Perfidious Albion - Origins and Use

Origins and Use

The use of the adjective "perfidious" to describe Britain has a long history; instances have been found as far back as the 13th century. A very similar phrase was used in a sermon by 17th-century French bishop and theologian Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet:

L'Angleterre, ah, la perfide Angleterre, que le rempart de ses mers rendait inaccessible aux Romains, la foi du Sauveur y est abordée.

England, oh, treacherous England, as the ramparts of its seas were inaccessible to the Romans, there also the faith of Christ is kept at bay .

The bishop's reference is to England's lack of loyalty to the Roman Catholic faith: although England received the faith from Rome in the time of Pope Gregory the Great despite its isolation, since the Reformation it had become a Protestant country.

The coinage of the phrase in its current form, however, is conventionally attributed to Augustin, Marquis of Ximenez a Frenchman who wrote in a 1793 poem:

Attaquons dans ses eaux la perfide Albion.

which means "Let us attack perfidious Albion in her waters." In this context, Britain's perfidy was political: in the early days of the French Revolution many in Britain, the most liberal European state, had looked upon the Revolution with mild favour, but following the overthrow and execution of Louis XVI, Britain had allied herself with the other monarchies of Europe against the Revolution in France. This was seen by the revolutionaries in France as a "perfidious" betrayal.

"La perfide Albion" became a stock expression in France in the 19th century, to the extent that the Goncourt brothers could refer to it as "a well-known old saying". It was utilised by French journalists whenever there were tensions between France and Britain, for example during the competition for colonies in Africa culminating in the Fashoda incident. The catchphrase was further popularised by its use in La Famille Fenouillard, the first French comic strip, in which one of the characters fulminates against "Perfidious Albion, which burnt Joan of Arc on the rock of Saint Helena" (Carried away by his anti-English fury, the character mixes up Joan of Arc with Napoleon, who was exiled to the British island of Saint Helena).