§ 143. “Allegiance, Obedience, or Adherence.”
Allegiance is the lawful obedience which a subject is bound to render to his sovereign. Allegiance is of three kinds: natural, acquired, or local. (1) Natural allegiance is that which every subject born from his birth owes to his sovereign. He is said to be a natural liegeman, as the sovereign is said to be his natural liege lord. (2) Allegiance is acquired where one is naturalized, or made a denizen. (3) The allegiance owed by every resident in the British dominions for the protection he enjoys is called local. It is customary, however, at the present day to restrict the use of the word to the first and second of these—the bond which attaches a subject to his sovereign—though some authors still speak of “local allegiance” as due by both British subjects and aliens alike, while within the dominions of the Crown, to distinguish it from the allegiance due by British subjects on foreign soil, and entitling them also to protection there. Under British law, until the Naturalization Act of 1870, no natural-born British subject could divest himself of his allegiance; but since that Act he may make a declaration of alienage, and thereafter he ceases to be a British subject. Aliens, on naturalization, are required to take an oath of allegiance (see Naturalization Act, 1870, 33 and 34 Vic. c. 14, s. 9; Naturalization Oaths Act, 1870, 33 and 34 Vic. c. 102; and Regulations issued by the Home Office in exercise of the powers contained in the Naturalization Acts, 1870. Encyclopedia of the Laws of England, vol. i. p. 225.)