Do you think the rules of the British line of succession should be rewritten?

Question

Read this article:
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Britain+debate+rules+succession/4054787/story.html

What do you think, should we stay with the 310 year-old rules or rewrite them? Why/Why not?

BQ: Why does it say:
2 (2) Prince William of Wales, right (born 1982)

3 (3) Prince Harry of Wales, left (born 1984)

What does the 'right' and 'left' refer to?

Answer 1

There's two parts to this - ending the ban on catholics being the monarch, and ending the males-first rule in the line of succession to the throne. In principle I agree with both. Both rules are discriminatory and it's time for them to go. The Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have ended the males-first rule and that could easily be done in the UK. And the reason for the "no catholics" rule was over 320 years ago - the trouble caused by Charles I and James II - and now that the monarch has almost no role in making law, it can't happen again so there's no reason to keep it.



BUT there is a massive fly in the ointment over religion. As pointed out at http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23906702-mps-bid-to-end-bias-of-royal-succession-laws.do , the monarch is automatically Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and so has to convert anyway if they aren't Anglican already. The monarch has to swear an oath at their coronation service promising to "uphold the protestant church established by law", which would be rather difficult for a catholic to truthfully do.



I see no problem with that. An heir to the throne belonging to any other religion or denomination would have to do the same thing. The really tricky thing to do would be to disestablish the Church of England so that they wouldn't have to convert to it. That's not easy to do at all because of the way that the C of E is so tied up with English law and the monarchy.



One example - to be married in the UK, you have to give notice to your local superintendent registrar of births, deaths and marriages so that an official notice can be posted up at the town hall for two weeks. After 15 clear days have passed, only then do you get a certificate authorising the marriage to take place. The idea is that anyone who wants to can see the notice and lodge an objection if they know of any "lawful impediment" to the marriage, such as one of you is already married. This is a total joke - when I went to see the superintendent registrar for the district I was born in to get another copy of my birth certificate, I found the notices all posted on the wall down a tiny side corridor where nobody would know they were there! But the law is the law. There is only one exception to this - you guessed it - the Church of England. C of E clergy, unlike all others, are automatically authorised to be marriage registrars, and to marry in the C of E, you go to see your parish vicar and ask for your banns to be read, and so does your fiance if he or she lives in a different parish. The banns are published for 3 weeks running in Sunday morning service in both churches and if there are no objections, the wedding can go ahead without reference to a registrar. "Publishing the banns of marriage" just means the person leading the service reads out notice of the intended marriage and asks if there are any objections. (You can see how the civil procedure is based on this - the period of notice in the civil procedure used to be the same three weeks, but it was recently reduced to 15 days to come into line with Scottish law.)



While I think of it, marriage by banns is only possible in a parish church, not in a cathedral or anywhere outside the parish system - like Westminster Abbey. This is why the whole Royal Family is married by Archbishop of Canterbury's Special Licence! - it's the only way to be married under C of E rules outside a parish church. And so will Prince William and Kate Middleton.



Another one - the House of Lords contains the 26 most senior C of E bishops. So the Lords would have to be reformed as well... which is already under discussion and is something of a political hot potato in the UK.



It probably won't get very far though. What Keith Vaz is proposing to do is to introduce a Bill into the House of Commons on 18 January under the Ten Minute Rule. This means that having got permission for a slot on the agenda, he gets ten minutes to make a speech introducing his Bill. It probably won't get anywhere - Ten Minute Rule Bills almost never do - but he gets ten minutes to talk about it.



BQ: I can only guess that the original newspaper story had a photograph of William and Harry, which somehow didn't make it on to the web page, and "right" and "left" tells you which is which.

Answer 2

1. The 'right' and 'left' surely refer to a photograph whichw as in the printed but not the online version of the article.



2. The resolution has bundled together proposals for two separate changes: (a) the abolition of male promogeniture, and (b) the revocation of the 1701 Act of Settlement. These are in no way similar, and it would make far more sense to debate them separately.



