Fraternité
Separated by sea, entwined by history. Fraternité is a season of events focusing on the fellowship between the UK and France, celebrating shared stories, cross-channel influence and the unity of nations. Through an immersive exhibition, music, talks and tours, uncover the relationship between these countries and their national churches, Notre-Dame and Westminster Abbey.
French footsteps in British history
Floral symbolism
The Fleur-de-lis, a French lily flower, can be spotted numerous times in the Lady Chapel. A symbol long associated with the French crown, it is also a symbol of purity, associated with the sanctity of the Virgin Mary’s Immaculate Conception.
French footsteps in British history
Inspirational architecture
Henry III’s rebuilding of the Abbey was influenced by contemporary French cathedrals, such as Reims, Amiens and Chartres. Designed with Gothic pointed arches, rose windows and flying buttresses, he created a multipurpose space; the setting for coronations, burials and prayer.
French footsteps in British history
Courtly education
Anne Boleyn’s life was changed by time in France. As a French courtier, she learnt musical skills, regal manners and wore the latest French fashion. Her French education made her stand out as a future queen, the only consort to wear St Edward’s Crown at her coronation at the Abbey.
Anne Boleyn, 2nd wife of Henry VIII
French footsteps in British history
Youth remembered
Aveline de Forz, a French medieval teenager, is closely connected to the Abbey. She was the first royal bride and the first burial after Henry III’s rebuild. While her life was short, her memory lives on 750 years later as one of the finest female effigies of the 13th century.
Edmund, Earl of Lancaster and Aveline de Forz
French footsteps in British history
Powerful threat
Mary Queen of Scots was a powerful woman for France, making her a threat to England. The Queen Consort of France created unity between France and Scotland, speaking French as her first language within a French household. However, as a legitimate Catholic heir to the English throne, her life ended with imprisonment and execution.
French footsteps in British history
Double trouble
Henry VI is the only English monarch to have also been crowned King of France. Despite having a ceremony in the Abbey and one a few years later in Notre Dame, he was too young to rule. When he was old enough, the pressure of dual monarchy became too much.
French footsteps in British history
Blissful anonymity
English playwright Oscar Wilde saw France as a place of refuge. After being imprisoned for his homosexual relationship, he ran away to France to live a peaceful life as Sebastian Melmoth. Inspired by the French literary movement, he even wrote one of his plays, Salomé, in French.
French footsteps in British history
Written horrors
British and French soldiers were united as allies against Germany during the First World War. Among sixteen war poets remembered in the Abbey, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon used poetry to share the horrors of trenches and gas warfare while fighting on French soil.
In that bold, ringing cry of liberté, égalité, fraternité, fraternité is the awkward one. The other two are all about rights, but fraternité is a way of behaving. Brotherhood takes us out of our own tribes. It is a virtue and it is hard work. We have to do the thing we are really not very good at, we have to live with difference. In fraternité we must be honest, transparent, accountable and keep the conversation going. That is an effort St Paul commends to us when he writes ‘make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind’ (Philippians 2:2).
The Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle KCVO MBE, Dean of Westminster
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