This rather long article goes into the importance of the oath, the
most solemn and formal commitment there is, coming as it does from Anglo-Saxon
ideas about holding society, especially Families
together. They are in effect a constitution, being a system of mutual
obligations.
The Oaths and
Vows That Bind Our Society Together
David J. Webb
Legal Notes No.
53
ISBN
9781856376563
ISSN 0267-7083 (print)
ISSN 2042-258X (online)
An occasional
publication of the Libertarian Alliance,
Suite 35, 2 Lansdowne Row, Mayfair, London W1J 6HL
© 2012:
Libertarian Alliance; David Webb
David Webb
studied Chinese and Russian at Leeds University, where he was
involved in Marxist politics. He has since become a
conservative writer, contributing to The Salisbury Review
and Right Now!, and more recently contributing extensively
to the Libertarian Alliance. He lived for four years in China
(Tianjin, Kunming and Chengdu) and now writes freelance on Chinese
politics and economics. He is also a student of the Cork
dialect of Irish and runs the Cork Irish website at
www.corkirish.com. This essay is a slightly revised version of
one that first appeared in the August 2012 issue of The
Individual, the journal of the Society for Individual Freedom (www.individualist.org.uk).
The purpose of
oaths
The penchant for discussion of the
Queen’s
Coronation Oath
on conservative websites, and also the habit of
the ‘Freemen on the Land’ of asking to see judicial oaths of office,
have recently reminded me of the
Christian basis of our Anglo-Saxon civilisation. Our constitution is held together by a series of
oaths, oaths that mean something to people because they are solemn vows
in the sight of God and before the people of this country to perform
various duties. I am not sure how seriously an oath can be
regarded in the days when religion is scoffed at. It may be that
conservatives could still favour the retention of unshakeable,
unshirkable and unretractable vows, regardless of any views on the
existence of a Supreme Being, seeing such oaths as a foundation stone of
our civilisation. Nevertheless, it is clear that most people who
make oaths today are not expecting to have to fulfill them and break them
with impunity. Is it any wonder that the fabric of our society has
become less secure?
Anglo-Saxon
society and Oaths
The prohibition of oath-breaking was an
important principle in early Anglo-Saxon law, which is the ultimate
foundation of English
Common Law to this day. The importance given
to oaths, and their ritual, religious basis, is shown in the prehistory
of the word “oath”, which can be traced back to proto-Germanic and even
proto-Indo-European forms:......................[ omitted ]
Anglo-Saxon society was, and, as we are
the representatives of the Anglo-Saxons today, arguably is still bound
together by a web of vows, pledges and unretractable obligations.
Some may draw distinctions between oaths and vows (such as the marriage
vow), but for my purposes the sworn obligations are analogous, as
indicated in the etymological discussion above showing that marriage and
kinship were understood to be relationships linked by oaths. My
discussion will therefore begin with the
Coronation Oath, as
sworn by the Queen in 1953, and the Accession Declaration made
prior to that.
The religious nature of oaths was
apparent in the three Oaths of Supremacy, Obedience and
Abjuration sworn at various points in history by priests and
bishops of the Church of England and by parliamentarians, judges and
others with roles in the state. Even today, state personnel from
the prime minister down to soldiers and policemen are required to swear
Oaths of Allegiance, of Office and the Judicial Oath.
Naturalised citizens take the Oath of Citizenship.
Judges and magistrates take oaths, as do
members of court juries and people giving testimony in
court. Affidavits of various kinds are also used in
court procedures. Finally, there are the vows that ordinary people
may enter into that are not directly connected with the affairs of
state. Chief among these is the marriage vow.
Baptism and confirmation services include vows, and godparents
also take on responsibilities towards their godchildren.
From an anthropological point of view,
oaths forge connections between people in a way that creates social
bonds. Once the Church has recognised the monarch, the
ecclesiastical hierarchy has sworn oaths of allegiance to the Crown and
the monarch has sworn the
Coronation Oath, the nature of the
interlocking obligations in society becomes clear. It is a
distortion to claim that England has no constitution simply because
there is no hallowed piece of parchment that claims to define social
bonds for all time. Such a document could only be valid if it
could be shown that those drawing it up had the right to do so and the
right to impose their social set-up on society, a test that is failed by
all written constitutions.
The English constitution is rather
organic, arising out of the natural bonds of society, which should be
seen, not as a relationship with a yellowing piece of paper, as in the
US, but rather as a relationship between living people. Just as
oaths of allegiance forge the bond between rulers and ruled, so the
marriage vow creates kinship between people previously unrelated.
Permanent obligations are created by these oaths and vows. The way
in which oaths of allegiance (essentially the feudal bond established by
homage) creates bilateral obligations that cannot be unilaterally
cancelled was pointed out early on by the thirteenth-century jurist,
Henry de Bracton, in his De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae
(“On the Laws and Customs of England”), an early codification of English
Common Law:
What is homage? Homage is a
legal bond by which one is bound and constrained to warrant, defend, and
acquit his tenant in his seisin against all persons for a service
certain, described and expressed in the gift, and also, conversely,
whereby the tenant is bound and constrained in return to keep faith to
his lord and perform the service due. Homage is contracted by
the will of both, the lord and the tenant, and is to be dissolved by the
contrary will of both, if both so wish, for it does not suffice if
one alone wishes, because nothing is more in conformity with natural
equity etc. The nexus between a lord and his tenant through homage
is thus so great and of such quality that the lord owes as much to
the tenant as the tenant to the lord, reverence alone excepted.3
The requirement to take oaths is often
dispensed with, as where a judge allows a witness to “affirm” the truth
of his testimony in court. In the House of Commons, Members of
Parliament are allowed to be sworn in using non-Christian religious
books, arguably making a mockery of our Constitution – because the
Queen’s authority is based on the acknowledgement of the Christian
church, which has deep roots in our history and culture – and therefore
compromising the validity of the oath. Not only are oaths often
replaced by affirmations, our law-courts and statutes also claim the
right to set aside oaths, as in the claim by constitutional lawyers that
the
Coronation Oath
is “modified” by subsequent legislation, and so is
ultimately meaningless. Judges also claim the right to abrogate
the marriage vow, an act that unpicks social bonds. Yet the reason
why any of these oaths is taken in the first place is that an oath
cannot be set aside. The legal efficacy of an oath may or may not
be removed, but the oath itself – its binding moral force – cannot be
cancelled retrospectively.
Furthermore, the swearing of an oath, a
morally binding act, means that failure to fulfill the oath is
perjury. There is an interesting distinction between the
crime of perjury and other crimes: crimes in law require malice
aforethought [ See
Mens rea, the guilty mind &
Actus reus,
the guilty act ]. Could it therefore be thought that no perjury has
been committed where an oath, subsequently broken, was made in good
faith, and only later on did the forswearer decide to give false
evidence? From this it is clear that the nature of an oath is to
create an ongoing obligation, one that a person of honour could
not resile [ spring back ] from, and that an oath made on one day binds the swearer
forever afterwards, creating the continuing possibility of perjury if
the oath is broken, regardless of the fact that no false intention was
held at the very time the oath was taken.
Back in the days of Alfred the Great,
the difference between Englishmen and the Vikings was seen in the fact
that the Vikings broke their oaths: such people were not to be trusted.
Consequently, oath-breaking, in other words, perjury, has always been
contrary to Common Law, although the first Act of Parliament dealing
with perjury appears to be the 1540
Maintenance and Embracery Act.
