Talk:Duke of Albany

(First comments)

What about the creations (Earldom of Menteith) of 1258 (Menteith) and 1427 (Graham)? --VM 20:29, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, what about them? And why does 'Earl of Menteith' redirect here? Mapple 18:12, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Extinct?

(Cross-posted from Talk:Royal Marriages Act 1772)

Royal Marriages Act 1772 mentions the House of Hanover (suspended Dukes of Cumberland and Teviotdale) continuing to seek (and be granted) permission to marry under the Act. Has the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (suspended Dukes of Albany) not done so? Does this mean that the Dukedom of Albany (together with the Earldom of Clarence and Barony of Arklow) should now be considered extinct, rather than suspended, since there would presumably be no legitimate heirs (the marriages that would otherwise have produced such heirs being voided under British law (although of course not German law) by the Act)? Proteus (Talk) 21:27, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

See subsequent discussion at Talk:Royal Marriages Act 1772#Dukedom of Albany.

This is, at best, original research. I could give some reasons why I'm not convinced that the RMA would be read as strictly as User:Proteus suggests, but I won't go into it because the point is that this view is far from obviously correct and is unsupported by sources. If a reliable source can be found that espouses this viewpoint, then it might be mentioned here. Even if that is the case, the standard view that Hubertus is an eligible heir should also be mentioned unless a strong consensus of reliable sources is otherwise.

Regarding User:Proteus' rejoinder to the WP:OR criticism (here), I agree that the article should not state definitely (as it used to) that the heirs are eligible to restore the dukedom. Rather, the article should say that they are eligible to apply, without any statement as to whether the application is likely to succeed succeed. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 01:44, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I've reverted the changes made on the back of this; the cite requests only went in 2 days ago, so lets give it a chance.
Also, if the claim that the title is extinct is OR, the claim that the current heirs to the 2nd Duke have the right to reclaim is also OR. There is nothing that I know of that would says so one way or the other. The most we can say is that the then heirs to the duke had the right; whether that right was allowed to be transmitted to their heirs is entirely speculative. Is there any evidence any of them have ever asserted their right to claim if they wished? Some statement of pretence?
And I don’t see why the possibility of extinction is so outlandish: The 2nd duke took up arms against the king; in past times he would have been attainted, and/or executed, and that would have been the end of the story. So if the TDA gave his heirs the option to return, it was more an exercise in magnanimity than anything.
And there’s no reason to suppose the title won't be recycled to some other second son of some reigning monarch (this one springs to mind…) Swanny18 (talk) 19:53, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

PS Also, the list of “Heirs with the right to petition for restoration” is wrong; it should be these three. Swanny18 (talk) 20:00, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I added the cite request in the first place, then changed my mind after contemplating the magnitude of OR in evidence here. If I had simply edited in the first place, there would be no talk of cite requests, so let's leave that point aside.

You are correct to say that "the claim that the current heirs have the right to reclaim" is also OR. So let's not say that. Let's work to craft language that doesn't say things that may be untrue, in either direction.

Regarding the PS: that is only true under the theory that Johann Leopold's marriage is invalid and his children illegitimate. Such a thing was never the purpose of the Royal Marriages Act, which was intended to prevent members of the royal family from marrying unsuitably, not to punish a family for becoming estranged from the monarch. In any case, again, I'll take a stab at crafting the language so that it is properly neutral. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 03:21, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, I had no attachment to the previous version per se, just disagreed with the change.

I've had another go at this, as your version still assumes that the right to petition exists, which is also OR. The TDA refers to “the successor”; in 1919 that was Johann Leopold. I suggested it might include other male offspring who were alive then, but maybe not. The Act is silent on whether the concession extended beyond their generation or not.

And some comment on the Royal Marriages Act would be relevant, if only to say “the issue may also be affected by the requirements of the RMA” (because it evidently would) Swanny18 (talk) 18:58, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

PS I've added a bit to the 'list of descendants' title, but I'm wondering if the whole section should go. Swanny18 (talk) 19:02, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

As FactStraight notes below, a peer's "successor" is the senior heir of the original grantee of the peerage, as defined by the original grant of the peerage, as long as there is any such person. It should be assumed that the TDA meant this word to apply beyond the first generation, as that is the way things always work.

