PARIS/LONDON: France will lend Britain the Bayeux Tapestry, an 11th century treasure that tells the tale of how William the Conqueror came to invade England in 1066, an official at the presidential Elysee Palace in Paris said on Wednesday.
The announcement, a day before French President Emmanuel Macron is due to visit Britain for talks with Prime Minister Theresa May, was greeted with enthusiasm in Britain where the tapestry has powerful historical resonance.
“This is huge. This is an extraordinary diplomatic outreach by the president of France and a fantastic gesture of goodwill from one of our nearest and closest allies,” said lawmaker Tom Tugendhat, chair of parliament’s foreign affairs committee.
The 70-metre long tapestry, whose precise origins are obscure and which has not left France in its nearly 950-year known history, is on display in Bayeux, in the northwestern French region of Normandy.
The Elysee official said the loan was agreed in principle but would not take place for several years because work needed to be done on the tapestry to ensure it was safe to move it.
The invasion of England by Duke William of Normandy, better known as William the Conqueror, and his victory over the Anglo-Saxon King Harold at the Battle of Hastings, changed the course of English history.
The Norman conquest transformed England’s language, laws, customs and architecture, and Queen Elizabeth is the 40th monarch in a royal line that traces its origin back to William the Conqueror.
The Times newspaper’s cartoonist Peter Brookes linked Bayeux and Brexit in his offering in Wednesday’s edition, which was drawn in the style of the tapestry. It depicted Macron as “Emmanuel the Conqueror” riding forth with a confident smile as May, brandishing a Brexit banner, received an arrow in the eye — the fate that befell King Harold according to the tapestry. Britain’s foreign minister Boris Johnson was depicted slumped forward on a horse with two arrows in his bottom. — Reuters
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