Semper fidelis
The earliest recorded use of semper fidelis by a military unit is by the Duke of Beaufort's Regiment of Foot, raised in south-western England in 1685.
A more recent adoption is by Senator Joe Doyle, in arms granted by the Chief Herald of Ireland in 1999.
[citation needed] Bernard Burke in 1884[1] listed many notable families in Great Britain and Ireland using the motto "Semper fidelis" in their coats of arms.
They include: Burke's full list of families using the motto was: Booker, Barbeson, Bonner, Broadmead, Carney, Chesterman, Dick, Dickins, Duffield, Edge, Formby, Frisby, Garrett, Haslett, Hill, Houlton, Kearney, Lynch, Lund, Marriott, Nicholls, Onslow, Pollexfen, Smith, Steele, Steehler, Steuart, Stirling and Wilcoxon.
However both Louandre (1834, p. 169)[9] and the city's current official website[10] give the motto simply as "Fidelis", and Sanson (1646, p. 15)[11] claimed that even this was not part of Charles's original grant, but was added later, sometime in the 14th to 17th centuries.
In 1658, Pope Alexander VII bestowed the heraldic motto "Leopolis semper fidelis" on Lviv (then Lwów, part of the Kingdom of Poland).
[citation needed] The City of Exeter, in Devon, England, has used the motto since at least 1660, when it appears in a manuscript of the local chronicler, Richard Izacke.
However the city archives do not hold any letter relating to the motto, and Grey (2005) argues that the Elizabethan origin of the motto may be no more than a local myth, since it is not recorded in contemporary chronicles, and that it may have been adopted at the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy to compensate for the city's less than total loyalty to the crown during the English Civil War.
[citation needed] "Semper Fidelis" is the motto of the city of White Plains, in New York, United States.
This use of the motto evidently derives from these regiments' close connection with the city of Exeter, where they had a base from their foundation (see the Illustrated London News article referenced above) until their disappearance by amalgamation into the Rifles in 2007.
McCawley owed his commission[19] to Senator Pierre Soulé of Louisiana, a Catholic born and raised in France, who would have been well aware of the Irish Brigade's service as Marines during the American Revolution.
"Semper fidelis" is the motto of The West Nova Scotia Regiment (of the Canadian Armed Forces), formed in 1936.
"Semper Fidelis" serves as the motto of a number of schools around the world: B. Burke (1884) and Chassant & Tausin (1878), and other sources, list a number of similar mottos that appeared in family or city coats of arms in Great Britain, Ireland and France, though none was ever as popular as "Semper fidelis".
