MICK HUME: Oath of allegiance to the king? Sounds more like stuff from a Stalinist People’s Republic
MICK HUME: An oath of allegiance to the king? Sounds more like the stuff of a Stalinist People’s Republic
An oath of allegiance? Sorry, but this national “Homage of the People” sounds more like the stuff of a Stalinist People’s Republic.
After all, the authoritarian regime in North Korea is very fond of compulsory public oaths of allegiance to Kim Jong-un.
Fortunately, we don’t get locked up for refusing to sing along with the Archbishop of Canterbury on television – or because we do so in a ‘knowing’, tongue-in-cheek style. After all, it is an invitation.
But this stunt still seems like a bizarre attempt to make the monarchy appear, in the enthusiastic words of a misguided royal biographer, “democratic and inclusive.”
The archaic formulation of the people’s promise – “May the king live forever!” – may have sounded solemn from the traditional phalanx of cloaked dukes and bishops in the abbey, but certainly can only sound ridiculous from suburban garden parties, a few bottles of rosehip.
An oath of allegiance? Sorry, but this national ‘Homage of the People’ sounds more like the stuff of a Stalinist People’s Republic, writes author and journalist Mick Hume
The public will be asked to swear their ‘true allegiance’ to the king and his heirs during the coronation
I’m sure we’ll all enjoy some pomp and circumstance on Saturday, but as a Democrat I’d rather there hadn’t been a reinstated Charles II, let alone a third.
I’d rather be a citizen than a subject, so I won’t persuade friends and relatives to swear allegiance to a hereditary monarch, his heirs and successors, “So help me God,” if it be all the same to you.
However, I also want nothing to do with those infantile ‘Not My King’ protesters who think the coronation is all about them, or the awful left-wing snob of a Cambridge professor who says those who take the oath are ‘belching’ are.
But even from the monarchists’ point of view, this so-called Homage sounds like a bad idea.
It threatens to dilute the magic and awe the historic ceremony is supposed to inspire, reducing it to a regal version of a city council ‘inclusiveness’ exercise.
Would the late queen, with her fine feelers for the public mood, be so eager to ridicule the monarchy? I doubt it.