Skip to main content

UK People Urged To Swear Allegiance To King Charles During Coronation

All Britons will be called on to swear allegiance to King Charles III at his coronation, an oath hitherto reserved for British nobility, in a move that has upset anti-royalists.

The office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who will lead the coronation ceremony on May 6 at Westminster Abbey, announced on Saturday that the traditional "Homage of Peers" -- during which representatives of the nobility kneel before the king and pledge allegiance to him -- would be scrapped.

Instead, the ceremony will include a "Homage of the People", with the archbishop calling on all people in the United Kingdom and other places where King Charles is the head of state to swear allegiance. 

The archbishop will call on "all persons of goodwill in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of the other realms and the territories to make their homage, in heart and voice, to their undoubted king, defender of all".

The order of service will read: "All who so desire, in the abbey, and elsewhere, say together: I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God."

British parliamentarians, but also Canadians since the British sovereign is their head of state, already swear allegiance to the monarch when they take office.

On Sunday, several elected representatives interviewed in the British media indicated that they will take the new oath during the coronation.

However, the plans to ask the public to pledge their allegiance to the king during the coronation have been branded "offensive, tone deaf and a gesture that holds the people in contempt" by an anti-monarchy group.

Graham Smith, a spokesman for Republic, which campaigns for the abolition of the British monarchy, said: "In a democracy it is the head of state who should be swearing allegiance to the people, not the other way around."

The anti-monarchist movement plans to demonstrate on Saturday.

The introduction of the new oath is one of the changes to the centuries-old ceremony, which the palace wants to evolve, particularly to reflect the country's diversity.

The last coronation was 70 years ago when Charles' mother, Queen Elizabeth II, was crowned.

She died in September aged 96.

At Saturday's ceremony, women bishops will take part for the first time, as well as representatives of non-Christian faiths.

Another new feature is that texts will be read out in the languages of the other nations of the United Kingdom: Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/pGkQ7AE

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

It's Official, Kamala Harris Is Democratic Candidate For US Election

US Vice President Kamala Harris effectively secured the Democratic party's presidential nomination Friday, confirming her remarkable rise to party standard bearer in November's showdown against Republican Donald Trump. Kamala Harris was the sole candidate on the ballot for a five-day electronic vote of nearly 4,000 party convention delegates. She will be officially crowned at a Chicago convention later this month. "I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States," Kamala Harris, 59, said on a phone-in to a party celebration after securing enough votes by the second day of the marathon vote. In the two weeks since President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, Kamala Harris has gained full control of the party. No other Democrats stepped forward to challenge her elevation to the top of the ticket, making her confirmation as the first Black and South Asian woman ever to secure a major party's nomination a formality. The a...

Muhammad Now The Most Popular Name For A Baby In Great Britain, Data Shows

427 years after William Shakespeare wrote it for the first time in the great "tragedy" Romeo & Juliet, England is asking the quintessential question - "What's in a name?" - And this time wondering what significance that question might hold in another 42.7 years. The Department of Statistics in the United Kingdom has revealed in its latest dataset that Muhammad is officially the most popular name for a newborn boy in England and Wales. More than 4,600 babies were registered with that name in 2023 - the highest for a boy. Muhammad was the second-most popular name in 2022 as well. Noah, once the most popular name in UK, came a distant second this year, according to the Office for National Statistics or ONS. But the staff at Great Britain's statistical office has in-fact been observing the trend for a while now. Jotting down the most popular names in the UK, besides other important statistics, it revealed that Muhammad has been among the top 10 names for...

Pak's ISI Fuelling Unrest In Bangladesh, Claims Sheikh Hasina's Son

Sheikh Hasina, who quit as prime minister and fled Bangladesh, will be back in the country as soon as democracy is restored, his son Sajeeb Wazed Joy said on Thursday and blamed Pakistan's intelligence agency, ISI, for fuelling the ongoing unrest in the country. In an interview with PTI, Mr Joy said that although 76-year-old Sheikh Hasina would return to Bangladesh, it has not yet been decided whether she will be back as a "retired or active" politician. He also asserted that the members of the Sheikh Mujib (Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) family will neither abandon its people nor leave the beleaguered Awami League in the lurch. He expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government for protecting his mother and appealed to India to help build international opinion and exert pressure to restore democracy in Bangladesh. "Yes, it is true that I had said she wouldn't return to Bangladesh. But a lot has changed in the last two days following continuous...