CORONATION OATH

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 April 1937, Page 4

CORONATION OATH

THE REVISED FORM. The changes in the King’s Coronation Oath are made necessary by the Statute of Westminster, 1931, under which. the Dominions became equal partners under the Crown with the United Kingdom. The first portion of the Oath gives recognition to this position. The third portion, under which the King pledges himself to maintain the Protestant religion, has been restricted to the United Kingdom alone. There is now nothing in the Oath affecting religion in the Dominions and Colonies. The revised Oath is in the following terms:

Primate: Sir, is your Majesty willing to take the Oath? King: 1 am willing. Primate: Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the Peoples of Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New' Zealand, and the Union of South Africa, of your Possessions and the other Territories to any of them belonging or ''pertaining, and of your Empire of India, according to their respective laws and customs? King: I solemnly promise to do so. Primate: Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgments? King: 1 will.

Primate: 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? And 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? King: All this I promise to do. PREVIOUS OATH. The first and third sections of the Oath taken by King George V. in 1911 were as 1 follows: Will you solemnly promise and .swear to govern the People of this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Dominions thereto belonging, according to the Statutes in Parliament agreed on, and the respective laws and customs of the same? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God, the true Profession of the Gospel, ■and the Protestant Reformed Religion established by Law? And 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 i preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England, and io 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? This Oath was prescribed in the Coronation Oath Act passed in IGS9, upon the Accession of William and Mary. That, measure enacted that 1 the Oath, as laid down should be ( “in all Times to come taken by the'; Kings and Queens of this Realm.’’ j