The heir and the spare

Nick Clegg has announced a review into male primogeniture, but subscribers to The Spectator will – as so often – be already well-briefed on the subject. We ran a piece on this in Thursday’s magazine by Rachel Ward, the firstborn of the younger brother of an earl. This in itself will be enough to earn her a ribbing from some commentators on this blog, I imagine, but her thoughts on the subject are fascinating. Here’s a sample:

“At the reading of the will after my father’s recent death, I was firmly reminded of my place by certain clauses bestowing his ‘residuary estate’ ‘upon trust for my first son “A” during his life and subject thereto’, followed by ‘A’s first son’, then ‘his son B and his son’.…. Growing up, I accepted that my younger brother would inherit the family estate and all its chattels. I was flattered that my father considered me ‘pretty enough to marry someone very rich’.