English constitutional crisis looming?
Tuesday, 14th August 2007
By: Jonathan Petre

The news that the Queen’s eldest grandchild may have to renounce his right to the throne to marry his canadian fiancé has aroused unexpected passions. Since the story appeared on the front page of the Daily Telegraph last week, there has been a deluge of reaction.

When the engagement between Peter Phillips, the 29-year-old son of the Princess Royal, and Autumn Kelly, 31, his management consultant girlfriend, was announced a fortnight ago, it barely created a ripple.

After all, Mr Phillips is only tenth in line to the throne, and the couple have been too sensible and publicity shy to attract much media interest.

But the royal romance took an unlikely twist when it emerged that Miss Kelly is a baptised Roman Catholic and therefore falls foul of the 1701 Act of Settlement, which bars monarchs and their heirs from becoming or marrying “papists”. the rest