King Charles pledges ‘additional duty’ to protect faith diversity of U.K.

King Charles said he has always thought of Britain as a “community of communities”

King Charles III has pledged to uphold the “additional duty” as a new monarch of protecting the diversity of the U.K. and be a sovereign of all communities around the Commonwealth.

Addressing a group of faith leaders on Friday evening in the Bow Room at Buckingham Palace, where just days before his mother Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin lay in rest before its final journey to Westminster Hall, the 73-year-old royal said he has always thought of Britain as a “community of communities”.

As a committed Anglican Christian, Charles said he believed in protecting the space for all faiths, building on the foundation laid by his “beloved mother”.

“I have always thought of Britain as a community of communities,” the King said in an address to around 30 faith leaders invited to the palace.

“That has led me to understand that the sovereign has an additional duty – less formally recognised but to be no less diligently discharged. It is the duty to protect the diversity of our country, including by protecting the space for faith itself and its practise through the religions, cultures, traditions and beliefs to which our hearts and minds direct us as individuals," he said.

“This diversity is not just enshrined in the laws of our country, it is enjoined by my own faith,” he said.

The King noted that at his coronation, expected next year, he will take an oath relating to the “settlement of the Church of England” and on his accession, he has already followed in the footsteps of other monarchs in history by taking an oath which pledges to maintain and preserve the Protestant faith in Scotland.