# What are the theoretical limits to the British monarch powers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 5, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158 "2013-11-05T16:46:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/41 "2013-11-08T01:17:57Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > But can’t the Queen withhold royal assent from that new statute and it doesn’t become law? Yes, but she can also be declared crazy by a couple of judges and the Speaker of the House of Commons, and replaced by a regent who could give it assent. If the regent won’t budge, the same process can bump the regent out and move on down the line, all the way to [Karen Vogel](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704889404576276502793788310) if need be. When George III became ill, they basically just forged his assent to the legislation establishing a regency, so there’s always that option. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/42 "2013-11-08T05:38:55Z")
> [@PaulParkhead](#): > > …Maybe different if it were shown that the entire family were running a meth lab out of Windsor Castle. This week on _Breaking Brenda_… ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/43 "2013-11-08T11:57:53Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > couldn’t she demand the PM’s resignation and appoint Charles Manson as the new PM, causing a no-confidence vote immediately? It would help if President Obama pardoned Mr. Manson first 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/44 "2013-11-08T14:20:02Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > It would help if President Obama pardoned Mr. Manson first 😃 He couldn’t do that either; Manson was convicted on California state charges. Only Gov. Brown could pardon him. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/45 "2013-11-08T16:56:26Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > It would help if President Obama pardoned Mr. Manson first 😃 If a non-British citizen were to be appointed PM, would they necessarily and automatically become British? Would they have to be naturalized before taking office? Iirc there is some precedent in the laws of some Commonwealth countries that allows one to hold office as a non-citizen as long as one is a citizen of another Commonwealth country (e.g. Canadian citizen as PM of Australia), but I don’t think that applies to Americans (since the US is not a member of the Commonwealth), unless they are a dual citizen or something. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/46 "2013-11-08T17:05:30Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > …If the regent won’t budge, the same process can bump the regent out and move on down the line, all the way to [Karen Vogel](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704889404576276502793788310) if need be… There was an interesting hypothetical a while back as to the certainty of the paternal line. Iirc it is accepted in a genealogical perspective that there are significant chances (maybe a 10% chance per hundred years or something?) that a person’s documented patrilineal line is fictitious due to adultery, baby-swapping, or other shenanigans. Some have speculated that the heir apparent could have been accidentally swapped for a commoner’s baby by a nurse in the 1600’s, and the royal baby grew up in poverty and emigrated to the colonies, and the true King of Great Britain, etc. is a homeless guy in NYC descended from him. Of course, there’s no actual evidence for this, but it makes a good story. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/47 "2013-11-08T17:30:17Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > There was an interesting hypothetical a while back as to the certainty of the paternal line. Iirc it is accepted in a genealogical perspective that there are significant chances (maybe a 10% chance per hundred years or something?) that a person’s documented patrilineal line is fictitious due to adultery, baby-swapping, or other shenanigans. Some have speculated that the heir apparent could have been accidentally swapped for a commoner’s baby by a nurse in the 1600’s, and the royal baby grew up in poverty and emigrated to the colonies, and the true King of Great Britain, etc. is a homeless guy in NYC descended from him. Of course, there’s no actual evidence for this, but it makes a good story. I doubt this matters. Until very recently, when a married woman had a child there was an irrefutable presumption that her husband was legally the father of the child, and the child had all of the rights and privileges of being his child. So adultery wouldn’t matter, but baby-mixups are a question I’m not sure about. Since babies weren’t born in hospitals until recently, I doubt it even happened, but I don’t know if the common law would have dealt with that. In most U.S. states today, they assume a form of equitable adoption after a period of time, and no swapping 8 year olds back to their biological parents. That would be terrible. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/48 "2013-11-08T20:45:32Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > …Some have speculated that the heir apparent could have been accidentally swapped for a commoner’s baby by a nurse in the 1600’s… Perhaps you mean James II’s son, the so-called “warming-pan child”: [James Francis Edward Stuart - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Francis_Edward_Stuart#Birth_and_childhood) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/49 "2013-11-08T20:46:54Z")
