The British state is as tangled in arcane rules as a kitten in a ball of yarn, but it’s not above issuing itself a scissors when either necessity or the political mood of the moment demands, and that’s what it did in 1833, when a Quaker, Joseph Pease, was elected as a Member of Parliament. 

The strand of yarn that needed to be cut was the requirement that MPs swear their allegiance to the monarch-of-the-moment. Who’s not called the monarch-of-the-moment but the king or the queen, with a capital letter I can’t be bothered to hand out, and it’s all taken very seriously, thank you.  

 

Quakers and oaths

The problem in 1833 was that Quakers didn’t swear oaths, and I assume they still don’t. It’s against their religion, and you don’t have to read very far into Quaker history to find that when something’s against their religion, serious Quakers will go to no end of trouble not to do it. Their founder was well acquainted with prison. He was jailed for blasphemy, for refusing to take an oath, for having long hair, for assorted other things. That long-hair charge was ruled not proven (i’m not sure how–you’d think the evidence would be on hand, or on head), but he and several others weren’t released. Instead they were fined for refusing to take their hats off in court. They refused to pay the fine, which they considered unjust, and were returned to prison. 

They’re a stubborn lot, the Quakers. I admire them. 

So, no oath for Joseph Pease, who wasn’t the first Quaker elected to Parliament. One was elected in 1698 but never got to take his seat. Three years earlier, Quakers’ affirmations had been accepted in place of oaths in most situations. The exceptions were giving evidence in court, serving on a jury, and holding a paid crown office. (in 1828 that was modified so that affirmations were accepted if they were giving evidence. (In 1828 that was modified so that affirmations were accepted if they were giving evidence.)

MPs weren’t paid until 1911–they were assumed to be independently wealthy and the setup pretty much restricted the post to people who were–so it wasn’t irrational to think the new MP might be able to take his seat. He wrote to the speaker saying he hoped “my declarations of fidelity . . . might in this case, as in others where the law requires an oath, be accepted.”

The hell it would be. No oath, no seat in the Commons. A by-election was ordered and someone else was elected. 

 

Which brings us back to Joseph Pease

That explains why when Pease was elected he expected trouble. He told his constituents that he was prepared to “go through much persecution in your cause” and wouldn’t “be surprised if the [Commons’] Serjeant-at-Arms be ordered to take me into custody.” 

But it was now 1833–practically modern times, right? Two seventeenth-century laws that kept anyone but Anglicans out of public office had been repealed in 1828, and the Catholic Emancipation Act had been passed in 1829.  

So Pease showed up, announced that he wouldn’t take the oath, surprising no one, and was asked–or possibly told–to step outside while the Commons discussed its response. 

What the Commons did was set up a committee to look at laws and precedents, because what Britain has instead of a written constitution is an endless collection of precedents. How anyone who enters that maze finds their way back is beyond me, but find a way back they did, and in what must be record time they recommended that Commons accept his affirmation. The house agreed and he got to take his seat.

That same session of Parliament passed a law accepting affirmations for jury duty and public office from Quakers and Moravians.

Moravians? They’re a Protestant group founded in Bohemia by Jan Hus and predating Martin Luther. (Bet you didn’t know that. I didn’t know about that pre-dating business.)

 

Happy days. Have we reached the promised land?

Um no. Because although Catholics had been admitted to Parliament in 1829, Jews had to wait until 1858. And voting was still restricted to people with money. 

Did I say “people”? I meant men. The idea of women either voting or running for office was too absurd to spend time on. So let’s focus on the next category of people to wriggle through the eye of the political needle.

Jews weren’t specifically excluded from Parliament, but to take a seat they had to swear an oath that included the words, “Upon my true Faith as a Christian,” and you can see what that’s a problem if you take this stuff seriously. Or even if you don’t. That would be a step too far, even for my own irreligiously Jewish self.

Disraeli, who’s known as Britain’s first (and only) Jewish prime minister, was born Jewish but converted as a child, when his parents did, so he had no problem a Christian oath. Interesting that he’s still considered a Jewish prime minister, don’t you think?

We can also unearth an MP and a Lord or two who had Jewish ancestors somewhere in the background but who was Christian enough to feel comfortable about the oath. Were they Jewish? Weren’t they Jewish? I’m sure it depended on who you asked, and quite possibly still does. 

In 1850, a clearly Jewish Jew was elected to represent Greenwich, and instead of disappearing politely as a previous Jewish would-be MP had, he took his seat and refused to leave, causing an uproar. The house voted on whether to adjourn and he cast a vote. He also spoke on a motion that he be asked to withdraw.

The whole thing went to the courts and he was fined £500 for every vote he cast.

Over time, the Commons passed more than one bill that would have allowed Jews to take a different oath, but the Lords kept blocking it. Eventually, a compromise allowed each house to modify their oaths by a special resolution for each Jewish member elected. 

None of this applied to people from other religions, or to atheists, although I haven’t seen evidence that any either ran for office or got elected at this point.

It’s hard to say when dissenting Protestants were allowed to take seats in Commons. At the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, according to Parliament’s website, some dissenters attended Church of England services occasionally to be sure they wouldn’t be excluded. That makes them hard or impossible to count. 

So basically, I can’t offer any information on them.

 

But let’s got back to Joseph Pease yet again

Once he took his seat, he had one last problem to contend with: In this period, men took off their hats as a sign of deference to their superiors, and Quakers refused to recognize either superiors or inferiors, so they kept their hats on their heads. That’s one of the things George Fox was jailed for. So as Pease came in, the Commons doorkeeper would sweep his hat off for him and leave it in the Commons library. 

Problem solved. 

Breaking with tradition, he didn’t address the Speaker of the House as sir, and where other MPs referred to each other in speeches as the honorable member, he settled for the member. The roof did not fall in.

 

What oath do MPs take these days?

It’s all loosened up considerably. If they’re going to swear, they use a wording settled on in 1868. They get to choose their sacred book and say, “I swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to [his or her] Majesty [fill in the appropriate name], [his or her] heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.” 

I’d recommend inserting an and before “heirs and successors,” but no one’s asked me. 

Having a choice of sacred books reminds me that, to date, no Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster member has been elected as an MP, which is a shame because they’d have to appear with a colander on their head and hold a copy of The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. 

May I live long enough to see that happen.

But we’re not done with the choices now available. They can take the oath in Welsh, in Cornish, or in Scottish Gaelic. They can hold the book up. They can raise a hand but not hold the book. They can kiss the book. They can dance the hula and leave everyone speechless.

No, you can’t trust everything I say.

On the other hand, if they’re going to affirm, they say, “I do solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm, that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to” etc. 

I don’t know why they have to both declare and affirm, but it’s okay because it comes with a side of fries and a fizzy drink, but they don’t get to dance the hula.

What happens if you’re an anti-monarchist? You have a problem. Would-be MPS who don’t either swear or affirm their loyalty to the crown can’t take their seats, speak in debates, vote, or receive a salary. They can’t pass Go. And they can be fined £500 if they try to do any of that. And if that isn’t enough, their seat sill be declared vacant “as if they were dead.”