The 'In's' & 'Out's' Of An Unequal Marriage! Wills & Kate Are Lucky For A More Relaxed Genealogical Attitude!

As an esoteric; there is a side of me that pushes the ‘black & white, no gray area’ mindset to the shadows and allows me to have a bit of a ‘dabble’ in the fantasy of ‘what if’,  something that I tend not to do that often, as I rarely indulge in such things to be honest.  My mind works in a methodical research fact oriented way, wavering and swerving from the straight course is not my style.

However, the upcoming nuptials of Wills and Kate got me to thinking in more of a 19^th century demeanor.  That being said, juxtaposing this 21^st century couple against the late Victorian age proves a bit dicey with regard to acceptance on a level of equality. 

Until the mid-20^th century and after two World Wars, marriages of this sort as a whole were traditionally not tolerated on the continent, and to some degree in England they were allowable, but only just. It was primarily due to the influence of Queen Victoria that the view on unequal marriages was considered outdated and a trivial anachronism from the past.

In fact, she thought it was a good idea to thin out the ‘weak & puny’ blue blood with a solid injection of that of a darker strain to improve the stock.  Clear indication of her thoughts on this subject were presented when Princess May of Teck became her first choice and was suggested as the possible fiancée for her eldest grandson in the male line, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, and upon his death, the next heir and younger brother, Prince George, Duke of York.  Victoria felt that Princess May’s ‘Hungarian blood’ was just what was needed to counter the effects of what she considered the weaker Danish royal genes that Alexandra brought to the family. 

Additionally, the concept of morganatic marriage has never clearly existed in any part of the United Kingdom. It was more of a continental custom. That being said, all four of Elizabeth II's children have married people of non-royal status, with no effect on the order of succession. Granted, with the exception of Timothy Laurence and Sophie Rhys-Jones, the former spouses of Elizabeth’s brood have connections with the aristocracy of the realm, raising them slightly above the masses, although Mark Phillip’s claims to the landed gentry are tenuous at best.

Automatically receiving a ‘title upgrade’ upon marriage, wives of British princes are entitled to use the feminine form of their husbands' peerage and hereditary titles. Camilla, as the second wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, legally holds the title ‘Princess of Wales’, but at the time that the engagement was announced, it was declared that she would be known by the title ‘Duchess of Cornwall’ (derived from one of the other titles her husband held as heir apparent) in deference, it has been reported, to public feelings about the title's previous holder, the Prince's first wife Diana. It was simultaneously stated that at such time, if any, that her husband accedes to the throne, she will be known as ‘Princess Consort’ rather than 'Queen', although as the King's wife she would legally be Queen. The use of these lower titles does not denote a morganatic marriage. The ultimate test will be whether she participates in Charles' coronation, and if so, whether she is crowned as Queen.

It has been suggested that William, Prince of Orange, expected to have a strong claim to the throne of England after the Duke of York during the reign of Charles II. In fact, the Duke's two daughters from his first marriage, Princess Mary and Princess Anne, were considered to have the stronger claim by the English establishment. William's expectation was based on the continental practice of morganatic marriage, since the mother of both princesses, Anne Hyde, was a commoner and a lady-in-waiting to William's mother, Princess Mary Stuart. It was by his mother, a sister of Charles II and the Duke of York, that William claimed the throne, because, to his mind, the son of a princess had a stronger claim than the daughter of a commoner. It was to shore up his own claim to the throne that he agreed to marry his first cousin, Princess Mary. When James II fled at the Glorious Revolution, William refused to accept the title of ‘King Consort’ (which Philip II of Spain had been granted under Queen Mary I in the 1550s) and insisted on being named King in his own right. The compromise solution involved naming both to the crown as the only joint rulers in the history of England.

The marriage of King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson was not to be morganatic, although Edward had proposed this expediency to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, who rejected the idea after consultations with the governments of the Dominions. Ultimately, as history shows us, Edward renounced the throne for himself and his descendants, which was given effect by His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936, and he was created Duke of Windsor on March 8, 1937.

Another marriage which might arguably be regarded as morganatic was between John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. When they married after co-habiting for several years all children born previously were subsequently legitimated by Act of Parliament. King Henry IV later declared that they could not inherit the crown, but it is not clear that he had the right to do this. This marriage was important, as King Henry VII was descended from it, but Parliament declared that he was king by ‘Right of Conquest’, so some issues remained unresolved on this very point.

The Royal Marriages Act of 1772 made it illegal for all persons born into the British royal family to marry without the permission of the Sovereign, and any marriage contracted without the Sovereign’s consent was considered illegal and invalid. This led to several prominent cases of British princes who had gone through marriage ceremonies, and who cohabited with their partners as if married, but whose relationships were not legally recognized. As a result, their partners and children, the latter considered illegitimate, held no titles, and had no succession rights. This differs from morganatic marriages, which are considered legally valid.

Even taking the relaxed approach of the British royal family’s view on testing the boundaries of the rules that determined ‘equal & unequal’ marriages, even they would have been hard pressed to view Kate as anything less than unacceptable and purely on the basis of her ancestral antecedents and station in life, which if we compare ‘apples to apples’ and ‘oranges to oranges’ her family would have come from ‘trade.’  Even Victoria herself would have been hard pressed to countenance such a marriage.  Her son, Edward VII would have vetoed it out hand. 

If this marriage were taking place in 1891, Catherine Elizabeth Middleton would have been in all likelihood not as enthusiastically received as she is today and Prince William might have been required to renounce his place in the succession, based on Kate’s inequality.

