24 thoughts on “Queen Catherine?”

  1. According to my Scottish wife, she would remain “Princess Katherine” and not be eligible to ascend to the throne in any but the most grave of circumstances.

  2. As I said, the issue wasn’t whether she would ever ascend, but whether or not she would take the title. I’m pretty sure that commoner women receive the title of their husbands (e.g., Lord Whoever’s wife becomes Lady Whoever), but not men. Philip is Prince Philip, Queen’s consort, because if he were King it would make him sovereign, including over Elizabeth, but Katherine can become Queen without being sovereign, due to the British class structure. And her sons and daughters would be princes and princesses and heirs to the throne. But that’s what I’m trying to clarify.

  3. According to the official website for the British Royals: “After the wedding, Mrs Parker Bowles became known as HRH The Duchess of Cornwall. When The Prince of Wales accedes to the throne, she will be known as HRH The Princess Consort.”

    However…

    They created that just for Camilla. All the other wives of kings were created as ‘Queen consort’ by their husband.

    As Kate is a member of the family by marriage only she can never be Queen in her own right. Unless parliament makes her one that is. She could be regent for any of their children until they reach 18 if anything happened to her husband. Philip is in the same boat and supposedly that’s stuck in his craw for all these years.

  6. When William ascends, Katherine would become the Queen Consort (whereas Elizabeth II is the Queen Regnant). But before that, she’ll become Princess of Wales (like Diana) once Charles ascends and William is invested as Prince of Wales. Prince Philip wasn’t made King Consort for a few reasons, but that started with Queen Victoria. Albert, the Prince Consort, was a German, and the government of the day thought it impolitic to have a German King Consort, so Albert’s public role was minimized. For this same reason, the Windsors and Mountbattens later anglicized their names to accommodate anti-German sentiment in WWI, from Saxe-Coburg Gotha and Battenberg, respectively. So Phillip is transplanted German nobility (via Greece). But the U.K. has had Kings Consort in the past (as have England and Scotland separately prior to union), although it was often politically complicated, particularly when the King Consort was a foreigner (such as Mary I Tudor’s marriage to King Philip of Spain).

  7. To take the title of Queen she would need to already be a princess by birth of some other royal family. For instance, King William and Queen Mary, way back when after the Glorious Revolution were both of royal blood before moving to England to claim the throne. They were essentially joint monarchs.
    Because Catherine was born a commoner, she is not eligible to joint-monarchy.
    Now, the question then becomes, of, what about Prince Phillip, Elizabeth II’s consort? He was born a Prince of the Greek royal family (although the family was of Danish-German origin), the Greek monarchy was deposed when he was a child and he was exiled to Britain, where he later joined the British Royal Navy and ascended to the rank of Commander. Before he could marry Elizabeth he was required to renounce his claims on the Danish and Greek thrones and convert from Greek Orthodox to Anglicanism, so essentially he had to renounce what would give him the right to be joint monarch in order to rejoin a reigning sovereign royal family. If he had retained his claim on the other thrones there likely would have been diplomatic repercussions with both Denmark and Greece over that, with them feeling Britain posing a threat as a result.

  8. Leland, if you’re going to keep bringing this up, it would be great if you demonstrated the slightest understanding of reserve powers in the world’s various constitutional monarchies. It would also be nice if you showed the slightest of understanding of how royal prerogatives work in the modern UK, because then you could discuss the likelihood that Charles or William will ever use them, should they become kings.

    Or, if you prefer to discuss actual history rather than engage in specultion, you could reflect on the extent to which Queen Elizabeth has ever done *anything* of political significance such that the UK can be differentiated from a republic. The most interesting thing she has ever done, in my opinion, she did in her role as the Queen of Australia, when she chose to not intervene in the Australian Constitutional crisis of 1975. So: in 1975, as the head of state of another country, she didn’t do anything, and she has done less than that ever since — and this is why the UK is different from a republic. Got it.

  9. From my my position, which is nil, I believe she would be Princess Catherine, the KIng’s Consort. It Fits and follows tradition.

  10. On the general subject, it’s probably polite to point out that as of last Thursday, Her Majesty is now the second longest reigning British Monarch in history, having just passed George III. (I’m not going to quibble over whether James’ VI’s time as king in Scotland ‘counts’). If she hangs in there until 10 September 2015, she takes the, well, crown from Victoria. She’ll be 89 then, and as her mother lived to over 100, I like her chances.

    In my snide moments I think she aspires to outlive the Prince of Wales, but either way, long live the Queen.

  11. To take the title of Queen she would need to already be a princess by birth of some other royal family.

    Completely wrong. From Queen (Consort) Matilda, wife of King William the Bastard Conqueror, to Queen (Consort) Elizabeth (a/k/a “the Queen Mother”), wife of King George VI, almost every living wife of an English king has been known as Queen (Consort), whether of royal, noble, or common birth. The one possible exception was Caroline of Brunswick, wife of George IV; she was refused coronation, although she may have been styled “Queen”.

