Queens Consort, Gender and Diplomacy: Catherine of Aragon, Claude of France and the Field of Cloth of Gold

Abstract

In 1520, two queens consort, Catherine of Aragon and Claude of France, attended the event now known as the Field of Cloth of Gold. This article analyses representations of their involvement across three sources; contemporary diplomatic correspondence and two later sources, Edward Hall's Chronicle (1548 and 1550) and the Hampton Court Palace painting of the Field (c. 1545). It examines how the producers of these sources shaped the function of the consort according to their own motivations, genre and the context of their own time. It argues that each source acknowledges the consorts as important to the event's success, but that while contemporary letters represent Catherine and Claude as individuals, the later sources exhibit shifting narratives to focus on the trope of ideal queenship. A similar shift was not apparent for kingship. This comparison of contemporary and later depictions of the consorts reveals a gendered reshaping of their role at the Field across time according to the needs of the creators which, in turn, sheds light on understandings of queenship and diplomatic engagement in early modern England.