Should the British monarch do anything against the interests of the Anglican Church, or decide to convert out of the Anglican religion after having been crowned, does the Archbishop of Canterbury have the authority to remove him or her from the throne?

Stew54

No, the Archbishop doesn't have any powers like that. The succession to the British Crown is covered by statute, which is why there had to be quick Act of Parliament passed in 1936 to allow the abdication. Mind you, if someone did something after they had succeeded to the Crown which, if they had done it beforehand would have debarred them from the throne (married a Roman Catholic for example) I'm sure it would create a fabulous constitutional crisis. Jan 17 05, 1:18 PM

Arpeggionist

Interesting. I know there are certain statutes against the British Crown having anything to do with the RC Church. But I had a classmate in high school who had some relatives in the British royal line. It occured to me that nothing is stated in the statutes of monarchs suddenly converting to Judaism. Though I imagined this would be unlikely, in the event that it did happen, I often wondered what the government in Britain would do about it. Jan 17 05, 1:37 PM

Stew54

Succession to the British throne is restricted by the Act of Settlement to Protestant descendants of Sophia, Electress of Hanover, with male heirs having precedence over females, and those who have married a Roman Catholic excluded. As things stand, being Jewish (or having any other faith) would stop someone from becoming monarch, but I'm really not sure how the system would cope with someone who converted afterwards. Maybe Parliament could force them to abdicate - that's happened before but not since long before the succession rules were formalised in the Act of Succession. The text of the Act of Settlment can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,2763,407239,00.html It does require, expressly and repeatedly, that whoever becomes entitled to the throne must be a Protestant, which I think discriminates against everyone else, not just Roman Catholics. Roman Catholics get a specific mention in that the monarch may not be married to a Roman Catholic even if they are themselves Protestant. However, at the time the Act of Settlement was passed Britain had recently undergone decades of strife as a result of precisely that situation, so it probably isn't all that surprising. Anyway, the British monarch is also head of the (essentially Protestant) Church of England, so it doesn't seem especially discriminatory for the job description to require that they are not affilliated to another faith. Jan 17 05, 1:44 PM

bloomsby

To return very briefly to the original question, the powers of the Archbishop of Canterbury are very limited. If any action of the reigning monarch were to provoke a constitutional crisis, it would be Parliament that would have to deal with the problem. That said, the Archbishop of Canterbury could offer advice to the PM (as happened in 1936). Jan 17 05, 10:44 PM

Arpeggionist

So would the parliament have the authority to force the monarch off the throne because of religious differences? Jan 18 05, 3:11 AM

TabbyTom

As the law stands, I think the answer to your last question is yes. Section II of the Act of Settlement of 1701 provides that “all and every person and persons, who shall or may take or inherit the said Crown, …. and is, are or shall be reconciled to, or shall hold communion with, the See or Church of Rome, or shall profess the popish religion, or shall marry a papist, shall be subject to such incapacities, as in such case or cases are by the said recited act provided, enacted, and established.” “The said recited act” is the Bill of Rights of 1689, under which a Roman Catholic or the spouse of a Roman Catholic “shall be excluded and be for ever incapable to inherit, possess or enjoy the crown and government of this realm and Ireland and the dominions thereunto belonging or any part of the same, or to have, use or exercise any regal power, authority or jurisdiction within the same.” So, if a Roman Catholic claims the throne, Parliament would have the legal right and authority to enforce its Acts. In practice, if such a thing looked probable (e.g. if the present Prince of Wales were to be received into the Roman Catholic Church), everyone concerned would probably try to sort things out beforehand. How such a constitutional crisis would be resolved is anyone’s guess: personally I’d say that the disestablishment of the Church of England would be quite likely – but nobody is going to open the can of worms before we have to. Jan 18 05, 8:35 AM

Arpeggionist

But what if the monarch converts to a religion other than Catholicism? Jan 18 05, 9:36 AM

TabbyTom

So far as I can see, there is nothing to prevent the monarch from becoming or marrying a member of any religious body except the Roman Catholic Church. In practice, the coronation oath might present difficulties for a conscientious monarch who was not a monotheist. As administered at the coronation of the present Queen, the oath (as it affects religion) is: Archbishop: Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England? And will you preserve unto the bishops and clergy of England, and to the churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them? Queen: All this I promise to do. A professed atheist (or polytheist) might find it difficult to officially recognize the “laws of God,” but a Jew or Muslim might well feel able to swear to “maintain” Protestantism in England and to preserve the establishment of the Anglican church, even though he or she might not subscribe to its doctrines. Again, I don’t think anyone is going to challenge the status quo unless they have to. Jan 18 05, 3:48 PM