Note 339 — Chapter XV · FALL OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

The restrictions are not of course absolute, for a Prince may refuse to be bound by them. He may defy the Act and marry a subject without the consent of the Sovereign. The marriage is then quite valid for him as a private individual. He could not after it marry anybody else whilst his wife lived, save at the risk of a prosecution for bigamy. But the marriage confers no Royal status on his wife, and no Royal rights of inheritance on his children. The wife of the Duke of Sussex was simply Lady Augusta Murray, and took merely her own rank as an earl’s daughter. The wife of the Duke of Cambridge is not Duchess of Cambridge, but merely Mrs. FitzGeorge, and the Duke’s family take the name of FitzGeorge, and the rank of Commoners. Yet it would be impossible for the Duke to marry any one else, even with the consent of the Queen.