During the next two years of long-distance courting, his clear priority was the overseas option; the question was where to place his marriage in the European diplomatic balance.5 His requirements were unrealistically high; not only did he seek beauty and the prospect of more children, he wanted to kill as many diplomatic birds with one stone as possible, in a situation where the two European dynasties greater and more secure than the Tudors, the Habsburgs and Valois, seemed dangerously close to finding real agreement after years of warfare.
