If he was to take what he saw as his rightful place at the high tables of Europe, Henry VIII had to chose between François I and Charles V. To help him make up his mind, Cardinal Wolsey organised what was to be the earliest summit conference. Located on a dusty, windswept plain in north-west France, it centred on a personal meeting between Henry and François.
However, this jamboree was more than just a talking shop. The kings were determined to impress and outshine each other, arriving with large retinues and sparing no expense in their displays of wealth. The valley in which they were to stay was artificially levelled, a gilt fountain was erected and pavilions were installed, covered with material made of real filaments of gold sewn with silk – hence the name by which the meeting became known: Field of the Cloth of Gold or, as the French know it, Le Camp du Drap d'Or. (Henry is generally reckoned to have excelled in his display of 16th-century bling.)
Jousts and other competitions of skill and strength were held, and the two men and their cronies banqueted each other lavishly. It was fantastically expensive, but still cheaper than war, and it re-enforced the image of Henry and Wolsey as arbiters of Europe. But the image, like the Field of Cloth of Gold itself, proved to be a mirage. Henry and François ultimately didn't get on, and a few weeks later, the English king signed a treaty with his wife's nephew Charles.
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 Field of the Cloth of Gold, 1520
www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/clothofg
old.htm
Reproduction of the beautiful painting of the famously ostentatious meeting between Henry VIII and François I, plus a brief outline of the event.
 Ardres and Guines
Ardres is about 15 kilometres south-east of Calais on the N43. Guines lies a few miles inland from the port, linked to it by a canal and situated between the A16 coast road and the A26 to the east.
The Field of the Cloth of Gold took place in an area known at the time as the Trois Pays (Three Countries) because it is where English, Spanish and French territories met (Charles V, Holy Roman emperor and king of Spain, also ruled over what is now Belgium and Holland). Henry first stayed in the town of Guines and François stayed at Ardres, and the gathering happened in the no-man's-land in between. The Guines town museum – La Tour d'Horloge – brings the Field of the Cloth of Gold vividly to life with an entertaining film of a 'conversation' between the two kings (in French with English subtitles) in which they each explain their point of view.
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