by Seamus OBlimey » Fri Oct 27, 2006 10:43 am
I wonder why the Mirror (daily UK tabloid) had a full page yesterday on..<br><br>---------------------------<br>THE GREAT PRETENDERS <br>Royal wannabes and their claims to the throne <br>By Nick Webster <br><br>ROBERT Brown says he's the secret, illegitimate son of Princess Margaret. <br><br>The Jersey -based accountant (right) has launched a court bid to establish his claim, which, if successful, will leave him 12th in line to the throne. <br><br>If not, he's just the latest in a long line of royal impostors. <br><br>Luckily for him, these days they don't cut off the heads of men who would be king. <br><br>Here, we take a look at some of the other great pretenders... <br><br>JAMES ALEXANDER STEWART <br><br>THE Scottish-born Canadian folk singer was unaware of his royal connections until an amateur historian traced his family tree back to Stuart king Robert II, grandson of Robert the Bruce, who ruled between 1371-90. <br><br>After 20 years of research, Iain Fleming, 63, from Mother well, believed that he had found the rightful king of Scotland - and possibly England - in the now 57-year-old crooner. <br><br>Iain said: "His heritage is as straight as an arrow. It's definite he is the true king of Scotland." <br><br>PRINCE MICHAEL OF ALBANY <br><br>HE styled him self HRH and claimed to be a direct descendant of Bonnie Prince Charlie. <br><br>But, in reality, Michel LaFosse, 48, is the son of a Belgian shopkeeper. <br><br>Fosse lived in Scotland for 30 years and decorated himself with several grand titles. <br><br>But earlier this year he fled back to his mum's house in Belgium after facing fraud charges. <br><br>ANTHONY I <br><br>STANDING on a soapbox in the middle of Birmingham's Bull Ring in 1931, Anthony Hall declared himself king and George V a German impostor who should be executed. <br><br>These colourful claims by a former policeman and First World War ambulance driver were taken seriously by George. <br><br>Hall said he was descended from an illegitimate son of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. <br><br>At first the government tried to have Hall sent to an asylum and then threatened him with imprisonment and hard labour. <br><br>He died in anonymity in 1947. <br><br>BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE <br><br>CHARLES Edward Stuart's supporters referred to him as King Charles III, a title the current Prince of Wales will eventually assume after the death of his mother. <br><br>Charlie's rebellion of 1745 came to grief at the Battle of Culloden. And the beaten royal wannabe only escaped capture by disguising himself as a maid. <br><br>His death in 1788 ended any realistic chance of the Stuart dynasty ever regaining the throne. <br><br>PERKIN WARBECK <br><br>WARBECK claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, one of the two princes in the Tower probably murdered by their uncle Richard III in about 1483 in his bid for Henry VII's crown. <br><br>He gained support from powerful foreign monarchs including Charles VIII of France, the Holy Roman Emperor and James IV of Scotland - and crucially the recognition of the Duke of York's aunt Margaret of Burgundy. <br><br>However, after three failed invasion attempts he was captured by the king's men and hanged as a traitor. <br><br>LADY JANE GREY <br><br>FAMOUSLY, she ruled for only nine days as the uncrowned queen of England in 1553. <br><br>Her mother was a niece of Henry VIII and, after the death of the notorious king's only son Edward VI, his will was discovered to name her as his heir. <br><br>This was a transparent attempt to keep the throne away from Edward's Catholic sister Mary. <br><br>But Mary gathered a 20,000-strong army, deposed Jane and had her head chopped off. <br><br>LAMBERT SIMNEL <br><br>SHORTLY after the first Tudor king Henry VII (left) won the throne at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, he was challenged by a 10-yearold boy. <br><br>Simnel was probably a son of a baker, but Tudor enemies championed him as the Earl of Warwick, a real claimant to the throne who was imprisoned in the Tower of London. <br><br>Whisked off to Ireland, Simnel became the figurehead of rebellion after being crowned in Dublin as King Edward VI. Captured at the battle of Stoke in 1487, Simnel was pardoned and given a job in the royal kitchens. He died in 1534 aged 60. <br><br>UBERTO I <br><br>UBERTO Omar Gasche would be King of England if English monarchs were allowed to marry Roman Catholics and the throne could be inherited by the oldest child, rather than the oldest son. <br><br>Instead, the eccentric Italian aristocrat with a droopy moustache breeds mastiffs rather than corgis. Gasche is descended from the Stuart kings and the Jacobite pretenders who succeeded them. <br><br>FRANCISCO MANOEL <br><br>THIS Portuguese furniture restorer claims descent from a love child of Queen Victoria and the Duke of Wellington. <br><br>The 43-year-old from Lisbon whose mother (right) is said to resemble the Queen, has written to HRH asking for DNA samples to prove his point and to meet the Royals. <br><br>If true, Victoria was only 15 when she became pregnant by the 64-year-old widower Duke. <br><br>Francisco detailed his claims in a book, a copy of which he sent to Buckingham Palace and dedicated to "my dear cousin Elizabeth". <br><br>THE OLD PRETENDER <br><br>IF James Francis Edward Stuart had gained the throne he would have been the longest-serving English monarch ever, reigning from 1701 to his death in 1766. <br><br>But it was his Catholic faith which denied him his goal and condemned him to exile after his father King James II was deposed in 1689. <br><br>After two failed rebellions the man known to Jacobites as "the king over the water" ended as an exile in Rome's Vatican. <br><br>nick.webster@mirror.co.uk<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/tm_method=full%26objectid=17992360%26siteid=94762-name_page.html">The Mirror</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>------------------------------------<br><br>No commentary, no reason why this is a story.<br><br>Wasn't Diana from the Stuart bloodline? Didn't Charlie invoke the wrath of King Philip by refusing to join the masonic order? If divorcees are not allowed on the throne can Charlie ever be king? If not then how can Willie? Doesn't succession then fall to Andrew? But he's a divorcee too, so then to Edward?<br><br>Maybe not...<br>--------------------------------<br>The basis for the succession was determined in the constitutional developments of the seventeenth century, which culminated in the Bill of Rights (1689) and the Act of Settlement (1701). <br><br>When James II fled the country in 1688, Parliament held that he had 'abdicated the government' and that the throne was vacant. The throne was then offered, not to James's young son, but to his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange, as joint rulers. <br><br>It therefore came to be established not only that the Sovereign rules through Parliament, but that the succession to the throne can be regulated by Parliament, and that a Sovereign can be deprived of his title through misgovernment. <br><br>The succession to the throne is regulated not only through descent, but also by statute; the Act of Settlement confirmed that it was for Parliament to determine the title to the throne. <br><br>The Act laid down that only Protestant descendants of Princess Sophia - the Electress of Hanover and granddaughter of James I - are eligible to succeed. Subsequent Acts have confirmed this. <br><br>Parliament, under the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement, also laid down various conditions which the Sovereign must meet. A Roman Catholic is specifically excluded from succession to the throne; nor may the Sovereign marry a Roman Catholic. <br><br>The Sovereign must, in addition, be in communion with the Church of England and must swear to preserve the established Church of England and the established Church of Scotland. The Sovereign must also promise to uphold the Protestant succession.<br><br>Line of succession<br><br>Sovereign<br>1. The Prince of Wales<br>2. Prince William of Wales<br>3. Prince Henry of Wales<br>4. The Duke of York<br>5. Princess Beatrice of York<br>6. Princess Eugenie of York<br>7. The Earl of Wessex<br>8. The Lady Louise Windsor<br>9. The Princess Royal<br>10. Mr. Peter Phillips<br>11. Miss Zara Phillips<br>12. Viscount Linley<br>13. The Hon. Charles Armstrong-Jones<br>14. The Hon. Margarita Armstrong-Jones<br>15. The Lady Sarah Chatto<br>16. Master Samuel Chatto<br>17. Master Arthur Chatto<br>18. The Duke of Gloucester<br>19. Earl of Ulster<br>20. The Lady Davina Windsor<br>21. The Lady Rose Windsor<br>22. The Duke of Kent<br>23. The Lady Marina-Charlotte Windsor<br>24. The Lady Amelia Windsor<br>25. The Lady Helen Taylor<br>26. Master Columbus Taylor<br>27. Master Cassius Taylor<br>28. Miss Eloise Taylor<br>29. Miss Estella Taylor<br>30. The Lord Frederick Windsor<br>31. The Lady Gabriella Windsor<br>32. Princess Alexandra, the Hon. Lady Ogilvy<br>33. Mr. James Ogilvy<br>34. Master Alexander Ogilvy<br>35. Miss Flora Ogilvy<br>36. Mrs. Paul Mowatt<br>37. Master Christian Mowatt<br>38. Miss Zenouska Mowatt<br>39. The Earl of Harewood<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/page389.asp">www.royal.gov.uk</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>--------------------------------<br><br>Does this mean Lord Blair of Sedgewick (or his "democratically elected successor) gets to decide?<br><br>Now I know what they mean by right royal fuckup! <p></p><i></i>