Nonsuch Palace
Martin Biddle visits Nonsuch, a magnificent combination of French Renaissance decoration, with English late Gothic design, built by Henry VIII in a spirit of rivalry with Francis I of France.
The spring of 1538 cannot have seemed a very suitable moment to begin building two new palaces. As a result of the diplomacy of the Pope, the Emperor Charles V and Francis I of France had concluded a ten years truce, the prevention of which had been an important point in Henry VIII’s foreign policy.