1799: The Napoleonic POW Escape That Shamed a Norfolk Town for 60 Years
In October 1799, 130 Napoleonic French and Dutch prisoners of war were locked in a Norfolk church bell tower for the night. One man managed to escape - sparking a man hunt! Before Waterloo & Austerlitz, this is the story of Jean de Narde — a French petty officer, 28 years old, son of a notary from St. Malo — and the sixty years of shame that followed his death in an East Dereham churchyard.