[QUOTE=Giles]
Is this a joke or a misunderstanding? Husbands of queens regnant are either kings in their own right (as in the case of William III, or of King Phillip II of Spain, husband of Queen Mary I) or princes consort (as in the case of Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, or the Duke of Edinburgh, husband of the present queen)
[/QUOTE]
A queen-regnant’s husband can also be a king-consort; as was Phillip II of Spain (in relation to England), Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, David Soslan, or Francis of Assisi of Bourbon. But William of Orange insisted on becoming sovereign alside his wife. He didn’t want to be a mere consort and wanted to reign ever if his wife died. Parliament agreed after Mary declined to reign alone.
[QUOTE=cazzle]
Princess Anne’s children are not entitled to royal titles as they are the children of a female descendant.
[/QUOTE]
I assume they’re still officially nobility, since they are after all in the line of succession. But they really don’t have titles at all, not even The Earl of Throatwarbler and Lady Mangrove or some such?
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
I assume they’re still officially nobility, since they are after all in the line of succession. But they really don’t have titles at all, not even The Earl of Throatwarbler and Lady Mangrove or some such?
[/QUOTE]
No, they are neither royalty nor nobility. After all, the royal family has to end somewhere, since otherwise eventually everyone gets to be royalty. They are commoners, and would only become royalty if their uncles and all their uncles’ descendants died.
[QUOTE=Polycarp]
At present, the order of inheritance of the U.K. throne is:
21. Oddly enough, King Harald of Norway (eldest grandson of QE2’s eldest great-aunt)
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You left out lots in between the last of the Kents (Princess Alexandra and her descendants) and the Norwegian royal family. There are all of the Lascelles (descendants of Mary, Princess Royal, only daughter of George V). There are also the Duke of Fife and his family (descendants of Louise, Princess Royal, eldest daughter of Edward VII).
[QUOTE=Giles]
I’m not sure that it would be a problem in Australian law, even if the Australian Parliament does nothing in response to a change in succession law enacted by the UK Parliament. The Australian Constitution assumes that the UK monarch is the Australian monarch (calling that person “the Queen”, since the monarch was Victoria when the Constitution was enacted).
[/QUOTE]
I’m not familiar with the Australian constitution, but the Statute of Westminster’s preamble stipulates that any modification to the succession to the throne requires the approval of every Commonwealth realm. So if the UK wanted to allow gender-blind succession (or allow Catholics to become the monarch), every country that has Elizabeth II as monarch would have to agree. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it required to amend the constitution of all these realms; some of them, such as Canada’s constitution, are very hard to change. This said, I don’t think this disposition has ever been tested in court, and being part of the preamble and not of the Statute itself, it might not be enforceable. We’ll only know for sure when and if someone tries to modify the line of succession.
[QUOTE=severus]
I’m not familiar with the Australian constitution, but the Statute of Westminster’s preamble stipulates that any modification to the succession to the throne requires the approval of every Commonwealth realm. So if the UK wanted to allow gender-blind succession (or allow Catholics to become the monarch), every country that has Elizabeth II as monarch would have to agree. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it required to amend the constitution of all these realms; some of them, such as Canada’s constitution, are very hard to change. This said, I don’t think this disposition has ever been tested in court, and being part of the preamble and not of the Statute itself, it might not be enforceable. We’ll only know for sure when and if someone tries to modify the line of succession.
[/QUOTE]
Regardless of the Statute of Westminster, in the Preamble to the Australian Constitution there is:
[QUOTE=The UK Parliament, in the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900]
2. The provisions of this Act referring to the Queen shall extend to Her Majesty’s heirs and successors in the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.
[/QUOTE]
However, presumably the UK Parliament, in the Statute of Westminster, did limit its power to change the succession by requiring the approval of other countries in the Commonwealth.
[QUOTE=Giles]
No, they are neither royalty nor nobility. After all, the royal family has to end somewhere, since otherwise eventually everyone gets to be royalty. They are commoners, and would only become royalty if their uncles and all their uncles’ descendants died.
[/QUOTE]
To prevent this situation occuring with Princess Margaret’s children her husband Tony Armstrong-Jones was created Earl of Snowden. By the time Princess Anne got married it wasn’t thought to matter so much (or none of them liked Mark ‘Foggy’ Phillips enough to do it)