Harry & Meghan 16

[Father Son Holy Goat]

Harry and Meghan sure are easy to mock by cartoons. 

[tabitha2]

The jokes just right themselves. 

[Jackie3]

Samantha Markle has been making money off her Meghan's marriage for quite a while. It will be interesting to see the results of her court case next week. She's suing Meghan for saying she was an "only child."

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

It seems a bit early to worry about this as it's going to take a while until Archie or Lilibet are old enough to marry and a lot of things might change before then.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/why-prince-archie-may-not-be-free-of-bizarre-royal-rule/ar-AA1jheYT

 

[Jackie3]

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

It seems a bit early to worry about this as it's going to take a while until Archie or Lilibet are old enough to marry and a lot of things might change before then.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/why-prince-archie-may-not-be-free-of-bizarre-royal-rule/ar-AA1jheYT

 

The Stare of California is not bound by this rule. 
 

He’s free to marry whomever he wants. It’s just that without permission, his kids (if any) won’t  be in the LOS.
 

It seems doubtful this will matter to California-bred Archie.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Jackie3

[prayawaythefundie]

Archie and Lilibet might care a lot less about the LoS in some twenty years than their parents do now. If so, the monarch‘s consent won‘t matter.

[just_ordinary]

I don’t think Charles or Wiliam will care much about the choice of them. Probably not even about Louis’. George and Charlotte are carrying the weight in terms of the LoS. I honestly don’t think HMTQ did care much about the choice of her grandchildren apart from the heir and spare either. Asking for permission is probably just a formality for most.

[Father Son Holy Goat]

It’s only really enforceable if the formerly Sussex children care about what the monarch thinks and feels. And with Harry and Meghan doing their damn best to cut off that part of the family Archie and Lilibet may not care.

[louisa05]

Charles could still be alive by then. And William could have grandchildren. Or one or both Sussex children could choose not to marry at all.  

Why must this be discussed when it's not at all relevant to anything at the moment? Particularly when the whole point of the article seems to be that it's some sort of persecution. No child or grandchild affected by the law has ever been denied permission. What makes the hack who wrote this think that would suddenly change 20 or more years from now? 

[tabitha2]

It’s just clickbait. Any inane, random or irrelevant article about the Sussex children will  get attention and comments. The Windsor children, namely Charlotte, as well. It’s like Royal catnip to lots of people. 

Edited November 5, 2023 by tabitha2

[Jackie3]

16 hours ago, Father Son Holy Goat said:

It’s only really enforceable if the formerly Sussex children care about what the monarch thinks and feels. And with Harry and Meghan doing their damn best to cut off that part of the family Archie and Lilibet may not care.

Exactly. I like how they aren't under the thumb of the monarchy. 

Archie may or may not want to marry. If he does, his social circle will likely be liberal Californians, graduates of UCLA, Berkely, and other well-known universities. People who aren't know for being royalists, or fans of colonialism.

Archie's likely to be very embarrassed about his ties to the British monarchy--with it's ugly history of slavery and colonialsim.  The last thing he'd care about is his place in LOS. Especially once he reads what the tabloids have said about his mother and father. 

Imagine asking a young man to choose between someone he loves and a remote possibility of being King of England. I think we know what most men would choose. 

 It's a non-issue, stirred up by the tabloids to create drama.

 

12 hours ago, tabitha2 said:

It’s just clickbait. Any inane, random or irrelevant article about the Sussex children will  get attention and comments. The Windsor children, namely Charlotte, as well. It’s like Royal catnip to lots of people. 

No wonder Harry and Meghan are shielding their kids from that.

 

Harry and Meghan received a standing ovation as they walk into the Katy Perry concert. They are loved.

 

[rosamundi]

22 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

It seems a bit early to worry about this as it's going to take a while until Archie or Lilibet are old enough to marry and a lot of things might change before then.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/why-prince-archie-may-not-be-free-of-bizarre-royal-rule/ar-AA1jheYT

 

This seems like a complete non-issue. If Archie cares, he'll ask for permission, which has never, that I can think of, been refused, apart from in a very few cases of people much closer to the throne who wanted to marry someone deemed unsuitable at the time. If he doesn't care, he won't ask, and he'll be removed from the line of succession.

George could be married with children by then, in which case Archie will be out of the LoS anyway.

[viii]

21 hours ago, prayawaythefundie said:

Archie and Lilibet might care a lot less about the LoS in some twenty years than their parents do now. If so, the monarch‘s consent won‘t matter.

I hope they do care. After everything with Harry and Meghan leaving, it would be kind of funny if one of their kids wanted to return to Britain and take their place within the royal family. 

