Detail of Quebec's provincial coat of arms on the speaker's throne in the national assembly, on March, 2019.Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press
The Tudor crown was an elaborate confection of gold studded with more than 300 jewels, its cap made of purple velvet lined with black satin. Henry VIII liked to wear it at Christmas.
This 500-year-old bauble has long represented the British monarchy and appeared on a number of Canadian coats of arms.
But the Government of Quebec announced in January that it would be removing the crown from its own emblem as a gesture of provincial autonomy, and to further cut ties with the monarchy.
In 2022, the nationalist government of François Legault also abolished the obligation for members of the legislature to pledge allegiance to the King, and is proposing to do away with the title of Lieutenant-Governor in favour of the less regal “officier du Québec.”
It’s time for the province to “turn the page on the monarchy,” said Jean-François Roberge, Quebec’s Minister of the French Language, in a statement.
The remaining image features three gold fleur-de-lis on a blue background, representing France; a lion passant guardant (in the jargon of heraldry) standing for Britain; and three maple leaves for Canada. The motto “Je me souviens” unfurls at the bottom.
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The beheading of the coat of arms was recommended by a committee on constitutional issues struck by the Legault government. It comes at a fraught time for national unity, with the sovereigntist Parti Québécois leading in the polls and promising an independence referendum if they win a fall election. Alberta is facing its own separatist movement, whose leaders have met with U.S. officials; the province could see a referendum as soon as this year.
But Quebec’s move is not the first time its government has changed the provincial coat of arms to reflect the public mood, representing a long-term evolution in French Canada’s relationship with the Crown. Experts on the monarchy in Quebec argue the redesign may actually diminish the province’s sovereignty, on a symbolic level anyway.
The last time Quebec altered its coat of arms was in 1939 – to add the Tudor crown. Liberal Premier Adélard Godbout had just been elected and wanted to put his stamp on the province. He would eventually found Hydro-Québec and enact a suite of progressive legislation, but first, heraldry.
That December, by decree, he added the motto “Je me souviens,” a phrase coined by the architect Eugène-Étienne Taché to express Quebec’s deep connection to its past.
Curiously, along with this patriotic gesture, Mr. Godbout also added the crown. George VI had recently visited, and Canada had recently joined Britain in declaring war on Nazi Germany.
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Quebec’s leaders were also much friendlier to the British monarchy than they are today. When French politician Alexis de Tocqueville visited Lower Canada in the 1830s, he was struck by the Catholic clergy’s monarchist leanings. The father of Confederation, George-Étienne Cartier, even went so far as to name his daughter Reine-Victoria Cartier, in honour of the Queen.
These feelings were in part a product of the Quebec Act of 1774, which softened the British conquest by preserving the civil code, seigneurial system and religious establishment of the old French regime, said John Fraser, founder of the Institute for the Study of the Crown in Canada.
Some French Canadians actually saw the British monarchy as a defender of their rights and culture.
“There was a whole section in Quebec who didn’t only like the Crown, they were fervent loyalists,” Mr. Fraser said.
The relationship deteriorated sharply in the 1960s with the province’s growing quest for national self-affirmation and corresponding sovereigntist movement. Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to Quebec City in 1964 was marred by protests and police repression in what came to be known as Truncheon Saturday.
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The bitter backlash to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech alongside the Plains of Abraham, when he described the decisive battle as a seed of “accommodation” between English and French, showed how far in the past any Québécois fondness for the British regime now lies.
For all the symbolism behind it, changing the provincial coat of arms does not change much. The Legault government has said it will revise the letterhead of the Lieutenant-Governor (as long as she carries that title) and some of the medals she gives out. Out of respect for architectural heritage, none of the emblems hanging in the National Assembly will be altered.
A spokesperson for Lt.-Gov. Manon Jeannotte said they were still trying to find out more information about the implications of the decree.
The gesture is not only minimal, but shot through with unintentional irony, argued Charles-Olivier Murray, a lawyer and board member of the Crown Society of Canada. For one thing, it is a protest against the British monarchy lodged in the monarchial language of heraldry, he noted.
What’s more, the Crown is “no simple ornament,” but the symbol of sovereignty in the Canadian constitution. By having a crown in its coat of arms, Quebec was claiming a direct link to the British monarchy that bypassed the federal government in Ottawa.
“By removing it,” Mr. Murray said, “Quebec is blurring its message.”
In any case, the Tudor crown has endured worse. When the monarchy was briefly abolished in 1649, Henry’s beloved gold hat was melted down in the Tower of London and turned into coins. They were stamped not with the phrase “Je me souviens,” but “Commonwealth of England.”
Editor’s note: Based on incorrect information provided by the government of Quebec, a previous version of this article stated that the Tudor crown was added to the provincial coat of arms in December, 1939, in anticipation of a visit from King George VI. The visit took place in May, 1939.