Northern Ireland

On This Day in 1918: 'No Popish Princess!'

To the Editor

SIR – Within the last few days there has been gossip in the press about the prospective bride for the young Prince of Wales. Names have been mentioned, amongst them a daughter of the King of Italy.

The idea of the Prince even daring to think of an alliance with a ‘Popish’ princess is, needless to say, horrible to the followers of William III, and when the item of news gossip was reproduced by the local Orange Press, the excitement must have been intense – and the Twelfth coming on too. In sympathy with the feelings of those who love civil and religious liberty so much that they decline to share it with their Catholic fellow-countrymen, permit me to assure them that their fears are groundless.

The Italian Princess is barred unless – which is highly improbable and even an insult to the Princess to expect – she changes her religion.

If the Prince of Wales married a Catholic, he would be cast off from the Throne under the Act of Settlement, 1689, a section of which enacts: ‘And whereas, it has been found by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant kingdom, to be governed by a Popish prince, or by any King or Queen marrying a Papist, the said Lords, spiritual and temporal and Commons do further pray that it be enacted that all and every person and persons that…shall be reconciled to or shall hold communion with the See or Church of Rome or shall profess the Popish religion, or shall marry a Papist, shall be excluded and be forever incapable to inherit the Crown...’

It is unsafe to have a Papist like James II on the Throne, who had published the Declaration of Liberty of Conscience for all men (Papists included) and to show how safe it was for civil and religious liberty to have a Protestant King, the Catholics for over a century subsequently got the splendid benefits of the Penal Laws...

Yours etc.,

JOSEPH O O'KANE


Belfast

(The blind rumour that the British heirapparent, the future ill-starred Edward VIII, was to marry a Catholic raised Orange hackles. However, as the Belfast Home Ruler, JP O’Kane, noted, such an eventuality was ruled out by the Act of Settlement (1689) which marked the accession of William III and his wife – James II’s Protestant daughter, Mary – as joint monarchs.)