Here’s a contemporary news item from the BBC (the actual case took place in 2008).
In the UK when poor cousins breed accidentally we call it incest and regard the offspring with horror and pity, but when aristocratic cousins breed deliberately we call it aristocratic pedigree and swoon over the princes and princesses.
The first part of this isn’t true. Cousins can breed perfectly legally. It certainly isn’t incest.
Some later articles seem to indicate that the Lord Alton statements in this matter are rather doubtful.
So can we agree that the story is unverified and probably unverifiable? The total number of people who would have first hand knowledge of the case was probably three. The twins and the judge. If they don’t talk, there’s no evidence. Or it never happened. No way of knowing which it is, though.
So, real or not there’s no actual baby involved, just an anulled marriage, right?
It’s best to assume not. But there’s zero evidence either way, just like the rest of the case.
You are quite right, unlike the US where it is considered incest, we in the UK can marry our cousins. I never knew that - but then I am not a Baron!
It appears to me that marrying one’s cousin is only illegal in a few states in the U.S.:
“As of February 2010[update], 30 U.S. states prohibit most or all marriage between first cousins, and a bill is pending in Maryland which would prohibit most first cousins from marrying there.”
Queen Victoria and Charles Darwin both married their first cousins.
There once lived a man named Oedipus Rex
You may have heard about his odd complex
His name appears in Freud’s index
'Cause he loved his mother