Regal Succession

As usual, much discussion and foot-stamping occurs towards the coronation. Down with Royalty! Royalty is the glue that binds us together! Charlie is a moron! Charles was into ecology before you were BORN. And so on.

The same conversations follow any Royal Visit to Australia or Canada. New Zealanders seem to be too busy getting on with herding sheep to BE sheep.

I had reason this week to research William III of England where I read “The danger was averted by placing distant relatives, the Protestant Hanoverians, in line to the throne with the Act of Settlement 1701”

Oh!

So that’s what they did in the old days to steer the ship of state in a different direction and away from the Hereditary Shoals.

You and I were not yet born when abdication of Edward II was in the news, but that too was a constitutional crisis. There was probably much discussion surrounding Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, back in February 1952, when the prospect of having a Woman on the throne was, immediately, unheard of. “I mean, no woman could be as good a monarch as Vicky, could she?”

You be the judge.

So here we are; we have had discussions about skipping Charles and going straight to William (lovely dynamic tree here ).

If I were a Real Historian I would have at my fingertips the many adjustments to succession since, at least, as late as William the Bastard.

But I don’t. So I think it pays to remember that to some extent the government (that is, you and I) can cause a change of course if we have good reason.

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