Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron join King Charles and Queen Camilla in private viewing of famed Bayeux Tapestry

By Lianne Kolirin, CNN

London (CNN) — Britain’s King Charles III and Queen Camilla were joined by the French president and first lady at the British Museum in London on Wednesday for a private tour of the Bayeux Tapestry — a world-famous artwork depicting a fateful battle between the two nations.

Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron are on a two-day visit to the United Kingdom, in a bid to foster closer ties between the two European countries. Their trip began with a visit to see the 11th-century embroidery — currently on loan to Britain from France — which arrived in the UK in July after an absence of more than 900 years.

Also joining the two couples on the tour of the blockbuster exhibition, which opens to the public next week, were the recently appointed British prime minister, Andy Burnham, and his wife, Marie-France van Heel. In the role since July 20, it is the first time that Burnham has met the French leader.

Stretching to 70 meters long (230 feet), the Bayeux Tapestry is not actually a tapestry at all but an embroidery of dyed wool stitched onto a bleached linen background.

Created 960 years ago, it depicts the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066, which saw William of Normandy seize the throne from Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England. The loan of the work to the British Museum follows a historic agreement reached between the two countries after years of negotiation, and exhaustive planning to transport it safely from its permanent home in Normandy, northern France.

“The return of the Bayeux Tapestry to England is a landmark moment in the history of our two nations, and I want people everywhere in the country to be able to enjoy it,” Burnham said in a statement, according to PA Media.

Tickets for the first stage of the exhibition sold out as soon as they went on sale earlier this year, with the British Museum recording its single biggest day of ticket sales in its history — more than £2.4 million ($3.2 million) in sales in the first 24 hours.

The VIPs were met at the museum by its director, Nicholas Cullinan, and George Osborne, a former British finance minister who is now the museum’s chair. They were then led along the length of the tapestry, as curators pointed out the key moments depicted within it.

After the tour, the dignitaries gathered in the museum’s glass-topped Great Court.

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