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Explainer: How royal children fit into the line to the British throne

Contrary to misconception, women CAN be heirs to the throne – it’s just that the boys go first. Until now, that is.

THE NEWS of an impending Royal arrival in the United Kingdom has thrown the country’s somewhat complicated succession laws back into the spotlight.

The laws governing who gets to be the monarch, and when, go back to the 17th century – while the throne itself, barring the 11-year interruption of Oliver and Richard Cromwell, has existed since the year 927.

The forthcoming royal birth has, however, caused some confusion among some – which is understandable, given the complexity of the line of succession as it currently stands, and plans to change it.

So – how does it all work?

Male-preference cognatic primogeniture – catchy, right?

What it all boils down to is the principle of ‘male-preference cognatic primogeniture’.

So what’s that? Promogeniture, in layman’s terms, means that the first-born child is the one which inherits a particular position – whether that’s as the owner of land, or the holder of a title, or in this case the position of being a head of state.

Cognatic refers to a mode of family descent including both male and female links. In this case, it is used to mean someone who descends from both a mother and a father. Of course, everyone has both a mother and father, but the theory is simple: the intent is to imply that the child cannot be illegitimate.

In order to be included, therefore, the child must be born to married parents.

The idea behind this is to ensure that a young prince’s infidelities, leading to the potential conception of a son or daughter outside of a marriage, cannot interrupt the line of succession. Imagine the ruckus that might ensue if a king was to learn that he had an older half-brother, whose entitlement to the throne meant that everything that king had done – like signing Bills into law – was legally void…

Male-preference is pretty straightforward: it means men take precedence over women.

That’s the long and the short of it. There are other criteria for being included – for example, the heir must be a Protestant, in communion with the Church of England, and cannot be married to a Roman Catholic – but largely it’s down to the family bloodlines.

A regular error

It’s often claimed that, despite the current monarch being female, a woman cannot be heir to the throne.

This, to put it simply, is not true: women are perfectly entitled to be an heir to the throne – they just get bumped down the list if they have any brothers, irrespective of whether those brothers are older or younger than them.

This means that under the current law, it doesn’t matter whether William and Kate’s child is male or female: it will be the third in line to the throne, jumping ahead of William’s brother Prince Harry.

This was the case when the youngest of the Queen’s four children, Prince Edward (the Earl of Wessex) had his first child. His daughter Louise was born in 2003, and was the 8th in line to the throne when she was born.

When her younger brother James arrived in 2007, she got bumped down a notch: James precedes Louise in the order of succession, simply because he is male. If the crown were to fall to James and he was to die without children, only then would Louise become queen. (And that’s assuming Edward and his wife Sophie don’t have any more children in the meantime.)

A working example

What all of this means is that if a King dies, the throne goes to their oldest son. If they don’t a son, it goes to their oldest daughter.

If they don’t have any children at all, it goes to their next eldest male sibling (who, presumably, was the second-eldest son of the previous monarch) – or, if they did not have any brothers, to their eldest sister, and so on.

If a deceased monarch doesn’t have any siblings or children, the crown goes back up a generation – to their uncles and aunts (again, with those uncles having been the children of another previous monarch).

This all means that nobody can ever be knocked off the list (unless they renounce their Protestant faith or marry a Catholic, of course). They can only be pushed down the list.

Queen Elizabeth II, for example, only had one sister – Margaret – and no brothers. (This is why she inherited the throne when her father, George VI, died. George’s two daughters were entitled to the throne before his two younger brothers could get there.)

Margaret died in 2002, but her two children and four grandchildren are the closest in line to the sitting Queen – so if the current Queen had never had any children of their own, the throne would fall to them.

If the Queen was an only child and had never married, the next in line would be her cousin Richard, the Duke of Gloucester. Richard’s father Henry, and the Queen’s father King George VI, were brothers.

A change is going to come

The current system has antique origins – the idea of male children being preferred to female ones stems, in part, from the ages where a king had a significant role as a military leader, and needed to be prepared to lead troops into battle against a rival kingdom or realm.

Last year, the heads of the 16 countries over which Queen Elizabeth is head of state (the Commonwealth) met in Perth, Australia, and agreed to change their respective laws so that male primogeniture had ended.

This means that (assuming the laws have been changed by the time William and Kate’s child arrives) even if the first-born is a girl, and later has a younger brother, she will remain ahead of him in the line of succession.

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44 Comments
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    Mute P Quinn
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    Jan 17th 2019, 6:34 AM

    This is what happens when you rush reforms. Wait until Juniour Cycle is fully operational – then there will be chaos. Reform should have started with bringing an element of project work at Leaving Cert. Now we have students doing a Junior Cycle that ill-prepares them for Leaving Cert

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    Mute Bruce van der Gutschmitzer
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    Jan 17th 2019, 6:45 AM

    @P Quinn: Ricard bruton will go down as one of the worst ministers for education ever. Teachers still don’t know how to implement the new Junior cycle and the ones training them in don’t know what they’re doing either. All to fudge the numbers to look good internationally. FG are a crowd of con artists.

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    Mute minorproblem
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    Jan 17th 2019, 7:23 AM

    The points race here is the problem not necessarily the lc or jc courses.. that’s where the pressure is coming from!

    I think some small adjustments to syllabus would help but largely it’s the whole cao system that the pressure is coming from. That’s what needs looking at here

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    Mute P Quinn
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    Jan 17th 2019, 7:33 AM

    @Bruce van der Gutschmitzer: totally agree. I actually don’t think the wider public are aware of what changes have taken place at JC. There is now only higher and ordinary level options in English, Irish and maths. Everything else is a common level paper. It’s forcing all students towards the middle and then they have to go onto LC. Bruton was a disgrace as minister, all initiatives and bluster.

