aenglaland:

The Field of the Cloth of Gold. In June of 1520, King Henry the 8th of England and King Francis the 1st of France met near Calais. The event was designed for diplomatic talks between the two kingdoms. No expense was spared as each king tried to outshine the other, with dazzling tents and clothes, huge feasts, music, jousting, and games. The event was named after the sheer amount of outfits and tents which were made of gold cloth. Both kings engaged in games and grand festivities throughout the day. Aside from the splendour of the occasion, little diplomatic value was achieved from the event. Francis the 1st was eager to gain reassurance that England would remain a neutral power in Europe in the face of the Holy Roman Empire. However an anti-French agreement with Charles 5^th, the Holy Roman Emperor seemed more likely at this point as Papal attitude was very anti-French and the Pope felt increasingly threatened by French expansion. England also had a traditional hostility towards the French and Henry was jealous of Francis’s conquests. An agreement with Charles the 5th would also safeguard England’s trade routes with the lowland countries such as the Netherlands which were under the rule of the Habsburg Empire. And so it came to be.that an agreement was drawn up with Charles the 5th that if France would not end it’s hostilities with the Holy Roman Empire, both them and England would launch and invasion of France. In 1522 the Earl of Surrey led a raiding party from Calais and into Normandy. Despite the aid of a French rebel army under the Duke of Bourbon, the English expedition came to nothing and was a total flop as the army fell apart due to the lack of supplies and bad weather. Both the Field of the Cloth of Gold and the expedition into France had both provided huge wastes of money as they accomplished nothing in an ongoing bicker between European nations. 

(via sovietsky)