2023-05-01 04:44:12
LONDON (AFP) – The upcoming coronation of King Charles III will see all Britons swear allegiance to the monarch in a tradition reserved for the nobility in the past, but the ceremony has angered anti-royalists.
The Church of England’s Archbishop of Canterbury (Archbishop of Canterbury) Welby (Justin Welby) will preside over the coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey on the 6th. He announced on April 29 that the traditional “Homage of Peers” ceremony in the past will be abolished. This link was originally for the nobles to kneel before the king and swear allegiance to him.
But the ceremony will include a “Homage of the People” segment, calling on the people of the United Kingdom and other countries where the British monarch is their head of state to swear allegiance to the King.
Bishop Welby will call on “all people of good will, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and other kingdoms and territories, to swear from their hearts and voices their allegiance to their unquestioned King, Defender of all peoples”.
The coronation will read: “All earnest ones, in this church and elsewhere please join in saying: I swear my true allegiance to His Majesty the King, and to your heirs and successors in law. May God bless me.”
In the United Kingdom and Canada, where the monarch is head of state, members of parliament take an oath of allegiance to the king when they take office.
Several elected representatives of public opinion said in an interview with British media yesterday that they would like to take new oaths at the coronation ceremony.
Anti-monarchy groups, however, argue that asking the general public to take an oath of allegiance at a coronation is too “offensive, deaf to dissent and contemptuous of the people”.
“In a democracy, it is the head of state who pledges allegiance to the people, not the other way around,” said Graham Smith, spokesman for the anti-monarchist group Republic, which plans to launch a demonstration on May 6. .
There are many firsts for this coronation ceremony, the statement pointed out. For the first time, the coronation ceremony will use languages related to the British Isles, such as Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic, and the first time a female bishop will participate in the ceremony.
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