Tag Archives: Elizabeth II

The future of the monarchy after the King’s coronation

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Charles III has now been formally crowned as King in a ceremony with deep historical roots that reflect the institution’s long history. But what about the monarchy’s future? Craig Prescott discusses whether the UK is willing to consider the major constitutional change of becoming a republic, and concludes that should such a change take place, it will need to coincide with an underlying change in political culture in order to be anything other than symbolic.

The British public, as Brexit underlined, is not necessarily averse to major constitutional change. The start of a new reign provides an opportunity to reappraise the monarchy. Such a reappraisal is already taking place in many of the 14 Commonwealth realms.

In June 2022, Australia appointed an Assistant Minister for the Republic, with the intention that Australia will move towards becoming a republic after the next election, due in 2025. Over the next few years, referendums on whether to become a republic are likely in Antigua and Barbuda and Jamaica. Belize has formed a People’s Constitutional Commission to review its constitution, including the question of whether to become a republic. There is no reason, in principle, why such a reappraisal should not take place in the UK.

Constitutionally, the core argument for the monarchy was that it could function as a pressure valve in times of political crisis. If necessary, a Prime Minister could be dismissed, or a Parliament dissolved. Especially during the reign of Elizabeth II, that argument diminished almost to vanishing point as the personal prerogative powers of the monarch became increasingly regulated by convention and law. For example, the Cabinet Manual (paragraph 2.12), and events after the 2010 general election made clear that the monarch plays no active role in the formation of government even if an election returns a hung parliament.

Instead, the primary political argument for the monarchy is that it provides a space in public life which is beyond day-to-day party politics. Through their role as Head of Nation, the monarch seeks to ‘represent the nation back to itself’. Most notably, this can be seen on occasions such as Remembrance Sunday, when the monarch leads the nation in an act of remembrance which commands broad and deep, but not total, support across the political spectrum and in the country at large. In this way, there is a separation between the state and the government of the day.

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Church and state in European monarchies

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At his coronation, Charles III will swear an oath to uphold the Protestant religion in a ceremony overseen by the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, while many European monarchs retain a link to their national church, the UK is alone in continuing to have a coronation ceremony. Frank Cranmer discusses how monarchies throughout Europe have attempted to reconcile their historical religious traditions with the reality of modern multi-faith societies.

In addition to the United Kingdom, there are 11 other monarchies across Europe, with varying constitutional arrangements when it comes to religion: Andorra, Belgium, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden – and, of course, Vatican City, where the Pope is head of state. In Andorra, the Bishop of Urgell and the President of France are co-Princes and its constitution gives special recognition to the Roman Catholic Church. Under the constitution of Liechtenstein, the Roman Catholic Church is the ‘National Church’, while the constitution of Monaco declares Roman Catholicism ‘the religion of the state’.

Under the terms of the Act of Settlement 1700, the monarch of the United Kingdom may not be a Roman Catholic, and the relationship between church and state means, in effect, that he or she must be a member of the Church of England as established by law. Uniquely in Europe, the British monarch is also the Supreme Governor of the Church: a title that goes back to the Act of Supremacy 1559, when the Protestant Elizabeth I succeeded the Catholic Mary. Henry VIII had declared himself the ‘Supreme Head in earth’ of the Church, but Elizabeth chose a less confrontational title.

The monarch also has a unique association with the Church of Scotland, appointing a Lord High Commissioner to the annual General Assembly of the Church who makes opening and closing addresses to the Assembly as the monarch’s representative and carries out a number of official functions while the Assembly is sitting. In 2002, Queen Elizabeth II attended in person rather than appointing a commissioner.

Scandinavia also preserves a Protestant succession. The Church of Sweden was disestablished on 1 January 2000. Furthermore, ties between church and state in Norway were somewhat loosened by an amendment to the constitution which came into effect on 1 January 2017, which removed the previous reference to an ‘official religion of the State’. However, both countries still require their monarch to be Lutheran. In Sweden, for example, under Article 4 of the Act of Succession 1810, ‘The King shall always profess the pure evangelical faith, as adopted and explained in the unaltered Confession of Augsburg and in the Resolution of the Uppsala Meeting of the year 1593’. Likewise in Denmark, Article 4 of the Constitution maintains the establishment of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and Article 6 requires that the monarch shall be a member of the Church.

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The monarch’s role as Defender of the Faith in an increasingly secular society

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The role of the Church of England in the British state will be front and centre at the coronation of King Charles III, which takes place on Saturday. Catherine Pepinster argues that Charles and his mother, Elizabeth II, have reinvented the monarchy’s relationship to religion in twenty-first century Britain. Quite where that leaves the relationship between the monarchy and the more secular in society remains open to question.

Bit by bit, drip by drip, Buckingham Palace has gradually been revealing the details of the coronation of Charles III and Queen Camilla. There have been announcements about the crowns they will wear and the music that will be played, as well as commentaries from the press about the King not wanting a lavish ceremony and striving for both continuity and change on 6 May. Then in December 2022, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described it as a unique moment that would ‘allow us to showcase the very best of Britain’.

