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| France |
Closely
connected geographically and - for many centuries after the Norman
Conquest of 1066 - also politically,
six of England's monarchs
have been born in France and four are buried there. A number of royal
consorts from several of the English monarchy's ruling houses
have also been French-born and many of these are buried in the country
of their birth.
The
Norman Conquest
Approximately
a million people speak Breton
in Brittany, but only half of them on a daily basis. It is one of
only four Celtic languages that are still spoken today; Irish and
Scottish Gaelic and Welsh being the other three. The language was
brought across by immigrants from Britain in the 5th century and is
closely related to Cornish (now extinct) and Welsh. |
| Famous
People |
Charles Blondin
was
born as Jean Francois Gravelet in Hesdin near Calais in 1824.
An acrobat and tightrope walker his fame rests mainly on a feat he
achieved in 1859 when he walked across a tightrope stretched across
the Niagara Falls. He repeated his exploit in various ways, including
cooking an omelette midway, carrying a man on his back and on one
occasion with the use of stilts. He died in London in 1897 and is
buried there in Kensal
Green Cemetery.
Famous
London cemeteries
Diana,
Princess of Wales
died in a road accident in Paris in 1997. She is
buried at Althorp Park in Northamptonshire,
one of her childhood homes.
Diana,
Princess of Wales
With
her sons
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| Historic Events |
In
1875 Matthew Webb became the first
person to swim the English Channel when he swam from Dover to Calais.
In
1909 the Frenchman Louis Blériot
became the first person to fly across the English Channel when he
landed near Dover after taking off from Baraques on the French side.
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| Monarchs |
|
House of Normandy |
|
The
House of Normandy |
The first Norman King of England William
the Conqueror was born at Falaise
Castle in Normandy in 1027/28. In 1066 - believing he had
been assured the English crown by the childless Edward
the Confessor and angered by Harold
II who
had become King on Edward's death - he invaded England. Landing
in Sussex
he met and defeated Harold's army at the Battle
of Hastings.
Harold died on the battlefield and the defeat changed the course
of the island's history. The
Anglo-Saxon rule of England was over. William
ruled England until his death in 1087 at the Priory
of St Gervais near Rouen where he
died from a wound received during the siege of Mantes. He was
buried at St Stephen's Abbey
in Caen, Normandy. Two of his sons would succeed him: William
II and Henry
I.
William
I
The
Battle of Hastings
William's
youngest son Henry
I
died at a feast at St-Denis-le-Fermont
near Rouen in 1135. He had ruled England since 1100 and was
buried at Reading Abbey in Berkshire.
Henry's death lead to an unclear succession as William, Henry's
only legitimate son and heir, had drowned in the White
Ship which sank in the English Channel
in 1120. Henry had only one other legitimate child, a daughter,
Matilda.
But England was not yet ready for a female monarch and so it
was Henry's nephew Stephen
who became King, a development which would eventually lead to
civil war.
Henry
I
King
Stephen
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|
House of Plantagenet |
|
The
House of Plantagenet |
Born
in 1133 in Le Mans, Henry
II died in 1189 at Chinon
Castle, Anjou. The first monarch from
the House of Plantagenet and one of three Angevin Kings, he
had ruled England since 1154. He was buried at Fontevrault
Abbey.
Henry
II, Curtmantle
Henry II, Curtmantle
In 1199 his son Richard
the Lionheart
died from a wound received during the siege of Chalus
Castle, Aquitaine. One of three Angevin
Kings from the House of Plantagenet, he ruled England from 1189.
He was buried with his father at Fontevrault
Abbey but his heart was buried at
Rouen Cathedral.
Richard
the Lionheart
Richard
II was born in Bordeaux, Aquitaine in 1367.
He was to become the last Plantagenet King of England when he
acceded to the throne in 1377. He was deposed by Henry IV in
1399.
Richard
II
Richard II
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|
House of York |
|
The House
of York |
Born
at Rouen in 1442, Edward
IV was to become the first monarch of the House of York.
He ruled from 1461-70 and again from 1471 until his death in
1483.
Edward
IV
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|
| Nobel
Prize Winners |
|
Literature |
William
Butler Yeats, the first Irish winner of the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1923, died in 1939 in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin,
Provence and was buried there until 1948 when his body was exhumed
and taken back to be buried in County Sligo in Ireland.
William
Butler Yeats
William
Butler Yeats
William
Butler Yeats
Academy
of American Poets: W.B. Yeats
Now that my ladder's gone
I must lie down where all ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.
The Circus Animals' Desertion (1939)
He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
W.H. Auden: In
Memory of W.B. Yeats (1940)
The
Irish winner of the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1969 Samuel
Beckett, died in 1989 in Paris.
Samuel
Beckett
Samuel
Beckett
Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!
Waiting for Godot (1955)
It is suicide to be abroad. But what
is it to be at home, Mr Tyler, what is it to be at home? A lingering
dissolution.
