The news that the Queen’s eldest grandchild may have to renounce his right to the throne to marry his Canadian fiancé has aroused unexpected passions.
Since the story appeared on the front page of the Daily Telegraph last week, there has been a deluge of reaction.
When the engagement between Peter Phillips, the 29-year-old son of the Princess Royal, and Autumn Kelly, 31, his management consultant girlfriend, was announced a fortnight ago, it barely created a ripple.
After all, Mr Phillips is only tenth in line to the throne, and the couple have been too sensible and publicity shy to attract much media interest.
But the royal romance took an unlikely twist when it emerged that Miss Kelly is a baptised Roman Catholic and therefore falls foul of the 1701 Act of Settlement, which bars monarchs and their heirs from becoming or marrying “papists”.
Always impressed when Brits refuse to study (or acknowledge their own history). Mayhaps the act was actually passed because Rome had publicly declared the English Royal Family heretical and excommunicated them? Or perhaps because there was a Papal Bull inciting the population to depose the monarch? Or perhaps that Elizabeth was the victim of several (foiled) Jesuit assassination plots? Or that at Rome’s behest the ARMADA was sent to take back London in 1588?
But I’m sure it was just a random act to protect succession. Yeah, that was it.
KTF!….mrb
“Mayhaps the act was actually passed because Rome had publicly declared the English Royal Family heretical and excommunicated them?”
Henry VIII was excommunicated in 1534 — to late, alas, to do any good; Elizabeth was excommunicated 1570, but she had no family. So far a C+ grade at best.
“Or perhaps because there was a Papal Bull inciting the population to depose the monarch?”
Same as above, 1570; seems to be making two events out of a single one. C-
“Or perhaps that Elizabeth was the victim of several (foiled) Jesuit assassination plots?”
Omits dates, but okay; B+
“Or that at Rome’s behest the ARMADA was sent to take back London in 1588?”
Right year — but why London? B-
Date of Act of Settlement? 1701 Purpose? To justify the usurpation of Dutch William and his wife, and to divert the throne (aka “fence stolen goods”) from its lawful heir. No real connection shown with 16th-Century events.
Overall grade, F. try again.
As usual Professor Tighe is on the mark. However, in terms of practical UK governance, this is a riple of the pond of politics. Is it possible that potential monarchs (with their role within the CofE) will be permitted to marry non-Anglicans and inherit the throne. I think it is indeed possible and doubt the CofE has any strong objection to such a proposal (as long as the Monarch themselves, and their children (aye, there’s the rub), are communicant members of the CofE). The real block to any revision of the 1701 Act is political lack of interest in such arcane matters and in the absence of any great pressure from the electorate a prudential decision to let sleeping dogs lie. Crisis, what crisis.
I don’t know if the 1701 Act had something to do with the experience of first Mary I and then James II, certainly Charles II I believe had leant somewhat Romewards. Suspect people were just looking for a quieter life having been through an appaling period of all change with whoever came to the throne.
Barring a ‘kind hearts and coronets’ situation, the likelyhood of Peter Phillips, at no. 10 in the stakes and going down, inheriting the throne are negligible. He will of course also need the permission of the Queen to marry which I imagine she either has or will be pleased to give, and one can only wish the couple well.
The succession of the lawful heir is of course determined by the Monarch in parliament, the divine right of kings having gone out of the window with Charles I, so to speak.
[blockquote][b]his[/b] Canadian [b]fiancé[/b] … unexpected passions.[/blockquote]
Emphases mine. I thought that this was going to be about something entirely different until I discovered that Mr Petre doesn’t know the difference between fiancé and fiancée.
The contrast in the “tolerance” extended to Roman Catholics vs. gays and lesbians is telling as evidenced in the comments Mr. Petre quoted. Compare the intimidation of Catholic adoption agencies out of business for not accepting applications from gays or lesbians and the bringing up on charges for rejecting a gay applicant for a church job working with children (details?) resulting from the recent SORs (Sexual Orientation Regulations) with the raw and irrational prejudice shown in the quote below:
[blockquote]More significant, perhaps, were the handful of comments that suggest that there is still a strain of anti-Catholic bigotry lurking beneath the surface of our supposedly tolerant society.
