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The Field of Cloth of Gold had its inception in plans for international Christian peace first laid out by Pope Leo X when, on 6 March 1518, he proclaimed a five- year international truce among European sovereigns and states, as the necessary prelude to a crusade to retake Istanbul from the Ottomans. Giovanni de’ Medici had become pope in March 1513 at the death of Julius II, and had spent the previous five years building on his predecessor’s cultural patronage in Rome, while simultaneously managing and ameliorating the consequences of Julius’ aggressive policies towards a range of states in Italy and beyond. He promoted his family interests as vociferously as Julius had done his, legitimising his cousin Giulio, and making him a cardinal upon his own elevation. He appointed a number of Medici supporters to the papal curia, and in 1517 made a further thirty- one new appointments. This enabled him to have a compliant consistory upon whose cooperation in his major policies—ecclesiastical, dynastic, and territorial—he could rely.

One of the foreign rulers upon whom Leo felt he could rely for similar cooperation was Henry VIII of England, assisted by Thomas Wolsey, the Archbishop of York, Lord Chancellor, and Henry’s chief advisor. Wolsey’s prominent role in the conduct of foreign policy under Henry has much occupied generations of historians of the reign. For A. J. Pollard, Wolsey’s first modern biographer, England’s various changes in alliance were determined by the cardinal’s ardent support for papal policy, whatever it was, and his ambition ultimately to be elected to the throne of St Peter himself.

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