In 1702 (Gazette, No. 3874) Queen Anne commanded the Earl Marshal to signify her pleasure that wheresoever her royal arms were to be used with a motto, that of Semper eadem should be used; and upon the union with Scotland in 1707, by her order in council it was ordered to be continued.
King George I., upon his accession, thought proper to discontinue it, and restored the old motto, Dieu et mon Droit.
G.
BOOKS BURNT BY THE COMMON HANGMAN.
(Vol. viii., pp. 272. 346.)
The Histoires of Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigné were condemned, by an arrêt of the parliament of Paris, to be burnt by the common hangman. The charge against the works was, that D'Aubigné had spoken too freely of princes; and it may be added, too freely also of the Jesuits, which was probably the greatest crime. D'Aubigné said upon the occasion, that he could not be offended at the treatment given to his book, after having seen the Holy Bible ignominiously hanged upon a gibbet (for thus some fiery zealots used the Bible which had taken from the Huguenots, to show their pious hatred to all translations of that book into their native tongue), and fourscore thousand innocent persons massacred without provocation.
The Histoire of James Augustus de Thou (a Roman Catholic, though a moderate one) met with the same fate at Rome that D'Aubigné's had at Paris, and it was even debated in council whether the like sentence should not pass against it in France. D'Aubigné, however, spoke strongly in its favour, affirming that no Frenchman had ever before given such evident proofs of solid
judgment and steady application, qualities not generally allowed to be the characteristic of the nation. (Scott's Life of Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigné, p. 419.)
In 1762 the Emilie of Jean Jacques Rousseau was burnt at Geneva by the common hangman. Le Contrat Social had soon afterwards the same fate. (Biographie Universelle, article "J. J. Rousseau.")