Civil Law. Also 6 lease-, leis, 7 læse-, 8–9 leze-. [ad. F. lèse-majesté, ad. L. læsa mājestās hurt or violated majesty, i.e., of the sovereign people.] Any offence against the sovereign authority; treason.
[1430–40. Lydg., Bochas, IV. xii. (1494), sig. p iij. Lyst he were accused to thestates Of cryme called lese magestatis.]
1536. Bellenden, Cron. Scot. (1821), I. 12. Nochtwithstanding quhatsumever offence of lese majeste committit be thaim.
a. 1578. Lindesay (Pitscottie), Chron. Scot. (S. T. S.), I. 397. G. D. … was banischit in Ingland ffor certane crymes of leismaiestie.
1609. Skene, Reg. Maj., 6. The crime, quhilk in the Civill law, is called the crime of lese Majestie.
a. 1651. Calderwood, Hist. Kirk (1843), II. 356. The conspirators ashamed to expresse the king’s murther, committed this fained rapt, a crime of lese-majestie.
1726. Cavallier, Mem., IV. 332. I confess I am loaded with the Crime of Leze Majesty.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xi. Perduellion is … muckle warse than lese-majesty, or the concealment of a treasonable purpose.
1830. Bentham, Const. Code, Wks. 1843, IX. 38. Under a representative democracy … there can be no lese majesty.
1873. Longf., Wayside Inn, Rhyme Sir Christopher, 20. Not having been at court Seemed something very little short Of treason or lese-majesty.
transf. a. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Hist. Jas. I., Wks. (1711), 9. King Henry [8th] was … a rebel guilty of lese-majesty divine.
1841. Emerson, Addr., Meth. Nature, Wks. (Bohn), II. 227. Why then goest thou as some … listening worshipper to this saint or to that? That is the only lese-majesty.
¶ Both in Fr. and Eng., the first member of this word has been treated as a verb-stem, to which a sb. may be attached in an objective relation, forming compounds with the general sense ‘outrage upon the rights or dignity of’ (what is expressed by the sb.). So in Fr. lèse-catholicité, lèse-faculté, lèse-societé, etc. (see Littré); the Eng. examples below are mere nonce-wds.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., 104. Persons whom the leze nation might bring under the administration of his executive powers.
1814. Southey, Lett. (1856), II. 361. All flogging in schools is prohibited, as a crime of leze-liberty in a free country.
1831. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), I. 424. There is scarcely an honest or independent man among them, who has not in some way or other been guilty of Lèse-Toryism.
1833. Sir W. Hamilton, Discuss. (1852), 570. To enfeeble them [classical studies] would … be … in a certain sort, the crime of lese-humanity.
1870. Lowell, Poems, Cathedral. I was a poacher on their self-preserve Intent constructively on lese-anglicism.