"But I'm a prince!!!"

3 hours ago, rosamundi said:

George could be married with children by then, in which case Archie will be out of the LoS anyway.

Archie will still be in the Line of Succession, he just won't have to ask permission before he weds. 

[Loveday]

3 hours ago, rosamundi said:

This seems like a complete non-issue. If Archie cares, he'll ask for permission, which has never, that I can think of, been refused, apart from in a very few cases of people much closer to the throne who wanted to marry someone deemed unsuitable at the time. If he doesn't care, he won't ask, and he'll be removed from the line of succession.

George could be married with children by then, in which case Archie will be out of the LoS anyway.

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Princess Margaret, and here's Harper's Bazaar's take on the story, written a year ago after the latest season of The Crown had aired:

 

Quote

 

The first the public knew of the duo's love affair was when a perceptive journalist spotted Princess Margaret picking a piece of fluff off the uniform of her late father George VI's equerry, RAF Group Captain Peter Townsend, at the Queen's Coronation in 1953. That gesture was enough to break the biggest royal scandal since the Abdication Crisis.

By that point, the affair had been in full swing for quite some time, although various reports differ on the time frame.

Peter had joined the royals on a three-month tour of South Africa in 1947 when Margaret was 17 and he was 37 – he was married at the time and had two children. In her 2008 book Snowdon: The Biography, which unpacks the life of Margaret's ex-husband Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowden, journalist Anne de Courcy wrote that Margaret told a confidante: "We rode together every morning in that wonderful country, with marvellous weather. That's when I really fell in love with him."

In 1952, Margaret's father had died and her sister had become Queen, leaving the princess grief-stricken and lonely. Townsend was appointed Comptroller of her mother's household and the two became very… close.

By 1953, Townsend had divorced his wife and proposed to the 22-year-old Princess. Margaret was inclined to accept, but it was not that simple: under the Royal Marriages Act 1772, as an under-25-year-old she would need the monarch’s consent to the match. This put the Queen in a really, really tricky situation, so she did what any true procrastinator does: she put things off and asked her sister to wait a bit.

When news spread, it was the Abdication Crisis all over again: could a royal marry someone who was divorced? The Church of England said no, rather emphatically. The British Cabinet said they would refuse to approve the marriage. Winston Churchill hated the thought, and the newspapers – initially, at least – were against the "unthinkable" event.

So, what next for the star-crossed lovers? Churchill arranged for Townsend to be posted to Brussels, at least until Margaret got to 25 and could marry without the Queen's consent. But even then, she would have to renounce her claim to the throne as well as her royal allowance. She faced a choice: love or duty?

There was an agonising wait while Margaret tried to decide what to do, and then finally – after two years – she issued a statement.

In a statement released in 1955, the Princess explained: "I would like it to be known that I have decided not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend. I have been aware that, subject to my renouncing my rights of succession, it might have been possible for me to contract a civil marriage.

"But mindful of the Church's teachings that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before others. I have reached this decision entirely alone, and in doing so I have been strengthened by the unfailing support and devotion of Group Captain Townsend."

In his autobiography, Time and Chance, Group Captain Townsend wrote: "She could have married me only if she had been prepared to give up everything – her position, her prestige, her privy purse.

"I simply hadn't the weight, I knew it, to counterbalance all she would have lost."

 

So, apparently, the Queen never said no. She just bided her time. But Margaret would have lost quite a bit, not least of which was her allowance. I personally think she wouldn't have minded losing her place in the line of succession--the odds were slim she'd ever be queen with Prince Charles by that time on the scene--but would Townsend have been able to support her in any way remotely resembling the style in which she'd been raised? Of course not. I'm not suggesting that money was the only reason she decided against marrying him, but I'm sure it was a big factor, and Townsend was well aware of that. 😕 

 

[viii]

Margaret could have married Peter Townsend, but the lifestyle of which she was accustomed to would have changed drastically and she wasn't prepared for that. She wanted her cake and she wanted to eat it, too. She could have easily married "for love" but chose the royal lifestyle instead. 

[tabitha2]

Let’s be real. Marrying an outsider to Royal ways or a person without the accustomed means has very rarely  ever   worked out well for senior members the British Royal family. Love 

[AmazonGrace]

Quote

If one of those six does not obtain consent for marriage, they and any children born of their union are "disqualified from succeeding to the Crown."

Is parents being married a requirement for the child being in the line of succession? What if someone in the line of succession has a child without being married? must have happened a time or two.

 

Edit: oh never mind, from wikipedia

Quote

Children born out of wedlock and adopted children are not eligible to succeed.

