The tapestry’s English... if the French want it back they’ll have to invade!

No one will be more grateful to President Macron for allowing the Bayeux Tapestry to cross the Channel than Britain’s schoolchildren. No longer will they have to endure pitching and tossing ferries, ghastly French youth hostels and the gloom of Normandy in order to see one of the most famous objects concerning our island story.

Finally, after nearly a millennium, the tapestry is coming home.

But isn’t the Bayeux Tapestry in fact French? Surely the French premier Monsieur Macron is displaying lots of entente cordiale in sharing this Gallic national treasure with us rosbifs?

Actually, even though the president may have been cheekily wellintentioned in sending us a 70metre-long depiction of the British Isles being successfully invaded by our oldest enemy, it’s quite possible to argue that the Bayeux Tapestry belongs to us anyway.

Rather than its permanent home being in northern France, it should hang in perpetuity in southern Britain, either in Winchester, Canterbury, or perhaps even Wilton, the former capital of Wessex.

So why here, and not across la Manche?

To answer that, we need to delve into the ancient soap opera of Anglo-Saxon royal politics.

In the year 1064, England was ruled by Edward the Confessor, whose wife was Edith of Wessex, who had been raised in Wilton Abbey, in what is now Wiltshire.

Edith had a brother – Harold Godwinson. Harold was therefore King Edward’s brother-in-law, and that year, the king sent him on a mission to France, the precise purpose of which has long been debated.

Norman sources state that Harold was visiting William, the Duke of Normandy, to pledge his allegiance, while others state that Harold was seeing him in order to negotiate the release of some hostages.

Whatever the truth, we do know that Harold was captured by another nobleman, and had to be rescued by William. Harold then made a pledge to William, and again, we cannot be certain of the details, but Norman sources insist that Harold promised William he would not seek the crown of England upon Edward’s death.

However, when Edward did die, Harold went back on his word and was crowned king. William successfully invaded England out of revenge, accompanied by his scheming half-brother, Bishop odo of Bayeux.

HE is the person most frequently credited with dreaming up the tapestry. He certainly had the money to do it. After the invasion he became the Earl of Kent and enriched himself to such a staggering extent that he remains, even today, a candidate for the richest Briton who has ever lived.

Perhaps he wanted to curry favour with William, with whom he had a strained relationship. Supporters of the odo theory point to the fact that the bishop and his followers appear frequently and in good light in the work, and also to the obvious fact that the tapestry would later be found in Bayeux cathedral, which was built by odo.

If he was indeed the man behind the tapestry, then nearly every scholar agrees that this stunning work of art was produced in Kent, where odo was based.

Furthermore, textile experts maintain that the style of embroidery and even the vegetable dyes used in the wool were all English.

In fact, the more you examine the tapestry’s history, the more English it gets.

Although he cannot be definitive, one scholar, Emeritus Professor Howard B. Clarke of University College Dublin, suggests that the designer was an Englishman called Scolland, who was the abbot of St

Augustine’s monastery in Canterbury. If the tapestry was designed and made by the English, and commissioned by a French invader who held a British title, the case for it being on our side of the Channel would be strong enough.

However, it gets stronger still, for there is another possible candidate for the patron of the tapestry, and that is Edward’s widow Edith.

You might have expected a tyrannical invader like William to have slaughtered any surviving Anglo-Saxon royalty. But it appears that many were spared, including Edith.

In her highly respected book on the tapestry, the late Carola Hicks, a former research fellow at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, suggests that Edith is a highly plausible candidate to have commissioned the work.

As Hicks recounts in her book, she was one of the few Anglo-Saxons who kept their wealth after the Conquest. In the years after 1066, she emerged as a kind of continuity figure who paid homage to the new rulers.

As well as residing in Winchester, Edith spent much of her time in Wilton, where she had been brought up in the nunnery. It was at prestigious institutions such as Wilton that embroideries were often produced, and when she was Queen, Edith had run the royal embroidery workshop.

With her connections with craftspeople across southern England, and her deep understanding of the world of embroidery, it is possible that Edith could have commissioned the tapestry for the same reasons as Odo – to ingratiate herself with William and make sure she kept her fortune.

What is not seriously in doubt is that the tapestry was made in England, and was produced by a workforce subjugated by colonialists.

So perhaps we should refuse to return the tapestry when the loan comes to an end. And if the French want it back, then they’ll have to invade. Good luck with that, mon braves.

THE STORY IT TELLS

AS well as being an object of great beauty, the Bayeux Tapestry is also an immensely important historical document, as few other objects provide us with so much knowledge of such significant events from so long ago.

Although it’s laced with ambiguities, the tapestry provides us with a good outline of the events that led up to the Norman invasion of the British Isles in 1066, as well as the decisive Battle of Hastings in the October of that year.

It begins by showing Edward the Confessor dispatching Harold to France, where he is captured and held hostage. Harold is rescued by William and the two men join forces in a successful campaign against the Duke of Brittany.

After this, Harold swears an oath to William, although what the oath promised is not clear. When Edward the Confessor dies and Harold takes the crown, an enraged William assembles a mighty invasion fleet.

The tapestry shows the Norman landing, as well as violent scenes such as villages being torched, with women and children fleeing.

The final third of the tapestry shows the Battle of Hastings, and the subsequent carnage wrought on both sides – the tapestry is explicit in its depiction of bloodied, headless corpses.

With the English holding the high ground, the battle initially goes badly for the Normans, but William rallies his men, and a hail of arrows by his archers proves decisive.

Famously, the tapestry shows the death of Harold, although it is ambiguous whether he is the figure killed by an arrow to his eye, or whether he is felled by a Norman horseman. The final images show the English fleeing.