For Princess Anna, after the time of injustice, is it the time of revenge?

There coronavirus positivity of Queen Elizabethwho is keeping British subjects in strong apprehension, has rekindled the headlights on the role of 71-year-old Princess Anna in the royal family. A role so far penalized by the succession rules that prefer men, but that could be it modified precisely by virtue of the current emergency. A kind of compensationalbeit belated, for Elizabeth’s only daughter, and an important signal of attention to social change for Buckingham Palace.

But let’s go in order. The organization of the monarchy provides that, if the queen falls ill to the point of not being able to carry out constitutional duties, these may be temporarily discharged by two or more of his State Councilors. According to the law, the role of Councilor of State belongs to the monarch’s consort (in the case of Elizabeth, however Philip deceased) and the first four persons over the age of 21 in the line of succession to the throne. At the moment, therefore, the Queen’s Counselors are the princes Charles, William, Harry and Andrea. The latter two, however, no longer perform representative functions for the Royal Family. Harry has chosen a life away from the court, in California, with Meghan and their two children. Andrea was deprived of military titles and honors following the scandal that led him, to avoid a trial, to compensate Virginia Giuffre with millions of poundsthe woman who accused him of raping her when she was still a minor.

So everything points to that at the moment the only two who could replace Elisabetta in case of need are the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge, or Carlo and William. But these days more than one expert advanced the hypothesis of an appointment as Councilors of State of the other two children of Elizabeth, Princess Anne and Prince Edward, replacing Harry and Andrea. That’s what he argued for example on Times L’constitutional law expert Craig Prescott.

To do this it would not be essential to change the law, but it would be enough to add a few more Councilors of State to the list. As Craig Scott recalled, there is a precedent for this option: in 1953 the Queen Mother was appointed Councilor of State for her daughter, Elizabeth II, despite not holding any office in the line of succession. Some experts have also pointed to the Duchess of Cornwall Camilla and the Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton as possible candidates for this role. Certainly both will become Councilor of State (as spouses) when their respective husbands ascend the throne. However, at the moment, no one appears more suitable for this task than Princess Annewho for years has been the figure of the family that performs the greatest number of real tasks, giving decisive help to the ninety-five-year-old mother.

The second child of Elizabeth II occupies a fairly remote position in the line of succession, just seventeenth, but this is because the rule of the preference of men over women privileged her two younger brothers, Andrea and Eduardo, and their respective descendants. For some royal experts, appointing Princess Anne as a State Councilor would do the trick redress the injustice of that preference for male descendants, abolished in 2013 but without retroactive effect.

The journalist Libby Purves wrote on the Times that “in a less fossilized and stubborn country, one would think that the revision of the primogeniture law in 2013 could have included redressing the injustices committed by history to all women. And one might also think that, on the death of the Duke of Edinburgh, a reasonable royal house would have removed Harry and Andrew from the position of Councilors of State to return this role to Princess Anne“. A scenario that could still come true. Indeed, as Libby Purves wrote, “it should come true.”