Tag Archives: Prince of Wales

The Counsellors of State Bill: an elegant solution, but a temporary one

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The House of Lords yesterday debated the merits of the Counsellors of State Bill, which seeks to add Princess Anne and Prince Edward to the list of people that can act when the monarch is unable to do so. As Craig Prescott explains, this is a neat solution, but a temporary one.

The start of a new reign inevitably brings change to the monarchy. One specific change is that the monarch will once again travel overseas, including visits to some of the 14 other countries that also have a new head of state.

But what about the monarch’s constitutional and legal role while they are away? This role includes the granting of royal assent to legislation, appointment of ministers, ratification of treaties, and appointment of judges and diplomats. Many of these functions require the personal signature of the monarch (the royal sign manual), or in the case of holding Privy Council meetings and the state opening of parliament, their personal participation. This reflects how the monarch, as head of state, remains a central part of the UK’s constitutional arrangements. It is pivotal to the machinery of government that the royal authority is always available to grant the final, formal legal approval to wide range of decisions made by government and parliament.

The necessary continuity is provided by the Regency Act 1937, supplemented by the Regency Acts 1943 and 1953. If the monarch is overseas, or is unwell and unable to conduct their duties, Counsellors of State can be appointed to exercise the royal functions. During the reign of Elizabeth II, Counsellors of State were appointed over 100 times, facilitating the Queen’s extensive overseas travel and establishing her position on the international stage.

The Regency Acts provide that the Counsellors of State are the spouse of the monarch and the first four in the line of succession, of full age, domiciled in the UK. For the heir apparent or heir presumptive, the Regency Act 1943 allowed for then Princess Elizabeth to become a Counsellor of State when she became 18, otherwise ‘full age’ for these purposes is 21. The 1943 Act also allowed for any potential Counsellor of State to be excluded if they are overseas during the period of appointment. This provision was introduced so that Prince Henry, the Duke of Gloucester, would be excepted while Governor-General of Australia to prevent any potential conflict between that role and his position as a Counsellor of State.

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Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and the Sandringham settlement

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professor_hazell_2000x2500_1.jpgbob_morris_163x122.jpgFollowing the decision of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to withdraw from a frontline royal role, the nature and timing of that departure has now been announced. Robert Hazell and Bob Morris explain what the settlement means for both the Sussexes and the monarchy itself. 

When it wants to, the British monarchy can move with remarkable and decisive speed. There were just ten days between the Sussexes unilateral declaration on 8 January and the outcome of the second Sandringham meeting released on 18 January. What has it all been about and how should the immediate and longer-term effects of the settlement be understood?

The settlement of 18 January

Its main features are:

  • The couple will from 1 April 2020 withdraw from active royal duties (including Prince Harry’s honorific military offices), no longer receive public money, surrender use of their ‘HRH’ titles, and seek to become self-sufficient financially.
  • They will live for substantial periods each year in Canada, at a location as yet undetermined.
  • So far as their activities abroad are concerned, they have undertaken ‘to uphold the values of Her Majesty’: this a reference to the Nolan Principles of Public Life.
  • Frogmore Cottage on the Windsor estate will remain their residence in England. They will reimburse the £2.4m public money cost of the refurbishment.
  • The working of the arrangements will be reviewed from 1 April 2021. During this period, the Prince of Wales will continue their funding of £2.3m a year until they become self-sufficient.
  • No constitutional changes are involved, but some possible secondary implications of reducing the size of the active royal family are considered below.

Not settled in the statement are:

  • The Canadian immigration, residential and tax status of the couple – Canada’s leading daily newspaper, the Toronto Globe and Mail, raised some sharp questions on whether they should be allowed to live in Canada and advised that the Canadian government’s response should be a simple and succinct ‘No’. Although the Canadian government has so far been silent, it is expected to have a more welcoming, if cautious, attitude.
  • Meghan’s application for British citizenship – still under consideration, where length of residence outside the UK will be one of the criteria in the balance.
  • How financial self-sufficiency is to be achieved – the reference to upholding ‘the values of Her Majesty’ shows some anxieties about the means that the couple may choose. 
  • The arrangements for police protection – British police officers have no police powers in Canada, nor may they carry firearms. The nature of protection and defraying the considerable costs of providing it remain to be settled.

Immediate effects

While some changes (resigning the post of Captain General of the Royal Marines) will happen immediately from 1 April, withdrawal will be a process rather than an event. It will also be conditional on the progress made. That is, the settlement implies that permission to keep but not use the HRH title can be withdrawn if the Queen is, say, dissatisfied with the way the Sussexes embark on commercial ventures which capitalise on their royal status (HRH status was withdrawn from the wives of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York following their divorces). Similarly, establishing a review mechanism not only leaves open the possibility of the Sussexes’ return to UK public life, but also a possibility that the settlement’s terms might be tightened if developments are not to the Queen’s satisfaction. Continue reading →

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle: why half in, half out just isn’t an option for royals

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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s decision to step back from royal duties has been described as a crisis for the monarchy, but they are the ones who are most likely to suffer the damage, as Robert Hazell and Bob Morris explain.

