Last in the Royal Line of Succession to the British Throne

[BREMENMURRAY]

Deutsche Welle the German international broadcaster have identified Karen Vogel a therapist from Rostock as the final person in line to the throne.The Act of Settlement 1701 restricted the line succession to the non Catholic descendants of Electress Sophia  of Hannover.She now has around five thousand living descendants and Karen Vogel a distant cousin of the King is the furthest away from inheriting the throne!

[marquess]

"Kind Hearts and Coronets" on a massive scale comes to mind.

[Henry W]

I think her position has been known about for some time.

https://researchhistory.org/2011/04/27/last-in-the-line-of-succession-ms-vogel-is-glad-she-isnt-queen/

This 2011 article references a 2001 research and a 2002 book that came to this conclusion independently.

[Ivan Prekajski]

I didn't saw that list for years. Does anyone have it?

[bx...@yahoo.com]

Ivan, here is a link to the last list (from 2011):

http://www.wargs.com/essays/succession/2011.html

It would be nice if someone updated it, as there have been many changes, but it would be a monumental task for sure.

Brooke

[Ivan Prekajski]

Thank you. Yes and if I am correct many who are Catholics are now in line of succession. Maybe I am wrong. 

[colinp]

Catholics still excluded.  Those married to Catholics now included.

[BREMENMURRAY]

This list is amazing. Interestingly it puts Karen Vogel at 5753 but the 2011 Wall Street Journal article puts her at 4972 so perhaps that excluded Catholics. Nevertheless it is still good to have the Royal Families of Austria-Hungary, France and Liechtenstein  in Line to the British Throne. Even Monaco gets a look in with Princess Caroline's daughter Princess Alexandra of Hannover,.

The families of the Dukes of Abercorn,Fife,Wellington and Westminster are included as well as the children of the Earl of Dalhousie.

[Nick MacGregor Sadolin]

Very interesting but before we all get too excited, and include all people who married Catholics – here from the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 (United Kingdom):

- - -

Succession to the Crown Act 2013

2013 CHAPTER 20

An Act to make succession to the Crown not depend on gender; to make provision about Royal Marriages; and for connected purposes.[25th April 2013]

Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

1 Succession to the Crown not to depend on gender

In determining the succession to the Crown, the gender of a person born after 28 October 2011 does not give that person, or that person’s descendants, precedence over any other person (whenever born).

2 Removal of disqualification arising from marriage to a Roman Catholic

(1) A person is not disqualified from succeeding to the Crown or from possessing it as a result of marrying a person of the Roman Catholic faith.

(2) Subsection (1) applies in relation to marriages occurring before the time of the coming into force of this section where the person concerned is alive at that time (as well as in relation to marriages occurring after that time).

---

As I read it, there two important things to notice about the Succession to the Crown in the Crown Act 2013 (United Kingdom):

1.)

The gender issue counts as from after 28 October 2011.

This means that any male goes before any female, if they were born on or before 28 October 2011.

2.)

Only people alive, and who was is married or was married to a Catholic person are eligible for the succession of the British throne.

Still the once who are dead and was married to a Catholic person at a time is not eligible for the succession of the British throne, and this limits the number of persons considerably. 

- - -

The full text of the Crown Act 2013 (United Kingdom) can be found here:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Succession_to_the_Crown_Act_2013_(United_Kingdom) 

- - -

Do I read it correctly?

Nick MacGregor Sadolin


Sadolins.Net:
 
https://gw.geneanet.org/sadolinsnet_w

On Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 2:14 PM 'BREMENMURRAY' via Peerage News <peerag...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Deutsche Welle the German international broadcaster have identified Karen Vogel a therapist from Rostock as the final person in line to the throne.The Act of Settlement 1701 restricted the line succession to the non Catholic descendants of Electress Sophia  of Hannover.She now has around five thousand living descendants and Karen Vogel a distant cousin of the King is the furthest away from inheriting the throne!

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[BREMENMURRAY]

I agree with your interpretation.One other issue to consider the list correctly excludes those born out of wedlock.The actual number of descendants of Electress Sophia will exceed six thousand and include amongst others David Cameron and Boris Johnson

[Chris Pitt Lewis]

Illegitmate issue are excluded and are not rescued even if their parents subsequently marry. The Family Law Reform Act 1969, which gave illegitimate children rights of inheritance, and also introduced into English law the concept of "legitimatio per subsequens matrimonium" (common in other jurisdictions including Scotland), expressly excluded the inheritance of the Crown and other dignities such as peerages.

