In Our Time - The Field of the Cloth of Gold

Episode Date: October 6, 2005

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Field of the Cloth of Gold, an extraordinary international party. In the spring of 1520 six thousand Englishmen and women packed their bags and followed their King across the sea to France. They weren't part of an invasion force but were attendants to King Henry VIII and travelling to take part in the greatest and most conspicuous display of wealth and culture that Europe had ever seen. They were met by Francis I of France and six thousand French noblemen and servants on English soil in Northern France and erected their temporary palaces, elaborate tents, jousting pavilions and golden fountains spewing forth red, white and claret wine in the Val D'Or. For just over two weeks they created a temporary town the size of Norwich, England's second city, on the 'Camp du Drap D'Or', or Field of the Cloth of Gold. What drove the French and the English to create such an extraordinary event? What did the two sides do when they got there, and what - if anything - was achieved? With Steven Gunn, Lecturer in Modern History at Oxford University; John Guy, Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge; Penny Roberts, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Warwick.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio four. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, in the spring of 1520, 6,000 English men, women and servants followed their king across the seat of France. They weren't part of an invasion force,

but were attendance to King Henry VIII, travelling to take part in the greatest and most conspicuous display of wealth and culture and courtly sports that Europe had ever seen. They were met by Francis I, King of France, and 6,000 French noblemen women and servants. On English sword in northern France, the English erected a temporary palace. There were elaborate tents, jousting, pavilions,

and golden fountains spouting perpetual claret. For just over two weeks, they created a temporary town the size of Norwich, then England's second most populous city, on the camp du drabador or the field of the cloth of gold. What drove the French and the English to create such an extraordinary event? What did the two sides do when they got there and what, if anything, was achieved? With me to discuss the field of the cloth of gold is John Guy, fellow of Clare College, University

of Cambridge, Stephen Gunn, fellow and tutor in history at Merton College, Oxford University, and Penny Roberts, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Warwick. Stephen Gunn, can we start with an outline of the European geopolitics of the time, around 1520? Where are the main powers? Well, there were three leading powers in Western Europe in the early 16th century. And of those three, England was the smallest. England had been quite an aggressive political power in the 14th and 15th centuries, had a well-established system of government,

but its population was only about 2.5 million. France, on the other hand, was much larger. Population, something like 16 million, had expanded dramatically over the previous. 70 years, places like Brittany, Gascany, Normandy, Provence being taken under the control of the French crown. France had a tax system which was able to raise taxes without the consent of Parliament, of the Parliament the kind the English kings had to go to, and France had a standing army. And then the most unpredictable in a way of the European powers was the new multiple monarchy being put together by Charles of Hapsburg.

Charles of Habsburg had been ruler of the Netherlands since he was six. When he was 16, he became king of the Spanish kingdoms, which he inherited from one of his grandfathers. And when he was 19, he inherited the Hapsburg hereditary lands in Austria, southern and western Germany from his other grandfather, and he was then elected Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of Germany. So Charles of Hapsburg had put together the biggest empire in Europe for 700 years, and nobody knew quite what he was going to do with it.

Clearly he was a rival of France. There were territorial disputes along the Pyrenees in Italy, in the border between what's now Belgium and France. and one of the big questions at the field of cloth of gold was which side would England find itself on in that dispute? That's extremely clear. So we have tiny England, expanding and powerful and confident France, and then this huge empire, as you say, the biggest in Charlemagne for 700 years,

but just to put it in, we didn't develop this at the moment at all. On the east, lurking on the east were the Ottomans, who in 1529, nine years after the field of Floth, were at the gates of Vienna. And so they were out there having some sort of bringing some sort of pressure in from the east. The Ottoman Empire had been expanding in a way like the French monarchy very dramatically over the previous 70 years.

Taking Constantinople, overrun Serbia, Bulgaria, were about to overrun Hungary. And already by the 1490s, you could see the fires lit by the Ottoman raiding parties if you went up to the top of the church towers in Venice. So Europe was well aware of the pressure from the Ottoman Empire from the south. So in 1518 there was a Treaty of London.

That was what we might call it an international treaty, run mainly not by kings of by ambassadors. Can you briefly tell us what happened there and how significant it was? The idea of the Treaty of London was to make peace between all the European powers to enable them to resist the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. It's started really as a papal initiative but taken over by the King of England. That's why it becomes the Treaty of London. So it's outward looking, but it's also inward looking amongst the European powers

because it's a non-aggression pact. The idea is that none of the European powers, will start a war against any other, and if one of them does, then the other powers who are signatories to the treaty will combine to back the person who's being attacked. But of course, the problem with that is working out who's the aggressor and who's the offended party when things start to break down between any of those powers. Briefly, before we move on, England is far, far and away,

the smallest force in all this, and yet it keeps exercising its power was the fact that the treaty was made in London, significant of Henry the 8th and particularly Cardinal Walsy, who I'm coming to now, seizing the initiative. It's certainly significant sign of their ambition to play a big role in European politics. Let's bring in Cardinal Walsy here because he's important, John Guy.

