In this episode, I spoke with Glenn Richardson, Professor of Early Modern History at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, London, and author of The Field of Cloth of Gold.
He also has a series of YouTube videos on Henry VIII – here’s an interesting one:
Transcript on Glen Richardson on the Field of Cloth of Gold:
Heather:
Welcome to the Renaissance English history podcast. I’m your host, Heather Teysko. I’m a storyteller who makes history accessible because I believe it’s a pathway to understanding who we are, our place in the universe, and to getting in touch with our own humanity. The Field of the Cloth of Gold is one of the most famous foreign policy events to happen in the 16th century. And Professor Richardson wrote an amazing book about the event. I’m so thrilled to have him on the show.
Before we get started though, just a few bits of normal housekeeping. First, this podcast is a member of the Agora Podcast Network, and I would urge you to go to AgoraPodcastNetwork.com to check out all of the great member podcasts and find a new favorite. But wait until after you listened to this one though, don’t do it right now.
Also, go to England.cast.com for full show notes and to sign up for my super cool mailing list, which gets you extra mini casts, discounts, and giveaways of books and things like that.
One thing on the site right now is a fun quiz to see which Tudor Monarch you are for those times when you’ve got like five minutes and you want to find out whether you’re a Henry VIII or Elizabeth. Interestingly from the people who’ve taken it already, there are an awful lot of Edwards out there. So go to England cast.com for all that good stuff.
Onto professor Glenn Richardson, author of The Field of Cloth of Gold published in 2013. He is a professor of early modern history at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, London. He is also a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and is an honorary fellow of the Historical Association.
He has published extensively on Tudor England’s political and cultural relations with continental Europe and on European Renaissance monarchy. In addition to journal articles and chapters in edited collections, his other books are ‘The Contending Kingdoms’: France and England 1420–1700 from 2008.
Also Renaissance Monarchy: The Reigns of Henry VIII, Francis I and Charles VÂ from 2002 and Tudor England and Its Neighbours, co-edited with Susan Duran in 2005. His current main projects are a biography of Cardinal Wolsey and editing a collection of essays on Renaissance Cardinals.
So he started off the interview with me asking him what the background was to the Field of Cloth of Gold.
Glenn:
Well, the Field of Cloth of Gold really begins as early as 1513 when Henry VIII does his first invasion of France personally, and is able to conquer the town of Thérouanne, the city of Tournai and really tries to establish himself as a major player on the world stage through this conquest of a couple of towns in France. Obviously what he was trying to do is conquer the hold of France, but that didn’t quite work out.
Long story short, by the time he’s in a position to try and have another go, his allies, Ferdinand, outgoing and the Emperor Maximilian are longer interested in this project of a joint attack on the, um, kingdom, Louie Henry. And, and I think a very important person in this story is who comes up with the idea that instead of making war, if you haven’t got any allies who have money, why not make peace in a magnificent way.
Speaker 2: (03:46)
And the first time they do that is when Mary tutor, that is the sister, not the daughter of Henry, the eight, a very young, very pretty woman, still in her teens is married to live in the 12th to form the first Anglo-French Alliance of Henry’s reign in 15, 14, she’s the first and only English princess to become queen of France in 1514, that all works very splendidly as far as [inaudible] are concerned because the tutors are, seem to be a powerful international in the state. However, it doesn’t last very long because when live with the 12th, she’s married to him October 15, 14, and he dies in January 15, 15, bringing to the throne a much younger, more dynamic Monarch who within nine months of his et session completely out does Henry the eighth by conquering, not just a couple of towns in France, but then tying in Mormonism with adoption of Milan.
Speaker 2: (04:46)
And it becomes the, I suppose, to what Henry wanted to be the most glamorous, attractive, successful European prints of his day. And over the course of the next couple of years, between 1515, when Francis becomes King and 1518, um, and re and Woolsey up desperate to do anything, to try and stop this man passing him even further. Uh, and they decided to go back to basics and say, well, if we can’t stop him by by battle, cause they can’t then why not try and make an optical peace between normal France and the entire European base to enable him, me to pose as the peacemaker rather than the warmonger. And that is, that is the title that I can put it. That’s the background to what happens in being named to, um, which is the treaty of universal peace hopefully, or the 10th has been very concerned about the, the rise of the automobiles in the East and the stretch as he perceives it to Western Europe and wants to bring together European princes in a, a truce, but carbon Woolsey is one step ahead of him and says, we don’t need the troops. What we need is a international league cooperation between European princes and the best prints to lead that is not Francis the first or anybody else. It’s my King Henry. And that is what actually happens in 1518. Most of the principalities republics and principalities of Western Europe come together in London and agree the treaty of universal things. It’s a bit like the league or the United nations almost, you know, 500 years ago next year.
