Accession Council - Religious Oath

Religious Oath

The new Sovereign, who is traditionally present, takes an oath to preserve and defend the Church of Scotland. (Elizabeth II was in Kenya when she acceded to the throne, and the Accession Council therefore met twice, first for the proclamation and again so that the new Queen could take the oath.) The provision in Article XXV Section II of the Acts of Union 1707 states with respect to confirmed Acts of Scotland:

And further Her Majesty with Advice aforesaid expressly declares and statutes that none of the Subjects of this Kingdom shall be liable to but all and every one of them for ever free of any Oath Test or Subscription within this Kingdom contrary to or inconsistent with the foresaid true Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Government Worship and Discipline as above established and that the same within the Bounds of this Church and Kingdom shall never be imposed upon or required of them in any sort And lastly that after the decease of Her present Majesty (whom God long preserve) the Soveraign succeeding to Her in the Royal Government of the Kingdom of Great Britain shall in all time coming at His or Her Accession to the Crown swear and subscribe that they shall inviolably maintain and preserve the foresaid Settlement of the true Protestant Religion with the Government Worship Discipline right and Privileges of this Church as above established by the Laws of this Kingdom in Prosecution of the Claim of Right

The new Sovereign must also take an oath relating to the Church of England, but that is done in the presence of Parliament on the first State Opening following the monarch's accession to the Throne. This oath, known as the Accession Declaration, runs as follows:

I, N, do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God, profess, testify and declare that I am a faithful Protestant, and that I will, according to the true intent of the enactments to secure the Protestant Succession to the Throne of my realm, uphold and maintain such enactments to the best of my power.

This preceding oath—first taken by George V in 1910—is a moderated version of the oath below which had been taken by every English and British monarch since William and Mary in 1689 until Edward VII in 1901, and which, by the early 20th century, was deemed too overtly anti-Catholic:

I, N, profess, testify, and declare, that I do believe that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever: and that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous. And I do solemnly in the presence of God profess, testify, and declare that I do make this declaration, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the words read unto me, as they are commonly understood by English Protestants, without any such dispensation from any person or authority or person whatsoever, or without thinking that I am or can be acquitted before God or man, or absolved of this declaration or any part thereof, although the Pope, or any other person or persons, or power whatsoever, should dispense with or annul the same or declare that it was null and void from the beginning.

This oath was originally required by the Test Acts to be taken by all members of either house of Parliament, and all civil and military officers. However, following Catholic Emancipation, it later came to be taken only by the Monarch.