With that being said, everyone can breathe a collective esoteric sigh of relief that she will indeed join the ranks of the House of Windsor and give them the boost they desperately require.

However, digressing a bit, it is fascinating to review the article below and determine out differently such matters were viewed in the past.

MORGANATIC MARRIAGES

They Are Perfectly Legal In The Eyes Of The Church

Providence News

August 15, 1898

It must be thoroughly understood that, apart from the court laws, morganatic marriages are perfectly good and lawful.  They are recognized and celebrated by the Protestant, Greek, and Roman churches.  No stigma attaches to the wife in the eyes of the world.  There is nothing to prevent her being received as the lawful wife of her husband at the court of his family if the head of his family so wishes, and questions of precedence can be settled by conferring on her some title which will give her a definite rank of her own.

On the other hand, by the court law that marriage never had any binding force at all!  Therefore, if the man chooses to be a scoundrel either for his own purposes or because his family insist that he must marry in his own rank in order that he may continue the line, it is not necessary to take any legal steps to establish his independence.  He need not even inform the unhappy lady of his intention.  And when we consider the extreme hardship of her position, we must also remember that the rule is as old as the oldest of the reigning houses of Germany, and is as well known as the law of military service.  The victim of a morganatic marriage can no more plead that he (for the rule applies equally to men) or she did not know the possibilities of the position than the peasant who deserts his regiment could urge that he was not aware that the thing was punishable.

A notable case in the last ten years is that of Prince Oscar of Sweden, who fell in love with Miss Ebba Munck, the pretty daughter of one of the Swedish ministers, and insisted on marrying her.  The marriage, of course, was morganatic; the wife did not become a member of the royal family, and the children would never inherit the throne.  On the other hand, the king and queen thoroughly recognize this lady as their daughter-in-law, and treat her with the utmost affection.  The king, moreover, has conferred on the pair the non-royal title of Prince and Princess Bernadotte.  Another instance is that of Princess Frederica of Hanover, who fell in love with and married her father’s court physician in defiance of her family, who made every effort first to stop the marriage, and secondly when it was accomplished, to induce the Princess to repudiate it.  Another quite recent case is that of the Grand Duke Michael of Russia, who married morganatically a German lady of noble but non-royal birth. The late Czar commanded the Grand Duke to give her up and marry within his own rank or be banished from Russia. The Grand Duke preferred exile with his wife, who has been created Countess Torby by the King of Bavaria in order to relieve her of the humiliation of being obliged to use her maiden name still.

Grand Duke Michael & The Countess de Torby

The reasons why Prince and Princess Edward of Saxe-Weimar, Princess Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg and her son Count Gleichen reside in England, and Prince and Princess Louis of Battenberg follow the British fleet are these: In the first case, Prince Edward is married to a sister of the Duke of Richmond and Gordon; in the second, Prince Victor’s widow was a daughter of a Marquess of Hertford; in the third, Prince Louis being the son of a morganatic marriage, is not on the royal level.  All these marriages are morganatic, with the result that in Germany, Princess Edward would be known as Countess Dornberg (a title conferred on her after her marriage): Princess Victor would be merely Lady Laura Seymour, and her son would have not title at all; while Princes Louis would be styled Princess Victoria of Hesse, just as if she were unmarried.  Some idea of what can be done in circumstances like this may be taken from the case of the late Grand Duke of Hesse, who after the death of his first wife (our Princess Alice), married morganatically a lady of non-royal birth.  A few days after the ceremony he dismissed her.

Prince Eduard of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach 

Princess Eduard of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

née Lady Augusta Gordon-Lennox

Prince Viktor zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg

Princess Viktor zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg

née Lady Laura Seymour

Neither the common nor the court law of England recognized these distinctions, and marriages with subjects were by no means uncommon up to about a century ago.  Queen Mary II and Queen Anne were both the daughters of the marriage between James II and Anne Hyde, daughter of Lord Chancellor Clarendon.  George III, however, had German ideas and resented some alliances of this kind.  He got a law passed, called the Royal Marriage Act, which declares that members of the royal family in the line of succession could not marry without the consent of the crown before they attained the age of twenty-five.  This law did not create a caste, it only imposed a condition.  The difference between it and the morganatic rule is that under the latter a marriage between a royalty and a subject can never become binding against the royalty.  The latter may be voluntarily bound as long as he or she may choose, but no longer: whereas a marriage between a royalty and a subject celebrated lawfully between subjects, and cannot be broken expect by the high court for legal cause.  Moreover, the children of this union have full rights of succession and inheritance of both their parents.  The marriages of Princess Louise, Princess Henry of Battenberg and the Duchess of Fife constitute exact examples of what in Germany would be styled a morganatic union.  In England, however as they were celebrated with the consent of the queen, they are on the same footing as other marriages.  A strong proof of this is to be found in the fact that the Duchess of Fife comes next to the Duke of York’s family in the line of succession, and her daughters come after her.  In Germany her marriage would have cut the Duchess and her children out of the line altogether.  The strongest case, however, is that of the Duke and Duchess of York.  According to the German law, the Duke of Teck, being the son a morganatic marriage, could only marry the late Princess Mary Adelaide morganatically.  Their children were morganatically born, and when Princess May married the Duke of York it was merely a morganatic alliance.  It may be added, however, that not even the German Emperor has ever ventured to treat the Duchess as a morganatic wife.  From Cassell’s Saturday Journal.

NR

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