A missing coronation, Halley's Comet & 93 penises... Bayeux Tapestry mysteries unravelled

The Bayeux Tapestry is coming home for the first time in 900 years to the country where experts believe it was made as a piece of propaganda by Kent needleworkers - with a saucy sense of humour.

- BY SIOBHAN MCNALLY

Nearly 70 metres long and 50 centimetres tall, the wool-embroidered fragile linen cloth heading to the British Museum next year is a woven story of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 - and history belongs to the victors.

In the spring of that year Edward the Confessor died. Into the breach stepped William, Duke of Normandy, who had almost certainly been promised the crown by Edward, his first cousin once removed.

But Harold, son of the power behind the throne Godwine, Earl of Wessex, took it for his own, despite swearing support to William. So William's fleet crossed the Channel and trounced King Harold II, slaughtering thousands on a hilltop near Hastings in the fading light of October 14, 1066.

"The tapestry tells the story of probably the most important event in English history, a massive transformation in society, culture and the economy," says Dr Dave Musgrove, content director of BBC History Magazine and coauthor with Professor Michael Lewis of the Story of the Bayeux Tapestry.

President Macron's announcement on loaning the tapestry, made at this week's state banquet with King Charles, is in the spirit of entente cordiale.

But Dr Musgrove says a layer of intrigue is that the tapestry may have been commissioned to placate the defeated English. The characters buried within the 58 scenes of several stitched cloth panels, that were sewn together to make one piece, reveal a lot about fashions, politics, carpentry and shipbuilding. Historians have also unravelled its rude secrets and found willy-waving soldiers and well-hung horses.