Can you tell us why? Walsy is a genuinely international figure. He's not just Henry VIII's Chief Minister. He's a Renaissance Cardinal, and he's a special legate, a plenipotentiary legate who has powers that almost make him, if you like, the Pope of Northern Europe. and by the time of the Treaty of London

he's absolutely riding high. He can actually, he's not only representative of the Pope, he can speak for the Pope. He can make decisions. And he does, I mean, one of the complaints that the Pope has actually about the field of cloth of gold is that Woldy doesn't tell him what's happening and just carries on and doesn't answer his letters. So he's exercising tremendous, tremendous power here.

I mean, at the field of cloth of gold, too, he's not simply representing Henry VIII. He's also representing Francis I first in terms of organising it. But he's just getting, sorry, just I, I rush you there, my fault. Walsley is immensely wealthy. He is a butcher's son from Ipswich, but he's become, like a bit of a cardinal, and in great power with Henry the Eighth, and a great power in Rome, alter Rex in Rome, Alta Papa in London. Where did that wealth and power come from? What was his relation? What was his grip on Henry the Eighth? Well, his grip on Henry the Eighth,

really, is his charisma. And of course, he bolsters that by obtaining a series of wealthy bishoprics. He becomes archbishop of York. his position as a paper legate to, if you like, extract money from the English church, and quite a bit of that comes towards him, for example, things like the probate of Wills. But the trick is, it's really oratory. I mean, Willsy is a master diplomat. He's a great personality. He's charismatic, but he's a master of rhetoric. Persuasion.

You know, he's his own public relations consultant. It was said of him that he had a special gift of natural eloquence with a filed tongue to pronounce the same, that he was able to persuade and allure all men to his purpose. he'll sell you anything, he'll talk you into anything. And Henry was beguiled by him, was he? Henry was beguiled by him. Henry also, I mean, Henry was by no means stupid. I mean, Henry was in control,

but at this period he's very happy to license Woolsey, you know, if you like to run, you know, certainly most of domestic policy and much foreign policy, you know, on his behalf. He will chip in as and when. I think the key point, actually, is that by 1518, Woolsey is riding high, and he's riding high on a policy of peace.

because England, as we've said, as a small nation, he actually can't afford to be at war the whole time. And what Woolsey does is he taps into the wider Renaissance sort of impulse at that time. Erasmus has written the complaint of peace in 1517. Now people, I think this is a special moment. Thomas Moore enters Henry VIII's service at this time, and he does it because he thinks Woolsey is the man who is going to change, not just England, but if you like, the world by which they mean Europe.

It was a time of books changing. Machiavellis, he's already written a book now, but it isn't going to be published until the 30s, but there's a book published called Des Cardinal Artu, published in Urbino in 1511, which sort of, and Woolsey seems, have followed his tenets very specifically, doesn't he? This book, De Cardinal Artu, is the A to Z of how to be a cardal.

It's the key text of, if you like, the prescriptive literature. And it's actually in three parts. Cortesi, it's by Paulo Cortesi. He's Bishop of Orbino. He's had various jobs in the Vatican. He knows the Roman bureaucracy. inside out. And the books in three parts and the most

important to the first two. The first one is a cardinal, it will achieve greatness through, first of all, his moral virtue and justice, mercy, equity, peace. You know, these are stressed as the international values. But then, if you like, the second book

is how to do it. And how to do it is, first of all, oratory, rhetoric, persuasion. The second is magnificence, your art collections, your palaces, you found a hospital, you found colleges, you found libraries, you're a patron of music, because music is in their view, part of healthcare. And what's interesting about this is all the parts that certainly in the English tradition have never really been stressed about Woolsey or have been disliked. His palaces,

his art collections, his colleges, the bits that don't seem to fit in are central to the way that he fashions his identity. Penny Roberts, what did Woolsey instigate the field of the cloth gold? I think that would be a fair comment. And as John said, He clearly had influence, or at least he had a good relationship with Francis I first as well, so he was able to act as a very effective broker between the French and English kings. So I think it would be fair to say that he is very much the architect of the field of the cloth of gold. We can see, we've heard from Stephen and John enough to know what English were hoping to get out of it, well, a little intimation, prestige, being on equal terms, being a player and so on.

