Line of Succession To The British Throne - Eligibility

Eligibility

The right of succession is regulated by the Act of Settlement 1701, the Royal Marriages Act 1772 and common law, and is limited to the legitimate descendants of legitimate line from the Electress Sophia of Hanover. A person born to parents who are not married to each other at the time of birth is not included in the line of succession and passes no rights to their descendants. The subsequent marriage of the parents does not alter this.

• The succession is ordered by male-preference (cognatic) primogeniture. A person is always immediately followed in the succession by his or her own legitimate descendants (his or her line) except for any legitimate descendants who already appear higher in the line of succession. A person's sons and their lines all come before a person's daughters and their lines. Older sons and their lines come before younger sons and their lines. Older daughters and their lines come before younger daughters and their lines.
• At the time of accession, the heir to the throne must be a Protestant and enter into communion with the Church of England.
• Anyone who is Roman Catholic, becomes Roman Catholic, or marries a Roman Catholic is excluded from the line of succession.

In the event of eligible members in the current line of the Queen's direct descendants failing, the next in line would be from the descendants of the Queen's now deceased sister Margaret as the only other child of their father King George VI. In the event of that line failing, the next in line would be from the descendants of their (deceased) grandfather George V. At present Richard, Duke of Gloucester heads this next line of descent. Thus, each successive line is contingent upon the failure of the one before, and as the first expands or contracts, the places of members of the second will become further or nearer in the line, and so on changing with the course of events in the passage of time. The person who will actually succeed at the next or any future demise of the Crown can be no more than conjectural, even in the case of an heir apparent or heir presumptive.

The line of succession to a reigning monarch such as the present Queen Elizabeth is a projection. It is unlike the British monarchs' family tree and unlike the line of succession such as the List of British monarchs by which the present Queen has come to the throne, which is a matter of historic record, and in fact includes a departure from the line of succession due to the abdication of the Queen's father's elder brother, her uncle, who had succeeded as Edward VIII. In the three centuries from 1700 to 2000 there have been twelve monarchs of Great Britain and the United Kingdom. This article lists more than forty descendants of the Queen's grandfather George V as being in the current line of succession.