A few Royal Marriages Act questions

A couple of questions on the application of the Royal Marriages Act.

Firstly - were the married of Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge and
Princess Beatrice considered to be to foreigners for the purposes of
the act? I.e., were the marriages of Prince Adolphus of Teck and his
descendants, the Marquess of Carisbrooke and his daughter, and Princess
Victoria Eugenie considered to fall under the RMA and to require royal
consent? (Princess Mary and Prince Alexander of Teck would have
required royal consent on the part of the other partner, and so can't
be used as test cases)

François R. Velde...

The answer is yes, they were exempt from the RMA, which is rather curious

jlkenney...

(especially for Princess Beatrice's case, since her husband was naturalized
before the marriage; the duke of Teck was naturalized 16 years after the

jlkenney...

ie.

marriage). A formal announcement was made with respect to Victoria Eugenie.
There is also a file in the National Archives described as follows:

jlkenney...

sent

jlkenney...

of a

HO 45/23892 Marriage to third Marquess of Milford Haven: The King's consent
under the Royal Marriages Act not required as the Marquess was the issue of a
Princess who married into a foreign family.

jlkenney...

The 3rd Marquess of Milford Haven was descended from Princess Victoria
of Hesse and Louis of Battenberg, not from Princess Beatrice and Henry
of Battenberg, so that might explain that one - Princess Alice is then
the Princess who married into a foreign family.

Francois R. Velde...

Of course, you are right. But I do not find trace of any consent for
the marquess of Carisbrooke, and the Home Office stated that none was
needed for his sister Victoria Eugenie. On the other hand the marquess's
daughter Lady Iris Mountbatten received a consent for her first marriage.

I notice, though (below), that Princess Marie Louise *did* get royal
permission for her marriage to Aribert of Anhalt, which is odd, since
her father Prince Christian was presumably, at best, in identical
circumstances to Henry of Battenberg. Was he naturalized before or
after his marriage to Princess Helena?

Also listed are Prince Adolphus of Teck and Lady Margaret Grosvenor, so
it seems like the rule for Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry was made
up on the fly so that the King wouldn't have to approve a marriage to a
Catholic monarch but also wouldn't prevent it.

Francois R. Velde...

Prince Adolphus did get consent, but none of his issue seems to have.
His brother Prince Alexander did, but he was marrying a royal princess;
many but not all of their descendants got consent.

This NA file may be relevant:
HO 144/964/B17152 Royal consent to the Marriage of H.R.H. Prince
Adolphus of Teck; Descendants of the marriage of Princess Mary and the
Duke of Teck do not require the Royal Consent to marry.

There is also evidence for one request that was ignored:
PC 12/236 Royal Marriages Act 1772: request for consent to marriage
of son of Duke of Brunswick 1946.

jlkenney...

s still

I'm curious as to the reasoning that led to this decision, but the file is still
closed. Perhaps I will make a FOI request.

Secondly - I understand that the members of the House of Hanover still
request royal consent for their marriages. Did and do the descendants
of the last Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha request royal consent for
their marriages? The first such marriages would have been that of the

jlkenney...

d any.

Huh. I see that the only "German" marriage approved between the World
Wars was that between Princess Frederika of Hanover and Prince Paul of
Greece. But it seems odd to grant that, but not that between Princess
Sibylle of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden,
since those seem like comparable situations. I suppose the Greek
marriage was a few years later, though, so perhaps that played a role.
Also, presumably Princess Sibylle's sister and brother had already
married without royal permission before this, while Frederika was the
first of the Duke of Brunswick's children to marry.

Could the lack of permission for the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha marriages
theoretically take Karl Eduard's descendants out of the succession?

François R. Velde...

I can't tell you if they did, but I'm pretty confident they never received any.
See a list of consents granted 1791-1980
and another list 1900-2005
neither of which is exactly complete.

jlkenney...

I knew I should've looked at your site first, thanks. Marriages
missing from your list, that I would have thought would've showed up
would include:

*Crown Prince of Hanover to Marie of Saxe-Altenburg

Francois R. Velde...

There is a file in the National Archives:
HO 45/8927 : Consent of HM to marriage of prince royal of Hanover. 1842

*Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge to the Duke of Teck

Francois R. Velde...

That one was gazetted.

*Princess Helena to Prince Christian of S-H-S-A

Francois R. Velde...

Ditto.

*Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Don Alfonso d'Orleans

Francois R. Velde...

Don't know about that one. There is another series in the National
Archives (C188) that may contain other documents.

Anyway, thanks. The RMA is certainly a strange thing.

sionevar...

I have always wondered how far a person affected by the RMA would have to go
in order to not be affected. For example, if somebody resettled abroad,
adopted foreign citizenship then married in their new homeland, would it
still be a problem? Would their marriage be valid in the foreign country,
but not in the UK?

Duke's younger daughter Princess Caroline Mathilde to Count Friedrich
Wolfgang of Castell-R=FCdenhausen in 1931, followed by the (morganatic)
marriage of the Hereditary Prince in 1932, and the marriage of Princess
Sibylle to Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden in the same year. This was
then followed by the *second* marriage of Princess Caroline Mathilde in
1938, and then the first marriage of Prince Friedrich Josias *during
World War II* in 1942. The third marriage of Caroline Mathilde and the
second marriage of Friedrich Josias were both in 1948, and shortly
thereafter the Hereditary Prince's children started to get married.
Did any of these seek royal permission from George V or George VI? I'm
assuming that requesting permission for Friedrich Josias's first
marriage would have been impossible during the war, but what about the
others?