As for the "right to petition", my language was crafted under the theory that "it never hurts to ask". The persons listed are the agnatic descendants, and they may decide to petition. Whether the petition might be granted or denied (perhaps on RMA grounds) is left unsaid. Can we leave it at that?

I remain strongly opposed to any indication in the text that the legitimacy of Johann Leopold's children is in question, unless a reliable source is found that raises such questions. As far as I can tell, this point has only been raised thus far by WP editors, and I believe that WP should be reporting news rather than making news. See here for more on my reasoning. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 15:44, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

(I’ve replied to Factstraight below)

Who is questioning the legitimacy of JL’s children? No-one has said they are illegitimate, that isn’t what either the TDA or the RMA imply; they simply define whether someone is in the line of succession or not.

And “should be assumed” is well down the road to WP:OR. The TDA stripped CE of his title; it allowed for “his successor” (who in 1919 was JL) to petition for a return, providing he satisfied the requirements of the Act. That is verifiable; anything else is OR unless there is a source to back it. And running a statement about successors rights into a comment about the “current senior agnatic descendant” is synthesis.

Also, and contrary to what you are implying, it is the notion that the British establishment is just waiting for some German hobble-de-hoy to come knocking, so they can be given a royal duchy, that WP editors are "making news" with, not the reverse; as far as the sources go, this story effectively ended in 1919.

So, is there anything, anywhere, that says these descendants have ever asserted any right to this title? Or that this right is still recognized? Swanny18 (talk) 21:18, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

You are wrong about the RMA. It is not about the line of succession, but about whether the marriage in question legally exists in Britain. If the Coburgs are subject to the RMA (which is not demonstrated, as I've argued), then as far as the UK is concerned their marriages do not exist and their children are therefore illegitimate for all purposes relevant to British law.

I will leave it to the rest of the community to judge whether it is obviously true that "successor" refers to heirs beyond the first generation.

Finally, here is just one recent article that says Hubertus "is theoretically invested with the right to petition for the restoration of the title of Duke of Albany," which thus is "not technically vacant." --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 01:54, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with these observations entirely. I cannot concur in the earlier implications that the marriages of the Saxe-Coburg branch of the British royal family were exempt from the RMA (by what legal mechanism? "All the descendants of a British prince require the consent, even if he has become a foreign Sovereign and his family have lived abroad for generations. Thus the Hanoverian Royal Family, who are descended from George III's son, the Duke of Cumberland, who succeeded to the throne of Hanover on the accession of Queen Victoria, have regularly obtained the King's consent to their marriages," from "The Home Office and the Crown" Part I, a Memorandum submitted by Arthur J. Eagleston of the Home Office, the Memorandum being part of official File #HO 45/25238 that the Home Office had a standing order to consult whenever a "Royal Marriage" occurred); the legal case of Sir Augustus d'Este explicitly established the principle of British jurisprudence that RMA is applicable to the descendants of George II regardless of where they abide or marry. Alleging that the reasoning clearly articulated there can't be mentioned in this article on grounds of OR or SYN gags that principle, misrepresenting the marital and succession situations to WP readers. FactStraight (talk) 22:35, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you had produced this source in the first place, my stated opinion would have been different. Up to now, I have seen no sources whatsoever to indicate that the Coburg marriages might be invalid. It now seems clear that both views have sources in their favor, and thus that both should be mentioned with equal weight in the article.

