I NEED SOME HELP IN UNDERSTANDING FRENCHMEN.

...yes, I do know!

French women....I'd just muddle my way around.

Michelle, Jeanette, Elaine, Elise, Antoinette, Marie, ... ... :wink:

Mmmm...favourite French women...Angelique, Sandrine, Julie, Isabelle...and they are just the ones I specifically remember in 1 minute!

There has not been a SUCCESSFUL invasion of England since 1066. Of course, the English have invaded the rest of the British Isles many times since, with eventual success in conquering all but Ireland.

I've always liked what William I did for England. Better language, a registry of property for tax purposes, a rudimentary but stable legal system etc.

KP

Mc Tag,

I am a francophile and have several french friends, generally have had my holidays there and have done business in France for several years, always speaking the langauge in which I am fairly fluent. All my french friends agree with me by the way. I do not mean to denigrate merely to point out what history has shown us-lets move on. I love my french friends and the vast majority of french people are lovely-I agree with KP on the french women thing-lovely women Hey KP you forgot Sophie Marceau !

KP: I think i'd risk the flap by pointing out that Llewelyn the Great invaded, tipped the military balance in the favor of Guy de Monfort, and then marched back to Wales, without significant loss. I think that would qualify as successful. I would also note that you couldn't get more successful than Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, in 1485. When you defeat the reigning monarch in battle, seize the throne, marry the eldest female of the opposition house, and found a dynasty the lasts for more than 100 years, i think you can be said to have been successful.

Oh, and, something i left out of my earlier list: William of Orange landed in 1688, and mounted the throne after James II fled--i think that also qualifies as successful.

French women are way sexy until they raise their arms, then it's like, holy crap! You look like you have Buckwheat in a headlock!

"buckwheat"!

I find it interesting that our N American historians find time to denigrate British policy towards Ireland in a discussion about understanding the French.

Furthermore I would have thought anyone with any grasp of historical events would be able to distinguish between the invitation extended to William and Mary to preserve the Protestant succession and a hostile invasion of these islands.

Y'all keep qualifying the conditions after the fact, first KP talks of a successful invasion, and now you mention "hostile" as a qualifier. Certainly John Churchill, one day to be the Duke of Marlborough, as well as many other army officers did not consider William landing with more than 15,000 Dutch troops to be hostile. I rather think, however, that James and those who supported him (notionally, there were some few who would have met that description, without considering virtually the entire Scots nation), might have thought that action a little hostile.

Y'all really have a a strong interest in protecting the bald statement that England has not been invaded since 1066. You still haven't addressed the issue of Henry Tudor's invasion in 1485. That was both hostile and successful. I didn't even go into much detail, since i omitted John, Duke of York's invasion just before the Wars of the Roses, and the invasion of Edward IV during those wars during which he reclaimed the throne, and then had Henry VI murdered. Monmouth's invasion in 1685, upon the accession of James II was certainly hostile, and a lenghthy and expensive campaign was required to defeat his supporters and scatter the English peasants who had flocked to his banner. Although neither of the Scots invasions of 1649 and 1651 were successful, they certainly were hostile. Preston was a very narrow victory; although Cromwell easily disposed of the Scots at Worcester in 1651. Easy Boss, i ain't tryin' to make y'all look bad, just tryin' to put a pin in an inflated national ego--something all of y'all from overseas enjoy doin' right regular with regard to the US.

As for Ireland, you'll have that in a nation in which so many are descended from Irish catholics, and who are usually not comfortable about a buddy-buddy relationship with a British government. Oh well . . .

...and who rejoice in the bars of Boston and New York at every Irish bomb in London or Manchester and even after 911 continue fund the "Irish National Liberation Army". The "Continuity IRA". The "Real IRA".

So we gave your peasant ancestors a hard time, that was then, this is now get over it.

Fleeing oppression (not denying that) the Irish settlers in the American colonies behaved impeccably towards the native Americans. Some no doubt fought alongside them against the US cavalry, such was their understanding and loathing of oppression under British rule. (!)

Heh heh....I so want Mrs. cav to join in on this one...perhaps I can convince her. Actually, the Irish were quite active as military pick-ups for the French army in their campaigns against Britain, especially in medieval times, as their mutual Catholocism made them strong allies. Ergo, it is perfectly okay to bring up the Irish in a discussion about the French. In fact, many brave Irish soldiers were awarded for their efforts with tracts of land in Bordeaux. What is one of the top first-growth Bordeaux wines? Chateau Haut-Brion, a gallic interperation of O'Brian.

It is of absolutely no consequence to me if Britain was "invaded" every year from 1066 until now but can we please have some sense of proportion about what constitutes "invaded". 1066 certainly was, it changed the language the culture and basically everything.

The so called "Pitchfork rebellion" was not an invasion. Monmouth landed with 150 followers in June 1685 and is defeated in July at the battle of Sedgemoor where before the battle his commander said the rebellion was hopeless.

Llewellyn staged little more than a raiding party (not an invasion) and was executed by Edward I, who went on to built Caernarvon Castle and others, much admired by American tourists.

Henry Tudor's "invasion" was nothing but the last thrash in the Wars of the Roses.

The Spanish Armada was certainly an invasion fleet, but the wind and Francis Drake did for that. Napoleon thought about invading, but thought twice and in the end didn't bother. Hitler was never really serious in my opinion, or if he was, he decided to invade Russia first. With hindsight we can safely say that was a mistake

Cav


Hmmh:

Cav

Sorry thats a gallic interpretation of No'Brain.

