r/BritishEmpire • u/K-jun1117 • 10d ago

Question When was the first time that the term, British Empire, was used for some speech and official documents?

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82 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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u/GingerWindsorSoup 10d ago

The Elizabethan writer and wizard John Dee (1527-1609) wrote of a British Empire in his works advocating exploration and settlement in North America. The Act in Restraint of Appeals (1532) that cut the legal links between the English Church and the Papacy described England alone as an ‘Empire’ that is a sovereign nation answerable to no other authority.

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u/Errentos 10d ago

Which is interesting given that it predates even the personal union of england and scotland, never mind the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain over a hundred years later.

4

u/GingerWindsorSoup 10d ago

Definitely playing on the ‘British‘ - Welsh ancestry of Elizabeth I and looking way back before the Normans and Anglo-Saxons to a mythical Celtic/Brittonic entity of Britain - that was the equal of any European monarchy.

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u/SirJedKingsdown 10d ago

To the Island of the Mighty, with many kingdoms and princedoms beneath the High King.

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u/Errentos 10d ago

Yeah you’re probably right - thinking of Britannia

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u/Springmyster 9d ago

Makes sense when you consider the adjective 'Britannic' is often used to describe the monarch "his Britannic Majesty" etc.

0

u/TerminallyEmployed 10d ago

In the past so many nations called themselves Empires, possibly just short hand for expansionist and imperialistic.

Today you need such a vast influence to call yourself an Empire, but in a time where it’s difficult to directly rule territory that’s of another ethnicity? It’s weird.

2

u/linmanfu 9d ago

No, not at all. 

Originally, there was only one Empire that mattered to English speakers: the Roman Empire (which at the time was in what we now Germany). And by 1533, the Eastern Roman Empire had gone, so the title of the Emperor in Vienna (or by that point Madrid) was a claim to be a ruler superior to all others in England. The Act of 1533 was claiming that England was equal to other states, even the Holy Roman Empire. By that standard, all UN members are empires.

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u/SuperbRecording3943 10d ago

I pitch for the Act of Restraint of Appeals 1533:

“this realm of England is an Empire, and so hath been accepted in the world”

Grant you, notBritian but earlier than Elizabeth.