Title role?
Sir: As the marriage of Princess Anne approaches the time has come to take stock of a constitutional problem which it presents but which appears likely to be _overlooked. For centuries reigning British Sovereigns have bestowed hereditary peerages on their close kinsmen and on fiancé's of •Royal Princesses at maturity or on marriage. So well established is the practice that even during this century (when support for the principle of Monarchy has diminished somewhat) there have been no exceptionswhatever as far as the nuclear family of the Crown is concerned and very few within the limits of the Royal family as laid down by King George V.
The reasons for this practice are obvious. In the words of the Times correspondent David Wood (January 1, 1973), commenting upon the absenceof hereditary creations from the Honours lists "A hereditary Crown .... needs the support of the hereditary peerage for if the hereditary principle is treated with contempt at one social and constitutional level it will not be treated with respect at another, and in the course of time the Crown will seem to be founded on a principle that everywhere else is rejected."
If the queen does not confer .a peerage on Captain Phillips many will see in this the hand of the Prime Minister, since he has never recommended any hereditary, honours since he took office, and it is inconceivable nowadays that the Sovereign would make her decision without consulting her principal adviser. The consequences could be important. The other members of the Royal Family (and there are no signs of peerages for them) apart from cousins are too young to be eligible for a long time to come; so that the practice could well lapse beyond revival and the position of the Crown itself thus be weakened, for the reasons David Wood has adduced.
As a socialist I myself reject the hereditary principle but I am also a constitutionalist and I believe that fundamental changes in the Constitution could not be made furtively but (eg The Common Market) only ." with the full-hearted consent of Parliament and People." Does Mr Heath I wonder believe in the same principle? John Lee
.2 Dr Johnson's, Buildings, Temple, London, EC4.
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