HEIR TO THE THRONE

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4957, 18 February 1937, Page 6

HEIR TO THE THRONE

A CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFICULTY. PRINCESS ELIZABETH'S POSITION. London, January 23. It has been generally accepted that Princess Elizabeth is the heir presumptive to the English Throne, and that she will succeed her father King George VI. But after an anonymous talk by, a barrister-at-law, recently broadcast from Daventry, people in Great Britain have been surprised to find that a difficulty has been raised by constitutional lawyers about the succession. Everyone, both in Britain and the Dominions, had possibly supposed that if the present King died without a son Princess Elizabeth would without any question become Queen. But there is a constitutional difficulty, and it arises because Princess Elizabeth is not, as Queen Victoria was, for example, an only child, but has a sister. It is well known that in the order of succession to the throne a daughter takes rank after all her brothers, even those younger than herself. The same applies to peerages. For a long time past all peerages, except in very unusual circumstances, have been created in a way which makes it pos-

sible for sons only to succeed, but in mediaeval times they were not limited in this way, and there are a number of old peerages in which a daughter can succeed if she has no brothers.

But the succession of daughters is subject to a very curious rule. They do not take precedence among themselves according to their age as their brothers do, but they all rank equally. The result is that if a baron dies leaving no sons and * two daughters, the two daughters are equally entitled to the barony. A barony is indivisible, and cannot be split up, and accordingly in such circumstances it would, in the technical phrase, go into abeyance l —that is, it would be suspended. The only way in which it can be brought out of abeyance is by the King deciding between the two daughters, or between their descendants ,nnd reviving the barony in favour of the one he chooses.

It is not known for certain how and why this rule arose. It does not exist in the case of a Scottish peerage to which, if there are no sons, the eldest daughter automatically succeeds. Probably the explanation of it was that a peerage in mediaeval times was very different from what it is to-day. It involved feudal duties such as contributing so many men-at-arms for the King's service and leading them in person. Sometimes it meant administrative duties as well; the Earls of Hereford and

rembroke, for example, used to be very busy keeping the peace on the Welsh border before Wales was united with England. It seems probable that in such circumstances the King was not willing that any woman should succeed to a peei'age just because she happened to be the eldest of several sisters. He would pick out a sister who had a warlike husband capable of bearing his wife's burdens.

The question has been raised as to whether this rule, which all lawyers agree regulates the succession to all the ordinary titles of nobility, applies to the Crowns. The cases of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, who were half-sisters, and of the Mary who was married to William of Orange, and who was succeeded by her younger sister, Queen Anne, cannot be regarded as precedents. In both these cases the sisters did not take the throne simply by inheritance, but by a special Statute passed by Parliament to determine the drder in which they should succeed. The Statute which now governs the succession to the throne is the Act of Settlement passed in 1701, which established the House of Hanover, or, as it has now become, the House of Windsor. This Statute does not provide for a case like the present where there are two daughters; and it is argued that it ought to be amended in order to give Princess Elizabeth the right to succeed. Before 1931 the matter could have been dealt with very easily by the British Parliament amending the Act of Settlement in the way suggested. But since the passing of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, any alteration in the succession to the throne requires the assent of the Dominion Parliaments. If there is even the slightest doubt—as it is thought there is—in the law as it exists at present, that doubt should be removed.