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    Mute Bruce van der Gutschmitzer
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    Jan 17th 2019, 8:32 AM

    @P Quinn: 100% idiot. He’s a slithery shnake that helped and is helping suck the lifeblood out of teaching. He even looks like a chameleon.

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    Mute Deborah Blacoe
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    Jan 17th 2019, 8:52 AM

    @Bruce van der Gutschmitzer: I take it that you don’t like Mr Bruton? Perhaps you should use more reasoned argument to make your point rather than resorting to such a venomous attack. (No pun intended.)

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    Mute Bruce van der Gutschmitzer
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    Jan 17th 2019, 9:03 AM

    @Deborah Blacoe: I’ve no problem calling him that. I’m sure many others would too. FG have a policy of draining resources from education and then coming up with hairbrain ideas to counteract this to appear we are performing well internationally. Like health, housing and most things, education is crumbling.

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    Mute Bruce van der Gutschmitzer
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    Jan 17th 2019, 9:10 AM

    @Deborah Blacoe: a more reasoned argument-we have the worst investment in early education in Europe. Our class sizes are the highest in Western Europe. Less than 11% of our budget goes towards it compared to 13-16%, the European average. Pay parity has not been restored and teachers are continuing to leave for better opportunities. Less ppl are taking up teaching courses. We already have a huge skills gap and can’t fill positions in secondary and this will continue to get worse if investment isn’t increased dramatically.

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    Mute Deborah Blacoe
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    Jan 17th 2019, 9:49 AM

    @Bruce van der Gutschmitzer: Excellent reasoning skills! 10/10. Go to the top of the class. Sorry for that, couldn’t help myself. I hear you loud and clear. And I don’t disagree. I wonder what happens to politicians between when they start out on their political career and when they reach the dizzy heights of government? The political life appears to be the best learning ground for subterfuge and the most unwelcome forms of compromise. Mr Bruton was the first politician I voted for over 40 years ago. Both he and George Birmingham (now Justice Birmingham) were the bright lights in our constituency. I was never a ‘party’ person. My vote has always been a considered one, but I took an interest in Mr Bruton’s career. That bright star has dimmed a little. Such is life.

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    Mute Bruce van der Gutschmitzer
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    Jan 17th 2019, 10:56 AM

    @Deborah Blacoe: there was no offence taken, don’t worry. Agree 100%. Politics is a cesspit that would turn the most righteous of ppl into the biggest of mé féiners. I’d be aligned with the Russell Brand strand of politics and just scrapping the whole system and starting again after the failure that was Anglo being allowed to fail in the manner that it did. I just don’t trust most ppl that go into politics so quick without getting a rounded scope and view of the world. He just comes across as a careerist politician. Coming out with the shcuther that Ireland will be the best education system in Europe in 10 years when he has no plans to invest properly and implementing a new syllabus that has been proven to have failed but he decides to push on anyway because it looks progressive. We now have children who are less prepared for the leaving cert and will be under more stress compared to those before them. I anticipate that there will be higher suicide rate among leaving certs next year. That’s why I despise the guy. It’s all about optics.

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    Mute Deborah Blacoe
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    Jan 17th 2019, 11:24 AM

    @Bruce van der Gutschmitzer: the biggest problems with the current education system are that 1) it is outdated and 2) it is geared for winning points. The academic subjects introduced so far back in time, when the industrial revolution was happening across Europe, are the ones which earn most credibility. This path should no longer be followed exclusively. The development of the ‘whole’ child is imperative towards maximizing skills and options. Otherwise it will be a system which will increasingly polarize goals and waste the opportunity to nurture a cross section of abilities. The level of merit awarded to academic success by society has to change. Only then can we achieve the diversity necessary in our education system in order to fuel a changing workplace.

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    Mute sean o'dhubhghaill
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    Jan 17th 2019, 2:48 PM

    @P Quinn: Do you want some really bad news? If the present ‘reforms’ are deemed to be ‘successful’ there is a further plan to have completely common papers for JC English, Maths and Irish. So, never mind Foundation, there will be no Higher or Ordinary any more.

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    Mute P Quinn
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    Jan 17th 2019, 7:39 PM

    @sean o’dhubhghaill: that’s absolutely disgraceful and completely irresponsible

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    Mute CarlAnne Greene
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    Jan 17th 2019, 8:20 AM

    It’s called ‘dumbing down’ so everyone passes. While I agree we should be encouraging our youth, it’s another example of nanny state.

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    Mute Barry Zuckerkorn
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    Jan 17th 2019, 7:46 AM

    Both Micky mouse exams when it comes down it

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    Mute Gerard McDermott
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    Jan 17th 2019, 9:47 AM

    @Barry Zuckerkorn: They might be Mickey Mouse to you, but they are very important to those students that are sitting them, and cause many of them a lot of stress.

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    Mute Jason Byrne
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    Jan 17th 2019, 12:54 PM

    It’s mainly due to the increase in points needed for most basic courses in decent universities and colleges .
    Considering the maximum amount of points you can get for an ordinary subject is 56
    Taking basically everything in higher is the only option you have if you want a decent course.

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    Mute Gerard McDermott
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    Jan 17th 2019, 1:08 PM

    @Jason Byrne: For the most part, the points required is set by the students that get offered a place. If a course has 100 places and is filled on the first round, then the student with the 100th best points score will set the points – the last student to be offered a place in round 1!

    The problem is, as subject reform occurs, subjects often get easier. This allows the more able student to get more points, and points for courses go up.

    In certain instances, the Universities can cap the points level for a course.

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