How did Walsley persuade Francis I first that there was something in it for France? It's very interesting, isn't it, to consider this idea of an alliance between England and France, the traditional enemies. France, of course, had traditionally also encouraged the Scots and their hostilities towards the English. So there was a great deal of sort of latent suspicion between the English and the French. It's what, only some 70 years since the end of the 100 years war, when English armies had come in waves devastating the French countryside in the name of upholding the claim of the English king to the French throne. Henry the Eight still thought he had a valid claim of French throne.

Oh, indeed, indeed. Henry had himself invaded France in 1513, won the Battle of the Spurs, taken the towns of Terriwan and Tournay, and wanted to sort of recreate the great days of Henry V. Henry V was very much his role model. Of course, these weren't victories on the scale of Agencourt or anything of that type, but it did sort of establish Henry's reputation as a military leader. For Francis, at the same time he was establishing his prowess, They're both in their 20s that is young than Israel.

That's right, that's right. Francis comes to the throne six years after Henry. But very early on in his reign, he establishes his military reputation in his Italian campaign, winning a very famous battle at Marignano in 1515, after which the French actually capture the important city of Milan. This is a victory on a far greater scale than what Henry had achieved. I think both sides are sort of aware of this. So France isn't concerned about England as, the threatening force it had been in earlier centuries.

And as Stephen has said, France was a very much bigger and more powerful player by this time. But just briefly, because I want to talk about the two of them in one thing, what did Woolsey tell Francis the first that made him think, this is good for me, to let the English force come to France, to let this man who had a claim to the French throne come to France, to let as many English warriors and noblemen who were just a fighting force, fighting machine, come to France.

How did he persuade him? Well, Francis, like Henry, was very much influenced by these humanist ideals, which John has already outlined. The idea of a universal peace, kings, Renaissance princes, see themselves very much as peacemakers. And so he's persuaded very much by this argument about creating an ideal of universal peace. It allows Francis, as it does Henry, to present themselves as great Renaissance princes. So on that level, he's very much in line with the thinking about the ideal of a universal peace. But there's also, of course, the wider political. political context of the aftermath of the imperial election

where Charles V, of course, has become the leading power in York. 1519 a year before. That's right. And indeed Francis attempted to actually stop Charles becoming emperor at that time. Sorry to interrupt. But there's a narrow of personal dimension as well, isn't it? I mean, Henry V was always asking, how tall is Francis? He's as tall as I am.

How are his legs as strong as I am? I'm not going to shave off my beard until I meet him. he saw this chap over there winning victories, the victories he wanted, but they both had imperial ambitions in terms of wishing to be Caesar's. You got glory through war. And how far did that?

I've got to meet this man and test myself again and show that I'm as big as he is. Well, I think that's right. There are two parts to this. There's the wider political context, which is clearly very important. England is able to act as a broker between the empire and France,

and it's very nice for the English to feel they're being wooed by these two great powers. But as you say, there's this very personal element. And this, I think, is very, very persuasive in terms of the actual meeting between the kings, rather than the actual treaty itself, which is obviously negotiated by ambassadors. So Francis and Henry have a mutual curiosity about each other. As you say, they both have very similar reputations, tall, very physically strong, very athletic. They have great reputations in the joust and in those sort of military pursuits.

They both have a shared interest in hunting, in the ladies. they very much sort of men of their time. They like to surround themselves by the latest Renaissance fashions, humanists, and also to be great patrons of the arts. They have a lot in common, and it's clear that this mutual curiosity

is one of the driving forces behind them actually agreeing to this meeting. Right, well, just to end this introductory passage, just very briefly, John Guy, the man who wasn't there was the most powerful man in Europe by a long chalk, indeed, as we said, the most powerful man for 700.

Yes, a very young Charles V. But he made sure that he had a little pincer movement on it, didn't he? Well, he's the absent presence, because in fact he meets Henry V. The month before Henry V actually sets out for Calais on the way to the cloth of gold. And, in fact, Henry goes to meet Charles V. And actually, Henry crosses the border to Gravelin. He goes to the Netherlands. He actually brings Charles to Calais and entertains him there after the field of cloth of gold.

So, in a way, the idea of this being bilateral, is only actually achieved by looking narrowly at the field of cloth of gold. If you extend the context, it's actually multilateral between these great powers. But again, you see, Woolsey, I think he's the key figure behind the scenes, in fact, orchestrating this sequence of meetings. Must have been fun, actually. I'd actually be Woolsey. Must have been great fun, sort of bringing them all together and playing around there.

