Talk:Duke of Albany

message: What about the creations (Earldom of Menteith) of 1258 (Menteith) and 1427 (Graham)? --VM 20:29, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, what about them? And why does 'Earl of Menteith' redirect here? Mapple 18:12, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: (First comments)

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
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