Long before comedians competed for headlining slots, Henry VIII competed with another young, ambitious European monarch for a very similar kind of prize: prestige, spectacle, and the sense of being the most impressive man in any room, or any continent. His rivalry with Francis I of France produced one of the most extravagant diplomatic events in European history, and it becomes, in a new magical realism novel, the blueprint for the pettiest, funniest ongoing subplot in the entire book.
The complete novel is a free download at HenryViii.uk, and this chapter reframes a real historical rivalry as something startlingly familiar: two men who simply could not stand not being the most impressive person around.
According to Britannica and Historic Royal Palaces, the 1520 summit between Henry and Francis I, remembered as the Field of Cloth of Gold, was ostensibly a diplomatic meeting meant to cement peace between England and France. In practice, it became a weeks-long competition of tents, feasts, jousting, and displayed wealth, with both kings determined to outshine the other at every turn, right down to an impromptu wrestling match between the two monarchs that Henry reportedly lost.
The sheer scale of the event is part of what makes it such rich material. Entire temporary palaces were constructed from wood and canvas, painted to look like stone, just for the duration of the summit. Fountains reportedly ran with wine. It was diplomacy staged as theater, on a budget that makes even Henry's other extravagances look modest by comparison — which is precisely why losing a single unscripted wrestling match in the middle of it all apparently stung as much as it did.
The novel treats that wrestling match as a wound that apparently never fully healed. Modern Henry brings up Francis unprompted, repeatedly, in contexts that have nothing to do with him, in the exact way people bring up an old rival they insist they've completely moved on from. The comedy comes from just how transparently untrue that claim is, five hundred years later.
This chapter uses the genre in one of its more playful registers. Because Francis never actually appears in the modern timeline, the novel lets Henry's obsession manifest as a kind of ongoing imagined commentary — Francis's voice occasionally intruding on Henry's material, unprompted, mocking a bad set the way Henry imagines his old rival would have. It's never explained as anything but real to Henry, which is exactly the point: whether Francis is literally haunting him or simply living rent-free in his head after five centuries, the effect on Henry's behavior is identical.
The device gives the novel a built-in scene partner for some of its funniest material, all without requiring a second historical figure to be dragged fully into the present. Francis exists in the book only as pressure, expectation, and old competitive humiliation — which, the novel suggests, is often exactly how a rivalry like this actually lives on anyway.
The deeper joke of the chapter is that Henry is now, technically, competing with a man who has been dead for centuries and can never actually respond. Every imagined jab from "Francis" is really just Henry's own insecurity given a familiar voice and a French accent. The novel lets that read as both very funny and quietly sad — a man who spent a fortune and risked international incident trying to out-dazzle a rival, and who still, after everything, hasn't managed to let it go.
By the chapter's end, Henry gets something resembling closure, not through any grand gesture, but through the mundane realization that nobody in his current audience has ever heard of Francis I, the Field of Cloth of Gold, or any of it. The rivalry that once consumed a diplomatic summit means nothing to the people he's actually performing for now — which turns out to be its own strange, deflating kind of peace.
Part of what the novel finds funny, in retrospect, is how lopsided the whole rivalry actually looks from a modern vantage point. Both kings are, to most contemporary audiences, distant historical figures rather than living competitors — the entire premise of the feud has quietly dissolved into irrelevance for everyone except Henry himself, who is still, centuries later, the only person left keeping score — refereeing a contest that, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, ended by default a very long time ago.
The full novel is free to download at HenryViii.uk. This batch continues with Henry's relationship to fame itself — reworked as the one thing he's never actually had to work for until now.
Henry once spent a fortune trying to out-dazzle Francis I; these days, nobody in the audience even recognizes the name.
He is, historically, the loser of a wrestling match he apparently never got over.
His idea of a rival still, five hundred years on, requires no actual response from the other party.