Princess Anne is expecting to welcome another grandchild into the family this summer as her pregnant daughter Zara Tindall nears her due date.
While it is not yet known if the new royal baby will be a girl or boy, the Princess Royal could find a sense of justice in the latter, Gloucestershire Live reports.
That is because her grandson’s place in the line of succession in the Royal Family will be fairer than when she was born, due to a key change in the rules of succession since then.
Seventy years ago when Princess Anne was born, she was third in line to the throne behind her brother Charles and her mother Elizabeth, who is now Queen.
However, because titles were then passed down through the male line, she quickly lost her place as younger brothers Andrew and Edward jumped the royal queue for the crown.
She dropped even further down the queue when Andrew, the Duke of York, and Edward, the Earl of Wessex, had children and Princess Eugenie gave birth recently.
This rule of ‘male primogeniture’ allowed a younger son to displace an elder daughter in the line of succession, but it was abolished in the 2013 Succession to the Crown Act which changed the provisions of the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement.
Currently Princess Anne is 15th in line to the throne and her children – Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall – are now numbers 16th and 19th, respectively.
This is despite her status as one of the most experienced, popular and hardworking royals.
Her granddaughters…
