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http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marche_de_Neustrie
Would you say that this form of Neustrie formed a bulwark against people from across the Channel, that the Bretons were Welsh colonists, and the Normans being English colonists?
It is well known that the Bretons considered themselves rightful heirs of Roman Britain at the time of the Saxon invasion...but what about these Saxons, and the next invasion of Danes? The Bessin was colonized by Saxons (who lived opposite, in England), a few hundred years before the Danes were expelled by Saxon King Alfred the Great to Rouen. Basse Normandie seems centered on the Saxon settlement, and Haute Normandie on the Danish. Both Saxons and Danes are considered integral to English identity, and not the French.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%B4te_saxonne
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandie
Considering the connections both ethnic groups have with the Island, how is the Norman Conquest unforeseen? Neither Normandy nor Brittany appear to be Gallic in origin, and for some very long time, were marked as foreigners living on the border of the Merovingian and Carolingian kingdoms. Even during the Capetian era, they were so separate as to be part of the English establishment. This only began to change from the Valois period. The Duke of Normandy was King of England as well as Duke of Aquitaine, and the Duke of Brittany was Earl of Richmond in Yorkshire, who engaged with the Scottish kingdom as hostiles, separately from the Auld Alliance.
That is another thing--Aquitaine. The Gascons were also considered foreign, tossed back and forth between the French, English, and the Spaniards, until the Bourbons settled this for good, to the point where half is French and half is Spanish.
This seems reason enough why the King of England should also be King of France, when two to three distinct ethnic groups in France would hail his banner. Some say Flanders and Burgundy were additional reasons, and that would especially be so in matters of economy, like the textile industry. Flanders is where the Belgae were from, who founded Winchester, the capital of the West Saxon kingdom that preceded English unification. I would agree that Burgundy has no other reason to be pro-English, since they were otherwise German. King Stephen of England was from Blois, which was the House of Champagne, and the Angevins who came afterward claimed Toulouse. There is not one part of France that has not had some kind of relationship with England on a territorial level.
I mentioned the Belgae as colonizing Britain, but so did the Parisii, in Yorkshire. There would thus be a very old precedent for cross-Channel/Manche relations, as important as the North Sea relations, and both nations have both.
It would be interesting to place a referendum on Normandy and Brittany with respect to independent relations with England and Wales. England still flies the Norman banner of the leopards, and has the Channel Islands. The only difficulty with this arrangement is that England also has an ethnic mesh with Scotland, in the Lowlands, between the Hadrianic and Antonine walls.
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