Speaker 2: (06:43)
And the linchpin, the kind of thing pulls the whole thing together is a new Alliance between England and France. And that Alliance is secured by a personal meeting between Henry the eighth and Francis the first. And that is why in 15, 18, they agreed to this meeting it’s meant to happen a year later in 1519, but because of the death of the emperor Maximilian and the election in his place of the emperor, Charles, the fifth of course, the third player in all of this, um, the two Kings didn’t meet, but, but eventually the climate is right enough that by the summer of 1520, they come together, uh, at this event, which we now know into history as the field of plop of girl,
Speaker 3: (07:35)
The idea that, that we’ll see hat and with this whole thing, that Henry would be the arbiter of people had problems with each other. They would like take it to Henry. How did he pull that one off
Speaker 2: (07:45)
Busy is, is in the time that he’s organizing the city of London and 15, 18 rules is playing a double game. On the one hand, he’s promising the papacy that Leo, the 10th, that he’s going to work as fully as he can to bring about this truce, which will be the premiere to a so called crusade against the Ottoman Turks. But at the same time, he’s trying to tell Henry that by participating in this league of international peace, he will become the foremost Prince and the way that he demonstrates to Henry that he will be, that is to make Henry the arbiter of the peace treaty. And it’s very interesting. He doesn’t actually tell Pope Leo, that’s what he’s doing until it’s too late. Henry is already proclaimed as the arbiter because in theory, of course it should be the Pope. Who’s the arbiter that falls in this work, and that’s not what he wants. He wants Henry to have the, the foremost role, uh, in this new style piece. Uh, so does it says playing a double game, which is the whole history of holds his career. You think about until he can no longer 1529. Um, so that’s why
Speaker 3: (09:00)
So interesting. Okay. Um, get, can you explain just your book, you spent a lot of time explaining all the logistics and you know, what was needed to get the supplies through France and from England and everything like that. Can you, um, just explain some of that, like how, how people went about planning it?
Speaker 2: (09:20)
Okay. Well, the decision to meet finally is taken in late 15, 19 that it’s going to happen in the summer of 1520, but actually they’d been planning it for about 18 months beforehand because renting the two Kings we’re going to meet a year earlier. And at that time Woolsey starts drawing up, um, regulations. He publishes, um, any sort of pronouncement in which in Marla says, these are the following things that are going to happen. These are all the people who are going to go to this event. Um, this is where you have to be by such and such date. And he sends these letters out to throughout the kingdom. Only one of which actually survives, which is very lucky because it gives us texting, um, lots and lots of Gentry and Nobles would have had basically saying, you should turn up with the rest of you dressed splendidly, um, at Tufts and such date at Dover or wherever you’re going to here at the same time, what was the orders through the Royal court to buy up wheat and cattle and all the things that are needed, food, sheep, anything, and everything, um, which are all to be assembled at the port of Dover.
Speaker 2: (10:38)
Um, by late to me, uh, 1520, um, and then he also organizes shipping. Um, so he gets the Lord warden at the sunk ports and various other Naval officials and commanders to either buy or hire several in the end several hundred ships or vessels barges to take a lot of this stuff across from England across to the English colonists. Cause the meeting takes place. Um, not very far away from Kelly, it’s technically on English territory within the circle pale of Kelly during the town of Dean, which is controlled by the English and art, which is a French term. And so it’s technically English territory on which all was happening. Um, he also sends out orders to the Garrison, to, to Garrison at Kelly to go and buy more materials, horses, sheep, all the rest of it, food wise, um, uh, to, to bring, uh, for this event at the same time, uh, they start in England building what becomes known as the crystal palace that the temporary palace made of wood and glass and canvas, um, which, which is where Henry and Woolsey entertain their French counterparts during the, the field of profit goal.
