"Great D&D Moments in History" reimagines famous historical events as episodes in a tabletop fantasy role-playing game. It doesn't get much nerdier than this.
Near Calais, France, June 1520: Two high-level NPCs, Henry VIII of England and François I of France, meet to reaffirm the Anglo-French treaty of 1514 and take part in a series of elaborate tournaments and entertainments.
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| Meeting at the Field of the Cloth of Gold by a nineteenth-century artist, after a sixteenth-century original. Source: Wikipedia Commons. |
Although it had been agreed beforehand that the two monarchs would not fight each other, Henry unexpectedly challenges François to a wrestling bout which the English king quickly loses. This is the last time European monarchs wrestle each other in public — in part because of the potential blow to national pride but mostly because
no one wants to use the grappling rules ever, ever again.
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| Engraving from a seventeenth-century Dutch treatise on wrestling. Source: Wiktenauer.com |
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