One wrote: “People underestimate the negative and domineering influence of the Roman Catholic church. It is real and still potent. The Act of Settlement was put in place to keep the UK independent from the See of Rome.â€
Another said: “Have this current generation forgotten that Roman Catholicism is not a Christian Church but an apostate religion and anti-Christian? …Let’s get back to revealed truth and stop selling our Christian heritage.â€
And another: “Why can’t you English Catholics accept that for several centuries you were the enemies of everything England stood for and the various limitations on you are the justified fruits thereof.†Ecumenism still has a way to go, it seems.[/blockquote]
Tolerance is good only for the goose in England, not the gander.
Aghhh Tighe! Best I could do off the top of my head.
Seriously, I was only making the point that the history of Britain’s mutual distrust of Rome had a grounding in actual events. As I recall, their were plenty of Royal (and mass) Prejudices in place that actually mirrored some provisions of the act, that precluded it by quite a few years. Seems I read the Great Fire of 1666 was blamed on “Papist Usurpers” among others.
Oh, and the Armada was screening an invasion force, it wasn’t really supposed to be a Naval Action, it was more like D-Day, but was intercepted. Ultimate goal was to conquer or burn London to the ground and restore Roman Catholicism to the Isles.
I understand these events may not have been indicative of the rationale for the ACt of Settlement itself, so I guess i earned my “F” for faulty analysis.
I’m still puzzled by your grading scheme, though. You give me a C+, C-, B+, B- and that averages out to an “F”??
Remind me not to take any courses where you teach! 🙂
KTF…mrb
“I’m still puzzled by your grading scheme, though. You give me a C+, C-, B+, B- and that averages out to an ‘F’?”
The whole — the grand interpretive scheme — was less than the sum of its parts, a thing I rarely encounter among most of my students, since they appear to believe that facts “speak for themselves” and are reluctant to speak for them.
Ah, well, that explains a lot. I’m an Intelligence Analyst by trade. One who typically has a lot more resources for research (and spends a lot more time) than I do when I’m blogging. So for my audiences, the facts are never enough, they want me to tell them what they mean. In effect, I get paid for my (informed) opinions.
You get the idea. Sorry if I jumped the gun….mrb
Although, Professor Tighe, I must admit to being curious. Do you encourage your students to let the facts “speak for themselves?” Or is their interpretation of the facts to lead to meaningful conclusions more the aim of your courses?
More the latter — or at least to help them to reason plausibly (or even well) based on the facts. Facts are facts, but they are also dumb, so when they “speak for themselves” there is a ventriloquist or articulate poltergeist somewhere at hand.
Come, come, Professor Tighe. Let’s not play the offended party. The Royal family, both Roman and Anglican committed atrocious acts on the other. Jesus commanded us to love our enemy. The Catholics and Anglicans loved each other by imprisoning and murdering their compatriots.
I’m a conservative, bible-believing Christian. But heretics and blashpemers have been closer to the spirit of Christ than many a “christian.”
#11 Bravo, my take exactly. My profession is often to “exhume” that poltergeist and force it to reveal its biases and tendencies. I have to say, 20 years of it now and I never get bored.
Currently I am plying my trade in the world of Healthcare, as in the U.S. Healthcare system. Finally, I have stumbled into the unsolvable puzzle. But I’m having fun trying, and getting a lot more people into the healthcare system at the same time, which makes it rewarding and fun.
Now if I could only work on that Presidency problem…..
Good Evening to you…mrb
I think the fact that it was The Tablet and RC MPs who made a big deal out of the fiancee’s religion shows the need for the law. I’m sure the couple and the Royal Family could have worked it out quietly but now it’s a political issue even though Mr. Phillips is 10 steps from the throne. Beyond that, we have no evidence that Ms. Kelly is even a practicing Catholic — just that she was baptized.
Princess Anne purposefully kept her children out of the royal circus and it would have been nice if the RCs respected the couple’s privacy instead of using them for a cause.
“The news that the Queen’s eldest grandchild may have to renounce his right to the throne to marry his Canadian fiancé has aroused unexpected passions.
Since the story appeared on the front page of the Daily Telegraph last week, there has been a deluge of reaction.
When the engagement between Peter Phillips, the 29-year-old son of the Princess Royal, and Autumn Kelly, 31, his management consultant girlfriend, was announced a fortnight ago, it barely created a ripple.”
Now that provokes an unespected passion! Queen AUTUMN? No, no, no!
