A Marriage Made In Heaven

Authors note

Authors noteIn the United Kingdom, the heir to a hereditary Peerage or Baronetcy usually inherits not only the Dukedom, Marquisate, Earldom, Viscountcy or Barony, but also the ancestral home and the family fortune.

The traditional right of primogeniture, whereby the eldest son inherited practically everything, was designed to preserve the large family estates intact and undivided, thus ensuring a fitting background for each successive heir. In the same way the paintings, furniture, silver and other articles of value in the family home were all entailed onto the next heir, so that the current title-holder could not sell them and dissipate the family fortune.

Titles normally descended in the male line only, so that if the Head of a Family has no son, his male next of kin, who may be only a distant cousin, is his heir presumptive.

It is a fact that in the case of a few ancient Peerages, both English and Scottish, the succession can, in default of a male heir, fall to a female. But this occurs only when this right of succession has been granted specifically at the time of the creation of each Peerage.

Through history this has also been the case for inheriting the Crown. But in 2011 Commonwealth leaders agreed to change the succession laws so that both the sons and daughters of any future United Kingdom Monarch have equal right to the throne. The ban on the Monarch being married to a Roman Catholic was also lifted.

Under the old succession laws, dating back more than three hundred years, the heir to the Throne was the first-born son of the Monarch. Only when there were no sons, as in the case of the father of Queen Elizabeth II, George VI, did the Crown pass to the eldest daughter.

The succession changes will require a raft of historic legislation to be amended, including the 1701 Act of Settlement, the 1689 Bill of Rights and the Royal Marriages Act 1772.