The illusion of power - the spectacle of politics - as it is used to dazzle one's own followers, to fool an opponent, and to bemuse oneself has never been displayed more grandly than in the meeting in 1520 of England's Henry VIII and the French King Francis I on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Here, in this essay by award-winning writer Charles L. Mee Jr., is the little-told story of how the two kings made peace - but only for a relative moment.
