British Monarchy

[ledrona]

I understand that Queen Victoria may not have been the daughter of the Duke of Kent. (Issue of extra marital affair?)If so, who should be the British monarch now?

[kempie]

If that was the case then I believe the Crown would have gone to Victoria's first cousin George V, King of Hanover and 2nd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, Georg Friedrich Alexander Karl Ernst August. Tracing his issue (the House of Hanover) through the centuries brings us to Ernst August V, Prince of Hanover, pretender to the throne of Hanover.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_August_V%2C _Prince_of_Hanover

But complications exist with his marriages. He divorced his first wife 10 years after he "ascended the throne" - would that have happened if he was King?

He married his second wife, Princess Caroline of Monaco, in 1999 but being Roman Catholic, divorced, pregnant and an heir to the throne of Monaco would probably never have been allowed to marry "King Ernst August" under provisions of the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Royal Marriages Act 1772. Any intention to marry would probably have triggered a constitutional crisis. It is unlikely that their relationship could have existed and flourished anyway.

[juliacornwal]

Yet another 'what-if' question. Of course Queen Victoria was the daughter of the Duke of Kent, she even inherited Porpheria from her grandfather, George III, and passed it to her daughter Victoria, granddaughter Charlotte and her great-granddaughter
who died in 1947 and whose remains have been tested and found to show the presence of the disease.
Victoria didn't happen to show many signs of the disease, because predominantly she didn't smoke or drink, but there doesn't seem to be much doubt that she had it and it certainly passed down through the family. The last member of the family to have full-blown Porpheria - apparently - was Prince William of Gloucester, who was killed in a light aircraft crash.

[Count_Emmup]

I haven't the facts to dispute the above posting, but I do recall a TV documentary which proved totally beyond all doubt, (Royal archives etc.) that one Queen, whose identity escapes me, conceived and was well into a full-term pregnancy while the King had been abroad for months!

They traced the lineage to businessman in Australia, who after only a few seconds thought declared he would not accept the throne even in the unlikely event of it being offerd him!

[kempie]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Abney-Has tings,_14th_Earl_of_Loudoun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecily_Neville#Mo ther_of_two_Kings

[juliacornwal]

Yup, Edward V1, not The Duchess of Kent. Way back in history. Mind you 'what-ifs' are lots of fun, and if you 'what-if' back through many monarchs the answer you'd get these days is amazing!

[Count_Emmup]

Edward IV, not VI - Edward VI was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour!

[Count_Emmup]

It is a solecism to mix Roman and Arabic numerals.