De Bracton indicated that perjury was against the
Common Law as
understood in his day:
The punishment of those convicted in
the aforesaid assises will be this: first of all, let them be arrested
and cast into prison, and let all their lands and chattels be seized
into the king’s hand until they are redeemed at the king’s will, so that
nothing remains to them except their vacant tenements. They incur
perpetual infamy and lose the lex terrae, so that they will
never afterwards be admitted to an oath, for they will not henceforth be
oathworthy, nor be received as witnesses, because it is presumed that he
who is once convicted of perjury will perjure himself again.4
Sir Edward Coke, chief justice under
James I, pointed out that the statute law against perjury introduced
under Henry VIII provided for milder punishments than those provided for
in Common Law, as the severity of the common-law punishments meant that
few or no juries were convicted.5 The law on perjury is
interested only in the oaths administered while giving evidence in
court; prime ministers who violate their oaths of office cannot be
charged with “perjury”. Coke stated that the breach of an oath
outside the judicial setting was not perjury in law, although it was
still perjury in truth, in that a general oath had been forsworn:
For though an oath be given by him
that hath lawful authority, and the same is broken, yet if it be not in
a judicial proceeding, it is not perjury punishable either by the
common law, or by this act, because they are general and extra-judicial, but
serve for aggravation of the offence, as general oaths given to officers
or ministers of justice, citizens, burgesses, or the like, or for the
breach of the oath of fealty or allegiance, &c. they shall not be
charged in any court judicial for the breach of them afterwards.
As if an officer commit extortion, he is in truth perjured, because it
is against his general oath: and when he is charged with extortion, the
breach of his oath may serve for aggravation.6
Although extra-judicial breaches of
oaths are not covered by the law on perjury, in many cases breaches of
oaths of allegiance and oaths of office would be covered by the laws on
high treason and sedition. The fact that the offence of high
treason is based on the prior allegiance of subjects to the crown –
a prior relationship of fealty that cannot be unilaterally terminated –
is shown by the ancient law on petty treason. Petty treason
(or petit treason) was a common-law offence occasioned by the betrayal
of an oath of fealty to a superior by a subordinate. This
common-law offence was brought into statute law by the
Treason Act of 1351, before being abolished as a separate offence from murder by the
Offences against the Person Act of 1828. Before 1828, the killing
of a husband by his wife, the killing of a bishop by a clergyman
subordinate to him, and the killing of a master or the master’s wife by
his servant were regarded as more serious offences than general murder,
owing to the bond of obligation that existed between superior and
subordinate. Originally, in the
Common Law, a servant’s committing
adultery with his master’s wife or daughter was considered petty treason
too, although this was not adopted in the 1351 statute. Evidently
therefore the substance of high treason lies in the bond of fealty,
sworn by oaths (in the case of the officers of state), that exists
between monarch and subject.
The
Coronation Oath
The
Coronation Oath is the very
foundation of our constitution, as it creates the bonds of allegiance on
the basis of which law-making and the determination of justice operate.
Just as de Bracton pointed out that acts of homage create reciprocal
obligations between the lord and his vassal, so the Coronation Oath is a
contract with the monarch and the nation, requiring the monarch to
uphold English Common Law and the rights of subjects of the Crown.
First of all, this means that the monarch’s “inheritance” of the right
to govern by primogeniture is far from being an absolute right: under
English
Common Law (reflected in pre-Conquest practice); it is public
acceptance of the monarch that makes him a monarch, and not the abstract
bloodline. L.G. Wickham Legg in his authoritative English
Coronation Records explained the Coronation Service:
The object of the coronation service
was the confirmation of the elected prince as King. Until the
person elected had been anointed and crowned he was not King.
The title given by Hoveden and his fellow historians to Richard I before
his coronation illustrates this well; [footnote in the original source:
he is called Duke, not King] and the custom, more frequent on the
Continent than in England, of crowning the eldest son of the King during
his father’s lifetime had as its object the destruction of the
interregnum and its opportunities for disturbance consequent on the
death of the father. The theory that the reign began on the day of
the coronation lasted in England down to Edward I, who is the first King
to date his reign from the death of his father, as indeed he was
compelled to do under the circumstances in which he was placed owing to
his absence in the Holy Land in 1272.
But not only was the prince
confirmed in the position to which he aspired, he was also actually
elected; and the ceremony still remains in the modern coronation.
On entering the church the archbishop addresses the people, inquiring if
they be willing to accept the prince as their sovereign. The form
of election thus still remains, thought [ sic though one assumes ] it is now a mere ceremony.7
Legg explains in a footnote that
Archbishop Hubert Walter was dubious of the character of King John, and
so insisted on King John’s being elected in order to absolve himself of
the responsibility for crowning such a man. That an “election” is
held indicates that what Legg described as “mere ceremony” implies the
right of the people, represented by the nobility and the
Church of England,
to refuse to elect an inappropriate monarch.
Secondly, it is quite erroneous to hold
that the Crown, or Parliament, or Parliament with the consent of the
Crown, can do anything at all; such an interpretation of the
constitution is convenient for the Establishment today, and is indeed
the interpretation supported by the courts at present, but does not in
any way dovetail with the origins of our constitution. This is
shown in the traditional text of the Coronation
Oath.
Legg
explains that six recensions of the Coronation service are known: the
Pontifical of Egbert, Archbishop of York; the services of Ethelred II,
Henry I, Edward II and James II; and that used since the Glorious
Revolution. The fourth recension was introduced for Edward II’s
coronation on February 25th 1308 and used virtually unchanged
for centuries until it was butchered to reflect James II’s religious
views. The text is given in Latin in the Liber Regalis
service book, although Edward II is known to have taken his oath in
French, and from 1603 English monarchs have taken their
Coronation Oaths
in English. The English-language version of the traditional oath,
as taken by Charles I is as follows:
Sir, will you grant and keep, and by
your oath confirm, to the people of England, the laws and
customs to them granted, by the kings of England your lawful
and religious predecessors; and namely the laws customs and franchises
granted to the clergy by the glorious King St. Edward your
predecessor according to the laws of God, the true profession of the
gospel established in the Church of England, and
agreeable to the prerogative of the King thereof, and the ancient
customs of this realm?
I grant and promise to keep them.
Sir, will you keep peace and godly
agreement, entirely according to your power, both to God, the
holy Church, the clergy, the people?
I will keep it.
Sir, will you to your power cause
law, justice and discretion, in mercy and truth, to be executed in all
your judgements?
I will.
Will you grant to hold and keep, the
laws and rightful customs, which the commalty of this your kingdom have;
and will you defend, and uphold them to the honour of God, so much as in
you lieth:
I grant and promise so to do.8
The Stuart version of the oath in
English purported to be a direct translation of the Latin of the Liber
Regalis, but some changes can be found, changes that led to allegations
during the upheaval of the 17th century that the monarch had
subtly altered the text. Firstly, the reference to “the laws,
customs and franchises [=liberties] granted to the clergy” omitted the
reference in the Latin that indicated those laws, customs and franchises
were not just those of the church, but of the people too: presertim
leges et consuetudines et libertates a glorioso rege Edwardo clero
populoque concessas. Secondly, the oath to uphold “the laws
and rightful customs, which the commalty [=community] of the Kingdom
have” altered the traditional text, concedis iustas leges et
consuetudines esse tenendas, et promittis per te eas esse protegendas,
et ad honorem Dei corroborandas, quas uulgus elegerit secundum uires
tuas?9, which contained a promise to uphold future
laws that would be accepted by the people. For example, John
Milton complained that Charles I had “razed out” the requirement to
uphold laws quas vulgus elegerit, “that the common people would
choose”.10 Edward II took his oath in old French and
the original French text has: Sire, graunte vous a tenir et garder
les Loys, et les Custumes droitureles, les quiels la Communaute de
vostre Roiaume aura esleu, et les defendrez et afforterez, al honur de
Dieu, a vostre Poer? Jeo les graunte et promette.11 Here
esleu is the mediaeval French for the modern élu,
“elected, chosen”, and aura esleu refers to the laws and
statues that the community at large would in the future choose to
accept.