The 1701 Act of Settlement was a culmination of events (sometimes called the “Bloodless Revolution”) that deposed James II (suspected of Catholicism) and made a foreigner, Protestant William of Orange the King. (It helped that William had married James’s daughter Mary.) Though the change was not really so bloodless (only relatively), the Whig historians liked to call these episodes the “Glorious Revolution.” By 1701, the change of monarchy was set long-term in the Act of Settlement, prescribing the future succession in a Protestant line. This was not something that happened in isolation but was part of a much larger “coup” (some would say), a new establishment that affected ordinary citizens significantly. Extremely onerous secular disabilities were imposed upon Roman Catholic citizens especially (but also upon other dissenters to the CofE). Of course, they could not have a Catholic church or a priest; a Catholic could not vote, could not sit in Parliament, could not attend the universities like Oxford and Cambridge, and was restricted in ownership of property, etc. In Ireland, the Penal Laws were causes of immense suffering, aiding the rise of the imported British Protestant Ascendancy, and they helped to spark numerous rebellions; in England, these laws simply drove Catholics underground for more than a century. The law that comes to the foreground now, affecting the current royal marriage plans, represents a massive chunk of English history.
As an addition to my post above, I should have given the date, 1688, for the “Bloodless Revolution” seating the Protestant William of Orange on the English throne in the place of the Stuarts. By 1701, the end of William’s own reign was in sight (he died early in 1702), and hence the need for a “setlement” of the future monarchy.
[url=http://http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/page100.asp]William III and Mary II[/url] were joint sovereigns. They were difficult times – it has to be remembered that William was battling Louis XIV of France at the time, who in turn persecuted the Huguenot Protestants many of whom fled to England and became our bankers, silversmiths, silk weavers and builders.
The restriction of Roman Catholics and Jews was of course wrong.
[url=http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/page100.asp]Link that works[/url] I trust.
Actually there is a quite recent precedent on this. Prince Michael of Kent [first cousing of the Queen] forfeited his claim to the throne automatically on marrying a Roman Catholic.
Thanks for the link, Pageantmaster. Of course, the “Bloodless Revolution” was not so–particularly in Ireland and Scotland. Only think what this anti-Catholic turn meant there. The Highlanders’ cause was doomed, and of course the effects of two regimes, two rules of life, are still evident in Ireland. The Church of England tried to fill the vacuum while crushing Roman Catholic worship–and R.C. people–in Ireland. The means of this power thrust often don’t bear much looking into. (The church was never the perfect institution we would like to think.) Today we can try to look back through all that to the beauty and faith of the Celtic church and the long struggle of the underground Catholics in Ireland. When I hear of singer Bono’s connection to certain services, Anglican or Episcopal, I think of this history. (This note is by a longtime student and teacher of Gaelic literature and the Celtic church.)
Paula
In Ireland as far as I know the major problem dated back to Cromwell as well as William of Orange – but I don’t know as much as I should. There is a curious Irish/Scottish link I have not really understood. I don’t think this was our finest hour.
Paula, thanks for your history. I am in broad agreement. The Church of England used the power of the State to further its religious and political aims and vice versa. (Of course it is hardly unique in doing this in the period). Nevertheless I am intrigued by the conjuring of that mythic apparition, ‘the celtic church’ which has about as much reality as the ‘perfect’ reformed Church of England. I rather suggest that the contemporary popular images of the ‘celtic church’ are rather more revealing of the twenty first century than of the seventh or eight.
I had the privilege recently of meeting Professor Tighe in person a few weeks ago in Durham, UK. He turned out to be …. a very pleasant person!!!
I enjoyed our meeting, too; and I thank Jeff Steel for arranging it.
Well, driver8, no way was the Celtic Church a myth. It was the great source of missionaries to nearly all of Europe at the time when so much of the world was in the chaos after Rome’s fall. A good collection of primary material plus commentary is Notre Dame’s _St. Patrick’s World_, ed. Liam de Paor (1997). The more popular history by Thomas Cahill brings a lot together: _How the Irish Saved Civilization_ (1996). (The subtitle tells it all: “Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe”). My main point is that Celtic monasteries and churches proliferated through western Europe where there were no Christian centers, moving from Ireland into other British Isles and into France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and elsewhere as first evangelizers. If the Irish monks had done no more than preserve and copy their sources, including both Biblical and classical works, they would have done plenty to place us in their debt. But of course they happened to be seafaring, courageous evangelists who carried the Word of Jesus Christ far abroad.
