Queen Elizabeth's former chaplain accused King Charles III of "deserting Christians" after the monarchy quietly stripped the historic "Defender of the Faith" title from its own annual financial report, a move critics say signals a deeper retreat from the Crown's centuries-old religious identity.
The Sovereign Grant Annual Report, published in June, replaced the longstanding phrase with new language: "His Majesty is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and protects the space for Faith within the multi-faith nation." The change drew immediate criticism from Gavin Ashenden, who served as chaplain to Queen Elizabeth, and from royal commentators who called the revised wording both unnecessary and damaging to the institution.
No one from Buckingham Palace has publicly explained who authorized the change or why the traditional language was removed. That silence has only sharpened the criticism, and raised uncomfortable questions about whether the monarchy under Charles is willing to defend the faith it was crowned to protect.
Ashenden, who held a chaplaincy under Elizabeth II, did not hold back. He claimed the king is "deserting Christians" and has abandoned his oath as "Defender of the Faith", a title British monarchs have carried since Henry VIII received it from Pope Leo X in 1521. The title was woven into the coronation ceremony itself when Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby crowned Charles at Westminster Abbey on May 6, 2023.
Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams told Fox News Digital that the "new wording" had "caused considerable controversy." He did not stop there.
"It would have been better to leave 'Defender of the Faith' in the text after 'Supreme Governor of the [Church of England]' and then add a phrase that recognised Britain as multi-faith which should be included. Whoever wrote 'protects the space for Faith within the multi-faith nation' is no credit to the English language as this phrase is both weak and woke."
That last word, "woke", is doing a lot of work. Fitzwilliams, a veteran royal commentator, was pointing to a pattern familiar to conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic: institutions hollowing out their own traditions in the name of inclusion, then dressing up the retreat in bureaucratic language so vague it means almost nothing.
The phrase "protects the space for Faith" is a revealing piece of draftsmanship. It does not say the king defends Christianity. It does not even say the king defends faith. It says he "protects the space" for it, as if religion were a parking spot that might get taken by someone else. Fitzwilliams was right to flag it. The sentence reads like it was written by a committee trying not to offend anyone, and the result offended the people who care most about the Crown's religious role.
The shift did not come out of nowhere. Author Christopher Andersen, who wrote the biography "Kate!," noted that Charles's interest in non-Christian religions goes back half a century.
"As far back as his student days at Cambridge, Charles in the 1970s was showing a strong interest in what eastern religions had to offer, particularly Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism."
In 2001, the then-Prince of Wales broke fast with Muslims in East London during Ramadan, a gesture that drew attention at the time. Andersen described the king as "a different sort of animal" who "has long believed that no one religion has all the answers."
Andersen framed Charles's approach as a deliberate strategy. The king, he said, wants "a big-tent reign" and believes "he can't leave non-Christians standing out in the cold, he's going to have to let Muslims and Hindus and Jews and Buddhists inside." That is a defensible instinct in a diverse country. But there is a difference between welcoming other faiths and erasing the specific title that anchors the monarch's relationship to the established church.
Queen Elizabeth navigated that distinction for seven decades without abandoning either side of it. Fitzwilliams recalled her approach directly:
"Queen Elizabeth memorably compared the Church of England to an umbrella under which other faiths could flourish. She was a believer."
Elizabeth respected other religions' customs. She also never wavered in her Christian identity or allowed the institutional language of the monarchy to be diluted. The umbrella metaphor worked precisely because it kept the Church of England at the center, the structure that sheltered everything else. Remove the umbrella, and you are just standing in the rain.
The contrast between Elizabeth's approach and Charles's is hard to miss. The late queen's relationship with the next generation of royals was shaped by a clear sense of duty and tradition. Charles appears to be steering the institution in a different direction, one where tradition is negotiable.
If the current king's religious convictions worry traditionalists, the next generation may worry them more. Andersen pointed to a moment from 1995 that he called "particularly telling."
When Prince William enrolled at Eton College, cameras were rolling. The future head of the Church of England came to the line on the enrollment form marked "Religion", and looked up at his father to ask what he should put down.
"If that is any indication, it is obvious that once they are king and queen, William and Kate will in all likelihood move to phase out the Defender of the Faith role altogether."
That is Andersen's assessment, not established fact. But the anecdote is striking. A boy who will one day serve as Supreme Governor of the Church of England did not know what religion to claim on a school form. Whether that reflects youthful uncertainty or something deeper, it raises a question the monarchy has not answered: does the next generation believe the Crown's religious role matters?
Royal broadcaster Ian Pelham Turner offered a split verdict. He called Charles "a deep thinker when it comes to religion" but said flatly that "William is not interested in the church." Turner added that Catherine, Princess of Wales, "has been a staunch Christian, especially renewing her beliefs more recently during her cancer diagnosis."
That distinction matters. If William is indifferent to the church and Kate is the believer in the partnership, the future of the "Defender of the Faith" title may depend on which spouse shapes the institution's direction. The broader dynamics within the royal family have been turbulent enough in recent years without adding a theological rift to the mix.
Fitzwilliams made the sharpest institutional argument against the change. Britain, he noted, is the only monarchy in Europe that still holds a coronation, a ceremony rooted entirely in the Church of England's liturgy and the sovereign's oath to defend the faith.
"The Church of England is clearly extremely weak. It is emphatically not in the royal family's interest, especially as we are the only monarchy in Europe to have a Coronation, to weaken it further."
That is a practical warning, not just a theological one. The coronation gives the British monarchy something no other European royal house possesses: a formal, sacred ceremony that sets the sovereign apart from a mere head of state. Strip away the religious language that underpins it, and the coronation becomes a costume pageant, impressive to look at, but hollow at the center.
No one in the royal household has explained who drafted the new wording or whether Charles personally approved it. Fitzwilliams's remark, "whoever wrote" the phrase, suggests even well-connected commentators do not know who made the call. That lack of transparency is itself a problem. A change this significant to the monarchy's self-description deserves a public explanation, not a quiet edit buried in a financial report.
The broader pattern within the royal household under Charles has been one of managed ambiguity, gestures toward modernization without clear statements of principle. On the question of faith, that approach is running into a wall. You cannot be the Defender of the Faith and the Protector of the Space for Faith at the same time. One is a commitment. The other is a committee memo.
Charles may believe he is building a more inclusive monarchy. But Fitzwilliams, Ashenden, and Andersen, from different vantage points, are all pointing to the same risk: a Crown that tries to stand for everything ends up standing for nothing.
The king's recent focus on family reconciliation and public image has consumed considerable attention. Whether he is willing to spend the same energy defending the institution that gave his crown its meaning remains an open question, and the annual report suggests the answer may not comfort the faithful.
An institution that will not defend its own title is unlikely to defend much else.