It is clear that English monarchs were
traditionally not allowed to accede to the throne unconditionally; they
had to promise to vouchsafe to the Church and to the people of England
their traditional rights. Milton argued that vulgus
refers to the House of Commons: within the context of the battle between
Parliament and King, Milton argued that the king had sworn to uphold all
laws approved by Parliament. But the Latin word vulgus
does not refer to the political elite, but to the common people.
The nineteenth-century American libertarian, Lysander Spooner, argued
that the traditional text of the
Coronation Oath
reflected the fact that
common-law juries [ see Jury Nullification
] were free to nullify statute law:
This oath not only forbids the king
to enact any statutes contrary to the
common law, but it proves that his
statutes could be of no authority over the consciences of a jury; since,
as has already been sufficiently shown, it was one part of this very
common law itself, – that is, of the ancient “laws, customs, and
liberties,” mentioned in the oath, – that juries should judge of all
questions that came before them, according to their own consciences,
independently of the legislation of the king.
It was impossible that this right of
the jury could subsist consistently with any right, on the part of the
king, to impose any authoritative legislation upon them. His oath,
therefore, to maintain the law of the land, or the ancient “laws,
customs, and liberties,” was equivalent to an oath that he would never
assume to impose laws upon juries, as imperative rules of
decision, or take from them the right to try all cases according to
their own consciences. It is also an admission that he had no
constitutional power to do so, if he should ever desire it. This
oath, then, is conclusive proof that his legislation was of no authority
with a jury, and that they were under no obligation whatever to enforce
it, unless it coincided with their own ideas of justice.12
The substance of the
Coronation Oath
is
to maintain the “the law of the land”, understood as the
Common Law (not
statute law), fundamentally the laws and customs of the pre-Conquest
England of St. Edward (King Edward the Confessor). That this
is the case, and that a breach of the
Coronation Oath
by the monarch
constitutes perjury (that is, perjury in fact, albeit not perjury
in law), was indicated by James I in the following account, written in
1681, by John Somers (later Lord High Chancellor from 1697 to 1700):
King James, in his speech to the
judges, in the star-chamber, Anno 1616, told them, “That he had, after
many years, resolved to renew his oath made at his coronation,
concerning justice, and the promise therein contained for maintaining
the law of the land.” And, in the next page, save one, says, “I
was sworn to maintain the law of the land; and therefore had been
perjured, if I had broken it: God is my judge, I never intended it.”13
The
Coronation Oath
was updated to
include reference to the Protestant church in the 1688
Coronation Oath
Act, but otherwise much of the text remains unaltered from ancient
times. Accordingly, the text of the Oath taken by Elizabeth II on
June 2nd 1953 was as follows:
Will you solemnly promise and swear
to govern the peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, The Union of South
Africa, Pakistan and Ceylon, and of your possessions and the other
territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their
respective laws and customs?
I solemnly promise so to do.
Will you to your power cause law and
justice, in mercy, to be executed in all your judgements?
I will.
Will you to the utmost of your power
maintain the laws of God and the true profession of the gospel?
Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United
Kingdom the Protestant Reformed religion established by law? Will
you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of
England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof,
as by law established in England? And will you preserve unto the
bishops and clergy of England, and to the churches there committed to
their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall
appertain to them or any of them?
All this I promise to do.
The
Coronation Oath
is made during the
Coronation, often at some remove from the monarch’s accession.
Consequently, an earlier Accession Declaration is made to Parliament in
accordance with the Accession Declaration Act of 1910, which eliminated
the previous long, somewhat bizarre declaration that the monarch did not
believe in the transubstantiation of the elements during Holy Communion
and did not support the worship of the saints. The current text of
the Accession Declaration is:
I, N, do solemnly and sincerely in
the presence of God, profess, testify and declare that I am a faithful
Protestant, and that I will, according to the true intent of the
enactments to secure the Protestant Succession to the Throne of my
realm, uphold and maintain such enactments to the best of my power.
The contract between monarch and people
depends on our being governed according to our laws and customs –
substantially, the
Common Law, with amendments by Statute to update
ancient customs for modern circumstances but without overturning our
ancient rights – with justice and mercy dispensed through the Royal
courts, and the Christian religion maintained. On each point, the
Coronation Oath
has been badly traduced under the royal perjurer
Elizabeth II.
The fact that
Common Law is the
fundamental law of the land, as indicated in the
Coronation Oath, was
long recognised in courts of law. Neither the Crown nor the Crown
in Parliament had the right to impose laws that flagrantly contravened
the
Common Law. The most famous example of a court decision
upholding this principle is the case of Thomas Bonham v. the
College of Physicians, normally known as Dr Bonham’s Case, where
the chief justice, Sir Edward Coke, ruled in the Court of Common Pleas
in 1610 that
And it appears in our books that, in
many cases, the
common law will control Acts of Parliament, and
sometimes adjudge them to be utterly void; for when an Act of Parliament
is against common right and reason, or repugnant, or impossible to be
performed, the
common law will control it, and adjudge such an Act to be
void.14
This is not some doctrine of judicial
supremacy, allowing judges to strike down all Acts of Parliament that do
not accord with their views – that is, after all, what we have ended up
with today – but rather a strong presumption that age-old rights that
have persisted since time immemorial should not be removed by Crown, by
Parliament or by the Royal courts of justice. It is the doctrine
of untrammeled supremacy of the Crown in Parliament that provides for
tyranny, overturning, as it does, the bilateral obligations of the
Coronation Oath. We seem to have turned full circle and are back
to Sir Walter Raleigh’s absurd contention that “the bonds of subjects to
their kings should always be wrought out of iron; the bonds of kings
unto subjects but with cobwebs”.15
The religious
Oaths of Supremacy, Obedience and Abjuration
The installation of the king is based,
not on some abstract doctrine of the right of inheritance of supreme
power by primogeniture – a concept not recognised in pre-Conquest
England – but, ultimately, on the willingness of the people of England
to accept the monarch, as is shown in the role of the Church of England
in the Coronation service. Various kings have lost their crowns
after acceding to the throne in the ordinary way, including Edward II,
Charles I and James II. So what the network of oaths underpinning
the English constitution amounts to is an interlocking set of binding
obligations: where kings have failed to live up to their
Coronation Oaths, they have lost their thrones, and similarly subjects who have
failed to show loyalty to the king have been punished for crimes
including treason, sedition and violation of the law of praemunire.
Praemunire is an ancient law
forbidding the assertion of foreign supremacy against the English crown,
whether Papal or secular. While praemunire means “to
fortify” in Latin, the use of this word derives from a corruption of
praemonere, “to forewarn”, as violations of the law led in English
history to the issuance of a writ of praemunire, warning the
person to appear before the Royal council. The first statute of
praemunire was that of 1353, in the reign of Edward III, but it
is the second statute of praemunire, passed in 1393 under
Richard II, that formed the basis for English law on the subject for
centuries, until repeal in 1967. Blackstone explained the meaning
of praemunire as follows:
This then is the original meaning of
the offence, which we call praemunire; viz. introducing a
foreign power into this land, and creating imperium in imperio,
by paying that obedience to papal process, which constitutionally
belonged to the king alone.16
Consequently, just as the king made his
Coronation Oath, subjects, and in particular the clergy of the Church of
England, had oaths of their own to swear. Henry VIII imposed the
Oath of Supremacy on the clergy of the Church of England in the
Act of Supremacy 1534, reinstated after the Marian reaction by the Act
of Supremacy 1558 under Elizabeth I. The oath was as follows:
I, A. B., do utterly testify
and declare in my conscience that the Queen’s Highness is the only
supreme governor of this realm, and of all other her Highness’s
dominions and countries, as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical
things or causes, as temporal, and that no foreign prince, person,
prelate, state or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction,
power, superiority, pre-eminence or authority ecclesiastical or
spiritual within this realm; and therefore I do utterly renounce and
forsake all foreign jurisdictions, powers, superiorities and
authorities, and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear faith and
true allegiance to the Queen’s Highness, her heirs and lawful
successors, and to my power shall assist and defend all jurisdictions,
pre-eminences, privileges and authorities granted or belonging to the
Queen’s Highness, her heirs or successors, or united or annexed to the
imperial crown of this realm. So help me God, and by the contents
of this Book.