All That Fall (1957)
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|
Peace |
The
Irish statesman Sean
Macbride was born in Paris in 1904. He was active in the
cause of Irish independence, was involved in international human
rights and chairman of Amnesty International. In 1974 he shared
the Nobel
Prize for Peace with Sato Eisaku.
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|
Physiology or Medicine |
The
London-born immunologist Niels
K. Jerne died in Castillon-du-Gard in 1994. In 1984 he had
shared the Nobel
Prize for Physiology or Medicine with the German Georges
J.F. Koehler and the Argentinian Cesar Milstein for their work
on the immune system.
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|
| Royal
Consorts and Heirs |
|
House of Normandy |
Matilda
of Flanders, the wife of the first
Norman King of England William
the Conqueror, died in 1083 at Caen in Normandy and had
been Queen since 1066. She was also buried in the town. The
future King's of England, William
II and Henry
I,
were her sons.
William
I
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|
House of Plantagenet |
Eleanor
of Aquitaine, married the future
Henry
II in 1152 and became Queen on his accession in 1154. She
was mother to both Richard
I and John.
She died in 1204 at Fontevrault
Abbey where she was buried with her
husband.
Henry
II, Curtmantle
Henry Fitzhenry,
the second eldest son and (after his elder brother William's
death in 1156) heir to the throne of Henry
II, died of dysentry in Martel, Quercy in 1183. He became
known as Henry the Young King as - uniquely in the history of
the monarchy - he was crowned king at Westminster Abbey in 1170
while his father was still alive. He is buried at Rouen
Cathedral. It would be his younger
brothers Richard
(the Lionheart) and John
(Lackland) who would become king (in 1189 and 1199 respectively)
on their father's death.
In 1230 Berengaria of Navarre,
Queen to Richard
the Lionheart, died near Le Mans and was buried in the town.
She had married Richard in 1191 and was Queen until his death
in 1199. They had no children.
Richard
the Lionheart
Eleanor of Provence,
future Queen to Henry
III, was born in Aix-en-Provence in 1223. She married Henry
in 1236 and was Queen until his death in 1272. She was the mother
of Edward
I.
Henry
III
Isabella of Angouleme,
the second wife of King John
died in 1246 at Fontevrault Abbey
where she was also buried. They had married in Bordeaux in 1200
and she had been Queen until his death in 1216. She was the
mother of Henry
III.
King
John
Isabella of Valois,
the second wife of Richard
II was born in Paris in 1389. The daughter of King Charles
VI of France married Richard at Calais in 1396. She was Queen
until his death in 1400 after which she returned to France later
marrying Charles, Duke of Orleans. She died in 1409 in childbirth.
Her younger sister Catherine would later marry Henry V and her
husband, the Duke of Orleans, would be captured by Henry at
the Battle of Agincourt and spend a quarter of a century imprisoned
in the Tower
of London.
Richard
II
Richard II
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|
House of Windsor |
In
1986 Wallis Simpson,
wife of Edward
VIII, died in Paris in the same house where her husband
had died in 1972. She is buried with her husband at the Royal
Cemetery in Windsor Home Park. Her husband had abdicated
in 1936 and they had married in France the following year.
Wallis
Simpson
Edward
VIII
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|
| Writers
and Poets |
For
Samuel Beckett and William Butler Yeats
see Nobel Prize Winners
The
Irish playwright Oscar
Wilde died in 1900 in Paris and is buried in the Père
Lachaise Cemetery. He settled in the city in 1897 on his release
from jail in England after he had been found guilty of homosexuality.
Oscar
Wilde
It is through Art, and through Art only, that
we can realise our perfection; through Art, and through Art only,
that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.
Intentions (1891)
Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.
Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
The
English poet Wilfred
Owen was killed in action near Ors in 1918 one week before the
end of the First
World War, he was also buried in the town. His anti-war poetry
brought him posthumous fame, giving a generation disgusted at the
waste and cruelty of the war a powerful voice.
Wilfred
Owen
The
First World War
All a poet can do today is warn.
Preface - Poems (1918)
The
New Zealand born short story writer Katherine
Mansfield died in 1923 at a clinic near Fontainebleau where
she had gone to cure her tuberculosis.
Katherine
Mansfield
Her
friend D.H.
Lawrence died in 1930 at Vence, Provence.
D.H.
Lawrence
Academy
of American Poets: D.H. Lawrence
I want to go south, where there is no autumn,
where the cold doesn't crouch over one like a snow-leopard waiting
to pounce. The heart of the North is dead, and the fingers of cold
are corpse fingers.
(Letter, 1924)
The
writer Lawrence
Durrell died in 1990 in Sommières in the south of
the country. He wrote poetry and nonfiction but became best known
for his tetralogy The Alexandria Quartet set in the Egyptian
city.
Lawrence
Durrell
Lawrence
Durrell
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