After the death of Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 96 and following the official proclamation of her son, Charles III, as the new King of the United Kingdom, we remember two young Catholics who were excluded from succession to the throne because of their faith .
Eduardo Windsor He was born on December 2, 1988. He is 33 years old. He is heir to George Windsor, Earl of Saint Andrews and his wife Sylvana Tomaselli.
His father is the eldest son of Edward, Duke of Kent and his wife Katharine, Duchess of Kent. Windsor is therefore second in line to the Duchy of Kent and uses the courtesy title of Lord Downpatrick.
Edward Windsor, whose full name is Edward Edmund Maximilian George Windsor, will be the first Catholic in centuries to become the Duke of Kent.
In 2003, following the example of his grandmother, the Duchess of Kent, and his uncle, Lord Nicholas Windsor, he converted to the Catholic faith, thus losing his right to the throne, being the highest-ranking person excluded from the line of succession. .
He is the great-great-grandson of King George V and Queen Mary, as well as one of 17 godchildren of the late Princess Diana.
The princess Alexandra of Hanover23, was also excluded from the line of succession to the throne following be baptized into the Catholic Church in 2018.
Alejandra Charlotte Ulrike Maryam Virginia of Hannover and Cumberland Grimaldi is the daughter of Ernest Augustus of Hannover – head of the deposed Royal House of Hannover, which was the reigning dynasty in the United Kingdom until 1901 – and Princess Carolina of Monaco, sister of Albert II , sovereign prince of Monaco.
“Princesses Carolina and Estefania had tears in their eyes, that is worth more than all the speeches in the world. I was sorry that Alexandra of Hannover, who chose me as her godfather when she was baptized into the Catholic faith, might not be there, ”Colonel Luc Fringant commented later following a ceremony in her honor for 30 years of service. .
Fringant is a member of the Prince’s Police, protectors of the Monegasque royal family.
Why can’t a Catholic be King of England?
The King of England cannot be a Catholic because, in addition to ruling the nation, he is the head of the Anglican Church, founded by King Henry VIII, who separated from his wife, the Spanish princess Catherine.
The website of the Royal Family exposes the rules of succession to the throne of the United Kingdom, which includes England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
“The succession to the throne is regulated not only by descent, but also by parliamentary statute. The order of succession is the sequence of the members of the Royal Family in the order in which they are placed in the line of succession to the throne”, explains the website.
Later, he recalls that the Bill of Rights and the Establishment Law “also established several conditions that the Sovereign must meet.”
“A Roman Catholic is specifically excluded from succession to the throne,” it adds.
In the Law of Establishment, issued in 1701, it is in effect warned that those who “communicate with the Church of Rome” or profess what is called “the Papal Religion” cannot inherit the British crown.