Wonder if this will change some day down the line as they have better ways of establishing paternity now as "who is she married to" doesn't appear foolproof and all the civilized countries treat the rights of children born in and out of wedlock otherwise equally.

Edited November 6, 2023 by AmazonGrace

[viii]

It will be interesting to see if LOS laws change at all as the world evolves. What happens if you have a gay king or queen that have their children through surrogacy? Are they eligible? 

[AmazonGrace]

And straight, married couples might have  fertility treatments with donor cells as well. Would the children count?

[rosamundi]

9 minutes ago, viii said:

It will be interesting to see if LOS laws change at all as the world evolves. What happens if you have a gay king or queen that have their children through surrogacy? Are they eligible? 

I think they would be excluded under the current laws, and I suspect any putative change of laws is filed under the "oh this is too hard and we've got way too much other stuff going on, and it's not like it's a pressing issue so let's just la la la la la la la".

The legal situation of surrogacy in the UK is that the child's birth parents are the child's legal parents at birth, and the parents who will be bringing up the child need to apply for a parental order or adoption before that change of parentage is legal.

You can only apply for a parental order if one of you is genetically related to the child. If neither new parent is genetically related to the child then they would need to apply to adopt.

So a baby who wasn't genetically related to the monarch would be excluded due to being adopted. A baby who was genetically related to the monarch would be excluded due to being illegitimate (as the monarch wasn't married to the surrogate at the time the child was born).

I think allowing adopted children to inherit would be a massive step on the road towards the end of the monarchy. It rests, after all, on the concept of "royal blood" (and inertia, let's not forget inertia), but if a child who is known to have no "royal blood" were to inherit the throne, then what's stopping me applying to have a go at the fancy hats and the waving?

Surrogacy where the royal is either egg or sperm donor would be less problematic, because the child would have "royal blood".

To highlight the ridiculousness of the whole situation, if a heterosexual royal couple were to have fertility treatment using donor gametes, the legal position would be that the child was a legitimate heir of the blood royal and could take their place in the line of succession without issue.

[tabitha2]

There are several young adult heiresses and one heir in the wings in Europe right now plus  all the spares and at least a few are bound to be openly LGBTQ. So we are going to have most or all the scenarios in play and new guidelines applied by the governments sooner rather than later. It’s going to be very interesting to see how it all plays out. 

[louisa05]

11 hours ago, rosamundi said:

This seems like a complete non-issue. If Archie cares, he'll ask for permission, which has never, that I can think of, been refused, apart from in a very few cases of people much closer to the throne who wanted to marry someone deemed unsuitable at the time. If he doesn't care, he won't ask, and he'll be removed from the line of succession.

George could be married with children by then, in which case Archie will be out of the LoS anyway.

None of the Queen’s children or grandchildren affected by the law were ever denied. It’s just a formality. 

[Jackie3]

On 11/6/2023 at 7:18 PM, louisa05 said:

None of the Queen’s children or grandchildren affected by the law were ever denied. It’s just a formality. 

Yes, I think the tabloids were just excited at the idea of Archie having to grovel to William. 

 

On 11/6/2023 at 11:10 AM, viii said:

I hope they do care. After everything with Harry and Meghan leaving, it would be kind of funny if one of their kids wanted to return to Britain and take their place within the royal family. 

"But I'm a prince!!!"

Archie will still be in the Line of Succession, he just won't have to ask permission before he weds. 

I'm trying to figure this out. Harry and Meghan tell Archie how they were treated by the British media, and how they had to make a new life in CA. They share their unhappiness, their fear, their pain.

Archie reads reams of threats and slurs towards his parents on the internet. It doesn't really register with him. He doesn't realize that the press might be racist towards him, because he's grown up with love and acceptance. In a burst of youthful naivete, he decides to embrace his role as "prince" and re-connect with his british relatives. He thinks they'll all get along great!

You find it funny that M&H might feel badly about this. And it's funny that Archie might get hurt.

[DalmatianCat]

11 hours ago, viii said:

I hope they do care. After everything with Harry and Meghan leaving, it would be kind of funny if one of their kids wanted to return to Britain and take their place within the royal family. 

"But I'm a prince!!!"

That’s the movie I want to see! 🤣

”Dad! You’re keeping me from my destiny!”

[tabitha2]

I hope he at least teaches them something of their heritage and  Royal family traditions  other than how supposedly awful and stuffy and old fashioned and cold his family are, how they were always mean to dad and mom, Etc.  Because poisoning their minds against his family before they are old enough to form their own opinion by would be a real shame