A call for millions of citizens to ‘pay homage’ to King Charles during his coronation has been met with an unexpected backlash.
For the first time in history, the public will be given an active role in the coronation with the Archbishop of Canterbury calling on those watching or listening to the event to take part in a “great cry around the nation and around the world of support for the King”.
The Arcbishop Justin Welby will ask “all persons of goodwill in The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of the other Realms and the Territories to make their homage, in heart and voice, to their undoubted King, defender of all”.
The Mail Online reports: The Archbishop of Canterbury’s office this weekend revealed plans to make the ceremony more of a ‘People’s Coronation’ by scrapping the historic rite of aristocrats pledging their oath to the new sovereign.
Only the Prince of Wales will now kneel before the King and pledge to be his ‘liege man of life and limb’.
In a trailblazing move Lambeth Palace said citizens of the UK and Commonwealth would be offered the chance to ‘make their homage in heart and voice to their undoubted King’ instead.
But the move sparked much conversation yesterday as the nation debated whether it would heed the call.
That led to a Lambeth Palace source stressing that it was an ‘invitation’ for people watching the ceremony on Saturday to take part by vocally offering their ‘true allegiance’ to the monarch and his heirs, rather than an ‘expectation or request’.
The order of service will read: ‘All who so desire, in the Abbey, and elsewhere, say together: I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God.’
A spokesman for Lambeth Palace said: ‘The Homage of the People is particularly exciting because that’s brand new.
‘Our hope is at that point, when the archbishop invites people to join in, that people wherever they are, if they’re watching at home on their own, watching the telly, will say it out loud – this sense of a great cry around the nation and around the world of support for the King.’
While it was clear there is no diktat whatsoever to do so, both Buckingham Palace and Lambeth Palace were clearly taken aback yesterday by the strength of feeling the invitation provoked, however.
Many felt their well-meant rallying cry played into the hands of Republicans and critics of the ceremony generally, sparking an outpouring of comment and criticism on social media.
Labour MP Clive Lewis told the Guardian that he thought the proposed oath would be ‘either unwelcome or ignored by many’.
Republic, the anti-monarchist organisation, said it was ‘an offensive and tone-deaf gesture that holds the people in contempt’.
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