The articles of the past few weeks regarding Charles and Camilla have sparked quite a few impassioned emails – my favorite kind. One letter from our reader, Professor Bowles, summed up another issue the Charles and Camilla union faces very succinctly. ‘Under the terms of the Royal Marriage Act of 1772, Charles must have the Queen's permission to marry. There is no way around this & it has nothing to do with whether they are eligible to marry in any particular church. The only loophole is that Charles could attempt an end run around the Queen by appealing directly to the Privy Council but that would require the permission of both houses of Parliament. Since this act has been in effect no monarch's decision has ever been overturned.’ This intrigued me as I thought of Edward VIII abdicating to marry ‘Cinderella Wallis’ and of our dear, young Princess Margaret and her true love, Group Captain Peter Townsend.

Well it all started back with King George III whose life has been remembered for not only losing the American Colonies, but for his twelve children with Queen Charlotte and his porphyria, a disease which causes one to appear mad and pee blue – not exactly a comforting combination. Anyway, King George did not get on well with his sons and was not pleased by the marriage of his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, to a person he considered unsuitable for so noble a role as member of the royal family. As the Act itself reveals in its opening lines ‘royal concern for the future welfare of your people, and the honour and dignity of your crown’*, drove George III to take it upon himself to introduce of the Royal Marriage Act. According to author, Olwen Hedley, "The act required all descendants of King George II, other than the issue of Princesses marrying into foreign families, to obtain the sovereign's consent before marrying, although such descendants over the age of twenty-five might do so without royal approval if twelve months' notice had been given to the privy council and provided parliament made no objection. It threatened any persons assisting at an unapproved union with the medieval penalty of premunire, which entailed forfeiture of possessions and imprisonment at the King's pleasure. **" (Sounds like Charles could lose the position of Duke of Cornwall and all its entitlements if he went the secret wedding in Scotland route.)

The Royal Marriages Act received the royal assent on March 25, 1772. This caused the marriage of the then Prince of Wales, George IV, and his Catholic wife, the twice widowed, Maria FitzHerbert to be kept in complete secrecy. Of course when George was cash strapped, upon Parliament’s promise of buying him out of debt, he agreed to the illegality of the marriage and further agreed to marry Princess Caroline of Brunswick, his first cousin. Now we’ll fast forward to George V, creator of the House of Windsor, and the affect this Act has had upon it. Well it had none on the union between him and his wife, Queen Mary who was hand chosen as the future Queen of England by none other than Queen Victoria. She and King George V dutifully married and unexpectedly fell in love. All was not so perfect for their eldest son, David, who known as Edward VIII, abdicated on December 12, 1936, before ever being crowned King, in order to marry the woman he loved.

David’s story is a sad one for when at forty years of age he finally found himself in love it happened to be with a divorced American, Wallis Warfield, while she was still married to her second husband, Ernest Simpson. Their affair was considered too scandalous to be published in the British papers at the time, but the rest of the world had a field day exploiting it. When the King decided he would marry Wallis, her husband Ernest agreed to give her up if the King would promise he would always take care of her. In a second act of gallantry, Ernest allowed the divorce to be pursued on the grounds of his own infidelity with Wallis’ lifelong friend, Mary Kirk Raffray.

According to his autobiography, ‘A King’s Story: Memoirs of the Duke of Windsor’***, David agreed to propose a morganatic marriage between he and Wallis convinced it was the only way the Parliaments would endorse the union. He describes his predicament in this passage, "In theory the Prime Minister had no power to prevent my marriage. He could only proffer "advice" as to what in the Government’s opinion constituted a proper course for the King." He concludes, "However, if, in the exercise of his undoubted powers, he chooses not to accept the "advice" thus formally tendered, then his Ministers resign, and he must try to form a new Government from the Opposition…" There was much behind the scenes political rancor involved and David felt that to leave the throne would be less disruptive than to take Wallis as his wife and consort while still upon it.

The next consequence of the Royal Marriages Act to make headline news was in 1953 -- it also evoked very high emotions in the people. It was at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on June 2^nd, 1953 that a journalist reported on the familiar behavior of Princess Margaret and Group Captain Peter Townsend. At the time a great majority of the people felt that Princess Margaret should be able to marry the man she loved, even if he was divorced. This again had many political undercurrents as Princess Margaret was now third in line for the throne after Elizabeth II’s children, Charles and Anne. In the event that something did happen to the Queen, Prince Philip would have been able to act as regent for the children. I believe the people felt sure in the heirs that the young, healthy Queen and her consort had produced thus swaying public opinion in favor of the lovers. Still, there was the ‘medieval penalty of premunire’ in which the sovereign could remove all possessions and throw the ‘victim of love’ into a royal prison for the rest of their lives. Princess Margaret chose life without the man she loved over life without a title, civil list salary and many of the other perks of being the younger sister to the Queen.

Which still leaves us with Charles, the current Prince of Wales, whom two readers wrote to remind me plans to take the throne as George VII to stave off the curse of being ‘Charles’. He seems to be far more patient than the others in waiting for what he wants. Last summer Queen Elizabeth II, had an informal meeting with Camilla at a birthday party for King Constantine of Greece, at Highgrove. It was a HUGE deal. People were speculating on whether or not this signaled the Queen nearing a decision to grant them permission to marry. The BBC ran a report that, in part, speculated, ‘The Prince does not need the consent of the Queen but if the Royal Assent was withheld he would have to give a year's notice to the Privy Council. Lord St John added: "This is a clear indication that the Queen would not use the Royal Marriages Act in this way. The Queen is cool in her judgment and she would have assessed the whole issue. She has clearly concluded that the time has come for them to end what has been a point of contention." I’ve long been of the opinion that the Queen wants to give the son she loves whatever it will take to make him happy. That as where she was able to be far more logical in her decision about Princess Margaret, she is unable to separate her deep feelings for the son she takes great pride in and her role as monarch. It is probably the most human side of the Queen we shall ever see, besides those rare glimpses into her psyche -- like the one she provided in her 2000 Christmas Broadcast.

Little did George III know that 200 years on, in 1972, his descendant, Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales, the man who would like to ascend the throne as George VII, would fall for a woman who would be deemed an ‘unsuitable’ member of the royal family. Who would have ever thought that an Act decreed almost 230 years ago could still have such a profound affect on the entire family. Perhaps the future Charles VII would have the best shot at making Camilla his wife and consort by waiting until he comes to the throne and repealing the Royal Marriages Act of 1772. What do you think?

* Link to the Royal Marriages Act http://crash.ihug.co.nz/~awoodley/regency/royalmarriage.html

** Excerpt from Olwen Hedley, Queen Charlotte. London, 1975. p. 115.

*** A King’s Story: Memoirs of the Duke of Windsor is still available in paperback. This quote is from page 343 of the hard cover edition.

-- Eileen Sullivan --