The King's Great Matter?

On 12 November, the Labour Party imposed a three-line whip in the House of Commons to defeat a backbench Conservative attempt to remove the Lords Spiritual from the House of Lords. The Government clearly intends to appoint its own supporters, and why not? The present arrangements have never been adequate to fill 26 seats in Parliament, of which three carried lifetime appointment to the Privy Council, with two of those having hitherto promised automatic life peerages on retirement.

At least one of those is at least as hard-fought as any other parliamentary seat. The BBC's recent hit job on the Lord Bishop of Leicester, Dr Martyn Snow, echoes that of The Times on the then Lord Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, in 2002. Also from an Evangelical background, will Dr Snow, too, end up a Monsignor? Those who play the "stalking" and "safeguarding" cards very often do indeed have ties to witchcraft. In questioning Jay Hulme's suitability for ordination when she participated in séances and tarot readings, Dr Snow was taking on the Church of England's informal but considerable links to popular, not to say elite, occultism, pseudohistory and pseudoscience; Miss Hulme also imagines herself to be a man, and we all know about the superstitions of the Supreme Governor.

Those who preferred that constituency have bitten back, tellingly via Radio Four. To whose benefit? We may find out when, as in 2002, The Tablet and the Methodist Recorder published simultaneous editorials in support of the same, subsequently successful, candidate for this permanent place in Parliament and on the Privy Council. This is politics. Proper politics. They may never again have the chance, since the Government is manifestly planning to move such decisions out of their salons and into its own.

The present Lords Spiritual therefore have nothing to lose, and should all vote against Second and Third Reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, if necessary forcing those to a vote at all. Or why are they there? And what of the King? The Treason Act 1351 makes it treasonable to "compass or imagine" the death of the monarch, such as by assisting his suicide, while the Treason Act 1702 and the Treason Act (Ireland) 1703 make it treasonable to attempt to hinder the Succession to the Throne in accordance with the 1689 Bill of Rights and the 1701 Act of Settlement, to which both assisted suicide and formally decriminalised abortion may be said to be potential threats.

Superficially comparable measures have either not applied in England, or not been opposed by the Church of England as such. On the contrary, it pretty much wrote the 1967 Abortion Act, and it assertively supported the even further liberalisation under Margaret Thatcher; abortion up to birth has been legal since 1990 for "severe abnormality" that did not need to be specified, and readily available since 1967, as could have been predicted by anyone who had read the Bill, never mind written it. For example, Michael Ramsey.

As the Coronation Oath reads: "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? 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?" "All this I promise to do," replied the King.

Thus, within the meaning of the Oath, is the same thing said in four different ways. "The Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel" are defined as "in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law," which is defined as "the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England," which are defined as "all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to [the Bishops and Clergy of England, and to the Churches there committed to their charge] or any of them."

Those rights and privileges are of course defined by Parliament. Within the understanding of the Coronation Oath, whatever Parliament defines as the rights and privileges, mostly in relation to incomes and property, of the Church of England's clergy are the only meaning of the settlement of the Church of England, thus the only meaning of the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law, and thus the only meaning of the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel.

The King is therefore bound by the Coronation Oath precisely and solely to sign whatever Parliament puts in front of him. That, and that alone, is his sworn duty as monarch. This has always been thoroughly repugnant to many. For as long as anyone has checked, then there have been at least as many Recusants, Dissenters and Nonconformists as there have been members of the Church of England, and there are now vastly more, albeit within an extremely secular society at large.

The status of the late Queen as Defender of the Faith did not preclude Royal Assent to assisted suicide in Canada or New Zealand, both of which retain the title. Pope Leo X did confer the title Fidei Defensor on Henry VIII, but in its present form it derives from its conferral by Parliament on Henry's son, Edward VI, meaning that, again, the Faith to be Defended is whatever Parliament says that it is. "Defender of the Faith" notably remained part of the Royal Title of the Irish Free State throughout that State's existence. Not that it has ever been peculiarly British or English; various monarchs have used it in various times and places, and Popes have conferred it on a number of people.

For example, Catherine of Aragon was a Defender of the Faith in her own right. A generation into his revolt, Martin Luther supported Catherine against Henry VIII. As did William Tyndale, who effectively went to the stake at Vilvoorde rather than return to an England that he did not regard as having really become Protestant at all. Like Luther, Tyndale had no truck with some king who wanted to get divorced because he had got his bit on the side pregnant. The robustly Protestant supporters of Lady Jane Grey sought to write Elizabeth as well as Mary out of the Succession, since while Mary was a Catholic, Elizabeth was a bastard. People who took Protestantism seriously, including as an international movement, lost a Civil War in England.

The reality of that defeat would be brought home for the first time in living memory, as the reality of the defeat of the Catholic England that held sway for a millennium would be brought home for the first time in a good two generations, when Royal Assent was granted to assisted suicide, not in defiance of the Coronation Oath, but pursuant to it, and not in spite of the King's status as Defender of the Faith, but because of it. Put not your trust in princes. Do not necessarily try to get rid of them. But put not your trust in them.

Assuming that the Lords Spiritual had indeed done everything possible to block it, if and when assisted suicide received the Royal Assent that the King would be bound by his Coronation Oath to grant it, then the Church of England would have to reconsider its entire relationship with the monarchy, or else a whole host of others would have to reconsider our relations with the Church of England. As we would if it had failed to oppose that Bill at every opportunity.