Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520): Henry VIII Meets Francis I

The Field of the Cloth of Gold was a meeting between King Henry VIII of England and King Francis I of France held from 7 to 24 June 1520 in a valley between Guînes and Ardres, near English-held Calais. Planned by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey to seal a new era of peace, it became one of the most extravagant royal events of the Renaissance, with temporary palaces, gilded tents, tournaments and feasts. Its name has become a byword for splendour, but the friendship it celebrated lasted barely a year.

Background: Wolsey’s universal peace

For centuries England and France had been rivals and frequent enemies. Henry VIII himself had invaded France in 1513, while the young Francis I made his name by winning the Battle of Marignano in 1515 and taking Milan.

Cardinal Wolsey, Henry’s chief minister, sought to make England the arbiter of Europe. In October 1518 he brought the major powers into the Treaty of London, a pact of non-aggression intended to unite Christian rulers against the Ottoman Turks. A separate Anglo-French treaty returned Tournai to France and arranged that Henry’s daughter Mary would marry the infant French dauphin. A personal meeting between the two kings was agreed as a symbol of the new friendship.

The situation changed in 1519, when Charles of Habsburg, already King of Spain, was elected emperor over Francis I. Both Charles and Francis now courted England. Before crossing to France, Henry met Charles at Canterbury in late May 1520, a reminder that he was keeping his options open.

Preparations

Both sides spent months preparing. Thousands of workers built a temporary palace for Henry outside the walls of Guînes. It stood on brick foundations, but its upper walls were made of timber and canvas painted to look like stone, and it had large glass windows. The building covered roughly 10,000 square metres and included a chapel, great chambers and a banqueting hall. Outside stood a fountain that ran with wine, decorated with a figure of Bacchus.

The English company was enormous. Henry and Queen Catherine of Aragon were attended by more than 5,000 people, including nobles, bishops, servants and soldiers, and by thousands of horses. Francis and Queen Claude brought a court of similar size and pitched hundreds of tents near Ardres, many covered in cloth of gold, an expensive fabric woven with silk and gold thread. The rules of the meeting tried to ensure that neither side appeared superior; the two kings’ camps were placed at equal distances from the meeting ground.

Between the two camps a large tiltyard was laid out for the tournaments, with galleries for spectators and the queens. At its entrance stood an artificial Tree of Honour, on which the hawthorn of Henry and the raspberry of Francis were intertwined, and from which the shields of the knights taking part were hung. Every detail, from the height of the stands to the order of processions, was negotiated in advance by officials from both courts.

What happened

On 7 June 1520, the feast of Corpus Christi, the two kings rode out from their camps at a signal and met in the valley. They embraced on horseback, dismounted, embraced again and went into a tent to talk. The valley was later named the Val d’Or, the Golden Valley.

From 11 June the main business was a series of tournaments. Henry and Francis took part in jousting, though not against each other, together with other combats on foot and on horseback. Bad weather and high winds interrupted events, and the French tents suffered damage. The queens exchanged visits, and each king dined with the other’s queen.

The most famous anecdote comes from the memoirs of Robert de la Marck, lord of Fleuranges, who was present. He wrote that Henry challenged Francis to wrestle and that Francis threw him to the ground. English sources do not mention it. On another occasion Francis is said to have arrived at Henry’s lodgings early in the morning with only a few companions, as a gesture of trust.

On 23 June Wolsey celebrated a solemn Mass in a chapel built beside the tournament ground. During the service a large firework or kite in the shape of a dragon or salamander, the emblem of Francis I, was seen flying over the camp. The kings parted on 24 June.

Key people

• Henry VIII (1491–1547): aged 28, keen to present himself as a great Renaissance monarch equal to Francis.
• Francis I (1494–1547): aged 25, the victor of Marignano, eager for English support against Charles V.
• Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (c. 1473–1530): the organiser, whose diplomacy aimed at a European peace led by England.
• Catherine of Aragon: Henry’s queen, aunt of Charles V, who was reported to be uneasy about the French alliance.

Consequences: splendour without results

The meeting produced little of substance. It confirmed the agreements of 1518, including the projected marriage of Mary and the dauphin, but no new alliance was made. Immediately afterwards, on 10 to 14 July 1520, Henry met Charles V again at Gravelines and Calais.

In August 1521 Wolsey concluded the secret Treaty of Bruges with Charles, and in 1522 England declared war on France. The marriage plan between Mary and the dauphin was abandoned. When Francis was defeated and captured by imperial forces at the Battle of Pavia in 1525, Henry briefly dreamed of claiming the French crown, but England lacked the money for another major war.

The cost of the meeting was enormous for both crowns, and some English nobles complained of the debts they took on to dress and equip themselves. Wolsey’s critics later pointed to the event as an example of costly show over substance, a theme in the story of his eventual fall from power.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Henry and Francis jousted against each other. Fact: The two kings fought as fellow challengers, leading teams against all comers, so that neither could be humiliated by the other in the lists.
• Myth: Both courts lived in golden tents in a single field. Fact: Henry lodged in his temporary palace and in the castle of Guînes, and Francis’s court was based at Ardres; the valley and the tiltyard between them were the meeting places.
• Myth: The meeting was empty vanity with no political purpose. Fact: It was carefully planned diplomacy linked to the Treaty of London of 1518, though its political results proved short-lived.

Legacy

The Field of the Cloth of Gold is one of the best-recorded court events of the sixteenth century, described in letters, chronicles and accounts. A large painting made around 1545, now in the Royal Collection at Hampton Court Palace, shows Henry’s procession, the temporary palace, the wine fountain and the dragon in the sky, compressing several days into one scene.

Historians today often see the meeting less as a failure than as a demonstration of how Renaissance monarchs used display to communicate power and status. It also marked the high point of Wolsey’s ambition to make England the peacemaker of Europe.

Timeline

• 1518, 2 October: The Treaty of London is concluded.
• 1519, 28 June: Charles of Habsburg is elected emperor.
• 1520, late May: Henry VIII meets Charles V in England.
• 1520, 7 June: Henry and Francis meet in the Val d’Or.
• 1520, 11 June: The tournaments begin.
• 1520, 23 June: Wolsey celebrates Mass before both courts.
• 1520, 24 June: The kings take leave of each other.
• 1520, 10–14 July: Henry meets Charles V at Gravelines and Calais.
• 1521, 25 August: Wolsey agrees the Treaty of Bruges with Charles V.

Why it matters

The Field of the Cloth of Gold showed how much Renaissance rulers invested in spectacle as a tool of diplomacy. Its quick failure revealed the limits of display when set against the real rivalry between France and the Habsburgs, which dominated European politics for decades.