My bad. In "royalty-watching" circles, these documents are so often cited that the view that the RMA applies to the Hanovers and Coburgs is taken for granted that it did not occur to me that proof beyond the plain face of the law was needed. And, as you note, there are dissenters (though I generally find that dissenters are those who know about the suspended peerages but have never considered the RMA relative to the Coburgs). In any event, you're right that the sources should have been adduced earlier. FactStraight (talk) 04:05, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Notwithstanding the Sussex Peerage case, which I knew about, my argument (you seem to have missed my link to it?) rested on the fact that the Coburgs were foreign sovereigns. As Eagleston also says, "it seems absurd that the King's consent should be obtained for a purely foreign marriage," and I had seen no sources to indicate that it was held to be the case despite the absurdity. The Farran exemption was my precedent to argue that the RMA might be read according to its spirit (applying to British royals and not to foreign ones) rather than its letter. I still think that this view might possibly prevail were it tested in court (which it has not been), especially given that recent reliable sources still indicate that Hubertus is in fact a legitimate claimant. But I now acknowledge that the view that the Albany peerages are truly extinct is possibly true and attested to by sources, and I thank you for drawing my attention to this very interesting correspondence. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 01:18, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I didn't miss your argument, but felt that it went a little far in applying the "spirit" vs "the letter" of the RMA. The Farran Exemption is generally deemed accurate but inapplicable because there are, again, comments by the Government that in these same files which state that the discrepancy Farran found have traditionally been ignored by the Government and therefore shall continue to be so. It isn't that the Farran Exemption is deemed by Wiki editors inapplicable, but that the Government has both in practice and dicta deemed it so, whereas no such "inapplicability" has been espoused by the Crown relative to the RMA's applicability beyond the Seas. FactStraight (talk) 04:05, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Another important distinction between the Sussex case and the Coburgs is that the former married on foreign soil in a deliberate attempt to circumvent the sovereign's disapproval of his wife, while the Coburgs did so simply because they were foreign citizens estranged from the British Royal Family. The RMA was crafted to deal with the former case, not the latter. Again, the question is whether the letter or the spirit of the RMA would prevail. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 03:36, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

(outdent)

BlueMoonlet: As far as your comment to me about legitimacy , I'd say it’s a bit of a Catch–22. FJ and his offspring are German citizens; there is no argument that they are not legally married or have legitimacy under German law (if that is the case), and presumably that would be recognized under British law as far as civil cases were concerned. But if the issue is what their place in the British aristocracy is, then legislation like RMA does start to apply; they would than be approaching the matter as (putative) British nobility. So they could be (at the same time) legitimate enough to claim (say) property, but not legitimate enough to claim a title.

As for the Telegraph quote (and leaving aside the suspicion here that journalists get their information from WP articles) it is, at least, a source. Are there any more you know of?

But (comrades) as interesting as this discussion is, it doesn’t get us any nearer to choosing the wording for a WP article. We aren’t constitutional lawyers (at least, I’m not), nor are we asked to be. It is pure speculation what would happen if one of these ever took it into his head to ask for this title back, (or, as is possible) someone tries to give it to somebody else.

And the articles on this subject are littered with OR; at Hubertus "He is the current heir to the Dukedom of Albany"; at Ernst leopold "He became the heir of the Dukedom of Albany at the death of his father in 1972"; and at Johann leopold "Notwithstanding either his morganatic marriage or his father's loss of the title under the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, John remained heir to the title Duke of Albany"; all of which needs to be fixed.

Also, it is interesting to see a couple of editors from the Great Republic arguing the toss over the rights of some European aristocrats, but there you go: WP is a continually surprising environment. Swanny18 (talk) 15:09, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Dubious line of succession

I've removed the "Line of succession to the Dukedom, if restored" section, as it seems entirely speculative.
Charles Edward was deprived of his British honours by the Titles Deprivation Act; there was no "right of succession" at all for his children, only the right to make a request for restoration, which would have been at the discretion of the British monarch. It would be entirely possible (I would have thought) for the Queen to give the title to someone else.
And the right would also, presumably,only apply to Charles Edwards children, not to all his descendents for the rest of time. So I've deleted Ernst Leopold, who was a grandson, and put in Friedrich, who was a son. I don't know where Hubertus fits in, but as he also "took up arms against the British monarch", I would have thought he'd be out of the running, as well. Swanny18 (talk) 19:08, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

The text of section 2 of the Act is "It shall be lawful for the successor of any peer whose name has been so removed, to present a petition to His Majesty praying to have the peerage restored and his name placed on the Peerage Roll; and His Majesty may refer such petition to a committee of the Privy Council constituted as aforesaid; and should the committee be satisfied that such person has incurred no disability under this Act, and is well affected to His Majesty’s Person and Government, His Majesty may thereupon direct that the peerage be restored and the name of the petitioner be placed on the Peerage Roll; whereupon all rights and privileges of the holder of the peerage shall revive and be in force as if the name of the peer had never been removed from the Roll."

