TAKING THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE
1
Let us linger awhile in the Upper Chamber to note what happens when,
on the second day of the opening of a new Parliament, the Commons
return to their own House, having at their head no longer a mere
“Speaker-Elect,” but a fully-fledged “Mr. Speaker,” who has been
completely evolved from the chrysalis state by the magic influence
of the Royal approbation. As the noise of the retreating feet of the
exultant Commons irreverently breaks for a minute or so the solemn
stillness of the House of Lords, the five Lords Commissioners rise
from their bench, and with slow, toilsome footsteps, as if the weight
of their ample scarlet robes trailing on the ground behind them
impede their progress, disappear behind the Throne. After a brief
interval the Lord Chancellor reappears, attired in his customary
robes—which, like the Speaker’s, consist of a full-bottomed wig and
a flowing black gown worn over levee dress—and takes his seat on the
Woolsack. The junior bishop among the Lords Spiritual present reads
the prayers, while the peers stand with bowed and reverent heads.
Then the process of swearing-in begins. The Lord Chancellor is the
first to come to the table; and, with a copy of the New Testament
in his right hand, and a large paste-board card containing the
words of the oath, in his left, he repeats, after the Clerk of the
Parliaments, the declaration that he will be faithful and bear true
allegiance to his Majesty; after which he kisses the book, and writes
his name on the Roll of Parliament. It is the first signature on the
virgin sheet. The roll is of a different kind in each House. In the
Upper Chamber it is really a roll. It consists of one long sheet of
paper, about 16 inches in width, which winds round a roller. The
peers simply write their ordinary signatures, such as “Birkenhead,”
“Morley,” “Rosebery,” “Salisbury,” or “Lansdowne.”
As the Lord Chancellor returns to the Woolsack, Garter King of
Arms (the head of The Heralds’ College), appears, in his gorgeous
tabard, emblazoned back and front with the Royal Arms and many quaint
devices, and delivers to the Clerk the Roll of the Lords. The Clerk
of the Crown in Chancery, wearing wig and gown, also enters and
presents a certificate of the return of the sixteen representative
Scottish peers, who are elected for every new Parliament by the
peerage of Scotland. Then the peers come to the table without any
order or precedence being observed, and each, having first handed
over his writ of summons, a small piece of limp parchment, to the
Clerk, takes the oath, and subscribes the Roll.
“Once a peer, a peer for life,” it is said, truly enough, and yet
every Lord of Parliament must receive, at the dissolution, a fresh
summons from the Crown, and must take a fresh oath of allegiance,
before he can resume his legislative duties in the new Parliament.
The writs are issued from the Crown Office at Westminster to “the
Lords spiritual and temporal” individually. The mediæval quaintness
of the summons—it has been in use for over six centuries—is shown in
its principal passage:
We strictly enjoining, command you upon the faith and allegiance by
which you are bound to Us, that the weightiness of the said affairs
and imminent perils considered (waiving all excuses), you be at the
said day and place personally present with Us, and with the said
Prelates, Great Men, and Peers, to treat and give your council upon
the affairs aforesaid. And this, as you regard Us and Our honour
and the safety and defence of the said United Kingdom and Church
and dispatch of the said affairs, in no wise do you omit.
The writ sent to the spiritual peers is the same, save that they are
commanded to attend upon their “faith and love” instead of their
“faith and allegiance,” as in the case of the peers temporal. The
Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishops of London, Durham
and Winchester, become Lords of Parliament immediately on their
consecration, but the other prelates of the Church Establishment
must await, in the order of seniority of consecration, writs of
summons to the House of Lords, according as vacancies arise by death
or resignation in the estate of the Lords spiritual. The number of
spiritual peers is limited to twenty-six, and as there are thirty-six
dioceses in the Established Church, ten of the prelates are therefore
not Lords of Parliament, but all of them—save the Bishop of Sodor
and Man—may hope, in time, to have seats in the House of Lords
by succession. It is an interesting fact that the making of an
affirmation instead of taking the oath—a not infrequent occurrence
in the Commons—is rarely to be seen in the Lords. The only time I
have witnessed it was when Viscount Morley of Blackburn (better known
in literature and politics as John Morley) came to the table on his
first introduction to the House of Lords in May 1908, and the Clerk
produced, in the usual course, the New Testament and the copy of
the oath. Lord Morley refused to be sworn, and insisted on making
affirmation instead. As there was no precedent for such a demand in
the House of Lords, no form of affirmation was available; but after a
hurried consultation between the Lord Chancellor and the Clerk, the
terms of the oath, with the appeal to the Almighty, “So help me, God”
omitted, were made to serve the purpose.
2
In the House of Commons the procedure of swearing-in members is
somewhat different. The Speaker is the first to take the oath. As
soon as he returns to the Chair, in the full garb of his office,
he stands on the dais, and repeats the words of the oath after the
Clerk. It is a very simple declaration, and is the same in both
Houses:
I, —— ——, swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and
bear true allegiance to his Majesty King George, his heirs and
successors, according to law. So help me, God.
The Speaker then signs the Test Roll, which, differing in form from
the Roll of Parliament in the Upper House, is a large book strongly
bound in leather, with brass clasps, opening at the bottom instead of
at the sides, and with a sheet of blotting-paper between every two
leaves. A new Test Roll is provided for each new Parliament.