Sorry guys, I guess some people can't take a joke...the Haut-Brion myth of being related to 'O'Brian' is anecdotal history, obviously not worth the rumour it is written on....I was just trying to have some fun. My apologies if I offended...

1066 was the Norman conquest, if I recall, Frenchies, yes?...just trying to get back on topic...so...if we accept that there has been no real invasion of England since 1066, you have the descendents of the French to thank.

If that were the case (that it is of no consequence), why you are at such pains to disqualify these events as invasions?



Both Henry Tudor and Edward IV landed with fewer followers than that--Henry rounded up quite a credible force in south Wales, most of whom had been forwarned. Many Lancastrians had made it the area with their men at arms to be in time to join him at Bosworth field. Edward's supporters gathered in Norfolk, and he picked up quite a few more in the march through East Anglia and into Middlesex. Monmouth probably had as many as 4000 "troops" before Sedgemoor, although they were drifting away even before his debacle there.



Firstly, Llewellyn the Great brought a force that more than doubled the troops available to the de Monforts, and remained in England for more than nine months. His withdrawl, and the subsequent escape of Edward from captivity, allowed a relatively small force, largely drawn from London and Middlesex, to defeat the de Monforts and free Henry III.

You have confused Llewellyn the Great with his grandson, Llewellyn ap Gruffyd (usually known as Llewellyn ap Griffith to the English), and confused him with his brother David. Llewellyn the Great, of Gwynned, tried to cement his rule and a dynasty by calling the other Welsh "Princes" together in 1238 to recognize his son David as his heir. The allegiance they offered lasted about as long as it took them to ride out of Gwynned. Llewellyn the Great died (and was not executed) in 1240. In the peace which had been made between Henry III and Llewellyn before the de Monforts had rebelled, Llewellyn's younger son Gruffyd (Griffith) was an exchanged hostage--a common practice in those days. His two sons David and Llewellyn went with him, and spent many of their early years with Henry's son Edward. Gruffyd died in a fall as he attempted to escape the Tower, after the peace looked like breaking down. During subsequent negotiations, Henry reluctantly agreed to release his sons. When David succeeded, Henry refused to allow the homage of the Barons, and he died shortly thereafter--childless. This left Llewellyn ap Gruffyd as the Prince of Gwynned, and it was he against whom Edward I made war in 1272, after the death of Henry III. Llewellyn died in a tragic battlefield accident, when an English soldier heard a horseman coming upon him in the fog, and couched a lance against the ground. Llewellyn rode into the lance, the fog preventing him from seeing his danger in time to avoid it. Edward made a prisoner of David ap Gruffyd, and it was he who was executed. David and Edward had been best friends as boys, and Edward was a viciously vindictive man, who considered that David had betrayed him, and had him hanged, taken down and drawn, had his tongue pulled out, and then had him quartered. The invasion of Llewellyn the Great, made in concert with the insurrection of Guy de Monfort was indeed a genuine and a successful invasion.



Actually, the last thrash of the Wars of the Roses was the landing of a Yorkist pretender in Yorkshire in 1487 with a force of about 2000 German mercenaries. Fortunately for the Tudors, the pretender was so transparently a fake, and the German mercenaries so despised by the local barons, that Henry was not even obliged to raise a force and march north--the local boys took care of that one for him.



There has been fascinating work done by the Royal Navy to show that the Spanish fleet was so technologically inferior to the new Dutch-designed frigates, sloops and snows being used by the English, that they were unable to come up to the wind and fight the current in the Solent, and were thereby prevented from entering the Solent, when they first attempted to stage a landing. Furthermore, the Royal Navy has examined the ordinance--the Spanish were using huge, ungainly, dual-use artillery, which could dismounted from the ships, and mounted on a carriage for use on land. The Armada was at first intended to reinforce the Duke of Parma in the Low Countries, and the invasion of England was a disasterous plan tacked on by an irrationally angry Phillip II. The English used dedicated artillery, i.e., designed for ship-board use, and were able to mount more guns in a given length of deck, and to serve them much more quickly. The superior design of the vessels allowed them to dash in, punish any laggard Spanish vessels, and dash out again before the Spanish could bring heavy fire to bear. The Sea Beggars of Holland deserve credit they never get for having developed the ships, the guns and the tactical doctrines which the English exploited so well. Thereafter, the English hung on the fringes of the fleet and picked off the stragglers. The Spanish were actually quite good at this sort of thing--in the Med. In the Channel and the North Sea, it was a hopeless case for them. This was more a case of the Spanish failing to defeat the English than of the English defeating them. The fire ships effectively dispersed the Spaniards before they could rendezvous with Parma, and the Sea Beggars picked up the ball from the English and harrassed them as they sailed north to their doom in the North Sea. All praise to the foresight of Henry VII and Henry VIII for providing the resources and the energy necessary for the English to transform themselves into a sea power to be reckoned with. Napoleon and Hitler so squandered any opportunities, and both so feared and misunderstood the sea and sea power, that it doesn't warrant any serious comment on their plans to invade England. Naval professionalism countered naval stupidity to assure that neither Nappy nor Adolf would mount any real threat. When Gniesenau and Scharnhorst ran the channel in broad daylight, they effectively demonstrated that such a movement was possible--Hitler simply lacked any military knowledge, and was so despised by Rader, that he hadn't a clue of how to proceed. There is a fascinating account by Adolf Galland in his war memoir, The First and the Last, of how the Luftwaffe provided the air cover to allow the two battleships to run the Channel. I hate to even put the words "Napoleon" and "Navy" in the same sentence, so i'll let that go.

I'm not beeating up on you folks, Boss, i'm just not buying that empty boast of the English that there has been no invasion since 1066.