Charles proclaimed king

The second part of the Accession Council meeting to proclaim the new King Charles III was full of interest: historical, constitutional, religious, and social.

It shows, whether or not you agree with them, the essential relations between the Crown, the state and the people.

The constitution of good government traditionally recognises three branches: the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary. The executive does the enforcing and administering of the law. The legislature, the Parliament, enacts legislation and puts forward the highest group of executive officers under the monarch, ie the Cabinet and Ministry. And the judiciary is the courts, which judge individual cases claiming legal remedy.

In this schema, the monarch is the chief executive officer ie duty-holder. Historically, legally, constitutionally, this is the font and origin of the authority of all subordinate executive officers who in law are mere delegates. Since the executive are the ones with the weapons, the central problem and core of constitutional government is to attempt to restrain this power within lawful bounds.

The BBC said the purpose of the accession council meeting was ceremonial but there was virtually no ceremony, no pomp, no pageantry. Rather, the purpose of the meeting was executive: ie to decide to carry out action. That's why they dressed plainly, did not greet the new king when he walked in, and simply moved to the dispatch of business without ceremony or preamble.

The first item on the agenda was 'the King to make his declaration'. There was hardly politeness or deference in this peremptory bare statement. This reflects the traditional conflict between the powers of the monarch, and the rights and freedoms of the people, which broke out into open war between Crown and Parliament under King Charles I in 1642. He was beheaded in 1649. After an unhappy experiment with kingless governments, Parliament restored the monarchy in 1660 under King Charles II. But the conflict remained until finally it grew so bad he left the country. Parliament invited instead a new King and Queen who undertook to reign on conditions dictated by Parliament, embodied in the Bill of Rights 1688.

England's bloodless revolution led to the implementation of constitutional monarchy and popular sovereignty. This overthrew the ancient doctrine of the divine right of kings. Following England's lead, the elements of the modern constitution have now become the standard model of government throughout the world.

In law, Prince Charles became King on the death of his mother. The purpose of the Accession Council meeting is to inform all subordinate executive officers of the fact of the identity of the new king, without which any ordinary executive officer - for example a manager in a regional health department - would have no official direction from his or her superiors confirming who is the new chief executive officer in the hierarchy.

From the executive arm, the legal significance of the decision spreads out to the rest of the state and society, because legislative and judicial action require execution, and because the appointment of any judicial or legislative officer itself also requires an executive act.

The Accession Council meeting, being so brief, shows us the very core and summary of the nature of lawful executive action under our constitutional government.

It shows how the institution of government arose out of the institution of family. Even before kings had power, they had family.

It shows the dual character of the Crown, as being the natural person of the monarch and the legal person of the State.

The King's declaration also shows the ancient Biblical principle, re-asserted in the wake of the Protestant reforms, that the king reigns always under God. Ironically this was precisely the idea that caused the overthrow of the doctrine of the divine rights of kings. The publication of the Bible in the vernacular languages of Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries after Christ, enabled the Protestant reformers, by reference to scripture, to re-advance the cause that the authority of kings - and hence the State - is held on trust for the good of the people, under an almighty, intelligent, creative, personal, loving, universal good and moral God, transcendent above any secular interest or institution, who has made mankind, male and female, in his own image. The modern doctrine of equality which preoccupies modernity, even among atheists, is of Biblical origin.

Since the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, society has become more secular but this does not justify ignoring the fact that the new King's pledge of service is based on Christ's teachings: "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the last of all and the servant of all": Mark 10:43.

In the history of ideas, this is the spiritual import of the proceedings, and the fundamental reason why the Accession Council meeting requires the new King to give his declaration and other promises and commitments restraining and foregoing absolute power before they are prepared to proclaim him king.

It is why the one thing the accession council makes absolutely sure of, and the first item of business before proclaiming anyone king, is that he must first swear an oath on the Bible, and prove by signing his declaration with witnesses, to "maintain the settlement of the true Protestant religion": - because this was the rock on which the entire edifice of government in modern-day multi-cultural Britain was established, with its beliefs in the rule of law, constitutional government, government as an institution of service, and beliefs in toleration, freedom, progress and equality.

It is to stop the king getting above himself; and to stop the sovereign power from being licitly vacuumed up by foreign powers with their own agenda unfriendly to the interests and independence of the English people, a battle the English have had to fight repeatedly in history, to the benefit of all mankind.

That's why the band outside begins to play at this point.

Then the meeting authorises the use of the existing royal seals for various jurisdictions until new seals can be made.

Just as when you sign a document, you signify your approval, so the king signifies his agreement to decisions he approves by the royal seal.

The Australian Constitution vests the executive power of the Australian Commonwealth in the monarch who delegates it to his subordinate officer the Governor-General of Australia, by decisions under the royal seal. This item of business in the meeting was urgent because without it, there could be a gap in the manner of transmitting executive orders down the chain of command. The legitimacy of executive action would be cut off at the root.

This is the tap-root, the continuing legal connection between the Crown and the executive arm of government in the "realms": those countries including Australia which have the Crown as their head of state.

Government being a human institution, we have only imperfect human beings to run it. It has always been, remains, and will always be a magnet for people who want to exercise power over their fellow human beings. The struggle for liberty is always a work in progress against the behemoth. However in the scheme of things you could do a lot worse than receive this inheritance; and it is the reason so many people migrate from other countries to the United Kingdom, or its downstream realms including settled by the British diaspora.