This oath was required of the clergy,
judges and mayors, and the Supremacy of the Crown Act 1562 extended the
requirement to members of the House of Commons, all people in holy
orders, holders of any university degree, schoolmasters and people
engaged in practising law. The first offence of refusing to take
this oath was declared in 1562 to be praemunire, and the second
offence high treason.17
In 1605, the failure of the Gunpowder
Plot to assassinate King James I led to the imposition of an even
lengthier religious oath, described in the statute establishing it as an
Oath of Obedience, which contained elements of oaths of
allegiance to the king, of recognition of the king’s supremacy and of
abjuration of the Pope’s authority, and so was frequently sworn in the
place of the Oath of Supremacy:
I, A. B., do truly and
sincerely acknowledge, profess, testify and declare in my conscience
before God and the world, that our sovereign Lord King James is lawful
and rightful King of this realm, and of all other his Majesty’s
dominions and countries; and that the Pope neither of himself nor
by any authority of the church or see of Rome, or by any other means
with any other, hath any power or authority to depose the King, or
to dispose any of his Majesty’s kingdoms or dominions, or to authorize
any foreign prince to invade or annoy him or his countries, or to
discharge any of his subjects of their allegiance and obedience to his
Majesty or to give licence or leave to any of them to bear arms, raise
tumults or to offer any violence or hurt to his Majesty’s royal person,
state or government, or to any of his Majesty’s subjects within his
Majesty’s dominions.
Also I do swear from my heart, that
notwithstanding any declaration or sentence of excommunication or
deprivation made or granted or to be made or granted by the Pope or his
successors or by any authority derived or pretended to be derived from
him or his see against the said King his heirs or successors or any
absolution of the said subjects from their obedience: I will bear faith
and true allegiance to his Majesty his heirs and successors, and him and
them will defend to the uttermost of my power against all conspiracies
and attempts whatsoever which shall be made against his or their
persons, their crown and dignity, by reason or colour of any such
sentence or declaration or otherwise, and will do my best endeavour to
disclose and make known unto his Majesty, his heirs and successors all
treasons and traitorous conspiracies which I shall know or hear of to be
against him or any of them.
And I do further swear that I
do from my heart abhor detest and abjure as impious and heretical this
damnable doctrine and position that princes which be excommunicated or
deprived by the Pope may be deposed or murdered by their subjects or
any other whatsoever.
And I do believe, and in my
conscience am resolved that neither the Pope nor any other person
whatsoever hath power to absolve me of this oath or any part thereof,
which I acknowledge by good and full authority to be lawfully ministered
unto me and do renounce all pardons and dispensations to the contrary.
And all these things I do plainly
and sincerely acknowledge and swear according to these express words by
me spoken, and according to the plain common sense and understanding of
the same words without any equivocation or mental evasion or secret
reservation whatsoever: and I do make this recognition and
acknowledgement heartily willingly and truly, upon the true faith of a
Christian.
So help me God.18
These clunky religious texts were edited
down somewhat in the 1688 Bill of Rights and replaced by a single
combined oath of supremacy and allegiance, with the 1688 Oaths of
Supremacy and Allegiance Act requiring all bishops, peers, public-sector
officeholders, university masters and fellows, and officers in the army
and navy to swear the following:
I, A. B., do sincerely promise
and swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Their
Majesties King William and Queen Mary. So help me God, &c.
I, A. B., do swear that I do
from my heart abhor detest and abjure as impious and heretical that
damnable doctrine and position that princes excommunicated or deprived
by the Pope or any authority of the See of Rome may be deposed or
murthered by their subjects or any other whatsoever.
And I do declare that no foreign
prince person prelate state or potentate hath or ought to have any
jurisdiction power superiority pre-eminence or authority ecclesiastical
or spiritual within this realm. So help me God, &c.
This was later supplemented from 1701 by
a third oath, the Oath of Abjuration, a long denunciation of
the rights of the Jacobite claimants to the throne, required of all
senior officeholders. The Oath of Abjuration reached its final
form on the death of the Old Pretender, as follows:
I, A. B., do truly and
sincerely acknowledge, profess, testify and declare in my conscience
before God and the world that our sovereign lord, King George, is lawful
and rightful King of this realm and all other his Majesty’s dominions
and countries thereunto belonging. And I do solemnly and sincerely
declare that I do believe in my conscience that not any of the
descendants of the person who pretended to be prince of Wales during the
life of the late King James the Second and since his decease pretended
to be and took upon himself the style and title of King of England by
the name of James the Third or of Scotland by the name of James the
Eighth or the style and title of King of Great Britain hath any right or
title whatsoever to the crown of this realm or any other the dominions
thereunto belonging: and I do renounce refuse and abjure any allegiance
or obedience to any of them. And I do swear that I will bear faith
and true allegiance to His Majesty King George and him will defend to
the utmost of my power against all traitorous conspiracies and attempts
whatsoever which shall be made against his person crown or dignity.
And I will do my utmost endeavour to disclose and make known to his
Majesty and his successors all treasons and traitorous conspiracies
which I shall know to be against him or any of them. And I do
faithfully promise to the utmost of my power to support maintain and
defend the succession of the crown against the descendants of the said
James and against all other persons whatsoever which succession, by
an act intituled, ‘An act for the further limitation of the crown and
better securing the rights and liberties of the subject,’ is and stands
limited to the Princess Sophia electress and duchess dowager of Hanover
and the heirs of her body being protestants. And all these things
I do plainly and sincerely acknowledge and swear according to these
express words by me spoken and according to the plain common sense and
understanding of the same words without any equivocation mental evasion
or secret reservation whatsoever. And I do make this recognition
acknowledgement abjuration renunciation and promise heartily willingly
and truly upon the true faith of a Christian. So help me God.19
These ornate religious oaths went beyond
the simple requirement of the
Common Law that the subjects of the Crown recognise their allegiance to the Crown, just as the monarch upholds his
side of the bond of fealty, represented by the
Coronation Oath.
While we are constantly told that such ceremonial oaths are “mere
ceremony” today, they were intended to have a serious and unshirkable
meaning, just as all oaths create obligations that cannot be
unilaterally abandoned. It is for this reason that nine English
bishops, led by William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, refused to
swear oaths of allegiance to William III and Mary II after the effective
deposition of James II. By February 1690, two of the nine were
dead, and the remaining seven non-juring bishops were deprived of their
sees. A point of interest is whether the Church of England should
have agreed to “elect” and then crown James II, given his adherence to a
foreign prelate, but once oaths of allegiance were sworn to James II,
these nine bishops found it impossible to abandon them.
The Oath of Allegiance, the Oath
of Office and the Judicial Oath
These various oaths were once again
collapsed into a single oath under the Oaths Act of 1858, and the Jewish
Relief Act of 1858 allowed Jewish subjects of the Crown to omit wording
relating to taking an oath on the true faith of a Christian. The
Office and Oath Act of 1867 shortened and simplified the oath yet
further. Finally, the Promissory Oaths Act of 1868 replaced the
oath by three much shorter oaths: the Oath of Allegiance, the Official
Oath and the Judicial Oath, oaths that remain in force today.
