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==Foreign policy== François, Duke of Anjou, by Nicholas Hilliard. Elizabeth called the duke her "frog", finding him "not so deformed" as she had been led to expect.[68]Apart from the Dudley affair, Elizabeth treated the marriage issue as an aspect of foreign policy.[69] Though she turned down Philip II's own offer in 1559, she negotiated for several years to marry his cousin Archduke Charles of Austria. However, relations with the Habsburgs deteriorated by 1568. Elizabeth then considered marriage to two French Valois princes in turn, first Henri, Duke of Anjou, and later, from 1572 to 1581, his brother François, Duke of Anjou.[70] This last proposal was tied to a planned alliance against Spanish control of the Southern Netherlands.[71] Elizabeth seems to have taken the courtship seriously for a time, and wore a frog-shaped earring that Anjou had sent her.[72] Elizabeth's foreign policy was largely defensive. The exception was the disastrous occupation of Le Havre from October 1562 to June 1563, when Elizabeth's Huguenot allies joined with the Catholics to retake the port. Elizabeth had intended to exchange Le Havre for Calais, retaken by France in January 1558.[73] She sent troops into Scotland in 1560 to prevent the French using it as a base.[74] In 1585, she signed the Treaty of Nonsuch with the Dutch to block the Spanish threat to England.[75] Only through the activities of her fleets did Elizabeth pursue an aggressive policy. This paid off in the war against Spain, 80% of which was fought at sea.[76] She knighted Francis Drake after his circumnavigation of the globe from 1577 to 1580, and he won fame for his raids on Spanish ports and fleets. Her reign also saw the first colonisation or "planting" of new land in North America; and the colony of Virginia was named for her. In truth, however, an element of piracy and self-enrichment drove Elizabethan seafarers, over which the queen had little control.[77][78]
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