The fate of the Irish Catholics in the seventeenth century (and later) was indeed very very sad, and the CofE should not fail to acknowledge this. (I think they have acknowledged some of this, in modern time.) In any event, I am not sure what part of the Celtic Church should seem “mythic” or unreal to us. Of course, it may sometimes be *used* today to mysticize or attempt to legitimize ideas that are modern, not ancient. But the real Celtic Church should be part of our larger Christian heritage and should never have been cut off from it.
Pageantmaster, you are right about Cromwell’s place in all this. That is why I bridled at the recent mention by Dr. FitzSimons Allison of Cromwell as a model to us. (I do honor Dr. Allison, and I assume it was just a poor choice of examples.) Cromwell, of course, was far from a model to the Irish Catholic Church and people: it was all I could do not to quote descriptions of what happened there under him. But in spite of all the “troubles,” much has remained to us from Celtic Christianity. It is clear it was important in the plans of our Lord. Forgive me if this has been a little off-topic, but posters above had invited comments in these directions. There are many continuing situations that date back to that movement that settled the English royal succession in a Protestant line (completely changing the succession) and affected the people and cultures of Ireland (and Scotland) far more than we may understand.
Some 25 years ago, when I lived in England, an antiquarian/genealogist friend of mine showed me tables indicating how the 1701 Act of Settlement, which passed the succession to the throne from Princess Anne (then the sister-in-law and heir of William III) to Sophia, duchess of Brunswick (whose oldest son succeeded Anne in 1714 as George I) passed over 54 living individuals in 1701 who had better hereditary claims to the English throne than Sophia and George (and one of whom, her half-brother James Francis Edward Benedict Maria Stuart [1688-1766], the “Old Pretender,” had a better claim than Anne herself); and also an article published in a genealogical journal in 1952 that pointed out that there were them living over 15,000 persons who had a better title to the throne on a hereditary basis than Elizabeth II.
I love reading this blog! I’m becoming quite the Anglophile under the tutelage I find here. Please continue….
KTF!…mrb
I would have thought this thread would turn you into an Anglophobe 🙂
… or Anglicanophobe?
‘Non angeli sed anglicani.’ (1066 and All That)
One thing that I always have students in the relevant classes that I teach do is to read and compare the English Bill of Rights of 1689, the Scottish Claim of Right of 1689 and the Irish Act of Parliament of 1689 “to Assert and Uphold his Majesty’s Lawful and Undoubted Right” i.e., to uphold the right of James II to be king, and to denounce William & Mary as both rebels and “heinous parricides” as seeking to dispossess James (who was both Mary’s father and William’s uncle — the two were first cousins). The Scottish bill declares bluntly that James, because he is a Catholic and has taken acts to favor Catholicism, had forfeited the Scottish throne, and is deposed, while the English Bill tries absurdly to claim that by fleeing from England he has abdicated and the throne is accordingly “vacant” (as I tell my students, it is tantamount to a group of thieves or robbers chasing a person off his land or a family out of his house, and then claiming it is theirs because the owner has “abandoned” it to them); and then they went on to invite William and Mary jointly to fill the “vacancy.” This was because the Assembly — it wasn’t a parliament because only a monarch can call a parliament and William was simply an invading general when he called it — deadlocked between the Whigs (who wanted to declare James deposed and curtail considerably the authority of the Crown) and the Tories (who wanted to declare James incapable of ruling and to entrust a temporary regency to Mary during James’ lifetime and meanwhile investigate whether the baby boy who was allegedly the son of James and his wife born on June 10th of that year — he was of course their son, but the legend that James’ queen had given birth to a stillborn child and that then the Jesuits has passed off a foundling as James’ son — a legend that seems to have originated with or around James’ daughter Anne out of sheer spitefulness on her part, even though she was present at the birth — was the genuine heir to the throne or not), and only after much wrangling did the two agree on such a method of getting rid of James without actually asserting that parliament (or any other person or institution) had the right to “depose” a King of England (which was anathema both to Tory political theory and to the laws of England themselves as they stood in 1689). The three documents make for interesting comparisons, and the Irish Bill, in particular, has an undercurrent of palpable satisfaction at being able to assert that “you English are the rebels now, and we’re the loyal subjects of the king” — little good though it did them in the end.