Detailed religious context that accreted
over the years was sensibly removed from the modern oaths laid down in
1868, but it was still the case in 1880 that Charles Bradlaugh, an
atheist, was not permitted to take his seat in the House of Commons
(representing Northampton) after announcing that he would utter the
words of the Oath of Allegiance as a “matter of form” only. He was
repeatedly re-elected, but only permitted to swear the oath and take his
seat in 1886. The issue he highlighted led to the passage of the
Oaths Act of 1888, which allowed all oaths, including oaths in court, to
be affirmed. The Oaths Act of 1909 allowed the use of the Old
Testament for Jewish swearers and the New Testament for Christians, and
provided for oaths to be introduced by the apostrophe, “I swear by
Almighty God that…” Affirmations are introduced by “I … do
solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that”, with the
remainder of the text identical to the parallel oaths.
The text of the Oath of Allegiance
is as follows:
I, (insert full name), do swear that
I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me
God.
The Oath of Office is very
similar in wording to the Oath of Allegiance, with the difference that
the Oath of Allegiance is sworn to the entire royal line (the Queen and
all her heirs and successors), whereas Oaths of Office, sworn by holders
of public office under particular monarchs, swear those oaths only to
the monarch of the day:
I, (insert full name), do swear that
I will well and truly serve Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in the office of
(insert office). So help me God.
The Judicial Oath is a longer
variant of the Oath of Office:
I, (insert full name), do swear that
I will well and truly serve our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth in the
office of (insert judicial office), and I will do right to all manner of
people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour,
affection or ill-will. So help me God.
Which oath needs to be sworn depends on
the precise office held. Judges, magistrates, Members of
Parliament and peers receiving the writ of summons to sit in the House
of Lords are required to swear the Oath of Allegiance, but individuals
who hold a particular office, including the prime minister and
secretaries of state take the Oath of Office. Judges and
magistrates swear the judicial oath in addition to the oath of
allegiance. The abolition of the Oath of Supremacy means that
archbishops, bishops, priests and deacons in the Church of England take
the ordinary Oath of Allegiance.
The gradual insertion of politically
correct nostrums into Oaths of Office is seen in the oath taken by
police constables, as laid down in the Police Reform Act of 2002.
The new text replaced the previous wording in the Police Act of 1996 to
require the police to “uphold human rights” and “show equal respect” as
follows:
I … of… do solemnly and
sincerely declare and affirm that I will well and truly serve the Queen
in the office of constable, with fairness, integrity, diligence and
impartiality, upholding fundamental human rights and according
equal respect to all people; and that I will, to the best of my
power, cause the peace to be kept and preserved and prevent all offences
against people and property; and that while I continue to hold the said
office I will, to the best of my skill and knowledge, discharge all the
duties thereof faithfully according to law.
Soldiers in the British Army and
Royal Marines are required to swear the following oath, as given in
the Army Act 1955:
I … swear by Almighty God that
I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and successors, and that I will, as in
duty bound, honestly and faithfully defend Her Majesty, her heirs and
successors, in person, crown and dignity against all enemies, and will
observe and obey all orders of Her Majesty, her heirs and successors,
and of the generals and officers set over me. So help me God.
Recruits in the Royal Air Force
swear a similar oath (given in the Air Force Act of 1955), substituting
“air officers” for “general”, although curiously sailors swear no oaths,
as the Royal Navy exists under Royal prerogative and not Act of
Parliament.
The oath taken by Privy Counsellors
is also somewhat different. The text of the oath was previously
regarded as secret, in line with the convention that proceedings of the
Privy Council are secret, but the text has been given in response to a
written question in Parliament:
You do swear by Almighty God to be a
true and faithful servant unto The Queen’s Majesty as one of Her
Majesty’s Privy Council. You will not know or understand of any
manner of thing to be attempted, done or spoken against Her Majesty’s
person, honour, crown or dignity royal, but you will let and withstand
the same to the uttermost of your power, and either cause it to be
revealed to Her Majesty herself, or to such of her Privy Council as
shall advertise Her Majesty of the same. You will in all things to
be moved, treated and debated in Council, faithfully and truly declare
your mind and opinion, according to your heart and conscience; and will
keep secret all matters committed and revealed unto you, or that shall
be treated of secretly in Council. And if any of the said treaties
or counsels shall touch any of the Counsellors you will not reveal it
unto him but will keep the same until such time as, by the consent of
Her Majesty or of the Council, publication shall be made thereof.
You will to your uttermost bear faith and allegiance to the Queen’s
Majesty; and will assist and defend all civil and temporal
jurisdictions, pre-eminences, and authorities, granted to Her Majesty
and annexed to the Crown by Acts of Parliament, or otherwise, against
all foreign princes, persons, prelates, states, or potentates. And
generally in all things you will do as a faithful and true servant ought
to do to Her Majesty. So help you God.20
It is clear that all of the Queen’s
present ministers are oath-breakers, as they all support the authority
of foreign potentates (not least in the European Union) against the
authority of the Crown in parliament.
As mentioned above, violation of most of
these oaths is not grounds for perjury, although
treason and sedition
charges may be preferred in some instances. [
Misconduct In Public Office
sounds like a good option - Editor ] However, whereas all
subjects may be tried for high treason or sedition where they show
disloyalty to the Crown, the issue of adherence to oaths of office is
relevant only to those who occupy the senior offices of state.
Such state officials (and others) may be impeached in Parliament, in an
ancient judicial procedure where the House of Lords forms the court and
the House of Commons forms something analogous to a jury. However,
the last attempted impeachment of a judge was the attempted impeachment
of Sir William Scroggs, Lord Chief Justice of England, in 1681. In
the end, he was retired from the bench with a pension.
An alternative procedure, short of
impeachment, was provided for by the 1701 Act of Settlement, which gave
both Houses of Parliament the right to petition the Queen for the
removal of a judge, a right now subsumed into the Senior Courts Act of
1981, which requires the Lord Chancellor to recommend to the Queen that
the exercise of the power of removal be used. In England and
Wales, the main focus of this essay, the procedure has never been used:
the only recorded instance of the use of this power was the removal of
Sir John Barrington from the Irish High Court of Admiralty in 1830 for
misappropriating litigants’ funds.21
Naturalisation
and Allegiance
Oaths of allegiance are nearly always
sworn by officeholders. Unlike in the US, where ordinary citizens
frequently take the pledge of allegiance, ordinary members of the public
rarely have to do so in the UK. We are, however, assumed to have a
debt of allegiance to the Queen. This is important, because the
ultimately feudal concept of allegiance is not abstract; it is not
loyalty to a principle or even to an entire nation of tens of millions
of people, but to a specified individual, held to represent the
continuity of the nation, and justified in the final analysis by the
Queen’s undertakings in the
Coronation Oath. One example of the
taking of the Oath of Allegiance by ordinary people is the provision of
the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 that naturalised
citizens take the Oath of Allegiance fortified by a newly concocted
bizarre pledge to uphold democratic values:
I… swear by Almighty God that,
on becoming a British citizen, I will be faithful and bear true
allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and
successors according to law.
I will give my loyalty to the United
Kingdom and respect its rights and freedoms. I will uphold its
democratic values. I will observe its laws faithfully and fulfill
my duties and obligations as a British citizen.
The rooting of citizenship in feudal
allegiance meant logically that allegiance in English law was indelible.
