Royal Baby and Succession Rules-Part I

Yesterday morning I woke up to the most delightful news, Prince William Duke of Cambridge, (son of Charles, Prince of Wales and grandson of Her Majesty the Queen) and his beautiful wife Catherine Duchess of Cambridge are finally having a baby, this is the news that the world has been waiting for ever since their epic almost movie like wedding on April 29, 2011, monarchist all over the world and especially in the Commonwealth are celebrating with them in their happiness, for many of us the timing could not be more perfect, it seems like the perfect end to this Diamond Jubilee (or Diamond and Golden in Jamaica’s case see: http://jamaicatory.blogspot.com/2012/10/jamaicas-double-jubilee-2012.html) year in which London became  the Capital of the world hosting everything from the main Diamond Jubilee celebrations (other celebrations were held across the Commonwealth) to the summer Olympics and Paralympics.

Speculations of a royal pregnancy have been floating around ever since they first got married and even before the day of the wedding, these suppositions reached their highest point earlier this year while the Duke and Duchess were on a tour of the Pacific, but as many of these rumours were being spread by royal watchers I did not make much of it then, but now it has been confirmed by official sources from the Courts of Buckingham Palace, St James Palace and Clarence House, it is further stated that the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh are indeed very pleased but in my opinion I don’t think anybody is more delighted (a part from the couple themselves) than the Prince of Wales who is finally going to be a grandfather, heartiest congratulations goes out to him as well as to the parents

With the announcement of this news, issues with serious implications have been brought back on the agenda namely the rules of royal succession, ever since the royal wedding last year the British Government has been proposing the idea of changing the rules of succession from male preference to one of equal primogeniture a practice started by Sweden and has since spread throughout the rest of Europe (Sweden must be proud to be the trendsetters in something for once). Things got more intense  when their Prime Minister David Cameron made the same pitch at the Commonwealth Heads of Government in November 2011,  Since the monarchy is a multinational entity the United Kingdom  could never change the rules  on its own unless it wants to split the Crown but rather it head to wait to get unanimous agreement from all 16 nations under the Crown (together known as the Commonwealth Realms) from all indications it seem as though the Prime Ministers all approved the new changes. Since then no Realm Government has taken any further steps to make these changes an official part of their legislation by putting it before their parliaments they all claim to be waiting on Great Britain to make the first move.

The basic tenets of the Rule of Succession are spelled out in the 1701 Act of Settlement which basically states that the Succession of the Throne was that male primogeniture meaning that sons of the monarch have the right to succeed before daughters, it also guaranteed the Sovereign’s position as Head of the Church of England (Anglican Church) forbidding anybody who is Roman Catholic or even married to a Roman Catholic from ever wearing the Crown, this last bit was put in directly as safeguard from ever allowing the descendants of  James Edward Stuart, Prince of Wales from ever being ruler (or else instead of Queen Elizabeth II, we would have ended up with Francis Duke of Bavaria as our King Francis I), these are the laws that the Commonwealth Prime Ministers want to have repealed .

I can still vividly remember the  rigorous debates that took place last year across several monarchist groups and networks with many different royalist from all over the Commonwealth  giving their views,  to be frank if I remember correctly the issue almost split the monarchist world in half dividing it  into two main factions one side being liberal and modernist approve the changes to the succession rules while the other side was more conservative and traditionalist who opposed the changes and want the rules to remain as they are in the Act of Settlement ,we still have yet to come to a mutual agreement no doubt conservative  monarchists were fuming over the alterations of the rules (I know this because I was among them ). The modernist will tell you that it’s time to change the rules because it’s the 21^st century and it’s time to  eliminate that kind of bias based on gender and religion, in my opinion that in itself is a ridiculous argument because bias is  the whole point of monarchy anyway, that argument sounds dangerously close to the one put forward by republicans who claim that in the 21^st century  why do we still have a monarch according the to the manager of Republic ( a group of retards calling for the Commonwealth to abandon the monarchy) “the new changes still discriminate against everyone who was not born in the House of Windsor “ seems to me like the liberals are bordering on that kind of reasoning. Quite frankly the removing bias argument is a bogus one because all they are really doing is replacing gender based bias with an age based one so what kind of bias free system are they really talking about?, it’s better to leave well enough alone. The conservative  position is that  monarchy is something that should be based on tradition coming down through the centuries, or else what kind of monarchy do we have, moves like these only serve to weaken the power and influence of the Crown, next thing we’ll hear coming from them is a proposal that the Queen should no longer be considered sovereign, like they do in Sweden where the King is Head of State but the people are still sovereign effectively making it a republic in all but name, we in the Commonwealth Realms should not follow these trends but instead take steps to strengthen the position of our joint monarchy not weaken it.

On the matter of religion, some persons claim that the ban on having a Catholic monarch or even a Catholic consort does not seem to cause as much controversy as it used to, however the Queen’s position in the Church of England always comes up for debate, In this case the Queen has no official religious position outside the UK itself and as such the other realms are not as concerned with this issue. In my opinion I have no objections to the anti-Catholic rules although some say it’s not as relevant as it used to be in the 17^th or 18^th centuries, that may be true but growing up in a  staunchly anti-Catholic  church I was never a fan of the Catholics anyway and so am quite happy and content to never have to swear my allegiance to a Catholic ruler.

In concluding I congratulate Prince and Princess William once on their joyous news, I hope everything goes well with them and that the Duchess gives birth to a bouncing baby boy (yes I’m making a prediction from now) a worthy male heir to the throne, that will give the liberals something to go fume about, don’t get me wrong I’m by no means sexist I know women can also make great monarchs, the last 60 years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign is proof of that  but I still think that politicians tinkering with the rules is a bad idea and that succession to crown should remain exactly as it is now.