A law in urgent need of repeal: the Royal Marriages Act – General History

A law in urgent need of repeal: the Royal Marriages Act

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A law in urgent need of repeal: the Royal Marriages Act

The Houses of Parliament / gothereguide.com

The Houses of Parliament / gothereguide.com

 Yes I know that the majority of you don’t give a stuff about royalty anyway but quite a few nations prefer their Head of State to wear a crown; some fine republics abound, where the H of S is elected every so often, such as the United States, France and Germany, but there are plenty of Presidents on this planet who would make a fine old mess of managing a small shop, let alone a nation.

    Now in Great Britain a hard law exists which is not as oecumenical as the Church of England claims to be: this law prohibits the heir to the throne (alone among all British subjects) from marrying a Catholic. It does not matter if the heir has not thought of doing so. The fact is that the law is insulting to the British monarch’s innumerable Catholic subjects, as well as being an even greater insult to common sense.

The heir to the British throne may not want to marry a Moslem either, but if Parliament were to pass a similar law preventing the heir from doing so the Race Relations Industry would blow its top. Once upon a time the dynastic houses across Europe married each other as if they all lived in one very large parish; they moved from realm to realm, rapidly acquiring the language and habits of whichever country they came to reign. Henry VIII, whose marital problems helped to cause the Reformation anyway, had royal ancestors from Sweden to Sicily, and from Iceland to Kiev.

But the Reformation struck down like a thunderbolt from Jove: The vast European royal parish was split into two family groups, Protestant and Catholic. From the early eighteenth century onwards, every beautiful Catholic princess was to be separated from every Protestant prince – handsome or ugly.

This anachronism still exists. On the Catholic side we have the ancient names of Hapsburg, Bourbon, Borbón, Bavaria, Wittselsbach and Savoy; direct male-line descendents of Louis XIV still reign in Spain and Luxembourg. On the other, Protestant side of the chasm stand the British,  the Dutch, the Scandinavians etc. plus the Protestant and Orthodox (treated as the same by the Church of England) – families Romanov, Hohenzollern, Baden, Hesse, Württemberg and Mecklenburg.

But there are mysteries: just how Protestant are the British anyway, from, the bloodline point of view? Prince Charles (future Protestant king, descends through no less than twenty-two lines from Mary Queen of Scots (a Catholic if ever there was one). Not only these, but are you aware that the great British ducal families of Richmond, Grafton, St. Albans, Bedford, Devonshire, Marlborough, Hamilton, Buccleuch (pronounced Buckloo), Northumberland, Leinster, Sutherland and Abercon ALL descend from Mary Queen of Scots through natural sons of Charles II (Catholic on his deathbed) and his brother James II (Catholic).

Where does that leave the Royal Marriages Act? Nowhere logical of course, but does it matter? Prince Charles, the present heir, has married two Protestants anyway; his son the future heir William has also married a Protestant. The noxious effect of the RMA is to remove from the hungry sight of Britain’s royal males much more than half of the beautiful and intelligent gels in Europe. This is illogical, not to say cruel. And it should certainly bring the Race Relations Industry into range.

About the Author:

‘Dean Swift’ is a pen name: the author has been a soldier; he has worked in sales, TV, the making of films, as a teacher of English and history and a journalist. He is married with three grown-up children. They live in Spain.

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