To the likely embarrassment of many aristocratic families, Burke’s Peerage will have to be re-written in the light of a Privy Council decision that modern DNA evidence can be used to trace illegitimate children in noble lines and to resolve disputes in respect of who should, or should not, bear titles of honour.
The case concerned a Scottish baronetcy that had been conferred on a subject by King Charles II on the basis that the title would pass, generation after generation, to ‘the male heirs of his body’. A man’s claim to have become the 11th baronet on the death of his father, the 10th baronet, was disputed by his cousin.
The latter argued that the man’s grandfather – the 9th baronet – was illegitimate and not in fact the son of the 8th. The baronetcy should therefore have passed to the second son born of the 8th baronet’s wife, the cousin’s father, and thence to him.
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council noted that the 9th baronet was, in law, presumed to be legitimate. However, in upholding the cousin’s claim to the title, it found that that presumption had been rebutted by powerful DNA evidence that he was not the legitimate heir.
Arguments that the cousin’s reliance on the DNA evidence amounted to a breach of confidence, or was ruled out by the Data Protection Act 1998, were rejected. The cousin’s right to the title was also not excluded by the passage of time, by the 9th baronet’s inclusion on the official role of the baronetage or by the 8th baronet’s recognition of him as his heir. The ruling meant that the baronetcy had passed down the wrong line since the death of the 8th baronet and that neither the 9th baronet, nor the 10th, a distinguished soldier, had had a right to the title.
In the Matter of the Baronetcy of Pringle in Stichill. Case Number: 0079 of 2015