Okay, Stephen Gunn, they're set and they go, how did they decide on the location? That must have been a lot of fuss. what's the distances and so and so. It's the English, soil, French, so it wasn't. And can you get us to the feel of cloth of gold? Well, as soon as they begin talking about where to meet, it's obvious that they're going to meet somewhere around the edge of the English territory in France. So the English have held Calais since 1347,

and Calais is the main English military and trade base in France. But the question is, how far will the English come away from Calais, and how far in this calculation of royal honour will the French condescend to go into English territory? And so they end up meeting as near the edge of English territory as they can, but still inside English territory because the English insists that because their king has had to come across the sea, he's put more effort into the meeting

and so he should be just inside his own territory. From what I've read, it seems that Francis I was quite relaxed about all this. I think he was. where they end up meeting is in effect halfway between the last fortress of the English area in France, Gien and the first fortress of the French or the last coming from Paris of the French, Ardre. So they've each got a small base from which they can move into this no man's land in the middle. As we said, these are massive forces, John. I mean, 6,000 people.

It's the size of Henry V's army at Agincourt, 6,000 on the French side. And they're there for a fortnight. Can you just give us some idea of the accommodation? They built a town the second most popular, as I said in the introduction, Norwich 12,000, some of the English side. Well, on the English side, of course the English built a special palace, a temporary palace, especially for the occasion. And actually what's really interesting about that is it's on a classical design. It's an exact model replica of the sort of palace that you build, as is recommended in the day Cardinal Aratu. So, you know, Woolsey, who actually designed the plan of this, you know, was the master of mine.

but there was a quadrant. Each side was over 300 feet long. At the entrance was a classical pillar. There were these fountains that you've already mentioned that was spouting wine, you know, for much of the time. Then you came in, you came in, and the palace was eight feet high of brick,

and then the rest was temporary. Timber, canvas, the canvas was painted with brick, but you came into the courtyard and you were immediately struck because there was 5,000. feet of clear glass. It must have been stunning with bay windows and then the apartments laid out on a quadrant for Woolsey, for Henry VIII, for Catherine of Aragon, and for Mary Tudor, the sister of Henry VIII, the former Queen of France. Beyond that was a chapel and then there was a gallery which led to Gein Castle, which was where a lot of the other English were staying. So the English

trumped the French in the accommodation. This was stunning. The French relied on essentially tents, Royal tents. Francis had a special tent built with a couple of, you know, ornaments like ships, masks in the middle holding it together, wonderful decoration, astronomical symbols all over the roof. The English too needed tents. They said the French had 400 tents to sort of back up the royal tents for this number of people. The English had what they said was 820 lodgings in tents. And I think there must have been three or four people to each lodging. So the great palace built by Walsley was a sort of a plantation of English greatness.

It just showed who was boss, to put it in it, I'm sorry to be so vernacular in this, but it really did, and it surprised the French, who were great show men and much richer, as you say, and so and so forth. And of course, it survived a storm toward near the end. A lot of tents blew down, but not to the palace. Well, I think it did, and also by building in this classical style, the English were talking the international language of the Renaissance. This was not domestic architecture.

And so it seemed that England was somehow this great player on the European... I mean, after all, Walsy is claiming here to be, through art and his diplomacy, to be the arbiter of Europe. Now, interestingly, that's exactly what Erasmus, the great humanist leader, had said in the complaint of peace, that since kings and princes, in fact, will never agree on peace. They'll always intend to want to find glory in war. Therefore, we need some great leader of the church,

some great cardinal to actually act as the arbitrator. And if you want to sum up Woolsey in a nutshell, he's an arbitrator in excelsis. But what's really fascinating is that you seek peace through magnificence. That's the thing that took my imagination. When I read all this stuff years and years ago, I hadn't got that, that you did it not through being, let's sit down and have a peaceful time with a bit of musely.

I mean, you went for it with palaces and everything. Can you give us some idea of what program they'd worked out? I mean, we hear of chivalric jousting and so and so forth. Can you just fill that in? As you say, this is very much about magnificence in enforcing peace. And as I've said before, the idea of monarchy as sort of universal peacemakers is very important. But there's always this slight tension because at the same time, they're supposed to be presenting themselves as very much important military figures.

And this is where the jousting and the feats of arms come in. At the same time as they're making peace, this is seen to be a sign of their strength. They're making peace because they wish to make peace, not because they're in a position of weakness. So they're also having these other combats which demonstrate that they are very forceful. And if they wanted to go to war, they could do. And they could cut a figure in that sense. So the actual occasion and all the events are very, very carefully planned because there's also this need to have absolute balance between the two sides.