Speaker 2: (12:06)
And it’s built, it’s, it’s sort of framed up in, it’s a good, like putting together like a piece of Ikea furniture. So you build all the bits and then you ship it across, um, to, uh, the pain of Kelly and then you put it together, um, in a flat pack it’s food drivers and all the rest of it. You put over the course of a couple of months, just immediately prior to the event. I mean, it’s still astonishing how, how they managed to do that. Um, if you can imagine someone like a, an Oxford or Cambridge university college, where there’s a quadrangle in the middle with buildings around the side, or if Hampton court palace, that, that tempted palace was about as big as, as one of those. So it, it, it really wasn’t astonishing feat of, of carpentry and technology transportation to get this over.
Speaker 2: (13:03)
Um, they buy glass, um, in the Netherlands and in other places around because glass has not yet been made to a sufficiently high quality in England. So they bought it on the continent and it just costs in our terms millions it’s like in the book, I make reference to the Olympics in 2008 in Beijing that extraordinary the bird’s nest stadium, which the main stadium, which was the biggest and grand us and people were impressed by its scale and size. Well, something very similar as happening for the English. Um, French, the French King doesn’t have a palace of same size, but what he has is a whole series of huge tented pavilions, um, which, um, he builds just outside the town of Antoine and they are gigantic in size and covered in the most incredibly expensive materials. So they’re basically canvas, but they’re covered over in silk, in velvet all with fluidly and gold and silver.
Speaker 2: (14:16)
Um, it must’ve looked probably two arrows. It looked a bit kind of blinging Amelie, cause it would have been quite brash, but, um, it’s the scale of everything. And that’s, what’s important about this event because whenever the reasons for it and whatever the diplomacy and the politics of it, what it’s really about is two Kings demonstrating to each other, not by warfare, but by spectacular peace there they’re demonstrative power. If I can do this, get all this out millions in our terms of materials together, if I can bring 6,000 people with me, which is the size of a medieval army, anyway, if I can bring all these things together and entertain you for two weeks, just because we’re declaring the peace between us, imagine what I can do to you. If you break this piece, that’s the mess of the feeling of profit. That’s what both sides are doing. And if you play by the rules that I will play by the rules and we can be peaceful and friendly, if you don’t, then this imagine what I will do with you if I am being serious
Speaker 3: (15:28)
[inaudible]. And that was kind of the idea of having the tournament as well, right? I mean, it was, it was actually a tournament that was going on too, right?
Speaker 2: (15:36)
Yes. Bizarrely or ironically asked some 21st century medieval elites, the way in which you celebrate peace is actually to pretend to be a war because you’ve got to make peace as exciting as glamorous and as spectacular, um, in one way, at least as war is. And the best way to do that is to get a whole team of Knights together, demonstrate your physical and your military prowess. Again, it goes to the point I was just making, if we can assemble this type of talent, uh, for, uh, for a minute paramilitary game of the tournament, um, this is the guarantee that if we need to, we can do it for real. Um, I mean the whole thing is a bit of a showmanship and I’m not pretending that anybody thinks that it really, um, the Henry and Francis, uh, deadly show that they can if necessary, go to war with each other.
Speaker 2: (16:36)
But if it’s a bit like Malcolm diplomacy, it’s a kind of attempt to convince the other side by your, by your preparedness, do this, that you’ll do anything, um, to, to have your name and respected. And a tournament is, is you’re right. The tournament is exactly the point. That’s why they meet, they don’t meet to talk about anything. It’s not a negotiation, there’s no extended, um, discussions like we would have in a modern summit where you’d have, you know, the two leaders and the, all their teams are diplomats chatting about this and negotiating a treaty that’s all been done. Um, they just ratified at the event itself. What this is about is as it were physical investing themselves in this outcome between the two of them. So, so tournament is, is incredibly important aspect of the field of probable. Interesting.
