How To Go To France Without Leaving North America

If you want to go to France, clap your hands.

Now, I'm sure that last sentence was followed by thunderous applause, because really, what lover of history doesn't want to travel? Especially to France--land of wine, magnificent churches, and endless disputes with the English, it's a history lover's dream, right? Most of my readers are American (except for the large minority of readers from Israel, which, shout out to you guys!), and you're probably thinking something along the lines of 'Yeah, I'd love to go to France, but it's  expensive! A plane ticket to Paris is several thousand dollars, and that's just the ticket!'. Well, I have some news for you, you can visit part of France without leaving North America.


Now, sure, North America France isn't quite the same as France France. There aren't large churches or sun kissed vineyards, though they've had their share of disputes with the English. There is, however, a rich history of fishing, bootlegging, and sticking it to the Nazis that you won't get in mainland France. Where am I talking about? St. Pierre and Miquelon.
St. Pierre and Miquelon is a group of eight small islands just off the coast of Newfoundland known for its plentiful fishing. It's a small area, the main island--St. Pierre--being home to only 6,000 people, but its a proud area that is, by all accounts, very French. French is the official language, and all residents speak it. There's dozens of bakeries, and the French flag flies over the island. The area has a rich and someone tumultuous history, starting from the very beginning.

The St. Pierre and Miquelon flag.

St. Pierre and Miquelon was first discovered by Proto-Inuit people. Then the Beothuk. Probably. It's hard to tell that far back. First Nation people isn't really who you expect to 'discover' places, but I think it's important that we remember every so often that Europeans didn't discover shit. Well, they discovered Europe (probably). But that's about it.

St. Pierre and Miquelon was later 'discovered' by several European explorers, but it was the French who established the first settlement in 1536. Now, as you probably know, the pre-1777 North America was basically a tug-of-war between France and Britain, with occasional Spanish distractions. Consequentially, the  islands were annexed by the British several times, only to be re-annexed by the French later. A lot of the early settlers of St. Pierre and Miquelon ended up emigrating to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, but despite the danger French, Breton, and Basque fisherman continued to come to the islands because of their fertile fishing waters.

By 1816 the British decided to leave well enough alone, and the inhabitants of St. Pierre and Miquelon were able to return to their peaceful fishing. The island mostly did its thing interrupted until the 1920s, when America decided that prohibiting alcohol was a good idea.

Prohibition turned St. Pierre and Miquelon into an epicenter for bootlegging. Everything came in and out of the islands, and American gangsters used the area to store their illegal merchandise. St. Pierre even played host to the infamous Al Capone. The illicit activity brought great prosperity to the islands, and fishing was more or less abandoned. Until the Americans repealed the Prohibition laws, and the islanders realized that basing an economy on one product is a bad idea. The island recovered however, and fishing resumed.

St. Pierre

World War Two was when things started to get interesting again. See, after the Germans took France the islands fell under the rule of the government of Vichy, which, while they weren't outright Nazis, they certainly had no inclination to oppose the Fuhrer. Both sides quickly realized that St. Pierre was an important tactical location for the invasion/protection of North America. Luckily, the Axis powers were unable to gain control of the islands, and St. Pierre became an important base for helping free France from Nazi rule.

Since then things have been fairly quiet in St. Pierre. It remains a small, isolated area that relies on its fishing industry, though the locals, along with oil companies, suspect that there is oil of its shores. Either way, St. Pierre and Miquelon remains a charming piece of France smack dab in the middle of Canada.

Sources
Lonely Planet
The Daily Beast
CIA World Factbook
St. Pierre and Miquelon Official Website
Grand Colombier

A Brief Overview of the Wives of Henry VIII-Catherine Parr-Survived

It is very likely that Henry's final queen was named after his first. Catherine Parr's mother, Maud, was a lady in waiting to Catherine of Aragon, and the then queen was named godmother to Maud's baby.

