a significant factor in the shaping of Charles unwise foreign policy. It caused ideas between the entities to be misconceived. For example, parliament was largely unaware if the huge sums of money need by Charles for foreign commitments. As the privy councillors could offer little insight in 1625 Westminster session, two subsidies were given, when a more realistic 10 subsidies would have been needed to successfully finance Charles' envisaged war. This eroded parliamentary relationships as Charles had to exploit other means of financing the war. Such as the forced loan and ship money. This encroached greatly on...