So they walk, everywhere they met the two kings, but they had to come precisely the same. distance to it and all that. And it must have been at a wonderful time for people like working out their sort of figures. Absolutely. When they came to the actual meeting, they had to actually elevate the two sides of the valley so that when they saw each other, they were at exactly

the same height so that there wouldn't be any kind of sense of preeminence. Fanfare was sounded so that they would leave their entourages at exactly the same time and go down with their horses to meet at an appointed meeting place. Was it a meeting one-to-one meeting? Yes, this was the one-to-one meeting that it took place.

on 7th of June. Yeah. And it was all very carefully mapped out. It's very interesting as well. They ride towards each other as if they're going to actually have combat, but just at the last moment they turn their horses and they embrace. And so right, underlying each act of peace is a sort of sense of rivalry, a sense that they could be in combat if they wish to be.

Can you just, John Guy, tell us a little about the character of the kings. As we say, both in their 20s. Henry's been king for about 10 years. France has been king for, it's about 6.000. years. And what sort of character? Were they similar in character? We know that Francis, like I think he was Caesar and Henry had imperial ambitions and so on. But can you just

give us a bit more than that? I think Francis and Henry are quite similar. I think actually Francis is more confident. He's more sure of himself. I think Henry always has this slight psychological sense of inferiority, the need to please, the need to go that extra mile. Charles V, I think, is actually, you know, on the sidelines. I think he's much canier. I think he's much more practical than he's often made out to be. I think he's actually quite wily. I mean, he supposedly had a great theory of universal monarchy, which mostly came from his advisors. But I think he

practices he's much more, you know, willing to broker deals. But Francis, I mean, sees himself as Caesar, the most Christian king, you know, like a Roman emperor. And Henry is chasing after that. He's coveting that. That's why Henry also runs, you know, when, in fact, the post of Holy Roman Emperor, you know, is contested for in 1519. Splendor runs into gluttony at one stage from my reading of it anyway, Stephen. Can you give us some idea of the amount of drunk and eaten and so on? Well, keeping the fountains running with wine was obviously a major requirement because the English had 40,000 gallons of wine with them,

which works out about four pints per person per day. They also, being English, had 14,500 gallons of beer and ale, and they had the material with them to brew a lot more ale when they needed it. Now, obviously the French enjoying English hospitality may have been consuming some of that, but it's still impressive scale of consumption. And what about food? I mean, did they take all their own food? Did they live, sort of, as it were, off the land? They took all their own food. In a way, this, as we've said, is something half the size of the

size of English army you might send to France. So in effect, they move into army supply mode, except that, because it's a grand display, you don't only do quantity, you also do variety. So, for example, we know from the royal household accounts, they're fish, they've got 9,100 place, 7,836, Whiting, 5,554, souls, 2,800, crayfish, 700 congereals, 3 porpoises and a dolphin. And to have a proper banquet, you've got to have a range of things like that. And that was just the fish menu. I mean, didn't they have 337 oxen and, you know, 2,000? And I read somebody was boiling beef for six weeks beforehand.

What about the clothes? A field of the cloth of gold. Was that the dress code? I mean, did everything have to be gold? There's clearly a sense that you dress in the most spectacular fashion you can and one of the French memoirists who writes about it talks about seeing nobleman walking round with their estates on their backs because they've mortgaged their lands or sold off their woods in order to buy the best clothes they possibly can.

And they talk furniture as well. It's a big display. Can we just go into this? Absolutely well. We talk about display, aren't we? I mean the royal palaces were, virtually the standing palaces were emptied and all the silver gold. Westminster Abbey's copes and ornaments were taken. I mean, and of course, I mean, the nobles took their own kit. I mean, the displays of plate, I mean, the jewels, the imagery in the chapel.

And the chapel was very important in the Royal Palace too. I mean, these were just, you know, spectacular. And you take things like tapestries for hanging on the wall. Turkey carpets, carpets made in Turkey, the kind of things you see in Holbein portraits, which are much too valuable if you put on the floor, but you put them on tables. So all those sorts of soft furnishings would be filling up. these tents and the temporary palace and so on, to overwhelm people when they walk in and see them.

Another example of the sort of extravagance and glamour as well is the ladies who come along in the finest Renaissance fashions and indeed the French ladies in particular are asked by Francis to come and show off the latest Italian Renaissance fashions and I'm much criticised indeed, interestingly by the Italian ambassador in particular for actually wearing very, very provocative clothing, which I think it's Polydor Virgil later complains. The English ladies then adopt their own.

after having seen these ladies at the field of the cloth of gold in these magnificent costumes. What about what sort of diplomacy? Was there diplomacy going on around the edges? Was that, when the thing was going on, was it a cover for little bits of diplomacy? Absolutely, and after the kings have their initial first one-to-one meeting, they then go into a tent with Cardinal Walsy and the Admiral Bonivé, who are the two individuals who had mainly negotiated the Treaty of London in order to sign a new treaty which agrees to the marriage of the Dofair, to the Princess Mary, and to the handing over of money as a royal pension, to the English crown.

