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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, 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. |
| 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.
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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|
House of Stuart |
The
House of Stuart
James
II died
in exile in Saint-Germain-en-Laye
near Paris in 1701 and was also buried there. He had fled England
in 1688 after William III had landed and marched on London.
James
II
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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. 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
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
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|
House of Stuart |
Born at the Louvre
Palace in Paris in 1609 Henrietta
Maria married Charles
I in 1625. She gave birth to the future monarchs Charles
II in 1630 and James II in 1633. During the English Civil Wars
which lead to the execution of her husband in 1649 she was forced
to flee into exile in France. She died in 1669 at Colombes near
Paris and was buried at the Basilica
of Saint Denis.
Henrietta
Maria
Charles
I
Mary of Modena,
who became the second wife of James
II in 1673, died at Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris in
1718. She was Queen until the Glorious Revolution in 1688 when
her husband was forced into exile in France. She is buried at
Chaillot.
Mary
of Modena
James
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
Cemetary 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)
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