Queen and Kirk

Published on 11/12/2012 00:00

Jane Devine (Perspective, 10 December) refers to the monarch as the head of the Church of Scotland.

The monarch is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, but her relationship with the Church of Scotland is constitutionally confined to swearing at accession “to maintain and preserve the True Protestant ­Religion and Presbyterian Church Government in Scotland” and being in attendance, or sending a representative, to the annual Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

The accession oath was required in the Act of Union of 1707 at the instigation of the Scottish Presbyterians to avoid a new church establishment in Scotland of bishop-ruled churches such as the Roman Catholic Church or the Scottish Episcopal version of the Church of England.

On present proposals, the Scottish Government’s plans for independence would retain the Protestant monarchy and its ­discriminatory anti-Catholic ­religious basis

Norman Bonney

Palmerston Place

Edinburgh