The English took their delivery as a symbol of God's favour and of the nation's inviolability under a virgin queen.
Despite the antagonistic positions separating them, the groups were both favourable to setting up a pan-African institution based on the principles of state sovereignty, non-interference in the internal affairs of member states and the inviolability of national boundaries.
Alas, I get the feeling that China is seen as cynically trailing in Russia's slipstream, using Moscow to make the public case for the inviolability of national sovereignty, or as it is known in this case, defending tyranny.
The US, for instance, plunged into Iraq with less concern for protocol than has been expressed by policymakers in Washington and at the UN for centuries-old concepts of state rights and the inviolability of national borders.
Nineteenth-century concepts of international order, based on zero-sum balance-of-power considerations and spheres of interest, are threatening to supersede modern norms of national self-determination, the inviolability of borders, the rule of law, and the fundamental principles of democracy.
In France, whose museums are just as treasure-laden as ours, the inviolability of the "national patrimony" is finally being questioned.
"Territorial integrity, the inviolability of borders and national unity of the Democratic Republic of Congo are not negotiable," the Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops wrote in a statement.
Not only is the independence of the criminal justice system fundamental to the very existence of a rule of law, but national security itself depends on the independence and inviolability of the law.
Just as religion buttressed this inviolability, custom sanctified it and reciprocity fortified it, and over time these sanctions became codified in national laws and international treaties.
"He will lose his inviolability," the lawyer said.
The inviolability of the self replaced the inscrutability of God.