This is slightly odd wording (How can a peer who has had his title removed have a "successor"? Presumably it means "person who would have been the successor".), but it does seem to mean that the person who can apply for the restoration is the person who would, but for the deprivation, be the substantive peer. What is unclear, as I have pointed out above (a discussion on which followed at Talk:Royal Marriages Act 1772), is whether there is any such person. The normal principle is that any person who is the child of a non-approved marriage is considered illegitimate under British law, and thus cannot succeed to a peerage. All the "heirs" to this title fall in that category. Proteus (Talk) 19:28, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

The "successor" is not to the peer, but to the peerage. Contrary to what is suggested above, if the peerage of Albany is not extinct, it has an order of succession as stipulated in the original grant, and has always had heirs, or "successors", pursuant to that order, regardless of how many generations that heir is removed from the suspended peer. The dukedom is not in the Sovereign's power to grant, withhold or dispose of other than in accordance with the original grant. Any petitioner, to take up the title, must be the rightful "successor": the Sovereign cannot initiate termination of the peerage's suspension, let alone "re-grant" it, nor is it open for any other descendant of the originally suspended duke to petition. The dukedom only becomes extinct if the line of succession to it is exhausted due to lack of current legitimate agnatic males -- a fact directly affected by the RMA. The verbiage in the Suspension law in which the petitioner is to "pray" to lift the suspension and in which the Sovereign "may" accept the petition, "may" refer the petition, etc., is, in my historical understanding, not to be taken literally, but was the 19th century's deferential way of dictating the Crown's role in the suspension process. But I can see how people reading it now might think it grants the monarch a degree of choice that I don't think was intended or was understood at the time: the "discretion" is explicitly reserved to the Privy Council Committee, in determining whether someone is "well affected" toward the Sovereign's "person and government", a political judgment which the constitutional Sovereign does not make personally. Given that the drafters of the law could have chosen to use words other than "successor" (such as "sons") if they had intended a different restriction than the normal entail of the peerage, I think their meaning here is clear. FactStraight (talk) 23:28, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The sovereign “cannot terminate, withhold or dispose of” a title? Where did you get that? there are numerous occasions when aristo’s have been stripped of their titles; these for example. All it takes is an Act of Parliament.

I never said "the sovereign cannot terminate, withhold or dispose of a title". Of course s/he can: George V stripped Prince Alastair of Connaught of the title of "Prince" and the attribute of "Highness" in 1917, George VI barred his brother's future wife and any future children of his from bearing the style of "Royal Highness" in 1937, and Elizabeth II did likewise to her own granndaughter. What I wrote was "The dukedom is not in the Sovereign's power to grant, withhold or dispose of other than in accordance with the original grant." I could have substituted "Any" for "The," and "peerage" for "dukedom", since this restriction is not confined to dukedoms and not confined to the peerage of Albany. I stand by that assertion. YMMV. FactStraight (talk) 23:50, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

So you didn’t say the sovereign cannot dispose of a title but you did say the sovereign cannot dispose of a duchy (or any peerage)? And you stand by this assertion; what assertion exactly? Or are we just splitting hairs, now? (and, YMMV?)Swanny18 (talk) 14:44, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

And you are (of course) at liberty to think an Act of Parliament is just “verbiage”, and “not to be taken literally”; you will forgive us if we take them a bit more seriously over here.

I will indeed forgive you for using the royal "we" while expressing your POV. And once again, I did not suggest that "an Act of Parliament" is "not to be taken literally", but that the portion thereof referring to the Sovereign's discretion is not a discretion one may assume, in a modern Act of Parliament, is actually exercised by the Sovereign. FactStraight (talk) 23:50, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

To get to some kind of point: This discussion is about whether, having stripped this title from its holder, the Crown is under any obligation to give it back. Are you offering an opinion on that, or just making a point about the phrasing being metonymical? Swanny18 (talk) 14:44, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Also, the meaning is clear; it just doesn’t mean what you are advocating. Swanny18 (talk) 21:23, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the meaning is clear; it just doesn't mean what you are advocating. FactStraight (talk) 23:50, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, at least we agree on something. Swanny18 (talk) 14:44, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Sources

This article has a lot of text with many facts, but only two sources. Of those, one appears to be a one-man, self-published website, http://www.heraldica.org/ . On the main page it says, Copyright © 1995-2003, François R. Velde. I'm going to remove that because it's not compliant with WP:V. The other source, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/8160509/What-will-William-and-Kate-be-called-once-married.html, has only one short paragraph on this topic. So the question is, where did all this information come from?   Will Beback  talk  22:37, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Much of the text comes straight from the deliberations and findings of the Home Office, as now on public file in The National Archives (UK). Francois Velde's site, Heraldica.org, has a reputation for meticulously compiling, excerpting, or translating into English data on royalty and heraldry, always citing the source. So that site is often used as a link when the original text is not online. FactStraight (talk) 08:04, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Personal correspondence is not usually considered as a basis for a reliable source, but this looks official. I don't know how copyrights works exactly in the UK, but in the US there's an automatic copyright on creative works which could apply to correspondence. Are we sure there's no copyright problem with problem that site?

