7-24 June 2020 marks the 500th anniversary of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, a dazzling summit where the French and English kings Francis I and Henry VIII met to celebrate peace between the two countries. With both kings attempting to display more magnificence than the other, the meeting was a lavish affair, with feasting, jousting, music and wrestling taking place among a huge portable palace specially constructed to house the attendees.
Peer into the world of Tudor tournaments and the detailed preparations required to plan and stage such a spectacle.
This talk was delivered on 22 May 2020 by Sean Cunningham, Head of Medieval Records at The National Archives.
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The National Archives is the official archive of the UK government, England and Wales. We are home to 1000 years of history and are the guardians of some of the world’s most iconic documents from the Domesday Book to Downing Street tweets. We believe that archives are for everyone because they are about everyone, past, present and future. Our collections contain ideas, language and imagery from original records which reflect historical viewpoints and attitudes. Some may be considered offensive. However, we think it important to show them here as accurate representations of the record to help us understand the past.
