Allegiance is derived from the Old French lige, most probably from an Old German ledig, 'free;' the ledigman, or ligius homo, being the man who was free except in his obligations to his lord. Blackstone, therefore, is etymologically wrong in saying that 'Allegiance is the tie or ligamen which binds the subject to the sovereign, in return for that protection which the sovereign affords the subject.' Allegiance is the highest legal duty of a subject, and consequently its violation, Treason (q.v.), is the highest legal offence. Allegiance is of three kinds: (1) Natural or implied allegiance, which every native or naturalised citizen owes to the community to which he belongs. Independently of any express promise, every man, by availing himself of the benefits which society affords, comes under an implied obligation to defend it, and this equally whether the attack be from without or from within. In time of war, this obligation involves the duty either of bearing arms in defence of the state, or of contributing to the additional taxes and other impositions which the support of a standing army may render necessary. In peaceful times, it will be adequately fulfilled by an efficient performance of ordinary citizen duties. (2) Express allegiance is that obligation which arises from an expressed promise, or oath of allegiance. The old English oath of allegiance was first imposed by the laws of Edmund as a purely personal obligation, but at the
Council of Salisbury it was ingeniously connected with the feudal tenures then introduced. In its modern form it is still required from many public officers and from professional persons before entering on practice. The idea of political allegiance, however, is probably destined to be superseded by that of citizenship. The oath of allegiance is simply one of fidelity to the Queen and her successors, and adds nothing to natural allegiance. (3) Local or temporary allegiance is that obedience and temporary aid due by an Alien (q.v.) to the state or community in which he resides. Local differs from the higher kinds of allegiance in this, that it endures only so long as the alien resides within the Queen's dominions, whereas natural allegiance, whether implied or expressed, is perpetual, following not only the individual himself, but his children and grandchildren. By the provisions of the Naturalisation Act of 1870, allegiance may now be renounced, even by natural-born subjects, and this whether born within the realm or not, by a declaration of alienage (sect. 4), and it is forfeited by the acceptance of the allegiance of a foreign state (sect. 6). But the allegiance thus forfeited may be resumed. A natural-born British subject who has become an alien in pursuance of this act, may, on performing the same conditions as are required of an alien applying for a Certificate of Nationality (see NATURALISATION), apply to one of her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State for a certificate of re-admission to British nationality (sect. 8). In a colony, the like powers are conferred on the Governor.
In the United States, there is no personality to whom allegiance is due; the sovereignty resides in the combined will of the people, as expressed in the constitution and laws. Allegiance is twofold—(1) to the central government, which is paramount; (2) to the state of which one is a citizen. Children of citizens of the United States born without the limits of the country, owe allegiance to the United States.
By the law of England, and agreeably to the spirit of the constitution, a usurper in undisputed possession of the crown, or king de facto, is entitled to allegiance, because he then represents, not the sovereign whom he has dispossessed, but the general will in which the ultimate sovereignty of England resides. The sovereign may by proclamation summon his subjects to return and take part in the defence of the kingdom, when menaced or endangered.
The papal pretensions have at various times given rise to difficulties with regard to the allegiance of Roman Catholics. The sentence of Pius V., renewed by Gregory XIII. and Sixtus V., deposing Elizabeth and releasing her subjects from all obligations of allegiance, led her government, by way of precaution and retaliation, to increase the rigour of the penal laws. There was in her reign comparatively little attempt to discriminate between Catholics who accepted and those who rejected the doctrine of the deposing power. It was fairly assumed that the then dangerous tenet was held and taught by the missionary priests as a whole. Father Parsons had boldly maintained that it was an article of the Catholic faith. In 1603, however, thirteen influential priests signed and handed to Elizabeth a protestation of allegiance drawn up by Dr William Bishop, afterwards Bishop of Chaleedon, in which they emphatically declared their readiness to defend their sovereign, in spite of all pretended excommunications, from any attempts to put in force such sentences. The declaration came too late for Elizabeth to take action upon it. But after the Gunpowder Plot, when parliament was enacting fresh penal statutes, James I., with a view of establishing a distinction between Catholics whose loyalty he could depend upon and those whose opinions rendered them dangerous, and of affording some small measure of relief to the former, framed in 1607, with the assistance of Bishop Bancroft and Sir Christopher Perkins, an ex-Jesuit, the famous Oath of Allegiance, which caused confusion and division in the Roman Catholic camp for nearly a century. James's object was conciliatory, but he unwittingly, and his advisers perhaps designedly, defeated that object by the terms of the oath which required Catholics not merely to assert their own rejection of the deposing power, but to pronounce the doctrine held by many learned doctors and canonised saints of their church, to be 'impious and heretical.' The clause was impolitic. Many Catholics who would have had otherwise no difficulty in taking the oath, stopped short at this. Moreover, it enabled Pope Urban V. more easily to condemn and prohibit it, which he did in two successive briefs, without, however—in spite of the repeated entreaties of the suffering Catholics—explaining wherein it was faulty or contrary to the faith. Nevertheless the archpriest Blackwell, after consultation with his friends, took the oath and recommended the clergy and laity to do the same. Many others, both priests and laymen, including the Catholic peers almost without exception, continued to take it. Blackwell was suspended from his office, but until his death he adhered to his theological position. On the other hand, two priests under condemnation, who had signed the protestation of allegiance of 1603, and personally rejected the deposing power, declined to save their lives by taking the oath, on the ground of the pope's prohibition. James, irritated and disappointed by the action of the pope, took up his pen in defence of the oath, against Bellarmine and its assailants; and the controversy was kept up with acrimony among Catholics themselves. The chief advocate of the oath among the clergy was Father Preston, alias Widdrington, a Benedictine monk, and among the laity, William Howard. James II., when duke of York, took the oath, and intimated his intention of enforcing it when he came to the throne. In 1690 the form of the oath was altered in a sense hostile to Roman Catholics, and it was not until 1778 that it was freed from all objection on their part. The definition of the pope's infallibility by the Vatican Council in 1871, gave occasion to a pamphlet by Mr Gladstone, entitled The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance (1874), which once more revived an active controversy on 'divided allegiance,' in which Cardinal Manning, Dr Newman, and Monsignor Capel took a conspicuous part.