Also, this is dangerously close to using primary sources. If we're relying on Home Office sources then we should probably be saying, 'According a letter from the Home Office...'

Lastly, are we delving too much into hypothetical situations? I realize it's inevitable in articles like this, but it should be kept to a minimum.   Will Beback  talk  09:16, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Home Office memoranda are generally considered authoritative background on the British government's handling of the matter in question at the time in question. Such commentaries can become dated, but that is true of any source and not a bar to citation. Government papers open at the National Archives are often quoted extensively in media and books precisely because the policy is to "sunlight" them for public use -- once de-classified -- and these HO commentaries are over 60 years old. In this case the true "primary sources" are the laws and letters patent which are being interpreted and applied by the HO. Since J.R. Dadd, the HO Warrant Clerk who compiled and partially wrote HO 45/25238, closed it with the note, "This file should be brought up on every occasion of a Royal Marriage, & treated as a General file", I don't think it's too hypothetical: it's analysis and guidance on Royal Marriages compiled for real use by the responsible Ministry of the Government. To be cautious, I'll add the language to the article you suggest. FactStraight (talk)

Text removed

I have removed this text:

"However, none of the children of the 2nd Duke, being estranged from the British Royal Family due to their German loyalties, asked the British monarch to consent to their marriages. Ordinarily, dukes are not required to obtain royal consent to their marriages, but the Dukes of Albany are descended in the male line from Queen Victoria and thus are subject to the Royal Marriages Act 1772. A strict reading of that act would hold that, even though Johann Leopold's marriage was lawfully contracted in Germany, it is null and void for the purposes of British law. If this is so, then the claim of the Dukedom of Albany passed upon Johann Leopold's death in 1972 to his last surviving brother Friedrich Josias, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and became extinct upon the latter's death in 1998.

It is unclear whether the Albany marriages meet the conditions specified by the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 to be considered valid under its repeal of the Royal Marriages Act, as the matter has not been tested in court and no authorities are known to have commented on the matter."

The question of the succession to the throne is an altogether different one from the question of succession to the Dukedom involved. Even if a marriage legally concluded in Britain or abroad falls foul of the Royal marriages act, it is still a legal marriage. It may not support a right to succession to the throne but the rights to Dukedom is not influenced by that. Furthermore marriages conducted outside of the UK and the Commonwealth Realms cannot be disqualified by reason of the RMA. Most European royals of today are descendants of George II and many of them in the Protestant line. Even more European commoners of today have the same qualifications. If this line of reasoning is followed all of their hundreds of marriages are null and void in the UK and CR's That is obviously an absurd conclusion. The more because countries have concluded agreements to recognise marriages closed in other ones and because the legitimacy an the marriages of most Protestant European royals of today are diplomatically covered by recognition from the UK and the CR's. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 18:07, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

It was established when the Augustus d'Este son of the George III's son, Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, unsuccessfully sued for the legitimacy and his dukedom pursuant to his father's otherwise legal but non-RMA approved marriage in Rome to Lady Augusta Murray, wherein it was legally ruled that the effects of the RMA attach to lawful descendants of George II wherever domiciled and wherever marriage is contracted. Failure to obtain RMA authorization from the British Sovereign renders the issue illegitimate in the UK -- both for purposes of succession to the throne, to peerages and for any and all other purposes, as also explained at Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark. FactStraight (talk) 23:57, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

A few things about that. The Duke of Sussex lived in 18th and 19th centuries and he lived in Britain where he had no other resources to "legalise" his marriage. The marriages of other protestant line royals that went to Europe and never bothered to ask RMA permission, were still implicitly recognized diplomatically by the UK for obvious reasons.

