By 1520, Europe found itself in an interesting moment. The most significant leaders in the endless jostle for power and influence were all young kings – Henry VIII in England, around 30 years old; Francis I in France, around 26 years old; and Charles V as King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, at about 20 years old.
You can imagine how potentially unstable an axis of entitled, army-commanding young kings might be, but it’s noteworthy that there were cooler heads with bigger visions than wars of conquest moving pieces on the field of politics even then. Henry’s England was still something of a third wheel in the spheres of influence of the era, but both Francis and Charles were eager to count the island nation as an ally in their machinations against each other.
Henry’s right hand man, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, had the idea that it could be possible to produce an enduring peace among the Christian nations, particularly in light of the growing threat of the Ottoman Empire. Following the 1518 Treaty of London, a non-aggression pact between most of Europe’s states, Wolsey wanted to showcase both the majesty and the (largely imaginary) friendship between England and France, resulting in a three-week-long summit between Henry VIII (and many thousands of courtiers, artisans, soldiers, and others) and Francis I (and many thousands of courtiers, artisans, soldiers, and others) on a large turnip field outside of Calais, then an English holding.
The two sides spent months ahead of the June meeting building elaborate, but fake, castles, stadiums and other infrastructure to house, feed, and maintain the influx of people, horses, livestock, and goods that were soon to arrive. The Cloth of the Field of Gold was heralded as an event of great import, and Henry VIII would consider it a high point of his reign, but as we know, the dream of a peaceful Europe would not be realized for many centuries to come, and even now, remains a fragile and threatened thing.
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Sources
Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Wives of Henry VIII, by Karen Lindsey (Amazon)
The Distinctive ‘Habsburg Jaw’ Was Likely the Result of the Royal Family’s Inbreeding (smithsonianmag.com)