Speaker 3: (17:33)
And then can you tell me a little bit about, you kind of touched on it, the fact that the French were coming onto English soil, and that seemed like an important point that Woolsey, um, was trying to negotiate, being able to have Henry say that he was welcoming the French and the whole idea of, um, who the kind of, who was welcoming whom and the rules of court associated with that. Um, it seemed like that was kind of a, a big part of it. And even I remember in the book, you talked about like how, even as they were approaching each other, who was gonna like get off the horse first and having Woolsey walk midway between them and all this kind of stuff. So can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 2: (18:10)
Sure. Yes. The, the issue is they really should be meeting on neutral territory and that was the original plan, but really there’s, there isn’t much nutrients out of Germany, right on the border, et cetera, between, between France, France, and England. Um, so they realized that’s not very practical. Um, so they decide, uh, they, they find a space where it is possible to bring their entourages together and that just the geography determines it, that happens to be within the English pale of Cali. And so this idea is the first book to the French and they’re very reluctant. Um, and the tradeoff is, uh, because as you say, um, the person who is the host has the highest status. So if the meeting between the, the first meeting between the two Kings, which happens on the 7th of June, 1520, um, if this has to happen on English terms, right, that’s all right.
Speaker 2: (19:06)
But Francis has to have something in recompense for that. So what he gets, he has the right to determine the rules of the tournament. So in a sense, he can take back to his people, okay. I have to go onto the English Kings territory to meet him, but I’m the guy who’s actually in charge of the tournament, which is the most important thing that’s after all what the whole thing’s about. So that it’s a good illustration of how to late medieval elites peacemaking works, but it’s sides have to get something out of it. If one side feels that it’s losing it, won’t work and that’s how they do it in his instance. So Francis comes on to this church, as you say, there’s a great deal of nervousness in the morning of the 7th of June, both sides have worried about, you know, secret, um, uh, armies that might be hidden behind the handles almost to attack them as there’s going to be an ambush or they’re really going to meet them.
Speaker 2: (20:05)
It just shows that the real rivalry intention between these two Kings who publicly talk about being equals and brothers and all the rest of it, and in terms of the pastries, but who are really quite, quite ambivalent about each other, they admire each other. They’re impressed by each other, but they’re also very suspicious of Asia. And so Francis does come on to English territory walls is there to assure everybody thinks a lot. And actually meeting goes very well with two Kings, embrace each other. When you go against this very large tent, this pavilion, and they spend most of the afternoon chatting and talking, and actually it goes much better than probably Wilson expecting. In fact, it goes on so long that he gets worried that it’s getting dark and they should go back home. So eventually he breaks it up and the two Kings go, go back home. But yes, that’s a very, it’s a very crucial moment, um, of protocol and the status of two Kings having to be respected.
Speaker 3: (21:08)
Yeah. And you kind of touched on it with the worrying that it was an ambush, and it seems like it was one of these things that until it actually happened, there were all of these risks that it wasn’t going to happen. And all of these worries that even, you know, within a couple of weeks beforehand, there was worries that it might not actually happen. And then tell me a little bit about kind of what was going on then, and then bringing Charles into it as well. And yeah. Yeah. Just tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2: (21:37)
Okay. Well, yes, this, this, this plan, this meeting between two Kings has been around since the signing of the treaty of London, um, treaty of universal peace in 1518. Um, and, um, by the time it actually happens, uh, Charles the fifth, who was the overlord, the Netherlands, and probably Francis’s most keen rival. And we really, um, he is very worried about this plan to meet it because of course he is, as history will famously will, when it comes to the divorce, he is the nephew of Catherine of Aragon. He feels that he ought to be, uh, not left out of this. So he doesn’t pack arrange for, um, he was sending back to the Netherlands in 1520, and having never really particularly been interested in Hamilton before he suddenly decided, Oh, I’d love to go visit my aunt and my uncle in England. Um, so he does, he pops in just at the end of may 15, 20 Henry and Catherine were coming down from London to Dover to go across to the theater.
Speaker 2: (22:41)
And just before that, he and me and Catherine all meet together and have a kind of long weekend at Canterbury. Um, and, uh, that at any promises also that he’ll meet Henry immediately after. So that aspect of it has got to be fact along as well with that really, although it’s ostensibly a meeting between the English and French, because of the power of the Habsburg emperor, it’s almost a tripartite meeting, which goes on between may and June 15, 20, the French are aware that Charles is planning to do this, and that makes them feel rather suspicious. Now, the English also gets suspicious about what the French are doing or not doing because as I was relating earlier, the English have busy shipping food and provisions and buildings, temporary palace, and indeed other tents and things which, which the initial also have in the pale of Kelly.
