Hi Ish, I wonder if I would have a stronger claim than most people replying here? I can trace my family roots of Genealogy right though The MacFergusson Clan of 4 Step Clans, the O'Donellys, MacDarmaids, of course MacFergussons and MacBreheny's.
I can also trace my roots (I was a member of Ancestry.com untill I could not get anymore information on that website) through King William 1st The Great, you see some of my ancestors were Knights that he asked to come with him on his Conquest of Britain, there is a plaque on the wall of a specific church in France that records the names of the Norman Knights that went with King William The Great, 2 of my ancestors though they were from Britain at the time went and helped King William The Great, their names are recorded on that plaque and mentioned in British records in certain archives as well as the Domesday Books. Does this qualifly me to make a claim to Queen Elizabeth 2nds Throne? I also suspect Queen Elizabeth 2nd is also very much aware of my connections as being one of her legal cousins.
From what I've pieced together in what you've said here and elsewhere on TRF, you're claiming that you can trace your ancestry back to William the Conqueror, that your family was potentially closely related to James I, but were Puritans and thus left England and settled in Plymouth in 1620. Through this connection you believe that you have a claim to the British throne and deserve an apology from Elizabeth II for what happened to your family under James I. Am I correct?
If your familial relationship with Elizabeth II is no closer than the fact that you're descended from a relation of James I, then you're not a legal cousin or close enough of a relation for her to be aware of your connections. There are some 5,00-6,000 living people who descend from Sophia of Hanover, and as such are "cousins" of the Queen, and I really doubt she's aware of most of them.
Even without the Act of Settlement, which puts forth only the descendants of Sophia of Hanover, of whom Elizabeth II is the senior most descendant under male-preferred primogeniture, you don't have a claim to the throne.
James I was the senior most claimant to the throne of Scotland. Once again, according to male-preferred primogeniture, he was the senior most descendant of Robert I, whose rule was cemented by his conquest of Scotland. James I was also the senior most claimant to the throne of England; he was the closest relation of Elizabeth I, he was the senior most living descendant of Henry VII, who himself was both the Lancastrian heir and a conqueror of England, and he was the senior most living descendant of Edward IV, making him the senior most living descendant of both claims from the War of the Roses. The only people who could potentially claim to have a better claim to either throne than James would have to have gone back more than 100 years to claim to be a descendant from Edward IV's younger brother George (for the English throne), or 300 years to claim to be a descendant from one of the other claimants in the Scottish Wars of Independence - both claims which would ignore the fact that James I was descended from the winners of these wars.
As such the only people who could have any kind of claim to the throne of Britain would be descendants of James I, of which there are many. Any one who is a descendant from an earlier monarch has no claim because James I himself was the senior most descendant in his time, making all of his descendants more senior than any descendants of any of his cousins.
In reality, there are at most 2 people who could be considered to have a valid claim to the throne of Britain; Elizabeth II who is the senior most descendant of Sophia of Hanover, who was selected by Parliament to be the legitimate, lawful heir to the throne, and Franz of Bavaria, who is the senior most descendant of James I, but whose ancestors were deposed from ruling by Parliament on the grounds of being unfit to rule.
Unless you are either Elizabeth II or Franz of Bavaria, you have no claim.
