Will baronet’s title battle end in DNA challenge to throne?
THE aristocracy including the Royal Family faces potential turmoil after a court ruling yesterday made a Buckinghamshire accountant a Scottish baronet.
Murray Pringle, 74, used DNA evidence to show his grandmother was probably a love cheat – meaning he, not his cousin, is the rightful heir to the Roxburghshire baronetcy of Pringle of Stichill.
It is the first time DNA has been used to settle a hereditary title dispute and it could have far-reaching consequences.
Using genetics to expose adultery by ancestors, ‘pretenders’ to aristocratic titles may be able to follow yesterday’s legal precedent to claim their birthright.
A Mormon lawyer in Utah in the US, who is possibly a very distant cousin of the Queen, could potentially use the case as a basis to lay claim to the throne.
The spectre of a shake-up of the title system was heralded yesterday by Mr Pringle,
‘Presumption of legitimacy’
of High Wycombe, who won a court battle against his first-cousin-once-removed Simon Pringle, of Hastings, East Sussex.
It was insurer Simon, 56, who was to be the 11th baronet, after his father Sir Steuart Pringle died in 2013. But doubts arose from a project charting the lineage to the 17th century. Amateur genealogy revealed the last baronet was from a different bloodline, suggesting an illegitimate child in an earlier generation.
DNA evidence indicated the 8th baronet, Sir Norman Robert Pringle, born in 1871, may have been cuckolded by wife Florence Madge – and that their first son was fathered by another man. This meant Simon, further down this bloodline, is not the rightful heir.
Florence’s second son Ronald was legitimate, DNA showed – meaning his son Murray is the true heir.
The two branches of the family spent thousands of pounds on the legal battle, despite there being no land or money attached to the title – granted by Charles II in 1683 to Robert Pringle of Stichill, near Kelso. Simon laid his claim with the Crown Office in June 2013, followed by Murray in September that year.
Such claims are normally assessed by the Registrar of the Peerage & Baronetage, a Ministry of Justice official. But the case was considered so contentious it was brought before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
The Queen had to sign an order to convene the committee, made up of seven Supreme Court judges.
At a hearing in November, they heard Murray was the administrator of a website tracing the Pringle clan, and had requested DNA samples from relatives. Tests found the 9th baronet should not have been Sir Steuart’s father Sir Norman Hamilton Pringle, but his younger brother Ronald, Murray’s father.
The judges ruled the DNA showed to ‘a high degree of probability’ Simon was not the ‘heir male’ of the 1st baronet and Murray was.
One judge, Lord Hodge, said the past absence of scientific evidence meant ‘the presumption of legitimacy could rarely be rebutted’, but ‘not so now’. He raised the prospect of a raft of claims against years-old aristocratic property transactions.
Simon, whose father survived an IRA car bomb and served as Commandant General Royal Marines – said: ‘I want to congratulate Murray… and express the hope he and his successors will wear the title as honourably as my father.’
James Pringle, of the Clan Pringle Association, said: ‘There is no reason for dismissing DNA … If another title comes into question, I’m sure it will be looked at the same way.’
As for that Mormon lawyer, James Ord, 39, of Utah, who is possibly descended from George IV and his mistress Maria Fitzherbert, said he will now have a DNA test for royal blood ‘out of curiosity’.