Francis: the First Sun King - six talks by Professor Glenn Richardson

Francis’s childhood and education under the care of his mother Louise of Savoy was central to his personal development and ideals of kingship. He was physically tall and strong, and his mother ensured that he was trained in classical literature and philosophy, the studia humanitatis, and from her came his appreciation classical art. He also loved chivalric literature and the noble sports of hunting and the tournament. Francis was heir presumptive to Louis XII and was married to the king’s daughter in 1514.

Francis acceded to the throne of France on 1 January 1515 and quickly built his governing regime and restyled the French court. Within a year, he successfully pursued his ancestral claim to the duchy of Milan. This provoked rivalry with the Habsburg dynasty that also claimed Milan. Francis secured his conquest through alliances with the papacy, with Henry VIII of England and others, and this eventually led to the Treaty of Universal Peace of 1518 and his participation in the famous Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520.

With these words, Francis reported to his mother his catastrophic defeat and capture at the battle of Pavia in February 1525. This talk traces the king’s erratic path to this defeat. The peace settlement Charles V imposed on his prisoner was unacceptable, but accepting it did  allow the king to return to France in the spring of 1526. By the end of the decade, Francis had renewed his alliance with England and forced the emperor back to the bargaining table. The result was a more acceptable settlement with Charles under the treaty of Cambrai, also known as the ‘Peace of the Ladies’. Using that peace, Francis strengthened his monarchy at home with significant legal and financial reforms in its governance.

During the 1530s, Francis the knight-king learnt to be a little more strategic. A brief ‘entente cordiale’ of sorts with Charles followed, by which Francis expected eventually to secure Milan again for his dynasty. During the latter years of this decade, he renewed his intellectual patronage with the foundation of the Collège de France, increasing his collection of ancient texts and manuscripts and enlarging the royal library. Francis’s artistic and architectural patronage reached its highpoint, with, among other things, the  renovating of the Louvre and, especially, the expansion of the château of Fontainebleau, which the artists Rosso and Primaticcio helped to make the cultural showcase of his reign.

Francis was finally disappointed of his hopes for Milan and he fought one last war with Charles from 1542 to 1546. Francis also lost Boulogne to the English in the war; a bitter blow France was forced to an unsatisfactory peace in 1546. Francis was never one of history’s great commanders. Nevertheless, by keeping Charles's enemies close for as long as he could during his reign, Francis was able to project royal French power well beyond the borders of the French state. Within it, he continued to instigate remarkable intellectual and cultural patronage during the 1530s, even as his court grew large and more divided under the influence of his mistress, Madame d’Etampes.

Francis’s later life and his death in 1547 form the basis of this final talk which looks at his kingship, assessing the successes and failures of his reign, of which there were many. In battle he was brave, if impetuous, which led equally to triumph and disaster. His quixotic questing after Milan cost him enormous amounts of money and energy, much of it misdirected. Domestically, Francis exercised the spirit and letter of the royal prerogative to its fullest extent. He enhanced royal power and concentrated decision-making in a tight personal executive but used a wide range of offices, gifts and his own personal charisma to build up an effective personal affinity among the ranks of the nobility upon whom his reign depended. Under Francis, the court of France was at the height of its prestige and international influence during the 16th century