    You seem to be confusing the circumstances of William III/Mary II (note that Mary was the elder daughter of James II) and the continental notion of “morganatic (or unequal) marriage”, where a man cannot transmit his claim to a title through a woman of lesser status. Morganatic marriage, however, has no basis in British (English or Scots) law or custom.

  12. All she really has to do is ace Bohemian Rhapsody, We Are the Champions, and slip the surviving members a title or two. Much easier.

    Using Another One Bites the Dust to ascend would be tasteless though.

  13. I believe that Rand is correct. It would be King William IV, if I’m not mistaken, and Kate would be known as Queen Catherine, the Queen Consort (not Katherine, to pick a nit–though she goes by Kate, her given name is spelled with a C). And Rand’s reasoning on why it is Prince, not King, Philip is basically correct. Because King outranks Queen, as it were, and because Philip is not in the line of succession (well, maybe distantly–the Wikipedia page on the line of succession covers the first 2500 people who can claim the British throne), he cannot be King to Elizabeth II’s Queen Regnant.

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that as monarch, William would have considerable leeway to grant Kate the style of HRH Queen Catherine, even if a strict reading of tradition suggested that she would not automatically be eligible to the title upon William’s succession to the throne.

    It’s an arcane but interesting subject. I lost a couple of hours one afternoon researching this just before the wedding (curiousity + Wikipedia = dangerous combination). I was curious as to whether or not it would be Princess Catherine after the wedding–not necessarily, as it turns out (though she can use her husband’s title to be known as Princess William of Wales, but no doubt will prefer Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge). Apparently Elizabeth II could have granted her the style of Princess Catherine, but chose not to for various reasons. However, as Lee pointed out, she will become The Princess of Wales when William takes over the title of The Prince of Wales from Charles.

  14. @Ash: One quibble: if King William IV creates his wife Catherine the Queen Consort, she would be HM Queen Catherine, not HRH.

  15. @B Lewis: Ah yes, I do believe you’re right. I did some poking around, and HM would appear to be the correct designation for the Queen Consort.

  18. It’s been covered already above, but yes — she will be Queen Catherine, but that does not put her in line for the throne herself. If something happened to William after he ascended and before they had children, Prince Harry would ascend — possibly as Henry IX but he could choose some other name under which to reign.

  19. @MPM: Dear me, and here I’d thought I’d counted my way through all of the Williams. Tsk that I missed this one.

    Thing is, as a Canadian, this is actually more than academic for me, as the reigning monarch of the UK is also King/Queen of Canada. And I really, really don’t want the dour visage of Charles on my money. William, on the other hand, is a reasonable-looking chap (we must thank provenance for his mother’s genes there), and as such it wouldn’t bother me to have his face on the coinage (and presumably the twenty-dollar bill, but as we use former prime ministers for the other denominations, perhaps that convention won’t survive the succession).

  21. And I really, really don’t want the dour visage of Charles on my money.

    I once saw a picture of Upchuck, Prince of Wales on some news site or other, and the size reduction made it look like Will Ferrell.

  22. Interesting comments. Here’s what I found.

    As heir to the throne, HRH Prince William will become HRH Prince of Wales when his father ascends the throne (or dies). Catherine, who is currently styled HRH Princess William, will become HRH Princess of Wales…the title used to denote the wife of the Prince of Wales. There was one exception. Elizabeth I was styled Princess of Wales under Henry VIII. There was talk of giving the same title to Elizabeth II when she was heiress presumptive, but the royal family went with tradition and saved that title for the wife of the Prince of Wales.

    If and when William ascends to the throne he will become HM William V. (Unless he chooses a different name, such as his great grandfather “Bertie” chose George VI when he ascended.) Catherine will then become Queen Consort of England. Informally styled they will be King and Queen of Great Britain. Technically she will be Queen Consort. And if I have this correctly she will be informally titled: Her Majesty, The Queen. If she were a ruling Queen from the royal line it would be: Her Majesty, Queen Catherine. (Unless she close a different name.)

  23. I am British and believe that constitutional monarchy at least hs the potential to be one of the best forms of government; perhaps this opinion is influenced by the stellar performance of HM Queen Elizabeth II in the role. However, probably like many others, I am somewhat worried about Prince Self-Indulgent attaining the throne – particularly considering that if the Queen shares her mother’s genes Prince Charles will probably be at least 70 when he ascends the throne.

    From a large number of points of view, a lot of us think that the monarchy (and the country) would be strengthened if the crown skipped a generation. Fat chance.

  24. Speaking of choosing another name, Chuckie does have Arthur as one of his middle names. I always thought it would be funny if he tried to pull that off….

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