Catherine Parr

Royal associations aside, Catherine was destined to live the first part of her life in obscurity. She was married a grand total of four times, with Henry as her third, and most prestigious, husband. We'll focus on her other marriages in the series 'The Four Husbands of Catherine Parr', but for now we're going to focus on her relationship with the ageing and ailing Henry VIII.

The year was 1543. Henry had just ended his disastrous fifth marriage, and Catherine's second husband, Lord Latimer had just died, leaving her widowed for the second time, this time with two young stepchildren. Being the resourceful woman she was, Catherine decided to call upon the Princess Mary, and use her connections with the late Catherine of Aragon to secure a place in Mary's household. It was there that she caught the eye of both the King and Thomas Seymour, brother to the late Jane Seymour.

Catherine was in her early thirties, which was a bit like the Renaissance equivalent of today's mid forties, but she was still quite the catch. She was very intelligent, speaking four languages (in addition to English), and by the time of her marriage to Henry had already published one religious book anonymously, and was on her way to publishing a second. She was also, as all of Henry's wives were, reportedly quite beautiful. Smart and beautiful, two of the top things that Henry looked for in a woman, is it really any surprise that he proposed?

A surviving copy of
Catherine's book Lamentations of a
Sinner

The couple were married in July of 1543, and Thomas Seymour, Henry's rival, was discreetly sent on a diplomatic mission to the continent. Henry had already had enough brushes with adultery.

Henry and Catherine were only married for about two and a half years, but during that time Catherine managed to accomplish some pretty big things, like:

• Finishing the work of Jane Seymour, and restoring Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession.
• Publish another book
• Act as Queen Regent, one of only two of Henry's queens to do so, while Henry fought another fruitless war with France. That entailed:
• Raising troops and money
• Managing the situation with Scotland. As history shows, managing the Scots is never easy.
• Signing at least five royal proclamations 
• Personally overseeing the education of the young Elizabeth

The original of this portrait hangs in Sudeley
Castle, where Catherine died and is buried.

Most importantly, she managed to bring the Tudor clan into a sort of semblance of a family, building trust and goodwill that would come in very useful to Edward and Mary at the beginnings of their reigns. 

If you've ever taken a history class, you've most likely heard the rhyme, "Divorced, beheaded and died; divorced, beheaded, survived.". Well, Catherine 3.0 survived. She outlived Henry by an entire year. (Anne of Cleves survived by more than that, but Henry divorced her, so she doesn't really count?), and this, in itself, is a miracle, because like so many of Henry's wives, at one point Henry grew tired of her, and tried to have her arrested.

You see, Catherine was not only a very intelligent woman, but a woman extremely interested in religion as well. The three books she published were all religious in subject. She was a staunch devotee of the Church of English, but the Church of England straddled a fine line between Catholic and Protestant, and her views tended to swing too far Protestant for the tastes of both Henry and the Catholic faction at court. The fact that she liked to argue religion with Henry didn't help her either. It didn't take much coaxing from Henry's Catholic counselors to convince him to have Catherine arrested on the grounds of being a Protestant sympathizer. After all, rumors were flying that Henry had his eye on a new wife...

Catherine Parr's tomb at Sudeley castle.

Lucky for both Catherine and anyone else who has ever undertaken the task of documenting Henry's marital exploits, Catherine got wind of the warrant for her arrest before it was put into action. She immediately humbled herself before the king, and in the biggest move of catering to fragile masculinity in the history of womankind, she managed to convince Henry that she was merely arguing with him to distract him from his pain, and so that she could be instructed by his wisdom. This thinly veiled bullshit put Henry at ease, and spared Catherine's life.


It wasn't long after that that Henry died. He left Catherine the title of Queen Dowager, and 7,000 pounds a year. But most importantly, he left Catherine free to marry once again, this time to a man she loved.

Part One  Part Two  Part Three  Part Four  Part Five  Part Six  Part Seven  Part Eight

Sources

englishhistory.net
tudorhistory.org