The Coronation Oath on 6 May: A Mighty Trojan Horse
Prof. Gloria Moss Ph.D. FCIPD
The secret powers of the recently published Oath
The text that Charles will add his signature to on Saturday was published recently and it offers the people of Britain and the Commonwealth some extraordinary powers. For, although academics at University College London’s constitution unit state that the oath is of overwhelmingly ‘symbolic significance,’ (2022, p.10), a report by the House of Commons from May this year states that the oath is the only part of the ceremony that is required by law. The oath is in fact binding, and a contract with the people of the realms that fall under its jurisdiction.
So, as millions are pinned to their television screens for the lavish spectacle, one conservatively costing the British taxpayer £100 million (twice the equivalent sum spent on his mother’s coronation), they might like to serve as witnesses to three aspects of the oath. One is the undertaking that Charles will make to govern according to the ‘laws and customs’ of the relevant realms and territories. A second is to do the utmost in his power to ‘maintain the laws of God’ and a third. The third aspect to look out for is whether Charles signs the oath below the text as people around the world do, or whether he does as Queen Elizabeth did and signs her signature above the text.
A word on each of these and the secret power that they offer the peoples of Britain and the Commonwealth.
Laws and customs
The monarch’s commitment to observe the ‘laws and customs’ of the realms goes back to King Edward II who is the earliest English coronation for which we have an official record. Not only that, but Edward II’s oath largely remained the format for a coronation oath for nearly four hundred, and these words were included also in the oath sworn by Queen Elizabeth II. Why are these words significant?
Well, according to the most authoritative jurist of the thirteenth century, Henry de Bracton, ‘the English hold many things by custom which they do not hold by law’ and ‘kings need only to have allowed the custom for it to be granted’.
In saying this, Henry de Bracton brings the Magna Carta within the orbit of ‘customs’ and in so doing, asserts people’s rights as ‘freemen’ alongside their right to a trial by jury, a right specified in article 39 of the Magna Carta. What is more, Magna Carta allows, in Article 61, for the lawful rebellion of 25 barons, a right invoked in 2001 and still in force.
The bottom line? People in Britain and in the Commonwealth realms can take Charles at his word and assert their right to a trial by jury and to their rights as freemen of the land. This means that obligations addressed to the so-called legal fiction (the all capitals name that corporatises people rather than addresses them as living beings) are legally rendered null and void.
This means that any attempt by the Ministry of Justice in Britain to nullify the freeman of the land philosophy is itself negated by the King’s oath.
https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2023/05/coronation-oath-6-may-trojan-horse/