The question of who is excluded by the "anti-Catholic" provisions of the Act of Settlement is not straightforward, even after the amendments made by the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 in relation to people who marry Catholics.

It is often forgotten that the Act of Settlement contains two separate conditions that the heir of Princess Sophia must meet in order to inherit the Crown. On general principles of English law, we do not have to ascertain whether the heir meets those conditions until the moment when they would be due to inherit

1. They must be a Protestant. The limitation in the Act is to "the heirs of her [Princess Sophia's] body being protestants".

2. They must not be disqualified as being Catholic (or, as originally enacted, marrying a Catholic).

These two things are not the same. Many descendants of Princess Sophia are neither Catholic nor Protestant - most obviously the Orthodox, but there are probably now a number who positively do not subscribe to any religion (are there any who follow non Christian religions?). It is probably reasonable to include such people in lists of the line of succession on the basis that they could, and some might, convert to Protestantism if they had sufficient warning before inheriting, but ideally they ought to have a note indicatiing the problem.

On the other hand, anyone who has ever been a Catholic appears to be permanently excluded.

The wording of the Act is obscure, not least because of the need to read the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Bill of Rights 1688 together. If we run the words of the two Acts together, and remove the excess verbiage, we get the following (I have simplified “reconciled to or shall hold communion with the see or church of Rome or shall profess the popish religion” to “a Catholic”, to make it easier to follow):

 “every person … who shall or may take or inherit the …crown …and is … or shall be [a Catholic] shall be … excluded and be for ever uncapeable to inherit possess or enjoy the crown …

And in …every such case … the people of these realms shall be … absolved of their allegiance and the … crown …shall … descend to and be enjoyed by such person or persons being protestants as should have inherited and enjoyed [it if the disqualified person] were naturally dead".

What precisely this means has never been tested, but it seems to say that anyone who at any point in their life is a Catholic is permanently excluded, even if they subsequently cease to be one. So such people ought to be excluded from lists showing the line of succession. The difficulty is establishing who they are. What makes someone a Catholic, or, more precisely what does the Act mean by “is or shall be reconciled to or shall hold communion with the see or church of Rome or shall profess the popish religion”? Does it include infants baptised as Catholics, or is the cut off later, at First Communion or perhaps Confirmation (which in the Catholic Church typically takes place a a year or two after First Communion)? Presumably not even later, at adulthood?

It is also obscure whether non-Catholic descendants of Catholics are excluded. Probably they are not – the provision treating Catholics as if “naturally dead” most naturally applies only at the point when they would become the heir; the succession then skips over them and passes to the next protestant heir.  If that is correct we cannot make the task of compilation easier by excluding all descendants of any Catholic, or of anyone who married a Catholic and died before section 2 of the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 came into force on 26 March 2015.

Chris Pitt Lewis

--

[LoopyCrown3]

Lord Nicholas Windsor's son's Albert, Leopold and Louis are all baptised Roman Catholic's yet some people's Lines of Succession include them some don't.  I have posted about the vagueness of the act's text "is or shall be reconciled to or shall hold communion with the see or church of Rome or shall profess the popish religion" My interpretation is taking communion means your out of the succession, But baptism falls in a grey area. Lord Nicholas's son's are all old enough to have had communion so are most likely out. 

[colinp]

Chris Pitt Lewis said above - " Illegitmate issue are excluded and are not rescued even if their parents subsequently marry. The Family Law Reform Act 1969, which gave illegitimate children rights of inheritance, and also introduced into English law the concept of "legitimatio per subsequens matrimonium" (common in other jurisdictions including Scotland), expressly excluded the inheritance of the Crown and other dignities such as peerages."

In fact legitimation was introduced into English law by the Legitimacy Act 1926 though children of adulterous unions had to wait until the Legitimacy Act 1959 before they could be legitimated by the subsequent marriage of their parents

[malcolm davies]

Some comments on the above posts.

The Act of Succession

The requirement is that the person who succeeds to the Crown be,at the time of succession, not be in communion with the Catholic Church( s2).

The continuance of that requirement comes also from s2 which requires the sovereign to subscribe to the Coronation oath.

s3 provides that the sovereign shall join in in the communion of the Church of England.

Illegitimate issue of parents who subsequently marry.What Chris and Colin say above is correct.However in Scotland issue of a peer born before the peer married,can,if the peer marries the mother or father succeed to the peerage.But this cannot apply to succession to the Crown which is covered by English law. 

[BREMENMURRAY]

The Line of Succession shown in the Royal Family website is now restricted to the descendants of Elizabeth II