LONDON — The earliest-known depiction of the 1066 Battle of Hastings — which began the Norman Conquest, changing England's ethnic mix and history forever — is coming home for the first time in 900 or so years.
The Bayeux Tapestry looks like a 224-foot medieval comic strip with scenes from that iconic 1066 battle, when William, Duke of Normandy — better known as William the Conqueror — led an army from France that invaded England, killed its king, Harold, with an arrow to the eye, and installed William on his throne. The tapestry is often called the world's first war propaganda, woven in wool on linen.
It's believed to have been sewn in England a few years after the battle, and soon taken to France — where it's currently displayed in a museum in the medieval town of Bayeux, Normandy. England has had to make do with only a 19th century replica, in one of its own museums.
But when the Bayeux museum closes this September, for two years of renovations, its famous tapestry will be packed up and sent on temporary loan to the United Kingdom — where it will go on display in London's British Museum starting in Sept. 2026.
Tapestry loan took longer to organize than Brexit
French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the deal this week during a three-day U.K. state visit by Macron that was full of pomp and pageantry, including a horse-drawn carriage ride with King Charles III.
Macron and Starmer also agreed to increase support for Ukraine's defense, and announced a "one in, one out" deal to tackle illegal migration across their water border in the English Channel. Under that deal, within weeks the U.K. would return some undocumented migrants across the Channel to France, in return for an equal number of asylum seekers who've filed applications and have been waiting there.
In a speech Tuesday to the U.K. Parliament, Macron noted that in 2027, William the Conqueror would have celebrated his 1,000th birthday.
"I have to say, it took probably more years to deliver this project than all the Brexit texts," the French president joked to Parliament, referring to Britain's 2016 vote and 2020 exit from the European Union.
Speaking Wednesday alongside Macron at the British Museum, Starmer noted the year 1066 is iconic in England — even though it marked a historic battlefield loss to French troops.
"The Battle of Hastings, illustrated by the remarkable Bayeux Tapestry, was the beginning of 1,000 years of shared culture that is now defined by mutual admiration and kinship," the prime minister said.
The British Museum has many other artifacts other countries want back
In exchange for the tapestry, the British Museum says it will send on loan to museums in Normandy several "treasures" that represent the four nations of the U.K. — England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. They include Byzantine artifacts unearthed at the Sutton Hoo ship burial site in eastern England, and 12th century chess pieces carved from walrus ivory and discovered buried in a sand dune on Scotland's Isle of Lewis.
Museum experts say the exchange is part of a bigger trend of museums giving things back. The British Museum has many artifacts in its collection which were plundered during imperial and colonial eras, and are contested. It even publishes a list on its website.
"There's a lot of talk about slippery slopes and museums emptying," says Sarah Baxter, who serves on the advisory board of the Parthenon Project, lobbying the British Museum to return to the so-called Elgin Marbles to Greece, where they were plundered from the Parthenon. "But I think what the Bayeux Tapestry coming to Britain does show though is the power of a partnership as the diplomatic solution."
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