Unit Summary Part 4

Spain was able to explore and spread it's boundaries much earlier than Britain and France because of 1) the political and religious disunity and 2) their recovery and heavy investment in the Hundred Years War. Britain could not achieve religious unity largely because of it's fickle monarchs (including but not limited to Louis XIV). As new reigns began and ended, religious policy changed and subjects of the throne were expected to follow accordingly. This split massive rifts in the regions of the scepter'd isle. England had trouble uniforming it's subjects into a single faith. The hostility between Protestant (various sects) and Catholic sparked widespread violence in the country. Then once all of England could agree on Protestantism, they had to fight with their subjects of another nation, the Irish Catholics. The drain on the resources of Great Britain largely inhibited the resource that would be needed to explore and colonize new lands. France had much the same problem within its own borders, Catholicism not satisfactory for all of the subjects.
Religion was an internal inhibitor for the two countries but their previous conflict, the Hundred Years War was just as much a drain to the disposable resources. Lasting 116 years (more than three generations in that time) the war dragged England and France into poverty. The last battle was not staged until 1453. It was won by France but as military victories go it was not glory and prosperity to follow. The poverty of both countries continued and they certainly could not produce enough to execute a Trans-Atlantic exploration in the 39 years remaining before Columbus landed. These two causes kept Great Britain and France from exploring and colonizing before Spain.