sails. All the architectural alterations at Leeds Castle had been made specifically so that several days earlier, on 22 May 1520, on their way to Dover, Henry and Katherine and their entourage of up to 6,000 could stay at the castle overnight. They were en route to the Field of Cloth of Gold.
The Field of Cloth of Gold was a magnificent party without parallel in the Tudor period. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Henry VIII’s astute Lord Chancellor, had arranged this first personal meeting between Henry VIII and the French King, Francis I, to inaugurate the Anglo-French alliance made in 1518 [see C HRISTCHURCH ]. The alliance had been agreed under the international Treaty of Universal Peace, sworn between France, England and the Holy Roman Empire, to enable the European powers to focus their combined resources on resisting the Ottoman Empire.
As England was a puny country by comparison to the great might of France or the Holy Roman Empire, Wolsey had done well to give England such an important role in brokering the peace. Now, England and her King had an opportunity to prove that their peace-making was a choice, not a necessity, through a lavish display of wealth, culture, and sporting and military prowess.
For two and a half weeks, from 7 to 24 June 1520, 12,000 people (equivalent to the population of England’s second largest city at the time, Norwich) gathered in a field between Guînes and Ardres. As England had held Calais since 1347, the meeting technically took place on English soil in northern France.
Every aspect of the meeting was designed to demonstrate magnificence. If the improvements to Leeds Castle were noteworthy, the construction of a temporary palace, made of brick, timber, canvas and glass to house Henry VIII at Guînes was jaw-dropping. The chronicler Edward Hall described it as the ‘most noble and royal lodging … that passed all other sights before seen’. A full 300 feet square, it was covered with such ‘sumptuous work’ that it ‘[il]lumined the eyes of the beholders’. Everyone else, Francis I included, was housed in rich tents made of cloth of gold. Outside the palace, the English even constructed a gilt fountain crested by the figure of the god of wine, Bacchus, for the fountain ran with wine, not water, and one night a ‘flying dragon’ — probably a firework — was seen in the sky.
The company ate and drank their way through prodigious amounts of food and wine. The expenses for food during the whole trip, from 31 May to 16 July, run to many pages. A mere snippet from this shows that the English consumed: 373 oxen; 2,014 sheep; 51 pigs; 82 pheasants; 3,003 quail; 506 geese; 2 peacocks; 92 cygnets; 633 pigeons; 30,700 eggs; 5,500 oranges and at least 122 ‘tuns’ or 40,320 imperial gallons of wine! Over 210 gallons of beer were provided for the consumption of the English king alone.
The Field of Cloth of Gold was above all, though, a tournament. There was jousting every day (except Sundays), archery, wrestling and other feats of arms including combat on foot and horseback. It was designed so that the two kings would never meet directly in combat and both could be extolled as champions. ‘Course after course,’ Edward Hall notes, ‘the King lost none,’ and ‘the French king on his part ran valiantly breaking spears’.
Despite this, underneath everything ran a current of rivalry between the two monarchs. They were similar ages — Henry twenty-nine, Francis twenty-six — and had heard much about each other before their meeting. They were keen to know who was the tallest? Who could grow the best beard? And who had the finest calf?
In two important respects, Francis triumphed. Any comparison of the French Queen Claude, aged twenty, with a brood of three children and another on the way, and the thirty-five-year-old English Queen Katherine of Aragon, with her one daughter and lacking a son, must have been wretched for both Katherine and Henry. Also, if an account by one French
The Field of Cloth of Gold was a magnificent party without parallel in the Tudor period. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Henry VIII’s astute Lord Chancellor, had arranged this first personal meeting between Henry VIII and the French King, Francis I, to inaugurate the Anglo-French alliance made in 1518 [see C HRISTCHURCH ]. The alliance had been agreed under the international Treaty of Universal Peace, sworn between France, England and the Holy Roman Empire, to enable the European powers to focus their combined resources on resisting the Ottoman Empire.
As England was a puny country by comparison to the great might of France or the Holy Roman Empire, Wolsey had done well to give England such an important role in brokering the peace. Now, England and her King had an opportunity to prove that their peace-making was a choice, not a necessity, through a lavish display of wealth, culture, and sporting and military prowess.
For two and a half weeks, from 7 to 24 June 1520, 12,000 people (equivalent to the population of England’s second largest city at the time, Norwich) gathered in a field between Guînes and Ardres. As England had held Calais since 1347, the meeting technically took place on English soil in northern France.
Every aspect of the meeting was designed to demonstrate magnificence. If the improvements to Leeds Castle were noteworthy, the construction of a temporary palace, made of brick, timber, canvas and glass to house Henry VIII at Guînes was jaw-dropping. The chronicler Edward Hall described it as the ‘most noble and royal lodging … that passed all other sights before seen’. A full 300 feet square, it was covered with such ‘sumptuous work’ that it ‘[il]lumined the eyes of the beholders’. Everyone else, Francis I included, was housed in rich tents made of cloth of gold. Outside the palace, the English even constructed a gilt fountain crested by the figure of the god of wine, Bacchus, for the fountain ran with wine, not water, and one night a ‘flying dragon’ — probably a firework — was seen in the sky.
The company ate and drank their way through prodigious amounts of food and wine. The expenses for food during the whole trip, from 31 May to 16 July, run to many pages. A mere snippet from this shows that the English consumed: 373 oxen; 2,014 sheep; 51 pigs; 82 pheasants; 3,003 quail; 506 geese; 2 peacocks; 92 cygnets; 633 pigeons; 30,700 eggs; 5,500 oranges and at least 122 ‘tuns’ or 40,320 imperial gallons of wine! Over 210 gallons of beer were provided for the consumption of the English king alone.
The Field of Cloth of Gold was above all, though, a tournament. There was jousting every day (except Sundays), archery, wrestling and other feats of arms including combat on foot and horseback. It was designed so that the two kings would never meet directly in combat and both could be extolled as champions. ‘Course after course,’ Edward Hall notes, ‘the King lost none,’ and ‘the French king on his part ran valiantly breaking spears’.
Despite this, underneath everything ran a current of rivalry between the two monarchs. They were similar ages — Henry twenty-nine, Francis twenty-six — and had heard much about each other before their meeting. They were keen to know who was the tallest? Who could grow the best beard? And who had the finest calf?
In two important respects, Francis triumphed. Any comparison of the French Queen Claude, aged twenty, with a brood of three children and another on the way, and the thirty-five-year-old English Queen Katherine of Aragon, with her one daughter and lacking a son, must have been wretched for both Katherine and Henry. Also, if an account by one French
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