Before the Naturalisation Act of 1870, no British subject, whether so by
birth or by citizenship, could give up his allegiance, except by an Act
of Parliament or by a territorial change (such as British recognition of
the independence of the United States). An example of the
importance of this principle was shown in the 1812 war with the United
States, when thirteen Irish-American prisoners of war were executed for
treason by the British: as Irishmen they could not renounce their
allegiance to the British Crown.
Oaths in court
proceedings
For most ordinary members of society,
however, allegiance is somewhat abstract, as the Queen is distant from
each of us, and the purpose of Royal supremacy, the
Coronation Oath
and
oaths of office takes on a real form only in the judicial system, where
we continue to hope that the Crown, as Fount of Justice, will adhere to
the
Coronation Oath, and that judges will adhere to the judicial oath.
No judge has ever been required to swear an oath to uphold the
primacy of statute law over
Common Law, or the primacy of European law
over British law. As mentioned above, the current text of the
judicial oath is “to do right to all manner of people after the laws and
usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill-will”.
A reasonable argument could be made that the term “laws of the realm”
refers primarily to English
Common Law, and the term “the usages of the
realm” undoubtedly refers to English
Common Law. Judges who give
primacy to European directives are clearly violating their oaths of
office. Interestingly, the Ordinances for the Justices Act of
1346, showed that even Royal decrees could not override
Common Law:
Because that, by divers complaints
made to us, we have perceived that the law of the land, which we by
our oath are bound to maintain, is the less well kept, and the
execution of the same disturbed many times by maintenance and
procurement, as well in the court as in the country; we greatly moved of
conscience in this matter, and for this cause desiring as much for the
pleasure of God, and ease and quietness of our subjects, as to save our
conscience, and for to save and keep our said oath, by the assent of the
great men and other wise men of our council, we have ordained these
things following:
First, we have commanded all our
justices, that they shall from henceforth do equal law and execution of
right to all our subjects, rich and poor, without having regard to any
person, and without omitting to do right for any letters or commandment
which may come to them from us, or from any other, or by any other
cause. And if that any letters, writs, or commandments come to the
justices, or to other deputed to do law and right according to the usage
of the realm, in disturbance of the law, or of the execution of the
same, or of right to the parties, the justices and other aforesaid shall
proceed and hold their courts and processes, where the pleas and
matters be depending before them, as if no such letters, writs, or
commandments were come to them; and they shall certify us and our
council of such commandments which be contrary to the law, as afore
is said.22
Some might argue that the right of
Common Law to override royal commandments is a different thing from
allowing
Common Law to override Acts of Parliament approved by the Crown
in Parliament, but this is a sophistry, given that it is Royal Assent
that makes Acts of Parliament law. The final proof that
Common Law
in fact is the fundamental law of the land is the right of juries to
nullify laws:
For more than six hundred years –
that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215 – there has been no clearer
principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in
criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge
what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of
the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and
paramount duty, to judge of the justice of the law, and to hold all laws
invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all
persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such
laws.23
The right of juries to nullify the law
is rarely emphasised by trial judges, but it has been recognised for
centuries, particularly since the 1670 case where jurors refused to find
William Penn guilty of preaching a Quaker sermon [ See
Bushell's
Case 1670 ]. The judge tried
to punish the jurors for their verdict – the passage quoted above from
de Bracton could be held to justify a suit of perjury against jurors
bringing in a false verdict, although it is arguable that the
reinstatement by jurors of a Common-Law right in the face of statute law
would not be a false verdict – in any case, the attempt to punish the
jurors was overruled by the Court of Common Pleas. Consequently,
all laws, include statute law, may be overruled by the people, leading
Spooner to interpret quas vulgus elegerit in the mediaeval
Coronation Oath
as a reference to the right of the common people to
accept or nullify law. Spooner was also of the view that lawsuits
on taxation should be subject to trial by jury, giving the common people
the ability to nullify unjust impositions:
It was a principle of the
Common Law, as it is of the law of nature, and of common sense, that no man can
be taxed without his personal consent. The
Common Law knew nothing
of that system, which now prevails in England, of assuming a man’s own
consent to be taxed, because some pretended representative, whom he
never authorized to act for him, has taken it upon himself to consent
that he may be taxed. That is one of the many frauds on the
Common Law, and the English constitution,
which have been introduced since
Magna Carta. Having finally established itself in England, it has
been stupidly and servilely copied and submitted to in the United
States.
If the trial by jury were
re-established, the
Common Law principle of taxation would be
re-established with it; for it is not to be supposed that juries would
enforce a tax upon an individual which he had never agreed to pay.
Taxation without consent is as plainly robbery, when enforced against
one man, as when enforced against millions; and it is not to be imagined
that juries could be blind to so self-evident a principle. Taking
a man’s money without his consent, is also as much robbery, when it is
done by millions of men, acting in concert, and calling themselves a
government, as when it is done by a single individual, acting on his own
responsibility, and calling himself a highwayman.24
The involvement of ordinary people who
are not officers of the state in the justice system requires them too to
swear oaths or make the corresponding affirmations when serving as
members of juries in court and when testifying in court.
Affidavits are also used to give solemn affirmation of facts and
circumstances relating to legal matters. As an oath is
fundamentally religious in nature, the state has thus traditionally
depended on religious commitment among the population at large to
encourage truthfulness and honesty in judicial proceedings and legal
submissions.
The oath sworn by members of a jury is
as follows:
I swear by Almighty God that I will
faithfully try the defendant and give a true verdict according to the
evidence.
Similarly, witnesses giving evidence in
court swear as follows:
I swear by Almighty God that the
evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing
but the truth.
However, the requirement in English
Common Law that judicial proceedings be conducted on the basis of sworn
testimony has been watered down by the perceived need to cater for
atheists and others who do not wish to take oaths. In the case of
R v. William Brayn in 1678, a case that related to the theft of
a horse, following the refusal of a Quaker witness to swear an oath
the court directed the jury to find
the prisoner not guilty for want of evidence, and committed the Quaker,
as a concealer of felony, for refusing an oath to witness for the King.25
This led to the passage of an Act of
Parliament in 1695 allowing Quakers to affirm in the following words:
I A.B. do declare in the presence of
Almighty God the witness of the truth of what I say.
This affirmation was still religious in
tone, reflecting the fact that Quakers believe in telling the truth, but
are prevented by their understanding of the New Testament from swearing
oaths. The Evidence Further Amendment Act 1869 extended to
atheists a general right to affirm in court, and the Oaths Act of 1888
gave a general right to affirm in all circumstances, including oaths of
office, but the latest text of affirmations (“I … do solemnly,
sincerely and truly declare and affirm that…”) relies on no fundamental
religious sincerity. An oath binds the swearer, in the presence of
God, to tell the truth in such a way that no believing person could then
go on to provide false testimony; an affirmation imposes no such ongoing
moral obligation.
It seems clear to me that the ability to
affirm in court amounts to an overturning of English
Common Law, as the
truth of the testimony is merely asserted. UK law addresses this
point by defining, in law, the giving of untruthful testimony by someone
who has affirmed, rather than sworn an oath, as “perjury”. Such a
person is subject to punishment by the state, but arguably the
punishment is unjust, as someone who has not sworn an oath by very
definition cannot have perjured himself. It is perjury in law, but
not perjury in fact, whereas the oath-breaking of a prime minister is
perjury in fact, but not perjury in law.
Finally, affidavits are a written form
of oath, made before a solicitor in his capacity as “commissioner of
oaths”, that can be used to supply information to a court or legal
proceedings, and contain the text, “I swear by almighty God that this is
my name and handwriting and that the contents of this my affidavit are
true”. There is also a statutory declaration for those who do not
wish to swear an oath in the form of an affidavit, and in the cases of
both affidavits and statutory declarations giving false information is
covered by the laws on perjury.