It seems to me that any restriction on the validity of marriages due to RMA failure is now null and void because it is superseded by international agreements entered into by the UK with other countries. The most important (but not the only) one being the UN Universal Declaration of Human rights. As this was adopted in 1949 when Johann Leopold, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, son of the last Duke, was still alive and married to his first wife, that marriage must have been recognized legally in Britain (albeit retroactively). The same goes for the marriages of his son and grandchild. And for Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark as well. One wonders what treaties were on the book in 1932 when the marriage of Johann Leopold took place. Do members of the Royal Family who are married to Catholic's ask RMA permission anyway? The Earl of St. Andrews is married to a Catholic and lost his place in the succession, but his son is still in line to the Dukedom of Kent. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 10:17, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

That's speculation: what evidence is there that marriages contracted in violation of the RMA "were still implicitly recognized diplomatically by the UK for obvious reasons"? I've never heard of any exceptions, so if there are any, can you please identify them? On the contrary, in the two cases documented, that of Prince Augustus, Duke of Sussex and that in 1946 of Prince George of Hanover, the British government considered that those marriages were not valid in the UK, regardless of how distant they were from actual succession to the Crown, and no subsequent declaration has contradicted those findings -- despite the fact that Prince Georg of Hanover has living descendants of his non-RMA marriage to Sophie of Greece. Marriages contracted in compliance with laws abroad where the wedding occurred have always been recognized as valid in the UK -- that's not some new post-1949 reality and it has nothing to do with any 1932 treaties. But the UK has consistently asserted that an exception exists with respect to successors to the Crown and I have seen nothing which "implicitly" contradicts that policy. Yes, members of the Royal Family and others covered by the RMA who marry Roman Catholics, although no longer in the line of succession, and their descendants do indeed still seek and obtain Royal Assent to their marriages in order for them to be legal in the UK -- that is true of, for instance, the 1999 marriage of Ernst August, Prince of Hanover to Princess Caroline of Monaco, and to several of the Kents (first affecting Prince Michael of Kent in 1978, where it was a scandal at the time because Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz was a divorced RC, but Michael formally asked for and the Government advised the Queen to grant permission for the marriage precisely because otherwise their children would be bastardsized for ALL purposes within the Commonwealth. FactStraight (talk) 18:00, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you FactStraight for your answer. I do see now how it works for those who marry Catholics. I do think however that it is straightforward that international treaties (like the UN treaty on universal human rights, and the similar provisions which rule Britain's adherence to the Council of Europe court in Strasbourg) have precedence before national law in Britain, as it has in may other countries. That is a well known fact. I do think that if Hubertus of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha would claim the title and would be refused because he would be (in UK law) a bastard in the second generation, he would win his claim either in a UK court or in the Strasbourg court. Simply because as everyone should know, International treaty obligations trump national law. Even in the UK! Gerard von Hebel (talk) 18:27, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Tell that to French Legitimists who have been denying the validity and applicability of the Treaty of Utrecht to the Line of succession to the French throne since 1713! Also, European monarchies which still discriminate in favor of males or of dynasts of a specific religion have generally concurred to international human rights treaties only to the extent that these treaties do not contradict their laws related to succession and successors to the Crown. FactStraight (talk) 18:42, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

I was just about to add something to my previous post when I read your new one. So please bear with me FactStraight. I was about to say something about what I meant with implicit diplomatic recognition of marriages by foreign royals in contravention with the the RMA. Please also bear in mind that I do not now claim to have sources that would validate me changing the article. It's now just about conversation. Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands. Her mother, grandmother and so on are supposed to be in succession to the UK CR's throne. I very much wonder if their marriages were RMA certified. I don't think they asked permission. Yet they were never treated as unmarried by the UK and CR's when it came to the diplomatic status. They and their spouses were regarded and received as such by the UK. That would fact would be meaningful in any court of law (if it became a matter brought therefore), since it is a diplomatic fact on the ground! About the French. This has really no meaning at all when it comes to matters like this. The French monarchy doesn't exist anymore and all matters between Orleanists, Orleanist Legitimists or ultra Legitimists are moot where international law is concerned, because France is a Republic now. Furtermore, any monarchy may choose it's own line of succession and rules of succession. This is not the thing we are discussing and it has nothing to do with human rights. The right to marry and the validity and mutual recognition tereof is an other matter altogether and a subject of human rights law! Gerard von Hebel (talk) 18:59, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

