Posted here, because it could be a conspiracy…

Gordon Brown is considering repealing the 1701 Act of Settlement as a way of healing a historic injustice by ending the prohibition against Catholics taking the throne.

But doing so would have the unforeseen consequence of making a 74-year-old German aristocrat the new King of England and Scotland.

Without the Act, Franz Herzog von Bayern, the current Duke of Bavaria, would be the rightful heir to the British Crown under the Stuart line.

The bachelor, who lives alone in the vast Nymphenberg Palace in Munich, is the blood descendant of the 17th-century King Charles I.

“If it [the Act] goes then the whole Catholic line is reinstated,“ said Prof Daniel Szechi, a lecturer in early modern history at the University of Manchester.

“Franz becomes the rightful claimant to the throne. We would just exchange one German family for another one.“

The Act was introduced as part of the power struggle between Parliament, the Christian churches and the monarchy, then dominated by the House of Stuart.

It prohibits any Roman Catholic from having access to the throne, even through marriage. Once a person marries a “Papist” they shall be “for ever incapable to inherit, possess or enjoy the Crown”, it asserts.

The legislation effectively severed the Stuart line of succession, a family who favoured Catholicism, and switched it to their distant relatives the Hanoverians, from which our current Queen descends. James II, the son of King Charles, fled into exile.

The Stuarts stopped making claims to the Crown after the death of Henry Benedict Stuart (known to the Jacobites as Henry IX) in 1807, but there remains bitter feeling among many Catholics at their treatment.

The Royal Stuart Society still holds annual vigils at the bronze statue of Charles I in Trafalgar Square.

The Act of Settlement’s reach continues today. Prince Michael of Kent renounced his claim to the throne when he married Marie-Christine von Reibnitz, a Catholic divorcee, in 1978.

Next month Peter Phillips, 30, the eldest grandson of the Queen and 11th in line to the throne, will automatically lose his birthright by marrying Autumn Kelly, a Canadian Catholic.
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The Act has recently come under attack from Church leaders and MPs, in particular Scottish MPs, as an unjustifiable discrimination.

In the face of this new pressure, the Prime Minister indicated he would consider abolishing the legislation as it was “antiquated” and discriminatory.

Full Story

Hmm.. I may have to pay attention to this.. I’ve got a pretty much straight shot to the Stuart nobility through my grandmother. I may qualify as a Duke or some such..

I don’t understand.  Repealing the act simply means Catholics can now assume the throne.  I’m missing the part where it automatically reinstates Charles’ line.  Sure they would have the right to make a claim for the crown (and assuredly be denied), but how do they figure to oust the current royal family?  That usually involves bloodshed, and I don’t see that enjoying too terribly much popular support.

Charybdis - 08 April 2008 06:37 AM

I don’t understand.  Repealing the act simply means Catholics can now assume the throne.  I’m missing the part where it automatically reinstates Charles’ line.  Sure they would have the right to make a claim for the crown (and assuredly be denied), but how do they figure to oust the current royal family?  That usually involves bloodshed, and I don’t see that enjoying too terribly much popular support.

Interesting you mention bloodshed, [dejavu] since there are two princes… [/dejavu]

Yeah, but they can arm wrestle for it.

Charybdis - 08 April 2008 06:37 AM

I don’t understand.  Repealing the act simply means Catholics can now assume the throne.  I’m missing the part where it automatically reinstates Charles’ line.  Sure they would have the right to make a claim for the crown (and assuredly be denied), but how do they figure to oust the current royal family?  That usually involves bloodshed, and I don’t see that enjoying too terribly much popular support.

You’re correct.

The act only prevents Catholics from inheriting the joint throne of England and Scotland (and by extension Wales and later Northern Ireland and the Commonwealth). All it would mean is that future monarchs could be Catholics and Catholic claimants wouldn’t be disqualified due to their faith. It would not remove the current line.

But as usual, the media jumps on a small footnote in the political agenda and just makes things up.

Yeah. . .if removing the ban would retroactively make this guy potentially king, then the same could be said for literally thousands of other people.  If the House of Stuart could simply be reinstated and the incumbents kicked out, then why not one of the pre-Norman lines?  Think of how many people there probably are out there today who are related in some way to Edward the Confessor.

Accipiter - 13 April 2008 10:13 PM

Yeah. . .if removing the ban would retroactively make this guy potentially king, then the same could be said for literally thousands of other people.  If the House of Stuart could simply be reinstated and the incumbents kicked out, then why not one of the pre-Norman lines?  Think of how many people there probably are out there today who are related in some way to Edward the Confessor.

Not many. I hear he fought for the other army nudge-nudge…

Maybe we Dutch should take over again.