After the Speaker, Members are sworn in in batches. To expedite
matters, two tables are brought into the Chamber, and, being placed
in line with the Clerk’s Table, are each supplied with copies of
the New Testament and five large paste-boards, on which the oath
is printed in bold type. At each table one of the clerks-assistant
stands, and administers the oath to the Members, as they present
themselves in groups of five, two or three holding between them a
Testament, and each having in his left hand one of the oath-cards,
the words of which they repeat, and then kiss the book. The first to
take the oath and sign the roll after the Speaker are the Leader of
the House and the Leader of the Opposition. Members of “his Majesty’s
most honourable Privy Council,” and the Ministers, past and present,
next have precedence, and take the oath separately from the other
Members.
In the Lords, as we have seen, each peer, before taking the oath and
subscribing the Roll, gives the Clerk his writ of summons. But in the
Commons no proof of identity—no evidence that they are duly elected
M.P.’s—is required from the gentlemen that present themselves at
the Table to take the oath and subscribe the Test Roll. It is true
that the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery receives at his office at
Westminster from the returning officer of every constituency what is
called the return of the writ—that is, actually the writ of election,
with the name of the elected representative certified on the back—and
that the names of the Members, with the constituency each represents,
are inscribed in a book, called the “Return Book,” which is delivered
by the Clerk of the Crown to the Clerk of the House of Commons on the
day the new Parliament opens.
But though ordinarily all the approaches to the Chamber are guarded
by vigilant policemen and door-keepers, who know every Member of
the House, it is obviously impossible at the opening of a new
Parliament—when there is a large influx of new Members—for the
officials on duty to be able to discriminate between those who say
they are representatives and those who may be strangers. It would
not be difficult, therefore, for an impostor of nerve and audacity,
with some knowledge of the House and its ways, to enter the House
by personating some Member whom he knew could not be in attendance,
to vote in a division on the Speakership, should there be a contest
for the Chair, and even to take the oath and subscribe the Roll.
There is no case of personation on record, but it is possible in the
circumstances. The Return Book is a conspicuous object on the Table
during the swearing-in of Members. It is there for reference by the
Clerk, in the event of a question arising as to the identity of any
person who may present himself. However, as it contains merely the
name of each Member and his constituency, and not his portrait and
description, it is hardly an insuperable bar to personation, and
accordingly, in the case of new Members, the question of identity
has to be taken on trust by the Clerk. But there is no doubt that a
Member who for any reason did not want to take the oath could quite
easily evade the obligation.
3
In the case of a contested election for the Speakership, Members
would of course have to vote without having been sworn. What, it may
be asked, would happen in the event of a Member, after the election
of the Speaker, sitting and voting without having taken the oath and
signed the Roll? The penalties provided by an Act passed in 1866 are
a fine of £500 for each commission of the offence of voting, and
the immediate deprivation of the seat, which, _ipso facto_, becomes
vacant. The payment of the fines, when the offence has been committed
through mistake, ignorance, or inadvertence, can be remitted by an
Act of Indemnity, but it is contended that nothing can avoid the
instant vacating of the seat. I remember hearing it persistently
whispered that one Member elected at a certain General Election
had never taken the oath or signed the Roll. The matter, however,
was never brought to the notice of the House. A peer who takes his
seat and votes without having previously subscribed to the oath
is likewise liable for every such vote to a penalty of £500. Peers
have so inadvertently violated the law. Each explained that having
taken the oath and signed the Roll on his accession to the peerage
he thought he was not obliged to do so again when a new Parliament
assembled. This excuse was accepted in the case of four peers in
1906. Bills of Indemnity were then said to be no longer necessary.
The swearing-in of Members returned to the House of Commons at the
General Election of 1918—the first after the World War—had one new
feature. It was introduced owing to changes in the law of election
made by the Reform Act of 1918. It is provided by that Act that
a candidate must lodge £150 with the returning officer at his
nomination, which sum is not given back until the returning officer
is officially informed that the candidate, if elected, has taken the
oath and signed the Roll. Accordingly, to provide a means of ready
discovery as to whether a particular Member had or had not subscribed
to the oath, two clerks sat at the Table, with printed lists of the
names and constituencies, which they ticked off as the name and the
constituency of each Member was announced by the Clerk of the House
in the course of the introduction of the Member to the Speaker.
4
As Members take the oath, they proceed, in single file, to subscribe
the Test Roll, over which the Clerk stands sentinel. Each Member
writes his full name and that of his constituency. He is then
introduced by the Clerk to the Speaker, who shakes hands with him.
So the process of swearing-in goes on for two or three days. It is
slow and tedious work, and the House is not a lively place while it
is in progress. Occasionally a special incident relieves the tedium
of the proceedings. Some Members claim to make an affirmation instead
of being sworn, on the ground that he has no religious belief, or
that the taking of an oath is contrary to his religious belief. The
affirmation is in the same form as the oath, except that the words
“Solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm” are substituted
for the word “swear,” and the words, “So help me, God” are omitted.
These have to sign their names on a different part of the Test Roll.
It is no unusual thing either to see a Member, wearing his hat, sworn
on a book provided by himself. He belongs to the Jewish persuasion,
which requires the oath to be taken with covered head on a copy of
the Pentateuch, or first five books of the Old Testament. Others
prefer to swear with uplifted hand instead of by kissing the New
Testament. The oath is administered in about a minute to each batch.
It is in signing the Test Roll that time is consumed. The Member who
has not his glasses adjusted, or who searches on the Table for the
pen that suits him best, with which to inscribe his name on the roll
of fame in bold and lasting caligraphy, may block a group anxious
to get to the lunch-rooms or smoking-rooms, and may prove the same
kind of nuisance to his fellows as the man who wants to change a
five-pound note at the railway booking-office, though there is a
long and impatient queue behind, and the train is on the point of
starting.