Royal rules

The Roman Catholic bishops have some nerve in banging on about the prohibition of a royal heir from marrying one of their persuasion, while continuing their insistence that children of mixed marriages must be brought up as Catholics (your report, 12 July). It was the intrusion of this rule into the Royal family that led to the law in the first place.

That said, it is clearly ridiculous that PrinceWilliam, if he ever wants to marry a Catholic, will be obliged to woo her with a harangue about such lofty matters as the non-existence of Purgatory. However, this is all a red herring.

The real reason politicians like David Cameron keep backtracking onreform is because the issue touches onthe foundation of the Constitution, which rests less on the Act of Settlement of 1701 than on the Claim of Right of 1689, which uniquely and unequivocally overthrew a Roman Catholic despot. This fact seems to scare our masters. The media could do much more to expose why.

We need a new James Stair to blow the dust off the Constitution, and redraft it in the proper context of the Law of Nations. The bishops will want to to make their input, concerning the place init for the Law of God; which others will call the Law of Nature. Nothing wrong with that, in moderation.

However, if we stop talking about this, it will all be left to utilitarians like Geoffrey Robertson QC to eulogise his pantheonof regicides.

Personally, I am not enthused by the proposition that my freedom is contingent on somebody's head once being cut off.

DAVID DOUGLAS- HAMILTON

Prince Regent Street, Edinburgh

The Act of Settlement is logical enough up to a point (your report, 12 July). For a non-communicant of the Church of England to be head of that church is as bizarre, almost, as for a non-Catholic to be a Pope.

What is discriminatory is that the Act does not go far enough, singling out Catholics against eligibility for the throne when other denominations and faiths - Baptists, Jews, Muslims, atheists - are not. But this only applies while the two positions, head of Church and of state, co-exist in one person.

Disestablishment would seem to be a solution; and apart from England, which of the Queen's realms would be likely to hold out against it?

IAN R ALLAN

Canongate, Edinburgh