Incidentally, I have it on good authority that this is what HM is really thinking by the time she gets around to her fourteenth or fifteenth boring public event of the day: [http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Kill+them+all.+Philip\_80d451\_3950763.jpg](http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Kill+them+all.+Philip_80d451_3950763.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2013, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/50 "2013-11-08T23:07:20Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > If a non-British citizen were to be appointed PM, would they necessarily and automatically become British? Would they have to be naturalized before taking office? Iirc there is some precedent in the laws of some Commonwealth countries that allows one to hold office as a non-citizen as long as one is a citizen of another Commonwealth country (e.g. Canadian citizen as PM of Australia), but I don’t think that applies to Americans (since the US is not a member of the Commonwealth), unless they are a dual citizen or something. No, a non-British citizen appointed PM wouldn’t automatically become British. Current convention is that the PM should be a member of the House of Commons, which means they must be a citizen of the UK, Commonwealth, or the Republic of Ireland. I’m not sure what would happen if the Monarch decided to appoint Charles Manson who, obviously, meets none of these requirements. The law says little on the subject of deranged lunatics, presumably to avoid unnecessarily depleting the pool of available candidates. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/51 "2013-11-09T04:17:06Z")
Andrew Bonar Law was born in New Brunswick and eventually became Prime Minister of the UK. However, this was back when everyone born in British colonies were British subjects, and there was no such thing as Canadian citizenship. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/52 "2013-11-09T04:40:57Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > For example I know she could bypass the GG in a Commonwealth country and dismiss a PM and replace them in any country of which she is Queen. Not necessarily. Her Majesty’s powers in each Commonwealth realm will depend on the constitution of each realm. In some cases, the constitution if a Commonwealth realm provides that the Governor General has independent powers that the Queen cannot exercise directly. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/53 "2013-11-09T05:03:58Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Andrew Bonar Law was born in New Brunswick and eventually became Prime Minister of the UK. However, this was back when everyone born in British colonies were British subjects, and there was no such thing as Canadian citizenship. Jan Smuts of South Africa was also considered for top British leadership during WWII: [South African leader Jan Smuts - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=540017) ---
**Author:** ![runningdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e9c0ed/32.png) [@runningdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runningdude)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/54 "2013-11-09T21:36:22Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > For example, if the Queen goes completely off the rocker and signs a decree declaring war against Uganda, makes a pronouncement that everyone in the world who wore a blue hat yesterday is now a Canadian citizen, writes out an order ceding the Isle of Man to the US, and declares that anyone quoting from more than three Monty Python works within a 24 hour period in any of her realms is guilty of a felony punishable by being thrown off a bus traveling at least 100 kph, would those decrees be _legally void_, or would they be valid and throw the realms into chaos? She would be declared mentally incompetent, and the declarations would be voided. Mentally ill royalty is nothing new… ---
**Author:** ![runningdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e9c0ed/32.png) [@runningdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runningdude)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/55 "2013-11-09T21:40:18Z")
> [@Malden\_Capell](#): > > If Parliament legislated to abolish the royal prerogative as it pertained to passports, that’s entirely lawful. There’s no such as as ‘unconstitutional’ in Britain as long as Parliament accepts it. There is still royal assent, that could be withheld to veto the legislation. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/56 "2013-11-09T21:47:46Z")
But in practice, it hasn’t happened since Queen Anne’s time. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/57 "2013-11-10T02:04:31Z")
That was the last rime it was refused in Britain, yes, but the royal assent was refused in Prince Edward Island in the 1940s. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2013, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/58 "2013-11-10T06:39:35Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > That was the last rime it was refused in Britain, yes, but the royal assent was refused in Prince Edward Island in the 1940s. Story, please. ---
**Author:** ![SetentaeBolg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f07891/32.png) [@SetentaeBolg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SetentaeBolg)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/59 "2013-11-11T15:23:19Z")
One thing she couldn’t do is convert to Catholicism. Scientology is fine, but not Papishness. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158/60 "2013-11-11T15:32:26Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Story, please. Well, it starts when a person is going to a wedding and is stopped by an old crazy sailor … [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-theoretical-limits-to-the-british-monarch-powers/673158.md?page=4)