The empire on which the sun never sets

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The phrase "the empire on which the sun never sets" has been used to describe the British Empire due to it being so territorially extensive that it seemed as though it was always daytime in at least one part of their territories. Previously, the concept referred to the Spanish Empire under Philip II and his successors, particularly in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The phrase originated to describe the empire of Charles V and derived from similar ancient claims of universal rule referring to the Roman and Persian empires. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

History

Precursors

German philologist Georg Büchmann identifies a speech attributed to Persian ruler Xerxes I (c. 518 BCE –465 BCE) in ancient Greek historian Herodotus' (c. 484 BCE –425 BCE) Histories as containing a precursor of the idea of the sun never setting on a particular political entity in the quote "We shall extend the Persian land as far as Zeus's heaven stretches. The sun will then shine on no land beyond our territory." [4] : 71/109  [5] Israeli historian Benjamin Isaac posits that this quote may have inspired ancient Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus (c. 60 BCE –after 7 BCE) to describe Ancient Rome as "the first and only power ever to have made the risings and settings of the sun the boundaries of her power", and identifies this in turn as a predecessor of the "empire on which the sun never sets" phrase. [4] : 71/109  According to the historian Geoffrey Parker, a claim that Charles V ruled an "empire on which the sun never set" emerged as a variant of the phrase coined in ancient Rome to describe the possessions of emperor Augustus extending 'from the rising to the setting of the sun'. [6]

Spanish Empire

The areas of the world that at one time were territories of the Spanish Monarchy or Empire Spanish Empire Anachronous en.svg
The areas of the world that at one time were territories of the Spanish Monarchy or Empire

Under Philip II, successor of Charles V in Spain, the concept of an "empire on which the sun never sets" became associated with the Spanish Empire. In 1585 Giovanni Battista Guarini wrote Il pastor fido to mark the marriage of Catherine Michelle, daughter of Philip II, to Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy. Guarini's dedication read, "Altera figlia / Di qel Monarca, a cui / Nö anco, quando annotta, il Sol tramonta." [5] ("The proud daughter / of that monarch to whom / when it grows dark [elsewhere] the sun never sets."). [7]

In the early 17th century the phrase was familiar to John Smith [8] and to Francis Bacon, who writes: "both the East and the West Indies being met in the crown of Spain, it is come to pass, that, as one saith in a brave kind of expression, the sun never sets in the Spanish dominions, but ever shines upon one part or other of them: which, to say truly, is a beam of glory [...]". [9] Thomas Urquhart wrote of "that great Don Philippe, Tetrarch of the world, upon whose subjects the sun never sets." [10]

In the German dramatist Friedrich Schiller's 1787 play Don Carlos , Don Carlos's father, Philip II, says, "Ich heiße / der reichste Mann in der getauften Welt; / Die Sonne geht in meinem Staat nicht unter." ("I am called / The richest monarch in the Christian world; / The sun in my dominion never sets."). [11]

Joseph Fouché recalled Napoleon saying before invading Spain and starting the Peninsular War, "Reflect that the sun never sets in the immense inheritance of Charles V, and that I shall have the empire of both worlds." [12] This was cited in Walter Scott's Life of Napoleon. [7] [13]

British Empire

The British Empire in 1919, at its greatest extent with presence on all continents BritishEmpire1919.png
The British Empire in 1919, at its greatest extent with presence on all continents

In the 19th century it became popular to apply the phrase to the British Empire. It was a time when British world maps showed the Empire in red and pink to highlight British imperial power spanning the globe. Scottish author, John Wilson, writing as "Christopher North" in Blackwood's Magazine in 1829, is sometimes credited as originating the usage. [14] [15] [16] [17] However, George Macartney wrote in 1773, in the wake of the territorial expansion that followed Britain's victory in the Seven Years' War, of "this vast empire on which the sun never sets, and whose bounds nature has not yet ascertained." [18]

In a speech on 31 July 1827 Rev. R.P. Buddicom said, "It had been said that the sun never set on the British flag; it was certainly an old saying, about the time of Richard the Second, and was not so applicable then as at the present time." [19] In 1821, the Caledonian Mercury wrote of the British Empire, "On her dominions the sun never sets; before his evening rays leave the spires of Quebec, his morning beams have shone three hours on Port Jackson, and while sinking from the waters of Lake Superior, his eye opens upon the Mouth of the Ganges." [20]

Daniel Webster famously expressed a similar idea in 1834: "A power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drumbeat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." [7] [21] In 1839 Sir Henry Ward said in the House of Commons, "Look at the British Colonial empire—the most magnificent empire that the world ever saw. The old Spanish boast that the sun never set in their dominions, has been more truly realised amongst ourselves." [22] By 1861, Lord Salisbury complained that the £1.5 million spent on colonial defence by Britain merely enabled the nation "to furnish an agreeable variety of stations to our soldiers, and to indulge in the sentiment that the sun never sets on our Empire". [23]

