Walter Bagehot wrote in 1867 that,
“one-half of the human race cares … fifty times more for a marriage than a ministry”.
So it came as no surprise at all when this coalition ministry decided that the immensely popular marriage of the second in line to the Throne should be followed by fundamental reforms of the monarchy, which had been under discussion for some years—indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Luce, reminded us, for decades. The reforms overturn some of the principles on which our monarchy has rested, for the most part securely, since the Reformation nearly five centuries ago, principles strengthened and extended under the 1689 settlement. The changes are therefore of profound importance.
The coalition ministry is to be congratulated on securing for them the full support of the 15 other Commonwealth countries of which Her Majesty the Queen is head of state. However, little has been heard of the progress that the 15 are making in implementing these fundamental changes. Those who have been following events in the 15 do not report consistent vigour and diligence. Despite progress made in Canada, to which my noble and learned friend the Minister alluded at the outset, doubts have been expressed about whether the necessary assent will in fact be
forthcoming from all of them. The Government’s most laudable aim is that the new era in the world’s greatest monarchy, which is now foreshadowed, should begin simultaneously in all 16 realms. It would be useful to hear from my noble and learned friend today when the point of common action envisaged by the Government is likely to be reached.
The merits of the reforms are well known and I shall not dwell upon them. An immense amount of preparatory work has clearly been done. Even so, the Government seem so far to have given insufficient consideration to some of the most significant and wholly predictable consequences that these major constitutional changes will have. The most obvious and predictable of them all involve the Roman Catholic Church. Other noble Lords have alluded to this issue but, in view of its importance, I would like to return to it, following meekly in the wake of my fellow member of the Constitution Committee, my noble friend Lord Lang.
No one who marries a Roman Catholic in future will be excluded from the line of succession, but no one who is a Roman Catholic can wear the Crown. Immediately, people ask the obvious question: if a marriage to a Roman Catholic is contracted in the direct line of succession or close to it, in what faith will the children of that marriage be brought up? Confronted with this question by your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Constitution last month, Mr Clegg was totally untroubled, saying:
“The Catholic Church itself has not had a doctrine for many years obliging people who are of a mixed religious denomination to educate their children as Catholics … There is a lot of flexibility and the Catholic Church has been very clear about that”.
Mr Clegg is married to a Roman Catholic and might have been expected to have been absolutely accurate in his comments. In fact, as this debate has made clear, he was both right and wrong: right that the Roman Catholic Church is capable of exercising flexibility, but wrong that it has shed its doctrine on mixed marriages. As the Reverend Andrew Cole, to whom my noble friend Lord Lang, alluded, private secretary to the Bishop of Nottingham and Catholic chaplain to the University of Nottingham, stated in a letter to the chairman of the Constitution Committee, provoked by Mr Clegg’s remarks, there remains,
“a presumption that the Catholic party in a so-called ‘mixed marriage’ will promise to have their children baptised and brought up as Catholics”.
A blithely untroubled optimist such as Mr Clegg may happily assume that the requirement will be set aside in regard to the children of a mixed marriage in the line of succession to the Throne. In this crucial matter, helpful and reassuring comments have been made by the present Archbishop of Westminster. But Mr Clegg, the Archbishop and others speak only for themselves.
The greatest institution in our country—its 1,000 year-old monarchy—requires certainty to ensure its security and stability in the ages to come.