To try to bridge the divide between the Church of Rome and the Church of England, King Charles iii prayed with Pope Leo xiv last Thursday. Most Buckingham Palace insiders are excited by the King’s outreach to the Vatican. But one prominent cleric in Northern Ireland called on Charles to abdicate the throne after violating his oath to serve as “Defender of the Faith.”

In the long history of the British monarchy, that prayer was, in fact, one of its most shameful acts.

The Roman Catholic Church has tried to use the Holy Roman Empire many times over the past five centuries to blot out the throne of Great Britain.

Britain’s throne was actually the continuing throne of King David. This is not hard to prove.

Anyone who has read Herbert W. Armstrong’s book The United States and Britain in Prophecy knows about God’s promise that David would never lack a descendant to sit on his throne (Jeremiah 33:17). This means that when the Babylonians killed King Zedekiah and his sons in 585 b.c., the throne of David somehow had to be preserved—overturned to another nation.

There are only 26 active sovereign dynasties in the world today, and only two of them have histories that stretch back to the time of King Zedekiah: the throne of Great Britain and the throne of Imperial Japan.

The Bible further specifies that the throne of David would be overturned three times before the Messiah returns (Ezekiel 21:27). Only the throne of Britain has a 3,000-year history involving three overturn events. The first overturn occurred in 569 b.c. when the Prophet Jeremiah transplanted the throne of David to Ireland. The second occurred in a.d. 513 when Fergus the Great transplanted the throne of David to Scotland. The third occurred in 1296 when Edward i transplanted the throne of David to England. This is history everyone needs to understand.

Over the centuries, many British monarchs risked their lives to ensure that the throne of David remained independent from the Holy Roman Empire. But now, King Charles iii is initiating a British outreach to the Roman Catholic Church.

Some have suggested that King Charles is trying to distract from his brother’s scandals involving convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The truth is even worse. Buckingham Palace insiders have indicated that the King is actually worried his brother’s sex scandals may distract from his outreach to the Roman Catholic Church. In other words, the outreach to Pope Leo is King Charles’s top priority. He seems to view Prince Andrew’s association with Epstein as an annoyance distracting from his Catholic outreach.

Hosea 3:4-5 prophesy that “the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim.” In part, this prophecy refers to the roughly 2,000 years the lost 10 tribes of Israel spent wandering before the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh were reunited with the throne Jeremiah had transplanted to the British Isles.

Yet Jeremiah specified that “the days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah …” (Jeremiah 30:3). This means another time is coming when Israel will no longer have a king, a prince, a sacrifice, an image and an ephod, or a teraphim. My father, Gerald Flurry, explains in his book The Key of David how this means Britain will not have a king during the Great Tribulation, the time of suffering prophesied to soon befall the whole world.

What will happen to the throne of Great Britain during the Tribulation? The Holy Roman Empire will destroy it. Isaiah 47 prophesies that Protestantism will be abolished as its denominations are reabsorbed into the great false church.

If King Charles understood this truth, he would not be praying with the pope.

“England’s King Henry viii broke away from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century,” my father wrote in 2007. “The Anglican Church has been England’s church since that time. Some of Britain’s kings, queens and parliamentarians sacrificed blood to establish England’s own church. Britain suffered some of its worst nightmares when the Catholic Church reigned over it. However, the people have forgotten that oppressive history. Now, they are about to embrace the Catholic Church again.”

It is amazing how quickly people forget history. The Bull of Pius v against Queen Elizabeth i, issued on Feb. 25, 1570, declared the pope’s sovereignty above the monarch of Britain. King Charles seems to think the Catholic Church has changed, but it has not. That church still wants to blot out the throne of David! God will have to take special measures to ensure this throne survives until Jesus Christ can sit on it.

Many Bible prophecies show that Jesus Christ, when He returns to Earth, will reign as King of kings from Jerusalem. For well over a century, religious scholars have puzzled over how the throne of David would move from London to Jerusalem without it counting as a “fourth” overturn.

In his 1882 book The Lost Ten Tribes, Joseph Wild clarified that David’s throne could never again be overturned since the Bible specified only three overturns. So for Jesus to reign from Jerusalem, Wild speculated that the British Empire would have to conquer Jerusalem so that the stone of destiny could be moved there without it counting as an official overturn to a new kingdom. This explanation made sense to many people, especially after Britain actually did conquer Jerusalem in 1917. But after Great Britain granted the State of Israel independence in 1948, it became clear that this was not how things would play out.

My father explains in his book The New Throne of David that the correct translation of Ezekiel 21:27 actually shows us that the throne of Britain, after being overturned three times, will cease to exist (“I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more”).

This means God is going to establish a new throne of David for Jesus Christ to sit on in Jerusalem. To keep His promise to King David, God will ensure that the king sitting on this new throne is of the line of David, but he will not reign over the nation-state of Great Britain. This is the only way God can establish a new throne in Jerusalem without overturning the throne of Britain a fourth time. (You need to read The New Throne of David in its entirety to understand this truth.)

King Charles’s outreach to the pope is a sign that he no longer sits on David’s throne.

“What Satan wants to blot out most of all is the scepter promise,” my father writes in this book. “It’s about the race of kings who sit on that throne—and about Jesus Christ sitting on that throne and bringing grace to the world. Satan is in his greatest wrath because he knows his time is short (Revelation 12:12), and he wants to blot out everything that has anything to do with the throne of David.”

This is the real reason King Charles is praying with Pope Leo. The British have turned their back on God and are grasping for the papal throne.

At the Feast of Tabernacles this year, my father encouraged Church members to become more grounded in God’s new revelation about the new throne of David. We should take King Charles’s outreach to Rome as further impetus to look back at the inspiring history Britain has forgotten, and to look forward to the even more inspiring future God promises to those who dedicate themselves to the key of David vision. The New Throne of David says that “God wants to bury what is happening with that throne in Britain today! He doesn’t want to have anything to do with it again!” God’s focus has already shifted to the new throne. Our focus too should be on the soon-coming time when Christ will reign from that throne in Jerusalem!