Definition
In English constitutional law, the princes of the royal blood are members of the royal family who descend from the sovereign but are not positioned in the immediate line of succession to the throne. The category historically encompassed the younger sons and daughters of the reigning monarch, as well as collateral branches of the royal family whose proximity to the Crown did not place them in direct succession. The term carries legal significance because members of this class were subject to distinct statutory privileges, restrictions, and obligations — including rules governing marriage, financial provision from the Crown, and ceremonial precedence — that differed from those applied either to the direct heir apparent or to ordinary subjects.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not separately defined as a legal term; "prince" is generally understood as a male member of a royal family, particularly a son of a monarch.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Prince" is defined broadly as a sovereign ruler or the son of a king or emperor; "royal blood" denotes descent from a royal family.
The gap between common and legal usage here is structural rather than semantic. In ordinary speech, "prince of the royal blood" describes any male with dynastic descent. In English law, the phrase identified a specific legal class — distinct from the heir apparent and from subjects without royal descent — whose members fell under particular statutory frameworks governing their conduct, marriages, and financial support. The legal category carried enforceable consequences that the common meaning does not imply.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in English constitutional history or royal prerogative materials will encounter this term most heavily in sources predating the twentieth century, when the legal status of royal family members was more formally codified and litigated. The Royal Marriages Act 1772 is the central statute in this area: it prohibited members of the royal family descended from George II from marrying without the sovereign's consent, and the phrase "princes of the royal blood" — or its functional equivalent — appears throughout parliamentary debates and commentaries on that Act.
Several research traps arise. First, the term is gendered in historical usage: "princes" nominally includes daughters (as Black's notes), but practice and contemporaneous commentary often treated male and female members differently with respect to succession and provision. Researchers should not assume gender neutrality in primary sources simply because a definition includes daughters. Second, the boundary between "princes of the royal blood" and the heir apparent is legally meaningful — privileges and restrictions applicable to one class did not automatically apply to the other. Third, collateral branches of the royal family who had become remote from the Crown in any practical sense might still fall within the formal legal definition, creating situations where the statutory category swept more broadly than intuition suggests.
The category diminished in practical legal significance through the twentieth century, and modern English law — particularly following the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 and associated reforms — distributes royal family legal status differently. Researchers should be alert to anachronism when applying historical definitions to contemporary contexts, or vice versa.
This term does not translate to American law. It appears in American legal dictionaries primarily for reference when U.S. courts or counsel encountered English constitutional questions, not as a domestically operative category.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary consulted offer identical definitions, framing the term as a matter of English law and specifying two constituent groups: younger sons and daughters of the sovereign, and other royal family branches outside the immediate succession line. The definition is notably compact and does not engage with the statutory history that gives the term its operative legal content — particularly the Royal Marriages Act 1772 or the rules governing parliamentary grants to royal family members. Neither edition distinguishes between male and female members despite using the word "princes," which reflects the conventional legal usage of "princes" as a class noun covering both sexes in this context. Neither edition flags the term's diminishing relevance to practicing law, which is an important gap for researchers expecting a living doctrine. The historical dictionaries are reliable as a starting point for identifying the formal class, but insufficient on their own for understanding how the category functioned in litigation, parliamentary practice, or succession disputes.
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Jurisdictional Note
This is a term of English constitutional law with no direct equivalent in American, Canadian, or Australian domestic law, though Commonwealth jurisdictions have occasionally addressed questions of royal family status through their own reception of English statutes and conventions. Researchers working in Commonwealth constitutional history should verify whether the relevant English statute had force in their jurisdiction of interest.
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