Calais was held by the English Crown from August 1347 until January 1557/8. It was definitely English, the original French inhabitants having been expelled, but it was a doubtless cosmopolitan community because of its trading and diplomatic importance. N the later years of King Henry VIII’s reign it was fully incorporated into England, sending two MPs to Parliament and becoming part of the diocese of Canterbury.
Little survived of the medieval and early modern centre after the second world war, but one of the medieval buildings that did, although much damaged and in need of extensive repair, was the church of Notre Dame, or as it was known under English rule, St Mary’s.
Some websites claimed special devotion to the Virgin arose during the English siege in 1347. After Calais passed back under French rule the sanctuary was extensively remodelled in an early seventeenth century Counter Reformation style in honour of Our Lady A new eastern chapel in her honour was also added..
The church was largely rebuilt in the second half of the fifteenth century. It is one of the few in France that is often seen as exhibiting the distinctive English perpendicular style, although that that has, in my opinion, left evidence elsewhere in the lands then under English rule.
Wikipedia records the discovery in 1843 of wall paintings from the English era, one of which featured the Virgin and Child. The article can be seen at Eglise Notre-Dame_de_Calais
In the time of English governance the church was visited by virtually every monarch and their consorts when they were in Calais either for peace or war. It was also in the church that the Duke of Bedford, as Regent of English France, conferred the Cardinal’s red hat on his uncle Henry Beaufort in 1426.
The church from the north-west
Image: Wikipedia
The interior looking east
Image: Wikipedia
May Our Lady of Calais interced for us and our intentions
Jesu mercy, Mary pray.
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