Hello everyone and welcome to the History of England episode 294, Alarms and Excursions.

Before I start, let me remind you that I remain a proud member of the Agora Podcast

Network. If you have not mentioned for a while, so about time I did. You can find a smorgasbord

of excellent podcasts at agorapodcastnetwork.com. Now, I am very pleased to announce that we've

just been joined by Sam Hume, who you may remember, because he's done a guest episode here

in this very parish. He has two podcasts. There's Pax Britannica, a history of the British

Empire, and a history of witchcraft, which is, well I'm going to leave you to guess what

it's about. Both of them are fab, so check them out. You might find it best to go straight

to Pax Britannica.info or just search for Pax Britannica on your local podcast show.

This week, let us turn away from all that court and marriage stuff we've been messing

about at and return to serious, hard history to foreign policy. Now, I sense outrage.

Policy, I hear you roar. Policy! But you yourself have poured scorn on the very idea of

policies in the Tudor era, Crowther. We have heard a guest episode from Zach Trumbly,

pooping the very idea in Henry VIII's reign. So, now what? Policy. What is this? The

rise of the Great Powers, balance of power theory, or what? Well, maybe you're not as

argumentative as that, but it would be fair comment. We are still not in the era, I suppose,

of formal bureaucracies leading discussions of policy towards various different countries.

And yet there was a policy to Elizabethan foreign affairs, or at least a test set of assumptions

and values that drove it. It is true to say that Elizabeth rarely sends armies marching

around, and so there's a general absence of clear decisions, you might say, but as

getting in the boys carefully explained in free will, if you choose not to decide, you

still have made a choice. So, if there was some sort of policy in Elizabeth's international

...