And so there are these various meetings, but also all the time there are ambassadorial meetings and negotiations going on between the two sides. So I understand that the days were reorganised around dinner, old-fashioned North Country dinner between 12 and 2 o'clock. And you went to dinner, and before and after that were there joustings and so forth. We've said joustings. What else? Can you just give us a bit more detail because they're funds in the detail of this, isn't it?

Yes. So jousting every day, I presume, what else? Jousting every day except Sundays. On Sundays the kings actually go off and dine with each other's queens and Cardinal Walsy actually dines with the Queen Mother of France, Louise of Savoy. So there's these very nice dining occasions on a Sunday. Obviously they're not allowed to fight on those days. But yes, most days there's jousting, there's what's termed feats of arms. So there's combat both on horseback and on foot.

The English archers show how good they are, don't they, just to remind people about Agincourt. That's right. There's also wrestling between the Bretons and the English, which is what the Bretons clearly have a scene as the best wrestlers in France, and so there are various battles of that type. But there's also the fact that the two sides were organised into groups, and they ensure actually that the two kings never actually meet each other directly within these combats. So imagine these people swirling around. around and that place, as we say at the time,

must have been extraordinary, as big as the second time. I can't keep repeating it too often because it is an extraordinary thing. Imagine, as we were, taking Birmingham to. So, towards the end, there was a great mass, again engineered by and conducted by Cardinal Walsy himself.

It was Corpus Christi, which was a great event in the Catholic calendar, and he must have known that when he set the dates. Can you just tell us the same? significance of that mass, Stephen Goan, and how he conducted it? Well, in some ways the mass reproduces the kinds of competitive magnificence between the two courts that we've seen all the way through the meeting. So the French King's Chapel Choir sings parts of the service, the English King's Chapel Choir sings other parts of the service,

and presumably there's a sense of competition between the two. But Woolsey, again, demonstrates his central role in the whole thing by the fact that he's the priest who sings mass and he has attending on him, holding the bowls and the towels and so on for when he washes, the highest English nobleman. So these are people who certainly would have despised his father as a butcher from it, which pretty clearly come close to despising him, and yet are having to be his servants for the purposes of singing mass. And there was an unexpected interruption I've ever done in my life.

Right, let's go hundred. There's an unexpected interruption in the mass, isn't this, Steve? There was an unexpected interruption, which, which remains rather obscure. Something which must have been part of the entertainment appears flying over the crowd. No one's quite clear whether it's a firework or quite what else it is.

Some people report it as being like a flying dragon. It may be like a flying salamander. There are particular heraldic problems here because France is the first personal badge is a salamander, whereas the red dragon from their Welsh ancestry is part of the Tudor arms. And it looks as though it may well have gone off early that it's supposed to happen at some later

point and it becomes untethered or the fireworks go off or whatever. So this is in the mass and a lot of people think it was meant to be? It was meant to be part of the spectacular display of the mass, yes. Another of Walser's... Well, the Indonesian ambassador says it's at the elevation of the host, but he's got that, you know, complete, completely wrong. There is one thing about the mass, though, you know, to come back to the issue of peace, I think is really important that, in fact Woolsey gets a man called Richard Pacey,

who's the dean of St. Paul's and Henry's secretary to preach the sermon. Now, Pacey is the same guy who's in fact given the Latin oration on peace at the Treaty of London. What language does this preach he did? He would probably preach it in Latin. He is a great friend of Erasmus, though. He's one of the key figures in, if you like, this humanistic peace campaign. I think the other thing about the master is that something else, in a way, was very comical, in that when they got to the packs where the kings were asked to kiss, you know,

the special emblem of the packs, in fact, neither will go. before the other. So they just look at each other and in fact it's taken away. The queens do the same but then they decide just to kiss each other. It's nice as well, isn't it? Because the mass is the ultimate ritual which brings people together. It's always seen as a uniting ritual. And so it's very important for the symbolism of peace. And up to this point, the kings mostly have been having their own masses in their own chapels, in their own pavilions and palaces and so on.

Except on one occasion when Francis actually burst into Henry's bedchamber early one morning. hands him his shirt says, I am your prisoner and accompanies him to mass. And I think it's a very nice sort of breakdown of the etiquette, but very much reinforcing the friendship and the unity and the wish for peace. Making himself sort of completely vulnerable to it. Yes. There must have been hints behind.

There had been assassinations before. I mean, in the sense, Henry was being very bold going into the land of his traditional, ferocious enemy, not still on English shore, but right on the edge of theirs. And he was taking his life in his hands to a certain extent. And those two, they kept showing each other that they weren't. Yes, and I think Francis was very disarming. He was very magnanimous, allowing them to meet on English soil.

