Dieu et mon droit
Encyclopedia
Dieu et mon droit is the motto of the British Monarch
in England. It appears on a scroll beneath the shield of the coat of arms of the United Kingdom. The motto refers to the divine right of the Monarch to govern
and is said to have first been adopted as the royal motto of England
by King Henry V
in the 15th century.
for literally "God and my right" (a fuller version of the motto is also quoted as "God and my right shall me defend"). The word droit was formerly
spelt droict (it is related to English direct); the c was later dropped in accordance with modern French orthography
. A better translation referring to the divine right of kings
would be "My divine right", this being an example of hendiadys
.
For the Royal coat of arms of the Kingdom of England to have a French rather than English motto was not unusual, given that Norman French
was the primary language of the English Royal Court and ruling class following the rule of William the Conqueror of Normandy and later the Plantagenets. Another Old French phrase also appears in the full achievement of the Royal Arms. The motto of the Order of the Garter
, Honi soit qui mal y pense
("Spurned be the one who evil thinks"), appears on a representation of a garter
behind the shield. Modern French spelling has changed honi to honni, but the motto has not been updated.
The literal translation
of Dieu et mon droit is "God and my right". However, Kearsley's Complete Peerage, published in 1799, translates it to mean "God and my right hand". (In standard French that would be Dieu et la [main] droite, not mon droit.) The Kearsley volume appeared during publication of the 1st edition (1796–1808) of the German Brockhaus Encyclopedia, which emphasized the raising of the "right hand" during installations and coronations of German Kings.
—and later British
(outside of Scotland)—monarchs since being adopted by Edward III. It was first used as a battle cry
by King Richard I
in 1198 at the Battle of Gisors
, when he defeated the forces of Philip II of France
and after he made it his motto. The belief in medieval Europe was not that victory automatically went to the side with the better army but that, as with personal trial by combat
, to the side that God viewed with favour. Hence Richard wrote after his victory "It is not us who have done it but God and our right through us". So after his victories on the crusades "Richard was speaking what he believed to be the truth when he told the Holy Roman Emperor: 'I am born of a rank which recognizes no superior but God'.".
Alternatively, the Royal Arms may depict a monarch's personal motto. For example, Elizabeth I
& Queen Anne
's often displayed Semper Eadem; Latin
for "Always the same", and James I
's depicted Beati Pacifici, Latin for "Blessed are the peacemakers".
as part of its masthead
. Back in 1785 when it incorporated the royal coat of arms half the newspapers in London were doing so. Since 1982 the paper abandoned the use of the current royal coat of arms and returned to using the Hanovarian coat of arms of 1785.
The Age
newspaper published in Melbourne has a stylised royal coat of arms in its masthead that includes the motto. Some do not think it is appropriate emblem for a republic leaning newspaper.
, Duit on Mon Dei ("Do it on Monday"), which was later adopted as the title of an album
by Harry Nilsson
.
Monarchy of the United Kingdom
The monarchy of the United Kingdom is the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom and its overseas territories. The present monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, has reigned since 6 February 1952. She and her immediate family undertake various official, ceremonial and representational duties...
in England. It appears on a scroll beneath the shield of the coat of arms of the United Kingdom. The motto refers to the divine right of the Monarch to govern
Divine Right of Kings
The divine right of kings or divine-right theory of kingship is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God...
and is said to have first been adopted as the royal motto of England
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
by King Henry V
Henry V of England
Henry V was King of England from 1413 until his death at the age of 35 in 1422. He was the second monarch belonging to the House of Lancaster....
in the 15th century.
Language
The motto is FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
for literally "God and my right" (a fuller version of the motto is also quoted as "God and my right shall me defend"). The word droit was formerly
History of French
French is a Romance language that evolved out of the Gallo-Romance dialects spoken in northern France....
spelt droict (it is related to English direct); the c was later dropped in accordance with modern French orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
. A better translation referring to the divine right of kings
Divine Right of Kings
The divine right of kings or divine-right theory of kingship is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God...
would be "My divine right", this being an example of hendiadys
Hendiadys
Hendiadys is a figure of speech used for emphasis — "The substitution of a conjunction for a subordination". The basic idea is to use two words linked by a conjunction to express a single complex idea....
.
For the Royal coat of arms of the Kingdom of England to have a French rather than English motto was not unusual, given that Norman French
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....
was the primary language of the English Royal Court and ruling class following the rule of William the Conqueror of Normandy and later the Plantagenets. Another Old French phrase also appears in the full achievement of the Royal Arms. The motto of the Order of the Garter
Order of the Garter
The Most Noble Order of the Garter, founded in 1348, is the highest order of chivalry, or knighthood, existing in England. The order is dedicated to the image and arms of St...
, Honi soit qui mal y pense
Honi soit qui mal y pense
"Honi soit qui mal y pense" is a French phrase meaning: "Shamed be he who thinks evil of it". The phrase is sometimes rendered as "Honi soit quy mal y pense", "Hony soyt qe mal y pense", "Hony soyt ke mal y pense", "Hony soyt qui mal pence" and various other phoneticizations. It is the motto of...
