Attainders still happen .........

...... according to tonight's C4 program about Prince Leopold Charles
Edward, Victoria's grandson. Then again he was Earl of Clarence and
Duke of Albany; titles whose previous holders were pains in the necks
of the English and Scots Kings.

Stephen

This wasn't actually a 'proper' attainder. Indeed, one peer described the Bill which became the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 as 'a Bill of Attainder without the courage of a Bill of Attainder'! A Bill of Attainder required that the accused be tried before Parliament (if alive). This would have been difficult in 1914-18 as all the 'targets' (Charles Edward; the Duke of Cumberland - formerly Crown Prince of Hanover; Cumberland's son, the Duke of Brunswick, and the 14th Viscount Taaffe of Corren. plus Prine Albert of Schleswig-Holstein, a grandson of Queen Victoria, though no action was ultimately takn against him) were on foreign soil. There was also a desire to avoid having the King involved in the actual deprivation of the titles.

The Act created a procedure by which the activities of the 'targets' during the war could be investigated, and then, following a report to the Privy Council, they could be deprived of their British titles.

I have published an academic aricle on the subject of the 1917 Act. I can send you a copy if you are interested.

Regards

Ann


----- Original Message ----
From: Stephen Lark <stephenmlark@...>
To:
Sent: Thursday, 6 December, 2007 9:42:51 PM
Subject: Attainders still happen .........

...... according to tonight's C4 program about Prince Leopold Charles
Edward, Victoria's grandson. Then again he was Earl of Clarence and
Duke of Albany; titles whose previous holders were pains in the necks
of the English and Scots Kings.