Harry and Meghan what they’ll do next

[PelicanPie]

Let’s strive to keep on topic and not engage with posts designed to disrupt.

Oh and an important correction : you can’t change gender and get a title.

Well, I have learned an awful lot here. HM must have had so much to learn as a child about how this all works!

Some press are quoting the infamous sources today saying that The Queen is sensitive to Prince Harry's situation as the second sone to Prince charles having seen the way Princess Margaret struggled with this situation. This has been written about a lot but who actually knows what the Queen thinks but it is easy to understand why this is could be difficult to cope with.

As a child the second child is second in line for whatever title, in H's (an PA) case Prince of Wales and heir to the throne. Everyone treats you as befits the second in line.

As time goes on the importance of the first in line increases and will continue to increase as, in due course, those ahead of them in the succession age and eventually pass away. For the second in line though their importance steadily decreases and, as the first in line has children of their own they get pushed further and further down the pecking order.

Some, like Princess Anne seem to take this in their stride. (I would have thought she would have more reason to feel aggrieved having been second in line until Andrew and then Edward were born but she, on the face of it at least, seems to have just got on with it.

By some accounts Princess Margaret and Prince Andrew both found this difficult to cope with and insisted on what they considered to be their due in terms of deference etc.

Perhaps H, despite the happy go lucky personality we were used to seeing in public, found this more difficult to take that we would have thought.

My long winded point is that it isn't just the difference in "importance" or the final destination but that the gap gets wider and wider as the years go on.

As the preparations are made for the time when PC will take over from HMQ, the gap between PH and PW has been and will get wider and wider.

Sorry for the obvious points. Just working it out for myself

I’m finding the history & constitutional lessons here fascinating.

My long winded point is that it isn't just the difference in "importance" or the final destination but that the gap gets wider and wider as the years go on. Long winded, but very pertinent. Brought up with a certain sense of entitlement as the spare - only to become very much surplus to requirement as the true heir goes on to have more and more spares of his or her own (although, in the case of the Queen, all too aware how as the spare you may be unexpectedly be called to step up the plate as her own father was).

NOT Long winded, but AND very pertinent

There Lillian I fixed it for you.

Good post meercat

Yes, very interesting that the GRA doesn’t apply to aristocracy.
It’s almost as if it can be used very easily to nefarious ends, completely legally.
Fine for the plebs though!

I thought it worked that a man could become a woman and retain his inheritance?

Well, not become a woman but take a woman’s name.

Yes Lizzie I think that’s the case.
It’s a sex-based ‘right’, not a gender based one.

Lizzie yes I think that is allowed, but it isn't allowed the other way round, e.g. a daughter who is the first born in a family where the heir must be male wouldn't be able to 'identify as a man' and then become the heir. Odd really, almost as if it were designed to benefit men but keep women in their place...

Re the 'that's how heredity works' posts re Edward and the dukedom of Edinburgh, it isn't though, is it? That's a choice he's made and the queen has agreed to, to wait and be upgraded later - it's not protocol. He could have just chosen a different dukedom from the off.

Coloured me embarassed Dandy you're so right

Yes Buttery but Edward’s grown up in a family where his brother is waiting for their mother to die. So it’s probably not a sensitive area for him - just normal.

DeRigueurMortis

.... I truly believe if they had stuck it out, they could have been a very positive force for good and change wrt their Commonwealth roles.

Very late to thread and not been on any previous royal or specifically H&M ones, but I completely agree with the above comment. I also can’t help wondering what will happen to H if M ever decides she’s had enough and chews him up and spits him out....

Meercat very insightful post about the widening gap. It makes sense. Harry is just becoming a father and husband which will make him feel he needs to be more of a ‘grown up’ adult parent providing for his family and all that pressure happening very much in the public eye. He’s seen the royal options for that and doesn’t like them, his wife is probably giving him a glimpse into other ways life could be (but these are with very high expectations) neither of them seem to see that a lot of their previous profile stems directly from being part of the RF.

All this at the same time that William’s position as heir in the family and in the monarchy is consolidating and Harrys own role is becoming more ambiguous.

It makes sense Harry wants be more seen to plough his own furrow at this juncture but a real shame it seems to be being done so acrimoniously and naively and forcing him to go up against the royal machine which exists to replicate itself. It doesn’t seem at all like it’s going to get him what he says he wants.

He could really do with spending the rest of the year lying low and thinking about it all very carefully. However, given all the reasons of why he urgently wants to prove himself in the first place, he probably won’t do that.

However if the current peevish tone doesn’t change, he will end up painting himself into a corner that ends with signing himself out of the succession. That’s not at all where he wanted to be if you look at their original statement about stepping back in early Jan.

