Spain has not changed the law. They’ve made noise about it but it’s been pushed to the back burner because both of Prince Felipe’s kids are girls and unless they have a third, there’s no urgency until the next generation. He himself is the youngest child but my impression is that Infanta Elena is a bit of a dimmer bulb and no one wants her to jump to the head of the line.
Sorry, edit time ran out 
English monarchs didn’t have to be legitimate, related to the last monarch, speak the language or have a clue how the country was run, be sane even - but after the Act of Succession (if I have the name right) they had to be Protestant.
I was wondering about that. Are William & Kate entitled to royalties for all the commemorative souvenir crap with their faces on? Do foreign media have to pay for the rights broadcast footage of the wedding? If so it really is conveivable that the wedding could pay for itself. Also the palace is likely to use British vendors whenever possible (to say nothing of the London hotels were all the tourists, guests, media personel, etc are staying or the restaurants that’ll feed them). The wedding could be considered a form of government stimulus.
Spain hasn’t, we still have male precedence. Changing it to strict primogeniture would involve a new Constitution, because the part about inheritance of the throne is in the main text, not in the “temporary clauses” which theoretically can be changed without reviewing the whole thing. Theoretically: there’s a party whose whole raison d’être is getting rid of temporary clause number 4, it hasn’t happened so far and we don’t expect it to happen any time soon.
Getting the current Consti in place involved a lot of negotiation, it even changed language. Of the three children of Juan Carlos and Sofía, the eldest is the one who qualifies as “not the brightest bulb onna tree”; if Cristina had been eldest, there would have been a lot of pressure to let her inherit. Felipe and Letizia have only had daughters so far: unless they get a boy at some point, it’s a non-issue for another generation. By the time Leonor is having kids, Constitutional reform is likely to be needed for many other reasons.
It was a LONG time ago, and I was just a young’un, but I seem to recall something about a medical examination. Not gonna happen this time, THAT’S for sure.
How does that work? I think Diana’s father was a Viscount or an Earl or something.
As I understand it, a commoner is non-royal, even if born into the peerage.
Is the ring he gave her Diana’s engagement ring or just a ring that she owned? Because the former would seem to be ill omened considering she divorced and then got killed with her post divorce boyfriend; it’d be like giving somebody one of Isadora Duncan’s scarves or a replica of James Dean’s Porsche Spyder.
She was a Lady because her father was an Earl. It’s more or less a courtesy title - she held no title in her own right. The same with Princes William and Harry - the sons of the Prince of Wales are Princes by convention. They’ll get their own titles when they get married, probably a vacant Dukedom for William. It is a bit silly, but there is a technical sense to “commoner” that doesn’t really chime with the modern sense of the word. Essentially a “commoner” is someone who isn’t a Peer of the Realm. So the actual Dukes and Earls are, their offspring aren’t.
Stick a question in GQ where the real experts in this line of thing like APB will notice it. It’s a fascinating and byzantine subject, this nobility malarky.
It seems to be the actual engagement ring. That kind of thing isn’t all that unusual here eg using grannies engagement ring or whatever, but I agree that that particular one seems a little ill-starred.
Huh. That is weird and fascinating. Can a woman become a peer through marriage?
I don’t know for sure actually. A women who marries a Duke become a Duchess, certainly, but I don’t know whether at any point this would have entitled her to, say, sit in the House of Lords or any other of the one-time perks of being a peer. GQ!
I’m no one they should ever listen to (let alone you) but if the music to their first dance was “The Long And Winding Road”, it wouldn’t be inappropriate.
(you two make your own road & never ever regret a step; its the best blessing this old sod can give)
Never.*
*unless the United Kingdom breaks up into its constituent parts.
Not really. The wives of peers are called peeresses, but they don’t have all of the privileges of the peerage (most of which have been abolished). For example they never had the right to sit in the House of Lords (even a peeress in her own right couldn’t do that until 1959), but did have the right to be tried by the House of Lords (instead of in the High Court before a jury) if accused of a crime. That right was abolished after WWII for peers as well as their wives & widows.
Nothing to see here, got answered.
Although, as you implied) a few women were (and are) peers in their own right (although as women the House of Lords wasn’t open to them). Some were made (Anne Boleyn was made the Marquess of Pembroke in her own right). Others inherited titles when there was no son to inherit.
Usually a woman can’t inherit a title even if she has no brothers (it’d go to her uncle/cousin/or revert to the crown). It takes a special remainder in the letters patent creating the title (this is what happened with the earldom of Mountbatten). Very old English titles can also be inherited by women without brothers, but each sister would have an equal claim to the title regardless of birth order (unlike males).
The title would then go into abeyance until the monarch decides which heir get’s it. This can happen after a suitable period of mourning for the old Lord, or last centuries until one of their descendants succesfully petitions the Crown. Of course if the heiress is the only surviving child (& none of her sisters married & had kids of their own) she’d inherit it outright.
Scottish titles don’t go into abeyance; an elder daughter has the same priority over a younger daughter that an elder son has over a younger son. Most (all?) Scottish titles can be inherited by women.
Women didn’t start getting peerages an honours for themselves until the 19th century. Before that they only got them if their husband was due for a peerage, but died before it could be granted or if they were the King’s mistress. Anne Boleyn was the first royal mistress made a peeress in her own right. Before her if the King fancied a married women her husband would usually be given land & a title as compensation for use of his “property” and for raising any resulting bastards.
The wedding is Friday 29th April at Westminster Abbey, and it’s to be a bank holiday. So that looks like two four-day weekends in a row, with Easter and then the usual early May bank holiday. Result!
See? The Windsors ARE good for something!