Oath of Allegiance
The oath of allegiance is an oath of fidelity to the sovereign taken by all persons holding important public office and as a condition of naturalization. By ancient common law it might be required of all persons above the age of 12, and it was repeatedly used as a test for the disaffected. In England it was first imposed by statute in the reign of Elizabeth I of England (1558) and its form has more than once been altered since. Up to the time of the revolution the promise was, "to be true and faithful to the king and his heirs, and truth and faith to bear of life and limb and terrene honour, and not to know or hear of any ill or damage intended him without defending him therefrom." This was thought to favour the doctrine of absolute non-resistance, and accordingly the convention parliament enacted the form that has been in use since that time – "I do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty ..."
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Famous quotes containing the words oath of, oath and/or allegiance:
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—Francine Du Plesssix Gray (20th century)
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“Unlike Boswell, whose Journals record a long and unrewarded search for a self, Johnson possessed a formidable one. His life in London—he arrived twenty-five years earlier than Boswell—turned out to be a long defense of the values of Augustan humanism against the pressures of other possibilities. In contrast to Boswell, Johnson possesses an identity not because he has gone in search of one, but because of his allegiance to a set of assumptions that he regards as objectively true.”
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