Seneca and others thank you I am learning a lot. Two questions: does the line of succession also dictate membership of the ‘working royal’ group? If Harry resigned from the succession, presumably he couldn’t then represent HMQ again as her blood relative only- unless on completely private family business? Second question, if you sign out of the succession could you ever sign back in (with the current monarch’s consent?)

I also can’t help wondering what will happen to H if M ever decides she’s had enough and chews him up and spits him out....

Can't remember where I read it, but is it true that he point-blank refused to sign a pre-nup as he believes this marriage is forever as he saw what happened to his parents? I can't think that the story is true, as they aren't legally binding in this country anyway, but there could be an element of truth in the thinking behind it.

.... I truly believe if they had stuck it out, they could have been a very positive force for good and change wrt their Commonwealth roles.

I genuinely do too. It’s such a shame how things have played out.

CallmeAngelina
No idea, but if true that’s pretty naive of him.... most marriages begin in a spirit of hope and optimism, but no one can stop their spouse walking out and filing for divorce

But can anyone "sign themselves out of the succession "? Isn't it just automatic? If this was an option, wouldn't the queen's own father have done it? In the extremely unlikely event that Harry was in the position to be king, wouldn't he have to abdicate to get out of it?

Re the 'that's how heredity works' posts re Edward and the dukedom of Edinburgh, it isn't though, is it? That's a choice he's made and the queen has agreed to, to wait and be upgraded later - it's not protocol. He could have just chosen a different dukedom from the off

He’s also completely relying on his brother to honour an agreement he’s made with their mother, and also assuming there will be no tragedies along the way

Edward may not get the title when Philip dies. When Philip does, assuming he dies first, his titles will pass to Charles. Only when Charles becomes King and the titles merge with the crown will the Edinburgh title be available again

So it’ll be Charles that has to give it to Edward

I think that meercat’s post is very apt. I think about the general expectation in non-royal families to treat all children and grandchildren equally to the extent possible because it is perceived to be a healthy approach. I know that I have tried very hard to do that with my children and that has continued as they became adults.

There must be certain challenges in growing up in a system that by its very nature puts far greater importance on certain children than others. I remember someone saying on MN that Diana always expected Harry to support William as the heir. I'm certainly glad that I didn't grow up in a family where the expectation was that I existed in some way as a "spare" and my role was to support a sibling or cousin or whomever. I understand that is the nature of a hereditary monarchy, but I also understand why some people in that system may think from time to time that it is not the healthiest environment for them and their families.

If this was an option, wouldn't the queen's own father have done it? He could have. In fact, there was talk at the time of skipping over him to another brother because of his stammer and his shyness. That would have been complicated, though, because of Elizabeth and Margaret's rights. Renunciation and abdication need to be ratified in Parliament so they would have had to deal with Elizabeth and Margaret as well.

I'm not sure about renouncing and then stepping back in. That is theoretically possible I think, but would require an Act of Parliament.

Several people in the line of succession in the Duke of Kent's family have dropped out of the line by becoming Roman Catholic.

The no coping with the widening gap makes sense especially when you look at the Insta post about being sixth in line. Really interesting posts about how it all works.

As to the stepping out and then getting back in, there is one recent example actually. Prince Michael of Kent married a Catholic and lost his place in the line of succession. That law was changed in 2013 to remove marrying a Catholic as a disqualification so Michael popped back in. It is still a disqualification to be a Catholic.

I wonder if the "heir and spare" nature of being children of the monarch or future monarch are one reason why Prince William and his wife have had three children. To avoid one feeling like the "spare" I mean.

Really interesting posts about how the hereditary system works in the royal family Seneca, DeRig and others.

Hearing that HMQ had to give HRH to the younger two children of Prince William and gave titles to Lord Snowdon and others lends weight to Packing and DateLoaf's posts yesterday around the perception of what it is to be Royal - whether this is a divine right (as in Shakespeare and it's posited believed by The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret) or whether it's a family role and responsibility as head of state (it seems believed by HMQ, PP and PC) or whether it is a job more akin to a senior Civil Servant with a lot of pageantry and history thrown in to appeal to the tourists and traditionalists.

I can imagine the communal exhale of relief that PW's first child was male could be heard all around Buckingham Palace. At least it'll be someone else's problem in at least the next generation to work out the rules

The complexity of the rules around titles, procedure and inheritance also shows why the Swedish royal family's "Prince/Princess School" as explained by Lunde would be a very good idea for any new member of the royal family. I too think H&M could have made the Commonwealth role their own and been good at it, but I think that ship has sailed, and sunk.