Members of the royal family are in a conflicted position. They lead lives of great privilege, but they also lack fundamental freedoms. They aren’t free to choose a career, they cannot speak freely and they have limited freedom to privacy and family life, which the rest of us take for granted.

Harry and Meghan are not alone in finding that frustrating, Prince Laurent of Belgium is another who is visibly unhappy in the role.

The harsh reality is that younger sons are spares who are ultimately dispensable from a hereditary monarchy: it is only those in direct line of succession who count. As spares they are subject to the same personal restrictions as the immediate heirs, without either the prospect of succession or the freedom to develop truly independent careers of their own.

Other European monarchies (encouraged by parsimonious governments and legislatures) have learned to keep the core team as small as possible. It can be just four people – in Norway and Spain it is the king and queen, the heir and their spouse. In 2019, the King of Sweden removed five grandchildren from the royal family, under parliamentary pressure to reduce its size and its cost.

The UK has a larger population – over ten times the size of Norway – and it could therefore be contended that it makes sense for its royal family to be larger to carry out necessary duties. A bigger team is also required given the realms: the queen is head of state of 15 countries other than the UK, and Prince Charles and his sons make regular visits to countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand. In total, 15 members of the British royal family conducted almost 4,000 royal engagements in 2019 alone.

Cutting the spares

Prince Charles is said to want a smaller, streamlined monarchy, perhaps just the core team of the queen, Charles and Camilla, William and Kate: but with a smaller team they could accept fewer royal patronages and fulfil far fewer engagements. It is not clear how far Prince Charles has thought through such consequences any more than Harry and Meghan have thought through the consequences for others of what they want. Continue reading →

What are coronations for?

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When the next monarch accedes to the throne, there will likely be a coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey. Yet the UK is unique in western Europe in having a coronation. What purpose does such an event serve? Bob Morris looks back at past coronations to provide an answer to that question. 

Last summer the Constitution Unit published two reports: one on updating the Accession and Coronation oaths, and a second on Planning the next Coronation. In the course of our work we learned that the UK is alone amongst European monarchies in retaining a coronation. Belgium and the Netherlands have never held them; nor from the end of the medieval period has Spain. There have not been coronations in Denmark, Sweden and Norway since 1849, 1873 and 1906 respectively.

That prompted the question, what is the coronation for? It is a question also put to us by journalists when we launched our reports. This blog post attempts to address the question. At the outset, however, one point needs to be emphasised. In law the coronation does not ‘make’ the sovereign. The monarch succeeds to the throne automatically immediately on the decease of their predecessor. The courts affirmed this position as long ago as 1608 concerning King James I’s succession to Elizabeth I:

‘..the title is by descent; by Queen Elizabeth’s death the Crown and kingdom of England descended to His Majesty, and he was fully and absolutely King, without any essential ceremony or act to be done ex post facto, and that coronation was but a Royal ornament, and outward solemnization of the descent.’

The nature of the rite

The Westminster Abbey coronation is an Anglican religious service centred on the communion. At the same time, it is a great national pageant of costly display and celebration controlled by the government of the day. It is a political as well as a religious event. Not surprisingly, it has been imbued with different meanings by different participants and observers. Continue reading →

Reflecting on HRH The Prince of Wales’s Role as Heir to the Throne

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sketch.1541418351959To mark the Prince of Wales’s 70th Birthday, Robert Hazell reflects on the difficult role of Heir to the Throne, with reference to the roles of heirs apparent in other Western European monarchies. This comparative material has been assembled as part of our preparation for a forthcoming conference on monarchies in western Europe, to be held next March.

The Prince of Wales is 70 years old today. At an age when most people are comfortably enjoying their retirement, Prince Charles is still preparing to assume the role for which he has been waiting almost all his life. He became heir to the throne in 1952, and so far his apprenticeship has lasted 67 years. In 2011 he became the longest serving heir apparent in British history, overtaking King Edward VII, who spent 59 years in the role.

That is one of the difficulties of being heir apparent: a very long and uncertain period of waiting. Another is that the role is unspecified. The constitution is silent about the role; so it is left to each heir apparent to make of it what they can. Some, like Edward VII, have pursued wine, women and song (and gambling, shooting and racing); others like Prince Charles have a more serious bent, and want to make a contribution to the public good. The difficulty is to find a way of contributing to public life without becoming embroiled in political controversy. Continue reading →