A rejoinder, sometimes attributed to John Duncan Spaeth, runs in one variant, "The sun never set on the British Empire, because even God couldn't trust the English in the dark". [24] [25]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Holslag, Jonathan (25 October 2018). A Political History of the World: Three Thousand Years of War and Peace. Penguin UK. ISBN   9780241352052 – via Google Books. Spanning both hemispheres and the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, the Habsburg Empire was – as its propagandists proudly boasted – the first 'upon which the sun never set'.[ page needed ]
  2. ↑ Lothar Höbelt (2003). Defiant Populist: Jörg Haider and the Politics of Austria. Purdue University Press. p. 1. ISBN   978-1-55753-230-5.
  3. ↑ Cropsey, Seth (2017). Seablindness: How Political Neglect Is Choking American Seapower and What to Do About It. Encounter Books. p. 13. ISBN   978-1-59403-916-4.
  4. 1 2
  5. 1 2 Büchmann, Georg; Walter Robert-turnow (1895). Geflügelte Worte: Der Citatenschatz des deutschen Volkes (in German) (18th ed.). Berlin: Haude und Spener (F. Weidling). p. 157. Retrieved 23 February 2016.
  6. ↑
  7. 1 2 3 Bartlett, John (2000) [1919]. Familiar quotations. Bartleby.com. revised and enlarged by Nathan Haskell Dole (10th ed.). Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 495. ISBN   1-58734-107-7 . Retrieved 23 February 2016.
  8. ↑ Bartlett, John (1865). Familiar quotations (4th ed.). Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p.  388 . Retrieved 23 February 2016. advertisements for the unexperienced never sets.
  9. ↑ Bacon, Francis (1841). "An Advertisement Touching a Holy War". In Basil Montagu (ed.). The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England. Vol. 2. address to Lancelot Andrewes. Carey. p. 438.
  10. ↑ Duncan, William James; Andrew Macgeorge (1834). Miscellaneous papers, principally illustrative of events in the reigns of Queen Mary and King James VI. E. Khull, printer. p.  173 . Retrieved 23 February 2016. sun never sets spain england.
  11. ↑ Don Carlos , Act I, Scene 6.
  12. ↑ Fouché, Joseph (1825). The memoirs of Joseph Fouché. Vol. 1. Compiled and translated by Alphonse de Beauchamp and Pierre Louis P. de Jullian. p. 313.
  13. ↑ Scott, Walter (1835). "Chap. XLI". Life of Napoleon Buonaparte: With a Preliminary View of the French Revolution. Vol. VI. Edinburgh: Cadell. p. 23.
  14. ↑ Wilson, John (April 1829). "Noctes Ambrosianae No. 42". Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. XXV (cli): 527. Not a more abstemious man than old Kit North in his Majesty's dominions, on which the sun never sets.
  15. ↑ Vance, Norman (2000). "Imperial Rome and Britain's Language of Empire 1600–1837". History of European Ideas. 26 (3–4): 213, fn.3. doi:10.1016/S0191-6599(01)00020-1. ISSN   0191-6599. S2CID   170805219. It seems this proverbial phrase was first used by 'Christopher North' (John Wilson) in Blackwood's Magazine (April 1829).
  16. ↑ Morris, Jan (1978). Farewell the Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat. as Christopher North the poet, had long before declared it, an Empire on which the sun never set.
  17. ↑ Miller, Karl (9 August 2003). "Star of the Borders". The Guardian . Retrieved 15 June 2009. the British empire, on which, as Wilson may have been the first to say, the sun never set.
  18. ↑ Macartney, George (1773). An Account of Ireland in 1773 by a Late Chief Secretary of that Kingdom. p. 55.; cited in Kenny, Kevin (2006). Ireland and the British Empire. Oxford University Press. p. 72, fn.22. ISBN   0-19-925184-3.
  19. ↑ Scott, William; Francis Garden; James Bowling Mozley (1827). "Monthly Register: Society for the Propagation of the Gospel: Liverpool District Committee". The Christian remembrancer, or the Churchman's Biblical, Ecclesiastical & Literary Miscellany. Vol. IX. F.C. & J. Rivington. p. 589. Retrieved 15 June 2009.
  20. ↑ "The British Empire". Caledonian Mercury. No. 15619. 15 October 1821. p. 4.
  21. ↑ Lodge, Henry Cabot (1907–1921). "XVI. Webster". In W. P. Trent; J. Erskine; S. P. Sherman; C. Van Doren (eds.). [American] Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. Vol. XVI. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. p. § 6. Rhetoric and Literature. ISBN   1-58734-073-9.{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  22. ↑ "Waste Lands of the Colonies". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) . House of Commons. 25 June 1839. col. 847.
  23. ↑ Roberts, Andrew (October 1999). "Salisbury: The Empire Builder Who Never Was". History Today. 49.
  24. ↑ "Anonymous Quote". libquotes.com. Retrieved 28 August 2021.
  25. ↑ Mukherjee, Siddhartha (29 August 2020). "Wasn't it John Duncan Spaeth who said it?". farbound.net. Retrieved 28 August 2021.
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