1514-22 - Peace and Glory

• After the success against France, Henry made peace in 1514 and married his younger sister Mary to the ageing Louis XII of France.
• Despite the accession of Francis I to the French throne in 1515, which brought about new rivalry between the two kings, Wolsey managed to continue his peace policy.
• Henry had wanted to launch a new invasion of France in 1516 but Wolsey persuaded him it would be better for England to join the coalition of powers opposing French intervention in Italy. In the end this idea petered out.
• In 1518 Wolsey devised a general peace the Treaty of London, which brought together the great powers of Europe in a ‘universal and perpetual’ peace.
• France paid 600,000 crowns for the return of Tournai and a marriage was proposed between the French Dauphin (the king’s eldest son) and Henry’s baby daughter, Mary.
• In 1520 Wolsey followed this up with the Field of the Cloth of Gold, where Henry and Francis met just outside Calais for feasting and jousting.
• The Field of Cloth and Gold seemed to portend the end of the long hostility between the two countries and was a further triumph for Wolsey