Speaker 2: (23:35)
And so they’re getting on with it. And of course they send spies across to France to see what’s happening at the neighboring town of Arbor, which is where the French are going to be based. And they did see a lot happening. And I think, Ooh, well, they are, they’re not up to what they don’t realize is that all we talked about, the purpose of tents and things that the French King and also his entourage, his mother and sister, all the great French Nobles, et cetera, all of that is being built about 200 miles away in the town of tool English. Um, but that’s where all the canvas is being made in one stitch together. That’s where all the beautiful fabrics are being established, sent to, and now packaged up and then sent by a series of wagon, trains and horses from Southern France, central France, up into the North to where Audrey is.
Speaker 2: (24:38)
So there are any arrive quite late and literally sort of two or three weeks before the event is, do you start? But which time the English well advanced for their preparation. So there is an immense suspicion equally the French have set up, um, orders for Cannes. And, um, these things called octopuses, which are primitive kind of rifles, massive stockpiling arms, and not at the side of the field, but in the towns around it, just in case something goes wrong. So both sides are suspicious of the other right up until the last moment as I was describing it, even up to the very moment where the King’s meat, um, in the evening of the 7th of June.
Speaker 1: (25:23)
Alright. So can you tell me, we have the meeting now, what are some of the highlights of the event?
Speaker 2: (25:29)
The main thing is, is basically a tournament which goes for about 10 days. So each day or every second day, they don’t, they don’t just on Sundays and stuff like that, but essentially, um, each day is taken up with the different competitions. There’s, um, Justin, um, apps, the tilt, but there’s also competitions such as, um, where they fight against, on foot against each other, with the barriers and things like that. And there’s also kind of free ranging what I call the melange, which is a kind of general, you know, all in bash up between nights. Of course, I have to be very clear that the English and the French Knights and the mobiles, and indeed the Kings themselves do not fight, never fight against each other. They are able to call the holders, the tenant, the holders of the tournament and mixed groups of English and French Knight fight against that.
Speaker 2: (26:27)
So both teams are both English and French. It will be, it will be too difficult to have an English team or French team it’s not rugby or something. It’s a mixed team. Then when they’re not fighting like on Sundays, they have huge banquets. So Francis will take his leading members of his entourage from Ariba over to gain where they’ll be received by queen Catherine and Cardinal Woolsey and the meeting members of the English court. And they’re given, uh, this banquet, which goes for three or four hours at a time, hundreds of different dishes are served again, another display of material, wealth of the dishes on which the food is served, the quality of the food itself, the style, and a degree of the cooking that’s involved. Um, and the sheer spectacle, the presentation, meanwhile, Henry with his sister, Mary and also Catherine, uh, will go across to the French town of Oliver to be entertained with similar, um, spectacular, respectable, and, um, very rich foods, et cetera.
Speaker 2: (27:35)
And they have three occasions like that. Um, the other big highlight of the event is the mass that cover Woolsey, uh, homes on the last day, the last official day, which is, um, uh, high summer day, the 24th of June. Um, and that’s people who may know the painting of a feeling of possibility that’s Hampton before. There’s a kind of dragon that appears in the sky. Um, um, and people have speculated as to what that is. And it seems reasonably clear that the, this dragon that goes across the mass, which has been held where the Cardinal pronounces a plenary indulgence routed by the Pope, everybody who’s attending the field for remission of sins and all the rest of it in the middle of why he’s doing that, which pleases palpable, and because he loves to be in the center of attention and being, you know, the folks, man, as well as hindrance is strange kind of dragon, like thing flies across over the top of the mass.
Speaker 2: (28:40)
And it’s thought it probably is a kite, um, inside the client is always, uh, kind of pyrotechnics that make it float in the air and belt flames and all the rest of it. And PIP it’s called the dragon and people love seeing the picture, which it appears, um, it’s thought it might be, um, either a Welsh dragon celebrating Henry and, you know, his tutor ancestry, or perhaps more plausibly, a kind of weird, um, take on the salamander. Salamander was the, the emblem which Francis the first had. And if you look at any of the, the emblems of Francis at the shutters in LA Valley, et cetera, uh, it, it, it’s a it’s kind of lizard salamander, but the is the first thing is Belcher’s fire and water, et cetera. Haven’t got time to go into the reasons why France has picked Nanda as his ambulance.
