Fair enough. My point was not so much “being foreign-born is an obstacle to being monarch” as “there hasn’t been a foreign-born person involved in the UK line of succession for quite some time now, and citizenship law has changed substantially since then.”
Also, I suppose that HRH could denize Ms. Markle if she was so inclined. The process hasn’t been used in over a century, but if you believe Wikipedia it has not been abolished by Parliament.
The question I posed was not related to the particular parent’s place of birth. I’m well aware that many royals marry people from other countries. As was noted above, all of Elizabeth’s children were born to two English citizen parents (even though Phillip’s still had wet ink). If Harry and Meghan have a kid in the next few years, that won’t be true of their kids.
Anyway, based on the references above, I considered the question asked and answered.
And then, of course, I read Zakalwe’s post and realize that Prince Philip was born outside the UK. Guess I need to study my royals more carefully.
But issuing passports is part of the royal prerogative; is there an actual statute law restricting the issuance of British passports to individuals with British nationality or citizenship?
Issues passports to citizens is an aspect of the Royal Prerogative. Since the passport states that the bearer is a citizen, and since the award of citizenship is regulated by statute, if there ever was a royal prerogative of issuing passports to non-citizens (thereby naturalising them) I doubt that it survives.
I think the old Prince Charles passport you have there was issued under the former nationality law, in which one of the ways of qualifying for British subject status was by being a descendant of Sophia, Electress of Hannover. Thus “Prince of the Royal House” is a statement that Charlie is such a descendant and, therefore, a British Subject.
I imagine his current passport shows his nationality status as “British Citizen”.
No doubt. But if, on the much faster application of the normal procedure, she is found not to satisfy some of the statutory conditions as to, e.g., period of residency or having acquired settled status, and if those are conditions which there is no power to waive, the outcome will be a much-faster-than-usual rejection of her application for naturalisation.
But the purpose of passports is to indicate the Queen’s protection for citizens, which is determined by law. Her Majesty can’t extend Britain’s protection unilaterally over people that are not citizens.
That’s how it works in Canada as well. Citizenship is defined by statute; passports are issued under the prerogative, but only to people who have a statutory right to Canada’s protection internationally.
Why wouldn’t they have diplomatic status, if they’re travelling on state business - which can be a big part of what they do, not in the sense of meeting with government officials in the country they’re visiting, but helping to maintain cordial relations with the country?
You have diplomatic status if you are nominated for it by your own government (the “sending state”), and accorded it by the state to which you are accredited (the “host state”). Professional diplomats will be issued with diplomatic passports, which will get them special handling and immunities not only in the host state, but in practice also in third states through which they may travel. But note this only works because holidng a diplomatic passport does identify you as an accredited diplomat.
Heads of state or more junior government officials visiting other countries on official business do so as officials, not as diplomats, and they don’t normally get diplomatic passports. In practice, a government could issue them with diplomatic passports, but the “currency” of Teapotistan’s diplomatic passports will tend to be devalued if it becomes known that Teapotistan issues them to non-diplomats as “perks of the job”, so to speak. Another state doesn’t have to accord you diplomatic immunity just because you are carrying a diplomatic passport; it only has to do so if you are, in fact, a diplomat, and diplomatic passports cease to be useful if they aren’t a useful or reliable indicator of diplomatic status. Some countries, inc. the US, issue “official passports” to government officials whose duties include foreign travel. These might get you special handling but that’s a matter of courtesy; they have no legal significance.
Heads of state never travel as diplomats, or on diplomatic passports. They have sovereign immunity, and to do something that seems to assert a claim to diplomatic immunity might imply a repudiation of any claim to sovereign immunity.
Earlier in the thread we had an image posted of a passport issued to the Prince of Wales. It was not a diplomatic passport. (If it had been, the wording of the request on the left-hand page would have been different.)
Did the UK exist? 
Later you state you’re “counting all of the UK, not just England”, but by that way of counting, most medieval monarchs and prices in Germany, Italy or Spain didn’t marry a foreigner. Given how much thought was given to the alliances behind the weddings, I’m reasonably sure they would have disagreed.
Would anyone care to run back through the Kings and Queens of Scotland before the Stuarts inherited England?
The US President travels on a diplomatic passport. The cover of Barack Obama’s is briefly shown in this video.
The whole passport thing is pretty moot anyway. The probability of any TSA-or-its-equivalent official demanding to see her passport is small to vanishing. Whenever they arrive in a country, they are met by a clutch of officials and a big mob of journos. No one is going to ask them if they packed their own cases (“You’re avin a larf; we have staff for that.”) or the reason for their visit (“Check the local news?”).
Of the six Scottish kings and queen regnant from James II to James VI (not counting Darnley as a king), all had one parent who had been born outside of Scotland, although in three cases that parent had been born in England.
The unobvious one is that Darnley had been born in England, although, even so, James VI was the only one who could just about claim to have had two Scottish parents.
I’m pretty sure every point will have been considered and addressed before it touches a desk at the Home Office. Hell, ordinary people such as myself can get a pre-submission application check done by a local registrar for a small fee (£50 in my case), so there’s no chance of this one being rejected if submitted.
My question is where she’ll go through the naturalisation ceremony. Are they officially residing in Windsor? Will she have to go to some dreary town hall in Reading for a tedious ceremony presided over by the local mayor?
Windsor has its own mayor.
They are living in a cottage in the grounds of Kensington Place, so she has a choice of a group ceremony at Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall (dreary 1970s brutalist) or a private ceremony at Chelsea Old Town Hall (swish late Victorian).
And yes, I’m bored at work.
yes it does. It matters zero zilch nothing.
She has no role, she has no power. It could be a whore leper from Botswana opening the invictus games, and they’d be invited and let in and given security and so on. Where is there a problem with nationality ??? Nowhere. Even if there wasn’t a wedding, even if she isn’t going to accompany Prince harry, it matters not . She’d still be able to go if she was so invited , and had suitable transport (eg an airline or security step at her country and along the way may require passport,etc. But australia wouldn’t neccessarily if arriving on such an official invitation.
Naturally enough the monarch , with no passport, flies british airways and asserts authority to bypass security steps.
No, it didn’t, but it does now. I’m talking about them marrying what we would consider a foreigner now, applied retrospectively. Feel free to use a different definition - I did say “I’m counting,” not that everyone must do as I do.