(a) The abolition of male primogeniture (so that a eldest daughter would inherit ahead of a son) would be quite straightforward to enact and would raise no practical or political difficulties. Some people have been saying "as the next two heirs are male anyway, we don't need to start debating that now". But I think the opposite is true: as the next two heirs are lined up and changing the succession rules wouldn't affect them, or indeed anybody now living, this is the ideal time to make the change. Waiting until William and Kate produce first a daughter and then a son before saying "Okay, are we going to change the law and disadvantage the boy?" would make things harder, not easier.



(b) The monarch is still Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Revoking the Act of Settlement would mean that a Catholic could hold this office. Since the official stance of the Catholic Church is still that the Church of England is a heretic body and that Anglican priestly orders are null and void, this would present a severe difficulty.

Answer 3

Personally I think Equal Primogeniture would be better from now on. However the changing the law on Catholics would be very hard on the Monarchs position as Head of the Church of England and ia not really practical.

Answer 4

the regulations of succession have been drawn up in a paternalistic society, the place it grew to become into assumed that men have been the only ones able to management. This had stepped forward from one functional attention - kings in lots of cases had to combat for their thrones and war grew to become into consistent. In an age whilst kings led their adult men into conflict, the alternative grew to become into for male heirs. In England, females might desire to prevail, inspite of the indisputable fact that it grew to become into no longer difficulty-loose. after all the kerfuffle that Henry VIII went with the aid of for a male inheritor, his daughter Elizabeth i grew to become into the main able ruler of her time. The succession grew to become into traced lower back to the Electress Sophia, by way of fact the different strains have been finally Stuarts, who were banned from the succession on account that James II grew to become right into a Roman Catholic. The Electress Sophia might are starting to be queen, yet she died in user-friendly terms some months earlier Queen Anne. So Sophia's eldest son grew to become King George I. at cutting-edge, Prince Charles is inheritor to the throne by way of fact he's the oldest son. If Princess Anne have been the oldest, he might nonetheless be inheritor, by way of fact sons take priority over daughters. Unfair, yet it rather is the way it rather is. those regulations have been drawn up thousands of years in the past.

Answer 5

Yes I do think it should be re-written and I think the Letters Patent of 1917 should be reviewed.



I think Princess Anne should come after Prince Harry in the line of succession. Just because she is a woman, it doesn't mean she should be last in the order of precedence after all her brothers.



I find it laughable that we are expected to refer to the likes of Princess Beatrice as "Her Royal Highness" and call her "Ma'am" and bow to her. She is nothing in my view. She happens to be the Grand-daughter of the Queen. That is it. She is nothing more than a third rate stage actress and model and only because she is the Queen's Grand-daughter. If she wasn't the Queen's Grand-daughter, she would probably be working in an office. I think she and her sister should be stripped of her Royal titles and styles and only be referred to as Lady Beatrice Windsor as befitting the daughter of a Duke.



Similarly, I think there should be stricter rules as to who is known as a Princess or a Duchess. Contrary to popular belief, Sarah Ferguson is not the Duchess of York. People think she is because she is styled Sarah, Duchess of York but if the Duke of York remarried his new wife would be the Duchess of York and Sarah would still be styled Sarah, Duchess of York. I don't know why this allowed. She is using the style as if it were a title and is making millions of dollars in America with her "dieting with the Duchess" programme and arranging false meetings with her ex-husband in exchange for money. Anyone who divorces a Duke, should automatically cease to be styled with that title. Subsequently, Sarah, Duchess of York should revert to being Sarah Mountbatten-Windsor or just Sarah Ferguson if she so chooses.

Answer 6

No, a line should be drawn under it!

Answer 7

The right and the left refers to their position in a photograph. It is not in my domain, to say what should or should not be rewritten, in the rules of succession, I am divided on the subject anyway.

Answer 8

If a rule isn't broke, don't fix it.

Answer 9

Ummmmmmmm, no.