OK as we’re swapping references let me suggest something that is rather better than Thomas Cahill. Ian Bradley, “Celtic Christianity: Making Myths and Chasing Dreams” (Edinburgh University Press 1999). BTW I am not necessarily denying the utility of the construction that has gathered around “Celtic Christianity” (nor the stranger and IMO more thought provoking story of those figures who were aristocratic missionaries, monastic leaders, wandering ascetics or power brokers).
It’s true, driver8, that Ian Bradley brings out a lot of interesting material, but his purpose is to focus on what can not be proven. On the other hand, the proofs of the Celtic church’s significance are extremely tangible, as in the great illuminated Bibles (Kells, for example). Or go to one of the great Christian centers in Europe and ask about its earliest foundation stones (ruins): you will find, surprisingly often, that that they are Celtic. I don’t think we are disagreeing. Of course, I don’t believe everything I’ve seen about Celtic spirituality, native goddesses, relics, and so forth. But there’s still much that can not be falsified. I am saying that the contempt in which the English held the Irish church was remarkably unjustified.
Re No 31 above: I once, on another site (Pontifications) drew attention to how the excellence of Dr Tighe’s scholarship was occasionally let down by the prolix length of his sentences (not to mention his fondness for parentheses). My comment appeared only briefly, before disappearing. I did wonder why I had been censored for an entirely eirenic comment. Anyway, since Dr Tighe is in the habit of giving grades, surely he will not object if I give him A for content and C for expression. I am, BTW, a former university teacher myself.
I just don’t see how what occurs in the 7th and 8th centuries has any bearing on the Act of Succession (any more than the Venerable Bede or the Carolignan Renaissance would help us make a moral judgement about Wolfe Tone). Early Irish christianity is interesting as are its links with the wider church of the day. Anglo-Saxon christianity, Visigothic christianity and Italian christianity (etc.) are intersting too. Of course the really major Christian cultures of the day were Byzantine and the Church of the East.
Like I would not agree with a great deal of seventeenth century legislation and find the conduct of warfare often grossly unacceptable. Cromwell (not an Anglican, of course) used the same kinds of tactics in Ireland as had been used by Protestants and Catholics in the Thity Years War. However when it comes to using such to speak to the present I rather hear contemporary axes being ground.
The way the story is worded it makes it look like somehow the distant heir to the throne must take action himself and formally renounce the throne in order to marry the woman he desires to. I don’t know much English constitutional history or theory, BUT what happens if he and his fiance just ignore the law and go off and get married. Won’t that put parliament in the position of having to take some sort of intolerant –and apparently very unpopular –action of some sort to disown them and take formal action to bounce them from the succession??????? Or is the renunciation of the throne automatic if he marries a Catholic (although most news stories don’t read that way).
I think it’s automatic. Or at least, by the terms of the Royal Marriage Act of 1772, which makes royal approval a necessity for the legal validity of the marriage of any heir to the throne, I suppose that the monarch could withhold approval unless the requisite renunciation were forthcoming, and so render any marriage the couple might contract legally invalid, at least within the UK. What would be very interesting indeed would be if some heir to the throne brought a suit under the European Code of Human Rights (which trumps most national law in EU nations) to have the law overturned on the basis that it violates established human rights.
That is a very good point – if challenged this is surely illgal under human rights legislation. I think the most easily imaginable cause of change would be if an immediate heir (say one of Prince Charles’s sons) wanted to marry a Roman Catholic. Then I can imagine it being changed fairly promptly.
1. As far as I am aware marrying a roman catholic automatically debars from the succession – the individual has to take no action other than the marriage.
2. As a seperate matter, close relatives require the consent of the monarch to their marriage. Religion is unlikely to affect this as far as I am aware except that some time ago when possible matches for Prince Charles were being discussed a number of very eligible European princesses were ruled out on this point. A marriage of course could have taken place but would have debarred succession.
3. Human rights law – interesting possible conflict with the earlier legislation but I am not sure that if the heir were closer to the succession that this would lead to a change in the law. A change would have to take account of the CofE, CofScotland and Commonwealth where the monarch is also head of state in many countries; much as it they were concerned in the last abdication crisis.
In the interest of picayuneness, I shall point out that
“…prolix length of his sentences…”
is doubtful grammar, prolix being a variant of length, rather than a modifier of it.
“Let down by his prolix sentences” would be better.
Mad props for a parenthetical reference to excessive parentheses, however.