“Born of Body”….”in legitimate marriage”

In 1687, when Maria of Modena, Queen Consort of England who was married to the unpopular James II gave birth to a son who would be raised a catholic, a rumour was started that the child was not her natural born son, but a changling smuggled into the Palace in a warming pan. This rumour was spread far and wide and accepted as fact despite many witnesses to the birth of her son.

There were many reasons for this rumour to be spread and for the public to believe it because James was not a popular King and he favoured his catholic colleagues and subjects over the mostly protestant country he ruled. You could say it was a convenient rumour to spread for his enemies because it formented the fear of another catholic ruler who might turn out like Mary I, daughter of Henry 8, who is better known to history as Bloody Mary for the high number of protestants she was alleged to have killed during her very short 5yr reign.

This rumour gave James II’s enemies the perfect excuse to get rid of him and they invited William of Orange to “invade” England under the guise of intervening to rescue the English from this horrible fate. William, who was married to James II’s eldest daughter Mary, accepted the invitation and duly arrived in England for what is known as the Glorious revolution. James and his family were driven into exile in France and eventually Italy.

As you know, the British constitution is not written down like the American one which allows for laws to be written and ammended as required, but also for laws to be written that affect one part of society without affecting rest of society. In Britain we have regular laws that govern all of society and we have what are known as peerage laws that only affect the aristocracy. Some peerage laws affect only the royal family.

One of these peerage laws is the one about Surrogacy. There is are general laws that govern surrogacy as submitted by a previous anon and then there are peerage laws about surrogacy that affect the aristocracy and or the royal family.

As a direct consequence of James II’s warming pan baby story, a constitutional peerage law was written that governs ONLY the royal family which makes surrogacy or adoption a non starter for them. This law was written to prevent anyone who wasn’t born within the conditions of the law from taking the throne of England. Before this law, there are a few Kings and Queens of England that would have been disqualified if it had existed during their time eg nearly every Tudor monarch except for Henry 8, Mary 1 and Lady Jane Grey.

Without wishing to bore you with the full wording of the constitutional part of this particular law, the most important phrases therein are ..“born of the body”…..“in legitimate marriage”. The two are applied together in assessing a surrogacy and or adoption.

The two phases are describing two situations that have to apply at the same time in order for the child to be considered legitimate and able to inherit the throne and or to be included in the line of succession.

1. The child’s parents have to be married and that marriage has to be a legitimate, legally binding marriage. A loophole exists here because the parents may be separated when child is conceived and born. As long as they remain legally married, child is legitimate.

2. The child has to be born from the body of the female married to the male in the legitimate marriage of part 1.

A surrogate and or an adoption is outside the criteria of these two phrases and the peerage law surrounding this is ironclad.

Due to the changeling rumour, James Francis Edward the new baby, was considered illegitimate.

This law still exists and still governs the babies born to the royal family and to a certain extent the aristocracy.

In 2016, it was tested. Without naming names, a highly visible member of the aristocracy used a surrogate to have their 2nd son. The pregnancy that gave them their 1st son was so difficult that the mother nearly died. For their 2nd son, they used a surrogate as a gestation carrier ie the genetic material was 100% their own. However, as they are hereditary aristocracy and very wealthy as well, their second son was automatically illegitimate. By the terms of our regular laws about surrogacy, they could apply to formally adopt their own child, but the child remained illegitimate in peerage law. This meant that should his older brother die, the family title and wealth could not pass to the 2nd son. The couple had to ask parliament to make a judgement to allow the 2nd son some rights to the family wealth in that eventuality. 2nd son will not get the title because of that peerage law regarding ‘born of the body’…’in legitimate marriage’ which the 2nd son’s birth did not meet.

There are lots of peerage laws that don’t apply and are frequently outside the laws that govern regular Britons, but that’s another discussion.

Source: https://royalwatchblog.tumblr.com/post/184538165640/born-of-bodyin-legitimate-marriage