Scenario.
Charles III is dead.
King William V dies in a helicopter crash.
Case I
Prince Harry is coronated
Three weeks later it is revealed the Kate was pregnant during the coronation . Is her fetus destined to bump Harry off the throne ?
Case II
Kate is pregnant. Will Harry still be coronated ?
Case III
Kate wants to abort the Roya Fetus. Can she ? This question goes whether William has died or not.
Apparently yes. The precedent is that when Victoria acceded to the throne, the proclamation included a condition “…saving the rights of any issue of his late Majesty King William IV, which may be born of his late Majesty’s consort”. (see here.) If Queen Adelaide hads been pregnant with a son, he would replace Queen Victoria.
Coronation is not important - the new monarch automatically accedes to the throne on the death of the old monarch. QE2’s coronation was more than a year after the death of her father; there should be no problem in delaying the coronation in your scenario until after the result of the pregnancy is known. Whether Harry would be King in the interim, I don’t know. Maybe he would be some sort of Regent.
Nothing in the Abortion Act 1967 excludes the royal family from its provisions, as far as I can see.
Or a daughter. William was older than Victoria’s father, Edward, Duke of Kent, so any issue he had posthumously would have excluded Victoria from the throne.
There was also an Act of Parliament made especially for that situation, though. Did it temporarily change the law, or did it just create a framework so that the institutions would know what to do in order to follow the already-existing law?
Coronated?
Better that than photosphered.
The same rules of succession apply to English, Scottish and British peers as do to royalty. Several peers have succeeded to their father’s titles after their father’s death, most notably Henry Tudor, 2nd Earl of Richmond, born on 28 January 1457 after his father (Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond) died on 1 or 3 November 1456.
(Other notable things about the birth were that the mother was just 13 years old at the time, and that Henry Tudor went on to become King Henry VII of England, after killing his cousin Richard at Bosworth Field.)
Either is certain to give the Royal in question a prominenced place in The Sun (and other tabloids).
I’m going to be pedantic. Fair warning.
The verb associated with “coronation” is “crown”. “Crowned”, not “coronated”.
As a subject of Queen Elizabeth, I’m somewhat embarrassed to be corrected by a republican on this matter.
Thankyou jayjay
Well that’s the factual part covered - now can someone move this to IMHO so I can speculate like a motherfuck please?
Are there any other examples of this you can point to? Henry had the best claim to the throne in the Lancaster camp at that point, but it was through his mother, so there were some pretty big political reasons why Edmund’s brother Jasper might not have wanted to take those titles from Henry.
It seems pretty clear that an unborn heir inheriting is possible, but it seems like in every example so far offered political expediency was a factor. Are there any examples where it was simply standard operating procedure?
True. If for some reason the Abortion Act didn’t apply toward royalty then both Queen Katherine and her doctor would technically be commiting high treason.
Or Cafe Society as I am dying to get recipes for “abortion issue with a lemon twist”
Were you born in Ireland before 1949?
Also if the British royals are anything like the Danish royals then they are above the law.
Well, they’re something like the Danish royals in that Prince Charles’s patrilineal line is Danish (his paternal grandfather’s paternal grandfather was Christian IX of Denmark). On the other hand, Parliament has been making it clear for several centuries now that they are not above the law.
No. Why ?
Queen Adelaide actually did have at least two children, – one who died shortly after birth, and one who lived for about three months. I think she also had several stillbirths. (Twin boys in one case)
You’re off a generation. Christian IX was George VI’s great grandfather. His paternal grandmother, Queen Alexandra, was Christian’s eldest daughter.
BTW, there was actually a similiar situation in Spain, with Juan Carlos’s grandfather. His great-grandmother was pregnant when her husband, Alfonso XII, died of tuberculosis. They had a “vacancy” of sorts until the baby was born, since he only had two daughters at the time. So if the baby was a girl, the throne would go to the current heir, Infanta Mercedes. If there was a boy, then he’d become King.
The child ended up being a boy, Alfonso XIII)
Oops, you’re right. Thanks.