The foreign-born sworn Royalists
Many Britons were outraged at being asked to take the Coronation oath. Not so Britain's foreign-born migrants, who have already pledged their allegiance to King and heirs.
I’ve always believed that being an outsider can make you see the dynamics within a society more clearly. You often need to adapt quickly and learn all sorts of customs and unwritten rules from scratch. I still remember being taught how to make a cup of tea during work experience in a BBC newsroom, which is probably the most valuable skill you could have if you’re a trainee journalist in the UK.
As a foreigner in a culture you don’t know, you have to strip down an issue to its core, and then figure out the nuances. It’s a bit like English grammar. Second-language speakers are often better at it because they didn’t learn the language phonetically as toddlers to then focus on grammar at school. Non-native speakers learn English from scratch: written, spoken and grammar all at once. It’s tough at first but it makes you fearless in front of apostrophes. We may have accents but at least we know the difference between its and it’s - which is more than you can say for many native speakers.
I’ve been thinking about this outsider’s view in the days leading up to the Coronation of King Charles III. The bunting is up, the world’s TV crews are congregating in central London, and the predictable debate about the role of the monarchy in modern British life is in full swing. This piece by fellow substacker Nick Cohen is a good explainer for anyone NOT in the UK (the rest of us have probably read enough) and definitely not on the monarchist side.
But the bit I’ve found particularly amusing over the past few weeks is the general shock over the suggestion that people could join in and take the oath of allegiance during the coronation ceremony itself.
During the service, the Archbishop of Canterbury will ask "all who so desire, in the Abbey, and elsewhere, (to) 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."
You can guess the reaction. “You must be joking” was one of the more moderate replies . Twitter was full of much more colourful language which isn’t suitable for publication in this family-friendly newsletter.
The back-pedalling came quickly. A spokesperson for the Archbishop quickly stated that the homage is “very much an invitation rather than an expectation or request”. Oh, OK. So not an order then. That’s good.
It’s easy to mock, but I was actually left wondering about WHY there should there be such an outcry? Why did so many people seem surprised? Isn’t allegiance implied if you live in a monarchy? The word KINGDOM is literally in the name of the UK. Shouldn’t an oath be part and parcel of it?
But I guess I may feel that way because, like millions of other naturalised Britons, I’ve already sworn allegiance to the Crown during my citizenship ceremony, just before belting out God Save the Queen (as it was when I became British in 2011).
I’ve kept the ‘Affirmation of Allegiance’ card that we were all handed out during the ceremony:
Looking back, I never asked myself whether I was ok with swearing allegiance to a monarch who held their position due to accident of birth. After all, my native Italy did away with its Royal Family after WW2 and the fall of Fascism. They exiled them. A couple of centuries before, France decapitated theirs. Most other European Royal households are infinitely more low-key than the British monarchy and don’t even have a coronation ceremony.
My reasoning was that I was choosing to become a British citizen after 15 years of living in the UK. I was fully aware that it’s a Constitutional Monarchy and I also understood the role the Royal Family plays in British life. If I’d had very strong republican sentiments (which I don’t, particularly) then it would have been wrong to ask for the citizenship of a country I didn’t essentially approve of.
But now, seeing how strongly opposed so many native Britons have been to the idea of pledging allegiance, I wonder whether it was right that I did it without question.
Why should naturalised Britons be asked to do something that so many others in the UK would refuse to do?
Let me know what you think in the comments section. I’m genuinely in two minds about it.
Have a lovely Coronation weekend regardless of how you feel about the monarchy. Personally, I think the UK is due an honest conversation about the future role of the Royal Family. But considering all the head-spinning changes of the past few years, maybe it’s a conversation that can wait until things feel a little more stable. Whenever that may be.
So in my new job at a truly international organization, I ironically find myself working with more Brits than I have since AJE in London. One of my bosses, who is a Brit, brought up the coronation public oath in our team meeting this morning and read it out to the group, which included mainly Americans on the virtual call and three Brits, including myself, sitting in person together in a conference room. The reactions were interesting. The Americans were largely nonplussed and the Brits were amused. It then sparked a fun conversation where the point was raised that Harry’s American born son will be able to run for President and that this was George III playing the long game. I retorted that Boris Johnson was born in Manhattan. I’m flying to the UK on Monday for my first visit since before the lockdown. I’m interested in what vibe I’ll feel from the population.
Hi Barbara,
Thanks for this message about allegiance, it made me smile.
You say that the UK is a monarchy, but as an English person I can't agree with that. Etymologies can be deceptive, but in this case it couldn't be clearer: "monarchy" comes from the (Ancient) Greek, μόνος ἀρχός, and means "single ruler". It means that that person tells you what to do (and sticking the word "constitutional" in front changes nothing).
But in this country we, or our representatives, tell the "monarch" what to do: we give them a scroll, not of paper, but of vellum, and say to them "sign here your 'majesty', or else!". The last "monarch" to refuse to sign the vellum (give the Royal Assent) was George III in 1801. We have a theatre of monarchy, not a monarchy: there's a very big difference. In reality we are a Republic that dare not speak its name. The so-called kings and queens enjoy totally unacceptable tax exemptions, and have some influence. But no power. That's not a monarch.
The thing I think you have slightly glossed over, understandably, is the ghost, or the long shadow, of 1649. The first regicide in modern Europe happened not in Paris in 1793, but in London in 1649, and sent waves of shock across Europe. For 10 years England was a Republic. The Restoration of 1660 unleashed such royal fury that the bones of Oliver Cromwell and others were dug up and their corpses put on trial, and then hung, drawn and quartered. Whatever the legitimacy of the trial of Charles I, the amount of propaganda about "monarchy being the best solution" unleashed from 1660 meant that, unlike in France in 1815, the Restoration was successful, and all traces of English republicanism ruthlessly suppressed. But as monarchy eventually became theatre (William III was the last real monarch of this country), the lurking terror of 1649 happening again has always been there.
I make this point about 1649 to illustrate that the English (and the Scots, Welsh and Irish have had quite different experiences) have no particular propensity for monarchy, and once got rid of it. A lot of British people may know nothing about this history (due to the weight of pro-monarchist propaganda since 1660), but our relationship with the concept of monarchy (and with republicanism) is in fact a lot more complicated and troubled than sometimes suggested.