He was quite prepared. He went along with the etiquette, but he was a very sort of spontaneous kind of character, and he often got himself into all kinds of scrapes and accidents. It's very characteristic of him to turn up in the bedchamber in this way, a performance which Henry repeated a few days later, which was, so he wasn't offended. It demonstrated that he went along with it. Was it, let's talk about the sources for a minute, because they might throw a lot out of joint that we'd be talking about, but was it thought at the time?

time to be by the chroniclers and the diarist to be a great spectacular, extraordinary event. Oh, I mean, absolutely. And there were newsletters in France. That's one of the ways that we know about this so much. The Venetian ambassador was enormously impressed with all this and wrote a very long account of it. It is true that the sources are actually contradictory. I mean, take, for example, the fountains with the wine. I mean, you know, one account says that one fountain was claret, the other one was marmsy, another one says one was wine, another one was beer. You know, one accounts says that they were flowing all the time and everybody got sozzled. Another account says that they were only actually switched on during the banquets

when one of the kings was entertaining one of the queens. So the sources are actually rather confused. There are also printed accounts so that you could actually buy an account of the jousts and the meeting between the kings and so on, printed in a pamphlet on the streets of Paris. This is the first great age of European news printing and clearly this is a big event that people want to read about. I think both sides are very much checking each other out as well and I think it's very interesting

I mentioned about the fashions of the ladies but the Venetian ambassador not only reports on the provocative fashions of the French ladies but also the excessive drinking of the English ladies and that they're passing round cups and sharing which is seen as and these are reinforcing all kinds of stereotypes about one another but it's very much about matching up these forces and it makes an impression across Europe

Are there significant differences Stephen or John whichever you can reply best there significant differences in the account. Is there something that is real clash on? Well, there's a significant difference in terms of how we understand the meeting because of the fact that the English administrative accounts survive much better than the French ones do because of various fires in archives and so on in the 18th and 19th centuries.

So we really don't know much about what the French take with them. Whereas in France there's a much stronger tradition of memoir writing, so we have people who were there later on writing their memories of what happened in a way that people don't really do on the English side. gives a rather different quality to the two kinds of information. And this wrestling business, Penny, between Francis I first and Henry VIII, it comes from a French source, doesn't it? But can you tell us about it?

That's right. It comes from the memoir of the Sir de Florenges, who's a close childhood friend indeed of Francis, who'd grown up with him was one of his gentlemen of the chamber. And he recounts this tale of after the kings have been watching some wrestling between, as I mentioned before, the Bretons and the English. But which English are won in that goes? That's right.

Better because the Bretons didn't turn up, I think. Is that right? I think that could well be the account. And they can't wrestle nobody. Hold on. I mean, the Britons are. They wrestled the English or they didn't. They wrestle with non-Bretton wrestlers.

Non-Breton. Yes, and the Bretons are the best. And the two kings are drinking together and having, you know, bantering and sort of exchanging comments. And Henry, it is, who challenges Francis, you know, let's have a wrestle, grabs him by the shoulders. They're both very tall, as I mentioned, physically, strong. I think Henry was hoping as the rather heavier figure that he would be able to outdo

Francis. But Francis was rather more agile, a bit lighter, and was able to bring him down with what was termed a tour de Britannia, a Breton turn, which was clearly the best way to sort of wrestle somebody to the ground, which is very humiliating for Henry, of course. It is only reported in one source, so there's a great question about whether or not it's apocryphal and, in fact, never actually occurred, and there's great silence from the other sources. It may be good reasons for that, because obviously this is... an occasion where there is supposed to be this equality and they're not supposed to sort of have any direct sort of combat.

What's nice about it, I think, even if it's not true, it sort of signals how there is this intense rivalry which is sort of bubbling under the surface at all times. And the source was France's best friend. Actually, the interesting thing about the Bretony Thro is that Breton wrestling and Cornish wrestling and Cumber wrestling, it's supposed to come from the Celtic. That's right, yes.

Probably did a buttock, as we call it, I don't know as much. But we can go into that at another time. I think it's a crook of the leg behind the other. Probably a cross buttock actually. If it was a competition in dazzle, Stephen Gunn, who won? I think they both won because I think the economy of magnificence is something where if you've displayed in the right way,

then you've shown how kingly you both are. And so there's one sense in which it's a competition, but there's another sense in which all the kings win because you've shown what magnificent kings you are. After all, you're talking to each other and to the international audience, but you're also talking to your own subjects, and both kings can say, look how seriously I'm taken, look, what a great ruler I am. It seems like a magnificent folly, because three years later,

they were at war again these two, weren't they? And Henry's forces got very near Paris. Well, I mean, the thing breaks down really because of what happens in Italy, because, of course, within months of the field of cloth of gold, in fact, Charles and Francis are actually at war, over Italy, Milan and Naples, which I mean are obviously key goals of Francis. So it shows how, if you like, how fragile all of all of this was. On the other hand, you see, you could look at it in their terms.

