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The Other King Of England
EURSOC has spent much time discussing the constitutional vandalism carried out by the British government. Most of the repercussions of this tinkering and "modernisation" will be felt years or even decades hence, and few will end well for Britons.
The Act of Settlement - a 1701 law which prevented Catholics from taking the throne, ensuring it passed to the House of Hanover - is said to be high on the list of Gordon Brown's reforms. The Presbyterian PM is said to be stung by criticism that the Act discriminates against Catholics, and is said to be considering repealing it.
The Daily Telegraph has great fun with this prospect. The newspaper claims that if the 1701 Act is jettisoned, Franz Herzog von Bayern, the 74-year-old Duke of Bavaria, could make a legitimate claim to the British throne.
The Duke is the closest direct descendent of the Stuart line: The Act of Settlement 1701 states that his ancestor, James II, had effectively abdicated when he fled to France in 1689: Future monarchs, it said, would join in the Communion of the Church of England.
If the Act goes, says one historian, "Franz becomes the rightful claimant to the throne. We would just exchange one German family for another one."
The Duke is said to be very happy with his current position, and finds the speculation very amusing. However, British Catholics don't find much that is funny about a law which prevents anyone brought up in their faith ascending to the throne. As the Telegraph reports, "Prince Michael of Kent renounced his claim to the throne when he married Marie-Christine von Reibnitz, a Catholic divorcee, in 1978.
"Next month Peter Phillips, 30, the eldest grandson of the Queen and 11th in line to the throne, will automatically lose his birthright by marrying Autumn Kelly, a Canadian Catholic."
Older readers will remember much fevered speculation in the early 1970s when the then-bachelor Prince Charles was linked with an Austrian Catholic aristocrat.
The Act of Settlement, of course, contains several other laws besides the right of succession. Some of these were repealed in the years following the Act; others have lain dormant for nearly two centuries; others - such as the provision that no-one in the pay of the Crown can become an MP - have been granted exceptions.
The interdiction on Catholic succession, however, is by far the trickiest of all the Act's rulings. To some, it is downright weird that practitioners of Catholicism can be prevented from marrying a potential Monarch: The institution of the Monarchy has changed since James' day, plus Catholicism is hardly the alien and potentially dangerous religion it once was (imagine Prince William converting to Islam for a contemporary example).
However, one of the Monarch's roles is to defend the faith; that is, to be titular head of the Church of England. A Catholic couldn't take this duty, even under Prince Charles' concept of being "defender of faiths." A non-Anglican monarch would leave the established Church in a muddle: Indeed, it could mean that the British church was disestablished. And if the Church is disestablished, then one of the main reasons for having a Monarchy at all in Britain is lost.
No wonder Brown is showing an interest in repealing the Act of Settlement!
Disestablished.
