Methodists and Monarchy

He may not have been the first member of the House of Lords to serenade the House, but that’s precisely what Lord Griffiths of Burry Port did on Sept. 10th during his remarks in honor of the Queen. He sang a hymn admired by the Boys’ Brigade, a group of young people who serve as attendants at official functions, and a group he has served as president—and the Queen as patron. The hymn is “We have an Anchor,” one that many of us know well. After singing the first verse, he told the Lords that the words of the hymn “steadfast and sure” describe the late Queen to a tee. 

Lord Griffiths, known the world over (and lovingly) as Leslie, is the former Superintendent Minister of Wesley’s Chapel, London, the Mother Church of Methodism, built by John Wesley in the late 1770s as his London headquarters and eventually the location of his grave. Many a Methodist pilgrim has made his or her way to the chapel on City Road, and for many years these pilgrims were greeted by the grace, wit, and warmth of Leslie Griffiths. But Lord Griffiths, in his recent speech to the Lords, spoke not of Wesley’s Chapel but of his love and admiration for the Queen, a “stateswoman of the first order,” and even now the King, who he described as the Queen’s living legacy. 

Methodists have always had a relationship with the British Monarchy. Arguably, John Wesley was born after the end of an argument between his mother and father over the rightful monarch—in this case William III, the one sitting on the throne, or James III, the Jacobite claimant. When Queen Anne acceded to the throne in 1702, a monarch pleasing to them both, it wasn’t too long after that the elder Wesleys made up. John Wesley was born in 1703. You do the math. 

(Read the full piece here).