("Spurned be the one who evil thinks"), appears on a representation of a garter
Garter (stockings)
Garters are articles of clothing: narrow bands of fabric fastened about the leg, used to keep up stockings, and sometimes socks. Normally just a few inches in width, they are usually made of leather or heavy cloth, and adorned with small bells and/or ribbons...
behind the shield. Modern French spelling has changed honi to honni, but the motto has not been updated.
Other translations
Dieu et mon droit has been translated in several ways, including "God and my right," "God and my right hand," "God and my lawful right," and "God and my right shall me defend."The literal translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
of Dieu et mon droit is "God and my right". However, Kearsley's Complete Peerage, published in 1799, translates it to mean "God and my right hand". (In standard French that would be Dieu et la [main] droite, not mon droit.) The Kearsley volume appeared during publication of the 1st edition (1796–1808) of the German Brockhaus Encyclopedia, which emphasized the raising of the "right hand" during installations and coronations of German Kings.
Use as royal motto
Dieu et mon droit has generally been used as the motto of EnglishEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
—and later British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
(outside of Scotland)—monarchs since being adopted by Edward III. It was first used as a battle cry
Battle cry
A battle cry is a yell or chant taken up in battle, usually by members of the same military unit.Battle cries are not necessarily articulate, although they often aim to invoke patriotic or religious sentiment....
by King Richard I
Richard I of England
Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Nantes, and Overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period...
in 1198 at the Battle of Gisors
Battle of Gisors
The Battle of Gisors was a skirmish fought in Courcelles-lès-Gisors, Oise, Picardie, part of the on-going fighting between Richard I of England and Philip Augustus of France that lasted from 1194 to Richard's death in April 1199...
, when he defeated the forces of Philip II of France
Philip II of France
Philip II Augustus was the King of France from 1180 until his death. A member of the House of Capet, Philip Augustus was born at Gonesse in the Val-d'Oise, the son of Louis VII and his third wife, Adela of Champagne...
and after he made it his motto. The belief in medieval Europe was not that victory automatically went to the side with the better army but that, as with personal trial by combat
Trial by combat
Trial by combat was a method of Germanic law to settle accusations in the absence of witnesses or a confession, in which two parties in dispute fought in single combat; the winner of the fight was proclaimed to be right. In essence, it is a judicially sanctioned duel...
, to the side that God viewed with favour. Hence Richard wrote after his victory "It is not us who have done it but God and our right through us". So after his victories on the crusades "Richard was speaking what he believed to be the truth when he told the Holy Roman Emperor: 'I am born of a rank which recognizes no superior but God'.".
Alternatively, the Royal Arms may depict a monarch's personal motto. For example, Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
& Queen Anne
Anne of Great Britain
Anne ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702. On 1 May 1707, under the Act of Union, two of her realms, England and Scotland, were united as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain.Anne's Catholic father, James II and VII, was deposed during the...
's often displayed Semper Eadem; Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
for "Always the same", and James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
's depicted Beati Pacifici, Latin for "Blessed are the peacemakers".
Current usages
Dieu et mon droit has been adopted along with the rest of the royal coat of arms by The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
as part of its masthead
Masthead (publishing)
The masthead is a list, published in a newspaper or magazine, of its staff. In some publications it names only the most senior individuals; in others, it may name many or all...
. Back in 1785 when it incorporated the royal coat of arms half the newspapers in London were doing so. Since 1982 the paper abandoned the use of the current royal coat of arms and returned to using the Hanovarian coat of arms of 1785.
The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
newspaper published in Melbourne has a stylised royal coat of arms in its masthead that includes the motto. Some do not think it is appropriate emblem for a republic leaning newspaper.
Variants
The phrase was the inspiration for a joke motto by The BeatlesThe Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, Duit on Mon Dei ("Do it on Monday"), which was later adopted as the title of an album
Duit on Mon Dei
Duit On Mon Dei is the eleventh album by Harry Nilsson. The original title for this album was "God's Greatest Hits" but RCA didn't approve. The title is a punning spelling of Do It On Monday, playing on the British Monarchy's motto Dieu et mon droit...
by Harry Nilsson
Harry Nilsson
Harry Edward Nilsson III was an American singer-songwriter who achieved the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. On all but his earliest recordings he is credited as Nilsson...
.
See also
- In My Defens God Me DefendIn My Defens God Me DefendIn my defens God me defend is the motto of both the Royal coat of arms of the Kingdom of Scotland and Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom used in Scotland. Contemporary versions of the Royal arms show an abbreviated motto, in the form of IN DEFENS or, where Modern English is used as an...
, Motto of the British monarch for use in Scotland. - Ich dien, the motto of the Prince of WalesPrince of WalesPrince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...
- List of national mottos