The Bayeux Tapestry is coming home at last

The Entente Cordiale is alive and well, it seems. It was announced today that, thanks to the benevolence of Emmanuel Macron, the Bayeux Tapestry will leave France for the first time in nine centuries, and be loaned to Britain. Strictly speaking, though, you could say the tapestry was coming home, since it was almost certainly made in Kent, by English women toiling under the Norman patriarchy.

It tells the story of the most famous battle in English history, an event that helped to define not just Anglo-French relations but also England’s ingrained class differences. I was being facetious when I made the comparison in 2016 between Anglo-Saxon Leavers and Norman Remainers, but our relationship with France in particular has always defined us as a nation (much more than any ‘British values’).

The tapestry – which, pedants will inform you, is actually an embroidery – tells the story of Duke William’s conquest of England in that famous year of 1066, an event that has characterised Anglo-French relations ever since.