Speaker 2: (29:38)
Um, it, it might be that it was a kind of English compliment to the French King because we know that the, the, the firework, the dragon, the kite was made in England and taken across to France. Um, so it’s probably a kind of tribute to Francis the salamander Francis the first. Um, so in terms of, you know, these are the highlights of the field of Buffalo gold. Um, in another way, though, it’s just the sheer spectacle of having, um, in the highest ranking, um, aristocrats in France, they’re in there perhaps dozen or more of them, perhaps the one, two dozen King himself, the King’s mother, um, the kind of people who just never see all in one place together at one time, unless they’ve in Paris equally that the virtual, the entire ability, because England is a much more country course than France. And so it has a much, there are many fewer Nobles per square inch, so to speak than in France, but actually the whole of the nobility in England is shipped across in this fleet of ships and with the King.
Speaker 2: (30:50)
I mean, that would have been incredible thing to watch. Nothing like that had ever really happened on such a scale before. Um, and as well as the buildings and just the sheer visual remains of, of where they stayed. So, and the whole thing really was, um, at the time described by commentators ambassadors ambassadors, and Melanie’s ambassadors, wising you back home saying you have never seen anything like this. I’ve never seen anything it’s just incredible what’s happening. So it generated, it was, it was a kind of a, can’t quite think of it, a modern analogy apart from something like, but it really did focus attention on the potential power of England and France in a way that has, has really happened in that period of Renaissance history. When, you know, the empire and Renaissance, Italy, the focus of attention suddenly for a time, it was the events in, in Northern France, soon technical English territory, um, which held Christendom a goal.
Speaker 1: (31:58)
Wow. And I, I would be, um, I don’t know, I don’t really want to ask about it, but it is like the most famous thing people think of is the wrestling match. Can you just like briefly talk about the wrestling match?
Speaker 2: (32:12)
Um, well, Henry the rescue did apparently occur. Henry and Francis are both very athletic men. Um, Henry’s walked 29 Francis about 24. So, um, when this happens, um, both six over six foot, two they’re they’re, they’re very well built that they used to a life of physical exercise, et cetera. And Breslin was part of the, um, the kinds of sports gentleman did, particularly in France, Henry and Francis were having a drink one evening. And for whatever reason, he decides to challenge Francis too, about a wrestling, um, which Francis at first refuses. But then again, so they get down to take their clothes off and then grapple with each other. And Francis had been trained by a breast home wrestling master who was very good and he throws him into the ground.
Speaker 2: (33:09)
So somehow, so he sticks his arm out and, you know, helps Henry up on him. He says, Oh, very good. You know, well, let’s have another bouncing and, um, kind of best of three candidates, um, and w and Francis refuses to have another about with him. Um, and it was very, very embarrassing for him because Henry prizes himself on his physical fitness, on the strength, um, and these capacities. But I guess it’s one thing to be able to sit on a horse, charged with a Lance against somebody else, but to be able to overthrew someone whose weight or height might be used differently. And if he’s got more technique, um, it just, it’s just interesting that, I mean, I talk about it in the book as, as Henry, I think frustrated at the protocol and every gesture, which one King made had to be reciprocated by the other. And he almost, I think I put it like something he almost like literally wanted to come to grips with, literally get, hold of and say, look, look, I can turn a button and he expected to win. Um, but, uh, he didn’t and equally, uh, made the point and he didn’t need to repeat it. It was, uh, it was obvious that he had the greatest success and I think that pacing very much.
Speaker 1: (34:36)
So then what were the kind of longterm results of the field and why is it important for us now even to, to study it?
Speaker 2: (34:44)
Right. Um, a good question. Um, in one way, it was just a fairly ephemeral event for the reasons I’ve been talking about it. It was designed to put the stamp on to physicalize, to celebrate, um, a potential peace within Europe, which ultimately didn’t come to anything because of the third person in the triangle that we’ve been talking about, namely Charles fit. Um, and so in one way, it’s an example of, um, I don’t know, diplomatic brinksmanship, one-upmanship that kind of display theater, if you will, different medic theater and you can accept that. And I think that’s perfectly valid to, to, um, to discuss and to look at in itself. But when you think that these people spent millions and millions of dollars or pounds in our terms for this event, um, that baby, they physically moved themselves hundreds of miles to attend a city. I mean, people don’t do that.
