The source of Charles Xuereb’s obsession with the removal or transfer of all that reminds us of our British connection can be traced to 1798 or the French period. Of course, then, it was how to remove the memory of the Order of St John.

On June 16, 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte started the ball rolling. Article 8 of the third order ruled that in all churches, instead of the grand master’s coat of arms, there should be placed that of the French Republic. The worst had yet to come.

Before leaving Malta, Bonaparte appointed Citizen Raymond de Saint-Jean d’Angely as Commissioner of the Government with authority to make rules.

This notorious person, apart from ordering that the Order’s library be burnt down on June 30, 1798, in a frantic bid to eradicate all traces of the presence of the Order in Malta, ordered that all coats-of-arms and other heraldic devices be effaced from all public and private buildings within three days.

Indeed, nothing is ever new.