Oath of Allegiance (United Kingdom)

Oath Of Allegiance (United Kingdom)

The Oath of Allegiance (Judicial or Official Oath) is a promise to be loyal to the British monarch, and their heirs and successors, sworn by certain public servants in the United Kingdom, and also by newly naturalised subjects in citizenship ceremonies.

The Oaths Act 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c.46) set out provisions whereby the oath may be solemnly affirmed rather than sworn to God. The Act was consolidated and repealed by the Oaths Act 1978.

The Victorian promissory oaths of allegiances, are set out in the Promissory Oaths Act 1868 in the following form:

  • The original oath of allegiance as set out in the 1868 Oaths Act:
“ I, (Insert full name), do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God. ”
  • The original oath of office as set out in the 1868 Oaths Act:
“ I, (Insert full name), do swear that I will well and truly serve Her Majesty Queen Victoria in the office of (Insert office of). So help me God. ”
  • The original judicial oath as set out in the 1868 Oaths Act:
“ I, (Insert full name), do swear that I will well and truly serve our Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria in the office of (Insert judicial office of), and I will do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or illwill. So help me God. ”
  • The current oath of allegiance is set out from the Promissory Oaths Act 1868 in the following form:
“ I, (Insert full name), do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God. ”

Read more about Oath Of Allegiance (United Kingdom):  Oaths To Heirs and Successors, Origins, Office-holders, Privy Counsellor Oath, Parliamentarians, House of Lords, Northern Ireland Assembly, Judges and Magistrates, Police Officers, Clergy, Armed Forces, Scouts and Girl Guides, Citizenship Ceremonies

Famous quotes containing the words oath and/or allegiance:

    “It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.”
    —Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.)

    “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.”
    —Jeffrey Hart (b. 1930)