You see this Renaissance spectacle, this dazzling. For Henry, I mean, I think, I disagree a little bit with Steve. I mean, I think both sides won, but I think England won more. Because England now seemed to be, you know, right at the forefront of the Renaissance, of Renaissance diplomacy, of Renaissance ideas. is England, the weaker state, the weakest of all these three great powers, is now able to tip the balance. And so the question is, when Charles and Francis fall out after the field of cloth of gold,

which side is England going to back? And probably at that moment, Henry and Woolsey have never been more powerful. I think that is an interesting thing for me reading up and again. The business of Henry 8th and Woolsey, by force of personality, we must remember again how tiny England was, less than a fifth the size of France. The king had no standing up. which the French had, very low tax base,

the French had, and nothing like the size of Charles V, and yet they came on and said, we are equal to you, we hold the balance, and it was personality, it was personality politics, and intelligent politics. It was personality and magnificence, because the trick is this PR through magnificence, and there's another thing. You know, the mass, at the end of the mass,

Cardinal Walsy pronounced a plain re-indulgence, a general indulgence dispensation for giving everybody all their sins. Now, very few people could do that. I mean, only the Pope could do that, you know, but Woolsey could do it because of these special plenary potentiary powers. You know, that has that, if you like, that numismatic, you know, that religious element which marks out Henry the 8th and Woolsey.

Of course, Henry, of course, you know, sees what can be done through this method. And, you know, within 10 years, you know, he's claiming to be supreme head of the church in England and not the Pope. Penny Roberts, do you think it was an expensive waste of time for the French then? No, I don't. I think, again, they're establishing them, their reputation as a very magnificent court, it's this fantastically glamorous event which everybody in Europe recognises and the fact that we still see it as a sort of exemplar

of what Renaissance princes do, it still has that resonance. And I think from that point of view, it wasn't a waste of time for them. Francis was spending quite a lot of money on all kinds of things during this period of his rule. He'd been spending on the imperial election, his Italian campaigns and so on.

So it was just part in a sense of his sense of extravagance and so on. But I don't think the French feel that they lose out particularly? I think it's striking also that it's clearly something that contemporaries could read in two different ways. So some people could say what a magnificent occasion it had been. Then you have someone like Bishop John Fisher, who preaches a sermon not long afterwards, and uses it as an illustration of how the joys of heaven are much more solid than the joys of earth,

because the joys of earth are transient, like the field of cloth of gold, where they were having a war again afterwards. No one could even see the cloth of gold when the wind blew and the dust got in the clothes. So it's something contemporaries can use as a sign of how passing things are. Did it do anything about the perception of kingship at the time? Well, I think the focus now is very much on this idea of imperial kingship. What's the difference between a Roman emperor, you know, which Francis sees himself as, and a king? And, of course, the answer is that imperial kings are sovereign.

And increasingly they look not just to, if you like, the great Roman emperors like, you know, Constantine, Justinian, and so. And they're also looking to the priest kings of the Old Testament, kings after the order of Melchizedek. who actually have sacerdotal powers. And of course, Francis was the most Christian king. Henry coveted a similar title. Well, Henry was thought to be the most Christian king at that time, wasn't? The Pope thought better of Henry than he thought of Francis. There were more rumblings in France than there were in England at the time.

The traditional French title is of most Christian king. And indeed, first son of the church is always cited as well. And indeed Francis had an agreement with the Pope, whereby he'd increased his powers over the church this time. And that's why Henry wants to get the title of Defender of the Faith, which he then does within a... a couple of years afterwards. And then it moves on, of course, because, you know, within 10 years, of course, Henry has failed to get his divorce because Woolsey's, you know, plenipotentary

powers are not strong enough to beat Charles V in Italy. And so, as an influence on the papacy, and so in fact when Woolsey falls, Henry, as it were, subsumes Woolsey's powers as well as his own and oust the Pope and then declares that England is an empire and he is a priest king. And Henry needs to get Francis back on side at that point as well, because he wants the support of the Parliament of Paris for his divorce, and he gets Francis to assist him in this way. Anne Boleyn is very keen on nurturing Anglo-French relations. That's why they meet again. They meet again at Boulogne in 1532 as part of all those negotiations. Never with such a single spectacular to such a single spectacular event.

Thank you very much to Penny Roberts, John Guy and Stephen Gunn. And next week we'll be talking about the rise of the mammals. Thanks for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this Radio 4 podcast. You can find hundreds of other programmes about history, science and philosophy at BBC.com.com.uk forward slash radio four.