LONDON, Aug 2 — A man has been charged with an offence of having a weapon with intent to “alarm her Majesty” under Britain’s Treason Act after being arrested at Queen Elizabeth’s Windsor Castle home on Christmas Day last year, police and prosecutors said today.

Jaswant Singh Chail, 20, from Southampton in southern England, had been arrested in the grounds of the castle to the west of London where the 96-year-old monarch mostly resides, while carrying a crossbow on Dec. 25, prosecutors said.

Following an investigation by counter-terrorism police, he was charged with making threats to kill, possession of an offensive weapon and an offence under section 2 of the Treason Act 1842.

This section details punishment for “discharging or aiming fire-arms, or throwing or using any offensive matter or weapon, with intent to injure or alarm her Majesty”.

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Chail will appear at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Aug. 17. — Reuters