The Marriage Vow
We have so far discussed oaths in the
context of the state, but the marriage vow is also a type of oath.
The terms “vow”, “oath” and “pledge” may have slightly differing
definitions. But for my purposes, the marriage vow is a solemn and
sworn statement that intends to create a permanent connection between
the parties to the marriage. The Church has always held that the
bearing of children is one of the main purposes of marriage. The
relationship of the couple to each other, through their children, makes
them, in Biblical terms, “one flesh”. Clearly, however, not all
couples have children, and so it is the vow itself, and its unbreakable
nature, that makes them related to each other, truly “one flesh”, even
before the bearing of children. The Church has always required the
marriage to be “consummated”, however, and non-consummation was
traditionally the only true grounds for dissolution of the marriage.
The Book of Common Prayer contains the
1662 marriage service that for centuries was the only legal marriage
service in the Church of England. According to that text, the
priest asks the man:
Wilt thou have this woman to thy
wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate
of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour, and keep
her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only
unto her, so long as ye both shall live? [The Man shall answer: I
will.]
The man gives his troth to his bride
with the following words:
I take thee N. to my wedded wife, to
have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer
for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till
death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I
plight thee my troth.
A similar vow is given by the bride (who
promises “to love, cherish, and to obey” her husband). There is
nothing here that suggests that the marriage vow is conditional or
temporary. Leaving aside the grounds of non-consummation of the
marriage, the only thing that brings the marriage to an end is the death
of one of the spouses. Financial adversity, or sickness, or even
the consideration that the marriage may later be considered to have been
“for worse” provide no grounds for annulment or divorce. It is
worth observing in passing that many weddings today use novel versions
of the marriage vow – often excluding any vow by the bride to “obey” her
husband – in a way that calls into question the seriousness of the vows
being sworn.
The word “troth” is not used in any
other context in the English language today, but is etymologically
related to the word “truth”. A troth is a pledge of truthfulness,
and to plight one’s truth is to pledge one’s truthfulness in a matter.
The important of the troth is seen from the fact that those engaged to
be married were traditionally said to be “betrothed”, and this betrothal
was almost as morally binding as the later marriage itself, at least in
so far that no man of honour, having sought a woman’s hand in marriage
and obtained her consent (and her father’s consent), could change his
mind and marry someone else, were a better circumstance to present
itself.
The permanent tie of obligation between
a husband and his wife is just as essential to a healthy society as the
ties of fealty between a subject and his sovereign. Some
libertarians seem to believe that caddish behaviour is a libertarian
right: it probably is, but the encouragement thereof should not be
state policy. Instability in family life can be seen in societies
such as England today as the flip side of state intervention in personal
life, owing to the affects on child poverty, crime, juvenile delinquency
and other issues that society rightly has an interest in. Freedom
from the state does not mean that there ought to be no concept of duty
and no bonds of obligation within the population; understood correctly,
a society with no sense of honour and duty is not going to be a free
society.
For these reasons, it is alarming that
the state claims the right to be able to dissolve the marriage vow,
often for trivial reasons, or even none. While courts do hand down
decrees of dissolution, they cannot remove the moral force of the vows
initially undertaken. The legal efficacy of the vows is removed by
court order, but the vows themselves remain a matter of public record.
Curiously, no court order can change the fact that a divorced wife
remains the mother of her former husband’s children, and so in that
sense the couple remain “one flesh”, unable to give any real effect to
their desire no longer to be related to each other.
The vows of
godparents
The marriage vow is chief among the
religious vows provided for by the Church of England, because it creates
an obligation between people: the vow forms part of the ties that bind
society as a whole together, with the family as its unit. Other
religious vows include those in the baptism and confirmation services:
in baptism, the priest asks of each of the godparents:
I demand therefore, dost thou, in
the name of this child, renounce the Devil and all his works, the vain
pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and
the carnal desires of the flesh, so that thou wilt not follow, nor be
led by them? … Wilt thou then obediently keep God’s holy
will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of thy life?
That this amounts to a solemn vow by the
godparents is clear from the closing words of the baptism service (as
given in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer):
Forasmuch as this child hath
promised by you his sureties to renounce the Devil and all his works, to
believe in God, and to serve him: ye must remember, that it is your
parts and duties to see that this infant be taught, so soon as he shall
be able to learn, what a solemn vow, promise, and profession, he
hath here made by you. And that he may know these things the
better, ye shall call upon him to hear sermons; and chiefly ye shall
provide, that he may learn the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten
Commandments, in the vulgar tongue, and all other things which a
Christian ought to know and believe to his soul’s health; and that this
child may be virtuously brought up to lead a godly and a Christian life;
remembering always, that baptism doth represent unto us our profession;
which is, to follow the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be made
like unto him; that, as he died, and rose again for us, so should we,
who are baptized, die from sin, and rise again unto righteousness;
continually mortifying all our evil and corrupt affections and daily
proceeding in all virtue and godliness of living. Ye are to take
care that this child be brought to the bishop to be confirmed by him, so
soon as he can say the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten
Commandments, in the vulgar tongue, and be further instructed in the
Church catechism set forth for that purpose.
From the perspective of this article, a
vow to God alone would be a private religious commitment, albeit one
that may (or may not) play a role in fostering a good society, whereas
a vow creating social obligations is part of the panoply oaths
that underpin the Church and State in our constitution. For this
reason, while normally regarded as mere pageantry, the promises made by
godparents are of significance, because they create duties of people
other than the child’s parents to guide the child during his upbringing.
In an age where many children appear to have little discipline and the
state is called upon to monitor “parenting” (“parent” appears now to be
a verb), we may well regret that friends and relatives of the family do
not play a stronger role in a child’s upbringing. This is, of
course, but a minor footnote to the main religious vow of marriage, as
the duty of parents to each other and to their children is the key
social bond on which the health of society stands or falls.
The English
Constitution today
Our constitution evolved organically
from the human relationships that bind a society together, whether
between the king and his subjects, the king and the church and the
officers of state, or between husband and wife. Real personal
bonds of loyalty can only exist between people. Turning human
societies into relationships based on political propositions (“support
for democracy”) or allegiance to pieces of paper (such as the US
Constitution) makes the bonds of society abstract: after all, one only
has to ask where these political ideas came from and whether their
propounders had the right to propound them, and if so, whence came that
right, in order to unpick the constitution of such states. An
interesting example of an attempt to define allegiance in non-personal
terms is the US Pledge of Allegiance, adopted by the US Congress in
1942:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of
the United States of America, and to the republic for which
it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
for all.
Allegiance to a flag? But a flag
is just a piece of cloth! It destroys any sense of the word
“allegiance” to pledge allegiance to an inanimate object. Real
allegiance is made on the basis of an oath of fealty between a lord and
his vassal, which is why the republican concept of allegiance is empty.
Just as, in feudalism, where a villein owed his loyalty, in the first
place, to the lord of the manor via a process of subinfeudation, with
only the largest landowners (the nobility) having direct contact with
the monarch, to whom they directly swore fealty, so today it is
officeholders under the Crown that pledge allegiance, where ordinary
subjects need not do so, and so attempts in the US to force all
schoolchildren to declare textile allegiance to a piece of cloth seem
misconceived.
Our constitution is gradually being
updated by a series of new laws that violate the
Coronation Oath
and
claim the right to eliminate English
Common Law. The religious
nature of oaths has been undermined. Jury trials have been
restricted in scope, and statutes allowing majority verdicts to be
returned also reveal the intention to remove the guarantees of liberties
provided by juries. The new police oath to “equality” and the
casual way in which all the key officers of state violate their oaths of
office by supporting European jurisdiction over our laws kick away a few
more pillars of the constitution. The installation of a Supreme
Court – removing the judicial function of Parliament that provided an
ultimate guarantee that traitors and others working against our society
could be held accountable – is another important development.
