The Queen Steps Into A Row About DNA And The Peerage

Emily Minett says a 'dossier of DNA evidence' at the Crown Office may oust late baronet's son from promised title.

The Queen has personally ordered seven of Britain's most senior judges to rule on whether DNA evidence can be used for the first time to resolve a feud over a hereditary title.

The title in question is the Baronetcy of Stichill, which dates back to 1683 when King Charles II granted the title to Robert Pringle of Stichill 'ac heredibus masculis de suo corpore', a Latin phrase translating as 'and his male heirs from his body'.

The late tenth baronet, Sir Steuart Pringle, was the commandant general of the Royal Marines during the Falklands War. On his death in 2013, it was expected that his eldest son, Simon Pringle, would become the eleventh Baronet. However, DNA samples provided for an innocent family tree project controversially indicated that the tenth baronet was not genetically related to his cousins.

This means that that the ninth baronet could not have been the biological son of the eighth baronet - the title had passed through an illegitimate child to the wrong side of the family. This is so, despite the mother of the ninth baronet having made a formal statutory declaration at the time declaring otherwise.

If the Privy Council decides that the DNA evidence is accurate and can be used to decide the matter, the title should pass to Norman Murray Pringle, the descendant on the other side of the family. Simon Pringle laid his claim at the Crown Office in June 2013 and Norman Murray Pringle asserted his rival claim in September 2013, along with a dossier of DNA evidence.

We understand that there is no land or property associated with the title, so the outcome of the case should not affect entitlement to the Pringle estate, although it does raise the question of whether the eighth baronet would have passed the estate to his eldest 'child', had the evidence been available then.

There is a rebuttable presumption in law that a child born to a woman married to a man is the child of her husband, so if the use of DNA evidence is approved, not only would it rebut this presumption, override the earlier statutory declaration and generally be a marked break with tradition, but it...