I was a Methodist

Charles Bradlaugh, you died in vain. The nineteenth century radical MP was elected, and re-elected to the House of Commons several times. His plurality of elections happened because he refused to utter an oath pledging his faith in God. He wanted a secular oath. Eventually, such an oath was introduced, and is still an alternative today, as it is in the courts. (I can’t remember all the details of Bradlaugh’s history, so correct me if I’m wrong.) Fast forward to the oath taking of one George Galloway MP—according to the news he went full throttle: ‘“I swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his heirs and successors, according to law, so help me God.” A picture had him clutching what looked like a Bible, but it could have been the Koran. George clearly didn’t have that radical no-nonsense firebrand rhetoric to hand on this occasion—I suspect he just wanted to get the officialdom over and done with as quickly as possible to make the most of the predictably limited time he will on this occasion spend in parliament. So, the King Charles III loyalist has sworn his allegiance to his liege, Charley Boy the Third. George’s fans everywhere will even now be drafting their excuses for their hero’s abject subject-status. For myself, a republican, taking the secular oath, which still had a reference to loyalty to the Queen was fairly straightforward. As you can see from the above, the oath includes the word ‘successors’ which so far as I was concerned could mean elected successors, never mind ‘heirs’ - I wonder who felt it appropriate to go one step further than ‘heirs?’ Anyway I took my cue on this oath-taking business from an RAF recruiting sergeant who told me when I signed up, in response to my declaration that I was an atheist, that it didn’t matter one bit if I swore on the Bible or a bottle of Newcastle Brown. My conscience was thus left undisturbed (although later in basic training they had me down as a Methodist for some reason).