page_title: Anti-French sentiment
section_title: Britain
hierarchical_section_title: Anti-French sentiment / By region / Europe / Britain
context_page_description: Anti-French sentiment is an extreme or irrational fear or contempt of France, the French people, the French government or the Francophonie. It has existed in various forms and in different countries for centuries. Its antonym is Francophilia.
context_section_description: England and France have a long history of conflict, dating from before the Battle of Hastings, when William the Conqueror claimed the English throne. Before becoming King of England, William found conflict with his liege several times and conquered some neighbouring fiefs. The relationship between the countries continued to be filled with conflict, even during the Third Crusade. The medieval era of conflict climaxed during the Hundred Years' War, when the House of Plantagenet fought unsuccessfully for control of the French throne and lost almost all French holdings, which resulted in future English kings being more culturally English. (Previously, they had largely spoken French and lived in French castles much of the time. Richard the Lionheart, who was famous for his feud with French King Philip, spent most of his life in France and as little as six months of his reign as King in England).
  In contrast, relations between Scotland and France were generally good. The Auld Alliance treaty of 1295 provided for mutual support between Scotland and France in the event of an English attack on either. This was replaced by the 1560 Treaty of Edinburgh between England, Scotland and France.
  The modern history of conflict between Britain and France stems from the rise of Britain as the primary commercial and maritime power in Europe in the early 18th century onward and the threat it posed to France's supremacy. Hostility toward and strategic conflict with France's similar ambitions became a defining characteristic of relations between the two powers. The time between the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and Napoleon's final capitulation in 1815 has been perceived in Britain as a prolonged Franco-British conflict to determine who would be the dominant colonial power (sometimes called the Second Hundred Years' War). British hostility to the Catholic Church, which dated back to earlier conflicts with Catholic Habsburg Spain, contributed to attitudes towards the French because France was also seen as a Catholic power, and the majority of the British people were Protestants. England and later Britain joined continental European states in resisting French ambitions of undisputed hegemony during the reign of Louis XIV and the Napoleonic Wars. Britain also resented France's intervention in the American Revolutionary War. The repeated conflicts spawned deep mutual antagonism between the two nations, which were only and partially overcome by their alliance to defeat Imperial Germany in the early 20th century.
  The dimensions of the conflict in Britain were as much cultural as strategic. Indeed, British nationalism, in its nascent phases, was in large part an anti-France phenomenon and the attitudes involved extended well beyond who won what on various battlefields:
  A growing group of British nationalists in the 17th and 18th centuries resented the veneration that was often accorded the French culture and language.
  France was the most powerful Catholic state for much of the modern period and "Anti-Catholic" sentiments had been widespread in Britain since the Act of Supremacy in 1534.
  The permeation of anti-French sentiment throughout society, as epitomised by the apocryphal story of the Hartlepool monkey hangers, whose belief that the French were literally inhuman led them to have allegedly executed a pet monkey in the belief that it was an invading Frenchman, but the story is based upon the disputed premise that those involved had never seen a Frenchman before.
  Robert Graves wrote shortly after the First World War during his time at Oxford University as an undergraduate that: 
  The eighteenth century owed its unpopularity largely to its Frenchness. Anti-French feeling among most ex-soldiers amounted almost to an obsession. Edmund, shaking with nerves, used to say at this time: "No more wars for me at any price! Except against the French. If ever there is a war against them, I'll go like a shot." Pro-German feeling had been increasing. With the war over and the German armies beaten, we could give the German soldier credit for being the most efficient 
caption: The Gate of Calais: O! The Roast Beef of Old England by William Hogarth, portrays France as an oppressive, poverty-stricken and backward culture.
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