I think you should re-familiarize yourself with the ambit of RMA: you seem to think that it requires all descendants of past and present British monarchs to obtain the British sovereign's permission to marry and that, absent it, they are in violation of RMA. In fact, the RMA has a very narrow ambit, applying only to those who 1. descend from George II 2. Descend in the legitimate male line from George II or a subsequent British monarch 3. And to those who descend legitimately from a British sovereign through princesses who have married into British families (it is explained in earlier discussion on this page that the so-called Farran Exemption to this law has been consistently ignored by British monarchs and governments -- probably through ignorance of the applicability of the law since, unlike most German dynasties, the UK never codified rules affecting the Royal Family into a single, coherent house law. So in the second half of the 20th century Government ministers advised that the intention is for the Crown to continue to conform to that precedent). Therefore, Queens Wilhelmina, Juliana and Beatrix of the Netherlands were never covered by the RMA because they descend from George II through marriages of British princesses into foreign families (note that the RMA does not regulate the issue of marriages of British princesses "to a foreigner" but "into a foreign family"). Today, the RMA's ambit is construed as applicable only to descendants of Edward VII, as well as to those of Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (King Ernest Augustus I of Hanover) and to those of Prince Charles Edward, Duke of Albany (Charles Edward, sovereign Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha). The descendants of the latter two royal dukes who became foreign rulers are potentially subject to the RMA because of their male-line descent from British sovereigns, while those of Edward VI are included because he has living descendants both in the male line (the cadet Windsors, branches of the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent) and in female lines because one of his daughters, his son's daughter, and his son's sons' daughters married, with Royal Assent, into British families (except Princess Maud, whose issue constitute the foreign Royal House of Norway, and Princess Elizabeth of York, whose husband's (paternal) family was not British but inasmuch as she became sovereign as Elizabeth II, RMA compliance is imposed upon her children thereby). The Cumberland (Hanover) and Albany (Coburg) families only remained subject to RMA because of their royal British male-line descent: the Hanovers, conscious of this, have always sought and (with one exception -- Prince Georg of Hanover in 1947) obtained the Royal Assent required by RMA, whereas the Coburgs, at least since World War I, have not sought or obtained such permission (as is thoroughly explained in prior discussions on this page). So the examples you cite as evidence that marriages of descendants of British monarchs into foreign families are deemed valid in the UK are so deemed only because those persons were not covered by the RMA anyway. I mentioned French Legitimists light-heartedly merely to point out that the opinion that international treaties trump national law is 1. not unanimously held with respect to royal successios and 2. has been publicly, consistently disputed for centuries -- so it is no novel objection, even if you and I agree that it is not a prevalent or winning point of view. FactStraight (talk) 05:30, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your elaborate explanation. I've learned something new today. However I wasn't saying that the principle that international treaties trump national law is unanimously held with respect to royal successios. Just that it is applicable where the validity of marriages are concerned. I believe the UK explicitly recognizes the principle. About the French ultra Legitimists. From what I've heard the foundations of their claim lay religious rather than legalistic objections to the Peace treaty provisions of 1713. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 11:36, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

right to petition

Hello User:BlueMoonlet I disagree with your edits on articles about the Dukes of Albany. The legislation is very clear. People who needed permission for their marriages under the Royal Marriages Act 1772 and not obtain them have conducted marriages that can have no consequences under British Law. This has recently been discussed again on this talk page. I'm going to revert your edits for now, awaiting a secondary source that indeed explicitly puts the question in doubt. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 01:22, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

The matter was furthermore clearly demonstrated when the 2nd Duke of Cambridge conducted a legal marriage in contravention of the Royal Marriages act 1772. His sons were not only excluded from the succession to the throne but were also not eligible to inherit his peerages. In other places on wikipedia this is mentioned here and here.Gerard von Hebel (talk) 01:33, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