Amid this chatter, there has been barely any coverage of what lies at the heart of the coronation – religion. Since the time of Henry VIII and his creation of the Church of England, religion and monarchy have been inextricably linked. The sovereign takes the title of Supreme Governor of the Church of England, which is the established church in this country. Long before that, church and monarch were intertwined, with both bestowing different forms of power – temporal, spiritual – upon the other. For more than a thousand years, the coronation of first the English, and later, the British monarch, has been a Christian service, with roots in Biblical ideas of kingship, focusing on notions of service and the importance of the monarch being blessed with wisdom. This is most memorably expressed in Handel’s spine-tingling Zadok the Priest, composed for the coronation of George II and performed at every coronation since. It is expected to be played again in May, including the lines from the Old Testament’s First Book of Kings: ‘Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king’.

Note the reference to Solomon – a byword for wisdom – and note mention of anointing. Most people assume crowning is at the heart of a coronation, and it is certainly the most visually affecting moment. For constitutionalists, the most important aspect of the coronation is the oath-taking. This is when the monarch promises to govern according to laws and customs, honour the legal settlement of the Church of England and its rights and privileges, as well as uphold the Protestant religion. However, for the clerics, Christian believers, and monarchs, it is the anointing, when the sovereign is blessed and the grace of God is called down upon him, that is the key aspect of the ceremony.

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What role should the monarch have in a constitutional crisis?

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Robert Saunders argues that the UK cannot rely on a ceremonial monarchy that seeks to remain apart from politics to protect the constitution from attack in times of crisis. For that, he concludes that other instruments will be needed, without which both monarchy and the constitution will suffer. This post is based on material from the Unit’s new report, The British Monarchy, co-published yesterday by the Unit and the UK in a Changing Europe.

For much of British history, it was hard to imagine a constitutional crisis without the monarch at its core. From the barons at Runnymede imposing Magna Carta on King John to the expulsion of James II in 1688, the English (and, later, British) constitution was forged in the collision between Crown and parliament. As late as the nineteenth century, suspicion of royal power pulsed through progressive politics. Victorians may have revered ‘Her Little Majesty’, but they also celebrated a ‘Glorious Revolution’ against royal tyranny and erected a statue of Oliver Cromwell outside Westminster.

With the decline of constitutional politics in the twentieth century, the political functions of the Crown slipped from public debate. Yet recent controversies have redirected attention to the role of the monarch at times of constitutional crisis. More specifically, they have reopened a question that deserves greater public discussion: who wields the historic powers of the Crown once the monarch is no longer politically active? Should there be any limit on their use by a Prime Minister?

An emergency brake

Some of the highest powers of the British state still technically reside with the Crown, including the right to declare war, conclude treaties and suspend parliament. By convention, those powers are exercised ‘on the advice of the Prime Minister’. But they do not belong to the Prime Minister, and might, in theory, be withheld.

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Fourteen things you might want to know about the coronation

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As the first coronation in 70 years approaches, many people still have questions about its purpose, its format, and (perhaps most importantly) what could go wrong. The Unit has created an FAQs page, authored by the Constitution Unit’s monarchy experts Robert Hazell and Bob Morris, to answer those questions, 14 of which are discussed below.

1. What does a coronation do?

The Coronation does not ‘make’ the monarch. Under common law, the new monarch succeeds to the throne immediately on the death of their predecessor: so Charles became King the moment the Queen died.

The coronation has several functions. It is a religious rite that symbolises the descent of God’s grace on the new ruler. The King takes a solemn three-part oath to govern according to laws and customs; render justice with mercy; and maintain the Protestant Reformed Religion plus the rights and privileges of the Church of England. He is then anointed and crowned by the Archbishop. In sum, the Church blesses the monarch and his new reign; he in turn promises to protect the Church, and to serve his people.

2. How old is the coronation?

The coronation ceremony is over 1000 years old. It was formalised in AD 973, with the coronation of the Anglo-Saxon King Edgar by St Dunstan of Canterbury in Bath Abbey. The first Norman King to be crowned in Westminster Abbey was William the Conqueror, crowned there on Christmas Day 1066. King Charles is the fortieth monarch to be crowned at the Abbey since the Conquest.

3. What are the main elements in the coronation?

The main elements are the recognition, the oath, anointing, crowning, homage, and communion. The recognition is at the start, when the Archbishop presents the new monarch to the congregation, with trumpet fanfare, and they all shout, ‘God save the King’. The King then takes the coronation oath, and the Archbishop anoints the King with chrism (holy oil from Jerusalem). Similar to an ordination, this is when the grace of God is called down upon the new monarch and his reign.

After the anointing, the monarch is crowned by the Archbishop, seated upon King Edward’s chair, used in coronations for the last 700 years. Then comes the homage, when the Archbishop and others kneel before the King to pay homage in ancient words of fealty. Finally, there is communion: the coronation is also a eucharist, in which the monarch takes communion.

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