Line of Succession to the British Throne

[Tatiana Maria]

Originally Posted by Mbruno

The Succession to the Crown Act 2013 made the marriage retroactively legal in the UK (it was of course already legal in Germany), so their descendants are now considered legitimate under British law, but the exclusion from the line of succession is permanent nonetheless.

Not all of the unapproved marriages were legalized (and their descendants legitimized) under British law by the 2013 Succession to the Crown Act. It states

(5) A void marriage under that Act is to be treated as never having been void if—

(a) neither party to the marriage was one of the 6 persons next in the line of succession to the Crown at the time of the marriage,

(b) no consent was sought under section 1 of that Act, or notice given under section 2 of that Act, in respect of the marriage,

(c) in all the circumstances it was reasonable for the person concerned not to have been aware at the time of the marriage that the Act applied to it, and

(d) no person acted, before the coming into force of this section, on the basis that the marriage was void.

Georg Wilhelm sought the British king's consent to his marriage under the Royal Marriages Act. For that reason, his marriage fails tests 5(b) and 5(c), and it continues to be unrecognized in the UK. His descendants therefore are even now illegitimate in UK law.

Originally Posted by Mbruno

You could ask the other way around: why not? Most of those 5000 people have no official role in the UK, no British title, no state funding, and it is highly unlikely that anyone outside the first 10 people in the line of succession will ever ascend the throne. So keeping them in the line of succession is in the worst case innocuous and, pragmatically, there is no gain in removing them.

The law frames the question as "why?", not "why not?" Most nationals of the states over which the Crown is sovereign are ineligible to inherit the Crown, which is a privilege reserved for a small, select section of the population.

In answer to "why not": Because in that highly unlikely event of a tragedy, it is highly likely that the majority of those 5000 people would be unsuitable to the official role of UK monarch.