I concur in Gerard von Hebel's edits to this article based on the interpretation he provides above, and I once again dissent from the edits and interpretation to the contrary of BlueMoonlet for the same reasons; to wit, it is unjustifiably speculative to state or imply that the Dukedom of Albany has any current, eligible heirs in whose favor a petition to lift the suspension of the dukedom or to succeed thereto would be lawful, given that: 1. the RMA itself plainly stated (when the marriages of the 2nd Duke of Albany's children occurred), and subsequent judicial (Sir Augustus d'Este's Sussex Peerage case, 1844) and Home Office (Prince George William of Hanover case, 1946) interpretations of the applicability and effects of the RMA confirm, that marriages contracted in violation thereof cannot yield children who are legitimate under UK law and who, therefore, could have rights of succession to either the British crown or the Albany dukedom. 2. No reliable source has been cited which supports speculation contrary to the 1772 declarations of the law, the 1844 court ruling and the 1946 British Ministry file in this matter. FactStraight (talk) 08:16, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Neither the Sussex case nor the Hanover case is directly applicable, as Sussex was deliberately trying to circumvent the RMA while Hanover was trying to comply with it. The Coburgs simply ignored the RMA, presumably as having little relevance to them as foreign nationals. That the Cumberlands did differently does not necessarily pass judgment on their case.

That the descent of the Albany dukedom would be affected by this, as the 1946 Home Office memo acknowledges, "seems absurd." Such absurdities are exactly what the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 was meant to rectify. The Coburgs clearly meet three of the four conditions required by the SCA for a previously questionable marriage to be validated, and the remaining condition ("it was reasonable for the person concerned not to have been aware at the time of the marriage that the [RMA] applied to it") seems unclear to me.

To my knowledge, there has never been an official statement on the Albany case specifically, certainly not since the passage of the 2013 act, and so it seems reasonable to me to mention the history and state that its outcome is uncertain. I won't press the issue against consensus, though. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 17:50, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Interestingly, one of the articles you cited, FactStraight, seems helpful to my case. The Doctrine of Absurdity holds that the plain meaning of an act need not be applied if it yields absurd results that clearly were not intended by Parliament. The Albany case seems likely to be such a situation. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 17:56, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

At the very least, I object to language that definitively states that no living Coburg has any right to the Albany dukedom. There is no source for that either. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 17:58, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

What the intention of legislation (the SCA or the Plain meaning rule) may or may not have been doesn't get us any further I think. Fact is that the RMA 1772 and jurisprudence has had clear consequences as described in the articles. The SCA will treat marriages whose consequences were void under the RMA as not having been void under certain conditions. It's anyone's guess what the intention of that legislation was, but if it had been the intention of this legislation to undo these consequences in particular cases (like the right to petition for the reinstatement of lost peerages) it could (and would) have unequivocally done so. As it stands now the condition that "in all the circumstances it was reasonable for the person concerned not to have been aware at the time of the marriage that the Act applied to it", doesn't bode well for the marriages conducted by sons of a British Prince and former Royal Duke, and is for most (if not all) cases more exclusive than inclusive. It may (but that is speculative) have some bearing upon the situation of the status of some marriages conducted by more remote descendants of George III, Victoria, Edward VII and George V (relatives of the Cambridge's (the Abel-Smiths's), Mountbattens, the Duff's and Carnegies (Fife) or the Lascelles) that were required to ask permission but somehow didn't, but it cannot be said to have had the intention of changing the situation for the Saxe-Coburgs. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 15:43, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't see that the SCA needed to be more specific than it is. If a marriage is legal, then it is legal for all purposes. There was no need to mention families specifically. As for being the sons of a British Prince and former Royal Duke, yes, but they were also part of a family that had been estranged from the British royal family for all the adult life of that generation. Whether the argument would be persuasive cannot be known until it is tested in court, and cannot even be guessed at unless an expert were to weigh in on the topic. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 16:19, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Sorry for necromancing user:BlueMoonlet, but I don’t think the judicial consequenses of the RMA have entirely dissapeared with it’s repeal. Specially because the new Law, the SCA specifically states that marriages that could not have legal consequences in the UK are only validated under the present law (SCA) on the condition that “it was reasonable for the person concerned not to have been aware at the time of the marriage that the [RMA] applied to it". It seems to me that all persons involved in those marriages were Princes or Princesses of the UK at the time these marriages were closed. Or at least children of UK princes or princesses. I cannot even imagine how these people would not have known this! Reasonably! It is therefore rather unlikely that the descendants of the last Duke can request reinstatement of the title. At the very least that cannot be considered as adjudicated at this point Gerard von Hebel (talk) 19:00, 10 October 2019 (UTC)