It is undoubtedly the case that any
attempt in the court system today to argue, as the Freemen on the Land
do, for the primacy of
Common Law over statute law will fail, as the
judges are simply part of the wider Establishment that is seeking to
overturn our laws. The point of seeing the central role of the
Coronation Oath
in providing us with guarantees of our liberties is
therefore political: our fascinating
Common Law heritage provides the
basis on which we could campaign to restore a polity where Parliament
(in other words, the political elite) could no longer govern us in such
an untrammeled fashion, hedging our governors in again with traditional
restraints.
It is in this light that I refuse to
accept that oaths are mere pageantry. The
Coronation Oath
is the
apex of our constitution, and its reinterpretation as mere ceremony robs
the entire structure of its essential meaning, giving a green light to
the technocracy to dissolve our liberties by statute and regulation.
The fundamental cultural change facilitating this, however, is the
cultural shift away from personal integrity. Whereas the Angles
and the Saxons despised oath-breakers, the word and bond of most of us
today is worthless.
Of course, there are many conservatives
and libertarians who tired of our religious heritage some time ago.
The alternative – the cynical technocracy – will be far worse than the
inculcation of moral fibre in old England ever was. A society
populated by people you cannot trust to keep their word is a different
type of society – I would argue that it is not a society at all – and
where society retreats, bureaucratic power rushes in to fill the void.
References
(1) Peter Alexander Kerkof, “Swearing an
Oath in Old Germanic Society”, Wanana sculon Francon, 2010, retrieved 23rd
July 2012,
http://vroegemiddeleeuwen.weblog.leidenuniv.nl/2010/10/08/swearing-an-oath-in-old-germanic-society.
(2) Benjamin Merkle, The White Horse
King: The Life of Alfred the Great, Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas
Nelson, 2009, pp. 200-202.
(3) Henricus De Bracton, On the Law
and Customs of England, Volume 2, translated by Samuel E.
Thorne, Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1968, p. 228.
(4) Henricus De Bracton, On the Law
and Customs of England, Volume 3, translated by Samuel E.
Thorne, Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1968, p. 346.
(5) Sir Edward Coke, The Third Part
of the Institutes of the Laws of England: concerning High Treason,
London: W. Clarke and Sons, 1809, ch. 74, pp. 163-164.
(6) Ibid., ch. 74, p. 166.
(7) Leopold G. Wickham Legg (ed.),
English Coronation Records, London: Archibald Constable & Co, 1901,
p. xvf.
(8) Ibid., pp. 251-252.
(9) Ibid., pp. 87-88.
(10) Charles Symmons (ed.), ‘A Defence
of the People of England’, in The Prose Works of John Milton,
Volume III, London: Luke Hansard, 1806, p. 310.
(11) Eleanor Constance Lodge & Gladys
Amy Thorton (eds.), English Constitutional Documents, 1307-1485,
Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1935, p. 11.
(12) Lysander Spooner, An Essay on
the Trial by Jury, Boston: John P. Jewett and Company, 1852, pp.
102-103.
(13) Lord John Somers, The Security
of Englishmen’s Lives; or the trust, power, and duty of the Grand Juries
of England, London: Effingham Wilson, 1821, p. 59.
(14) John Henry Thomas & Fraser, John
Farquhar (eds.), The Reports of Sir Edward Coke, Knt, in Thirteen
Parts, Volume IV, Part VIII, London: Joseph Butterworth & Son,
1826, folio 118b, p. 375.
(15) Walter Raleigh, The Works of
Sir Walter Ralegh, Kt, Volume VIII, Oxford: University Press, 1829,
p. 154.
(16) Sir William Blackstone,
Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book the Fourth, London, 1787,
p. 115.
(17) Henry Straus Quixano Henriques,
The Jews and the English Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1908,
p. 222.
(18) Ibid., pp. 223-224.
(19) Ibid., pp. 226-228.
(20) Question from Mr. Baker MP to the
President of the Council, Mrs. Margaret Beckett MP, concerning the text
of the Privy Counsellors Oath, 28th July 1998, retrieved 23rd
July 2012, http://tinyurl.com/c3ujonz.
(21) Judicial Office, ‘Judges and
parliament’, 2012, retrieved 23rd July 2012,
http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/about-the-judiciary/the-judiciary-in-detail/jud-acc-ind/judges-and-parliament.
(22) Anon. Statutes of the Realm,
Volume I, London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1870, pp. 170-171.
(23) Lysander Spooner, op. cit., p. 5.
(24) Lysander Spooner, op. cit., p. 222.
(25) Anon. ‘William Brayn, Theft’,
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1678/2012, retrieved 23rd
July 2012, http://tinyurl.com/d2prpgl.
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Of course (as Mr. Webb, no doubt, knows) oaths are pre Christian – they existed, as a central part of society, in both the Classical cultures of Greece and Rome and in the “barbarian” cultures of the Celts, Germans and Norse (doubtless they are not just IndoEuropean either – but are world wide among humans).
Even those people who refuse to take oaths, such as Quakers, do not do so because they think breaking one’s word is unimportant – on the contrary they hold that every promise one makes (even without an oath) is sacred, and they will die rather than break their word.
Can oaths exist without religion of any sort?
Perhaps – just as honour can.
Some atheists are highly honourable.
I remember listenting to Glenn Beck’s friend Penn (of Penn and Teller) saying how he was a Christian till he read the Bible (as a child) from cover to cover – it disguted him (disgusted his sense of morality – his sense of honour) so he became an atheist.
Of course a Christian (such as me) might argue that the Bible is a record of stories – of what people are said to have done, not the direct word of God telling people what to do. So that (for example) when Joshua wiped out whole towns (down the babies) he was not really acting in line with the will of God – he just thought he was.
However, I will not deny that Penn G.s position is a honourable one.
As is that of Simon Heffer – who says how passionately he wants to believe in God and life after death (no Comrade Barack style “collective salvation” here on Earth) – so that he can see his dead friends and family again.
But Mr. Heffer does not believe – and he is honourable enough to say so. I would trust that man with my life.
However, it is clear that genally [ sic ] the importance of oaths (of honour generally) has declined.
For example, people mumble their oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States as if it was the pathetic (Edward and Francis Bellamy written) “Pledge of Alliegence” (a platitude filled statement of nothing, written by two socialists and unpheld by empty headed conservatives). An oath to protect and defend the Constitution of a nation should lead someone to (before they sware the oath) study and agonize about that Constitution.
Do I agree with it? Am I prepared to die for this Constitution? How many people who sware this oath go through a “dark night of the soul” (an all night vigil) to decide whether or not to sware it? I doubt that many do.
It is the same in Britain – for example when Denis Skinner said he swore alliegence to a “Taxpaying Queen Elizabeth and not her heirs and successors according to law” (I watched him do that stunt – many years ago) there were just a few giggles.
No one said “you have not only not sworn the oath, you have insulted it – get you gone from this House and never return” as they should have done.
But do the people who do sware the oath mean it? Do they even think about it?
Are they prepared to die defending the Queen and Prince Charles?
As for the Queen herself…….
Perhaps if the European Union (as it now is) had arrived all at once in 1972, the Queen would have refused to sign the European Communities Act (citing her 1953 oath). But it did not happen that way.
The powers that the European Union now has happened bit-by-bit – treaty after treaty (and all approved by Parliament).
The option of going with the flow – of not making a stand that might have destroyed the monarchy, was too strong.
Although, yes, it has meant that 1953 oath is now meaningless.