Speaker 2: (35:51)
Um, if it’s just a bit of spin, surely there’s elements of spin the whole thing. And I wouldn’t deny that for a minute. Um, but I think it gives us as, as people looking back at the past, it gives us a very, um, insight into the kind of mentality, um, all the leads of the 16th century. No, not necessarily people that of course walk what we must’ve began is that there were hundreds and hundreds of ordinary common workers, um, seamstresses, um, elders, competence, glaziers, um, uh, just ordinary laborers who are paid tons a day kind of thing, um, to, to bring this event about. Um, and we shouldn’t forget them as well, but it, in, in terms of trying to get an understanding of, of why maybe more people behaved as they did, I think that that’s useful, um, in terms of the political consequences, most immediate ones are that people have dismissed that the field of pop of gold is, has just been spinning and the deception of the French by the English.
Speaker 2: (37:04)
In fact, if you look at the record, um, uh, although Henry meets Charles the fifth immediately afterwards, uh, and they sign an agreement that they won’t make peace against each other and all the rest of it, there’s nothing in that agreement, which undermined the French Alliance at the time if Francis plays by men, I think it was possible that Waldy and Henry would have been in a position where they would have to have supported him against Charles. The problem is that about a year later in 1521, Francis does break the rules. He launches a, um, a covert attack against Imperial territory. Um, he he’s having the time to go and do all the reasons why, but he’s, he’s very frightened. Charles is going to, um, get into Italy and prevent him from returning to Milan and extending his own control of Italy. So in a vain attempt to try and distract and attack in the spring of 1521 against Charles the fifth.
Speaker 2: (38:14)
Now that is although he tries to portray it as, as a, you know, he was provoked that is a clear breach of the treaty of universal peace. Um, and although he tries to use what happened to gold as a lever to get Henry to support him, but Henry and rules, you realize that actually not only is he in the wrong, but actually the stronger figure by 1521, 15, 22 years, Charles. And so my final point about all of this, I guess, is that what explains it is ballsy? Who’s the genius behind it, trying to keep Henry at the forefront of European affairs. And in fact means completely as it were overthrowing, the apparent message of the public goal, then he’ll do that. But he would have seemed like that. He would say, well, Francis, why are you attacked Charles? You broke the rules. Therefore we warned you.
Speaker 2: (39:14)
Um, and now you’re going to feel what it’s like to be attacked by us. Um, and that is essentially what happens when war breaks out in 1522. Of course, we then very quickly realizing that Henry can’t afford to be at war for very long. He very quickly patches things up with Francis, uh, always an attempt of trying to do so when Francis suffers a catastrophic defeat in 1525, but the battle of popping up, um, and that changes the whole perspective again. So, and that’s why the field seems so pointless in 1520, but in 1520, they didn’t know what was going to be happening in 1525, any more than we do now, what’s going to be happening.
Speaker 1: (40:00)
Thanks again to professor Glenn Richardson for dropping by and talking with us, and please do go to England caste.com to check out his books. He has some great YouTube lectures that he does, and more information on the field of clavicle. Thanks so much.
[advertisement insert here: if you like this show, and you want to support me and my work, the best thing you can do (and it’s free!) is to leave a rating or review on iTunes. It really helps others discover the podcast. Second best is to buy Tudor-themed gifts for all your loved ones at my shop, at TudorFair.com, like leggings with the Anne Boleyn portrait pattern on them, or boots with Elizabeth I portraits. Finally, you can also become a patron of this show for as little as $1/episode at Patreon.com/englandcast … And thank you!]
Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast,  the original Tudor history podcast, started in 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. In 2019 she created Tudorcon, which is now a yearly event, in addition to writing books, and running TudorFair.com - a whimsical Tudor Merch shop.
She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 30 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history (how exciting when she got to interview Alison for the first time!). In addition to history, she is passionate about travel, and has lived in 3 countries and 4 states (not counting her perpetual state of confusion), and her family (who help her host her YouTube channel occasionally).
