ALLEGIANCE, or LIGEANCE, is defined by Coke thus :—" Ligeance, ligando, is the highest and greatest obli gation of duty and obedience that can be. Ligeance is the true and faithful obedi ence of a liegeman or subject to his liege lard or sovereign. Ligeantia est vincu him fidei ligeantia est legis essentia." The notion of Ligeanee, or Allegiance, is that of a bond or lie between the per son who owes it and the person to whom it is due. After this definition, Coke gives a tabular view of the various kinds or degrees of allegiance (Co. Lit. 129 a). Allegiance is due from those who are natural-born subjects, and also from denizens and those who have been natu ralized. A natural-born subject is called natural liegeman, and the king is called his natural liege lord.
The allegiance of a subject, according to the law of England, is permanent and universal ; he can, by no act of his own, relieve himself from the duties which it involves ; nor can he by emigration, or any voluntary change of residence, es cape its legal consequences.
An alien owes a local and temporary allegiance so long as he continues within the dominions of the king ; and he may be prosecuted and punished for treason.
A usurper, in the undisturbed posses sion of the crown, is entitled to allegiance; and, accordingly, our history furnishes an instance in which a treason committed against the person of Henry VI. was punished in the reign of his successor, even after an act of parliament had de clared the former a usurper.
An oath of allegiance has, from the earliest period, been exacted from natural born subjects of these realms ; but its form has undergone some variations. In its ancient form, the party promised " to be true and faithful to the king and his heirs, and truth and faith to bear of life and limb and terrene honour, and not to know or hear of any ill or damage in tended him without defending him there from." The modern oath, enforced by statute since the Revolution, is of more simple form, and is expressed in more indefinite terms :—" I do sincerely pro mise and swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her majesty Queen Victoria."
The alteration of the form has not va ried the nature of the subject's duty, which is, indeed, owing from him antece dently to any oath, and although he may never have been called upon to take it. The oath is imposed by way of additional security for the performance of services which are due from the subject from the time of his birth. The king also, accord ing to the old law writers, is said to be bound to protect his liegeman or subject, because allegiance is a reciprocal tie (re ciprocum ligamen) ; the protection of the king is assigned as the reason or founda tion of the liegeman's duty. This lan guage is by no means exact ; hut it seems to show that the notion of a contract is involved in the theory of allegiance, at as it is explained by same law writers. The king can, by proclamation, summon his liegemen to return to the kingdom, an instance of which occurred in 1807, when the King of England de clared, by proclamation, that the kingdom was menaced and endangered, and he recalled from foreign service all seamen and sea-faring men who were natural born subjects, and ordered them to with draw themselves and return home, on pain of being proceeded against for a contempt. It was further declared that no foreign letters of naturalization could, in any manner, divest his natural-born subjects of their allegiance, or alter their duty to their lawful king.
By the old law of the land, every male subject of the age of twelve years ( with certain exceptions ) was bound to take the oath of allegiance when sum moned to the courts called Leets and Tourns ; and a variety of statutes, from the reign of Elizabeth down to the present century, have expressly required it from public functionaries and other persons before they enter upon their respective duties, or practise in their several pro fessions. By 1 George I. c. 13, two jus tices of the peace, or other commissioners appointed by the king, may tender the oath to any person suspected of disaffection.