Perfidious Albion


Perfidious Albion is a pejorative phrase used within the context of international relations diplomacy to refer to acts of diplomatic slights, duplicity, treachery and hence infidelity by monarchs or governments of the United Kingdom in their pursuit of self-interest and the expansion of the British Empire.
Perfidious means not keeping one's faith or word ; Albion is an ancient and now poetic name for Great Britain.

Origins and use

The use of the adjective "perfidious" to describe England 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:
The coinage of the phrase in its current form is conventionally attributed to Augustin Louis de Ximénès, a French-Spanish playwright who wrote it in a poem entitled "italic=no", published in 1793:
In this context, Great Britain's perfidy was political. In the early days of the French Revolution, when the revolution aimed at establishing a liberal constitutional monarchy along British lines, many in Great Britain had looked upon the Revolution with mild favour. Diminishing the threat that Royalist France posed to British interests was an additional factor encouraging support for the new regime.
However, following the turn of the revolution to republicanism with the overthrow and execution of Louis XVI, Britain, concerned that revolutionary fervor might spread to other countries, had allied itself with the other absolutist 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 catch-phrase was further popularized by its use in, 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".
In German-speaking areas, the term das perfide Albion became increasingly frequent, especially during the rule of the German Empire against the backdrop of rising British-German tensions.

Examples of usage