France v England – implacable rivals for centuries

    

 

Just for fun. The old enmity between England and France stretches back a millennium, with wiki listing 22 wars between the two countries and that was only from 1200 onwards till the early 19th Century; so not including the Norman invasion of 1066.

The England 11 May 973 JC AD chart probably works best. That has a Taurus Sun Mars square Pluto in Leo which collides mightily with the France 21 September 1792 chart with its Uranus in Leo opposition Pluto in Aquarius square Mars in Scorpio – both fixed, utterly unyielding and vengeful nations. The England 973 AD chart also has Saturn in Gemini which squares the France 1792 Virgo Sun.

That relationship chart is even worse than the France/UK one with a composite Pluto trine Sun and square Neptune; as well as Pluto opposition Saturn square Mars – they don’t come much worse than that. Implacable hostility.

Even the France 10 August 843 chart with its Leo Sun hitting the England Sun Mars and Pluto; and the France Mars in Gemini square Pluto crashing into the England Saturn in Gemini is no better and makes obvious why there were centuries of fighting. That relationship chart has a bitter, power-struggling Mars Pluto sextile Mars, trine Uranus and opposition Neptune.

The surprise is that hostilities ceased on the battlefield at all; and that the UK laid itself on the line in two world wars in the 20th Century in an alliance with France against invasions from Germany.

5 thoughts on “France v England – implacable rivals for centuries

  1. Thank you Hugh, that is fascinating. Ironically, many of the French people I know jokingly refer to people from Normandy as Vikings to this day (I thought it was because one was tall and blond, but no it was apparently because he was from Normandy!).

    The 20th Century brought rugby tournaments. I confess I still know very little about rugby, but it was always a source of much Anglo-French banter in the office. Perhaps this redirects the energy somewhat?

    The 20th century also brought many engineering, science and industrial partnerships; most notably the Channel Tunnel and Concorde (although the nose cone part was made in Scotland!). Today there is a lot a collaboration with AI and big data, but it is perhaps the joint defense projects that will cause the biggest headache. The French are involved in major infrastructure projects, mostly to do with energy and transport (the export of transport infrastructure to the UK is big business at the moment). This side of the relationship has a Mercury/Saturn or Mercury/Uranus feel to me.

  2. Hello, what about the relationship between England and Portugal? The Treaty of Windsor, the diplomatic alliance signed on 9 May 1386 at Windsor was sealed by the marriage of King John I of Portugal and Phillipa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. The Treaty established a perpetual pact of mutual support between the countries. There was an interregnum between 1580 and 1640, when the Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarve was united with Spain, due to the tragic death of King Sebastiao of Portugal. Phillipa of Lancaster was the mother of Henry the Navigator, the father of globalization. Through the centuries and most of the time Portugal was a close friend of England and an enemy of France and Spain. Portugal had the independence recognized by the King of Leon in 1143 (5 October) but some astrologers use another date to draw the chart for the country, the day of the Battle of Ourique (25 July 1139).

  3. Few countries have been so utterly conquered as England was in 1066 where the native population were ousted from nearly all official positions and replaced by alien overlords. A centuries old Anglo Saxon civilisation in all its forms including art, architecture and literature was virtually erased from the face of the earth. Any resistance such as William I faced in Northern England was simply crushed using methods bordering on genocide that left parts of Yorkshire and Northumberland barren for years. The English language did not reappear in a literary form until the 1300s. This experience has seared its way into the English national psyche and effected its character much as the Mongol invasion did to Russia. It is not surprising that up to the Napoleonic era England saw war with France as the natural state of affairs. For both parties it was an existential struggle with each country defining its identity via the conflict.

    As Marjorie so rightly points out the 20th century was really an exception with the two countries being uneasy allies in two world wars. In some respects the Entente Cordiale negotiated by Edward VII might be regarded as hastening the end of Britain as a world power as the alliance embroiled the nation in a disastrous conflict with Germany that bankrupted it. So ironically Frances greatest triumph was to get its old enemy to fight its wars as an ally.

    Like star crossed lovers both countries need the other in order to be truly themselves. Its a classic love hate relationship probably best defined for the English by Sir Philip Sidney who called France that “Sweet Enemy”. Those two words sum it all up really.

    • Thanks Hugh. Wonderfully on point. My history doesn’t really go that far back in any detail so I am better informed. Tr Neptune was in last decan Taurus heading to conjunct the England 973 Sun Mars and square the England Pluto just after the Norman conquest of 1066 which all fits.

      • It is an odd history because prior to the 11th century Anglo-Saxons and Franks cooperated with little emnity. Many of the scholars and missionaries who worked for Charlemagne the great were from England. Indeed, ironically they were one of the driving forces in trying to create the medieval Europe Union that became the Holy Roman Empire.

        It was the arrival of the Vikings that triggered the split. By conquering parts of both England and France they created the circumstance whereby French speakers such as the Viking descendant William I could claim the English throne in 1066. This event led in turn led to French speaking kings of England starting to have ambitions for both land and ultimately the throne of France. The rest as they say is history

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