LONDON One of Queen Elizabeth II's chaplains has said it is time to consider the possibility of electing a monarch in Britain, criticizing the present hereditary system as a lottery. In England, until 1213, the monarch was elected. Maybe the time is returning for election to task and role, Canon Eric James said in a speech late Thursday at London's Westminster Abbey, the British press reported Friday. The problem of an hereditary monarchy is obvious and simple.

The monarch now may be above reproach, but you can never tell what you are going to get and there's not a lot to be said for such a lottery, he said. Canon James praised the queen for her work but said it was time for profound reflection and reconsideration of the role of monarch. The 73-year-old cleric added: The question needs to be posed again, in our time, whether the mere accident of birth can ever now be expected to produce a man or woman fit for the role that royalty requires.

The relation between the private person and the public role now makes all but impossible demands. The monarch had to choose whether to be crowned or stand down, he said. Abdication ought surely to be seen to be an honorable alternative before a coronation, and indeed, during a reign. Canon James has been extra chaplain to the queen since his retirement in 1995 as one of her full-time chaplains, a post he had held from 1984.

He was delivering a memorial lecture to a former royal chaplain in the pulpit of Westminster Abbey, where Princess Diana's brother Earl Spencer criticized the royal family during her funeral last August. (AFP)