 |
| Maude, the disputed first Queen of England |
Major news from the United Kingdom today: Nearly 1,000 years after the country descended into a notorious Anarchy over women's right to the throne, and nearly 500 years after Elizabeth I set the precedent for some legendary Queens of England, the Commonwealth has voted to adopt equal primogeniture, meaning that if Prince William and Catherine, Countess of Cambridge, have a daughter before they have a son, she will inherit the throne before he does.
The UK has been a holdout among European kingdoms in this matter—Sweden, Denmark and Spain have all adopted equal primogeniture in past years and decades. According to CNN, Prime Minister David Cameron described Friday's agreement by the heads of government of the 16 nations as "something of a historic moment…The idea that a younger son should become monarch instead of an elder daughter simply because he is a man, or that a future monarch can marry someone of any faith except a Catholic—this way of thinking is at odds with the modern countries that we have become."
Cameron also referred to plans to scrap the Act of Settlement, a law passed in 1701 which bans the UK monarch from marrying a Catholic. It was intended to ensure that Protestants held the throne and remained head of the Church of England.