The Act of Settlement 1701 and the Line of Succession 2, Sep 2022-

[Marengo]

Arms of The United Kingdom​

Welcome to the thread The Act of Settlement 1701 and the Line of Succession, Part 2

Commencing September 1st, 2022 ​

The previous thread can be found here
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[Tatiana Maria]

The children of Elector Charles Louis were *not* passed over because they were born from a morganatic marriage. England didn't recognize the concept of morganatic marriages. [...]

So, in the eyes of the English, the morganatic status of Charles Louis' children wasn't the issue. The real issue was their questionable legitimacy. Charles married their mother while his first wife was still alive, having granted himself a divorce. But the English didn't recognize the right of a sovereign to simply end his own marriage -look at the trouble Henry VIII went through with Catherine of Aragon not to mention George IV's failure when he wanted to divorce Caroline of Brunswick.

To sum it up, Charles Louis' second family was barred from the English throne because the English considered his marriage to be bigamous and the children born from it illegitimate.

I wonder though. If his second and third wives had been of higher birth, would the British parliament have been more inclined to recognize his divorce from his first wife and name the children from his second and third marriages as legitimate heirs to the British throne?

Does heirs of the body in this instance only mean that it can only be passed onto to a descendant

Yes, an "heir of the body" must be a direct descendant born from a lawful marriage (or, in Scotland, born to unmarried parents who subsequently marry). That is why Prince Andrew's dukedom of York, which was created for his "heirs male of the body", cannot be inherited by his brothers, nephews, etc.