ABSTRACT
On New Year’s Day 1515, Francis I became king of France. Young, ambitious and flamboyant, Francis made his court a new centre of conspicuous consumption and, through it, compelled the attention of the French nobility. He sought the plaudits of observers at home and abroad and wished to create for himself a reputation as a ‘magnificent monarch’ as that term was understood in sixteenth-century Europe. In pursuit of this aim, he soon went to war. A mere nine months after his accession Francis I made good on his claim to the duchy of Milan by victory in the battle of Marignano in September 1515. This conquest disconcerted nobody in Europe more than Henry VIII of England whose own place since 1509 as the dashing young soldier-king of Europe was taken by the new French monarch. Henry’s first military successes against
Louis XII of France in a war in 1513, the capture of the town of Thérouanne and the city of Tournai, now looked modest in comparison. Furthermore, Francis outmanoeuvered and isolated Henry diplomatically in the wake of Marignano, securing his hold on Milan through agreements with Pope Leo X, with the Emperor Maximilian, and with Ferdinand of Aragon, the latter two of whom had been Henry’s allies in the 1513 war.
