Flag waving

i agree with you so much as my village has now grown a forest of flags whereas before now, it would just be for special occasions. Richard The Lionheart was not an English speaker. It all seems so jumbled up when it comes to defining what pride in our flag should mean? Nothing to do with poor politics of blaming minorities.

The ability of Richard I to speak English is not known. He was born in England, probably Oxford, and he is first recorded as leaving England when he was about eight years old. So it is highly likely that he was exposed to spoken English in his childhood. We know that his father, Henry II, could understand English, though he was not a fluent speaker. Richard wrote poetry in French and Occitan and knew Latin, so he was a polyglot. I did once come across a record of him swearing at a captive, perhaps Isaac of Cyprus, in English, but have not been able to locate it again.

By the 1150s most Norman aristocrats in England knew English. Many of the first generation married English wives, when they inherited land through such a marriage. Strangely, the first generation of Normans born in England abandoned the shaved neck and faces of their fathers' generation and adopted the long hair and facial hair of the Anglo-Saxons.

Norman French was the official language of the aristocracy, right up to at least the 14th C with many still speaking it as a second language.

I've always thought Henry I was an interesting king, he was sort of New Normans, a bit like Blairs New Labour, he really tried hard to unite Normans and Saxons, but it didn't work out very well.

I've seen some flags on lamp posts down the road, I'm guessing their up there for the Rugby, 3 Welsh and 2 Union Jacks.

I think people here are less likely to be concerned with migrant hotels than they are with tourists, we get more of them every year and they get worse and worse. 

Ordericus Vitalis, a monk and historian, born in 1075 in Shropshire. He had a French father and an English mother. He was sent in his youth for training to a Norman abbey. He later bewailed that he had been exiled to a foreign land and could not understand the language. Though his father was from Orleans, he never learned French at home. Within a few generations Norman French became an acquired language for most of the Norman aristocracy in England. King John's loss of his northern French lands tended to reinforce this trend. The court and royal family remained French speaking much longer.

Henry II, through his maternal grandmother Edith/Matilda of Scotland (a niece of Edgar Atheling), wife of Henry I, was a descendant of Alfred the Great and the legitimate royal dynasty of England. He was hailed, at least by some monastic chroniclers, as the first legitimate king of England since 1066.

Ordericus Vitalis, a monk and historian, born in 1075 in Shropshire. He had a French father and an English mother. He was sent in his youth for training to a Norman abbey. He later bewailed that he had been exiled to a foreign land and could not understand the language. Though his father was from Orleans, he never learned French at home. Within a few generations Norman French became an acquired language for most of the Norman aristocracy in England. King John's loss of his northern French lands tended to reinforce this trend. The court and royal family remained French speaking much longer.

Henry II, through his maternal grandmother Edith/Matilda of Scotland (a niece of Edgar Atheling), wife of Henry I, was a descendant of Alfred the Great and the legitimate royal dynasty of England. He was hailed, at least by some monastic chroniclers, as the first legitimate king of England since 1066.