heiress presumptive

See also: heiress-presumptive

English

Alternative forms

• heiress-presumptive

Noun

heiress presumptive (plural heiresses presumptive)

1. A female heir presumptive.

   Coordinate term: heiress apparent

   • [1876?], Emily Sarah Holt, “The Invincible Armada”, in Clare Avery: A Story of the Spanish Armada (English Life in the Olden Time), new edition, London: John F. Shaw and Co. […], →OCLC, page 81:

     Still maintaining an outward appearance of friendship with Elizabeth, he quietly spread among his own people copies of his pedigree, wherein he represented himself as the true heir to the crown of England, by descent from his ancestresses Philippa and Katherine of Lancaster: ignoring the facts—that, though the heir general of Katherine, he was not so of her elder sister Philippa; and that if he had been, the law which would have made these two sisters heiresses presumptive had been altered while they were children.

   • 1984, Kathy Lynn Emerson, “GREY, CATHERINE (1539-1568)”, in Wives and Daughters: The Women of Sixteenth Century England, Troy, N.Y.: The Whitston Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 97:

     Catherine did not suffer for her inadvertant^[sic] part in that treason, but was made a maid of honor and lived at Court as one of several heiresses presumptive during Mary Tudor’s reign.

   • 2002, Susan Child, “[Parliament and the Constitution] House of Lords Reform”, in Politico’s Guide to Parliament, 2nd edition, London: Politico’s Publishing, →ISBN, page 50:

     On 27 March, the House agreed to the recommendations of the Committee’s Fourth Report (HL 45) of that Session which proposed some revisions to the other categories of those allowed to sit on the steps of the Throne. Four categories of heirs to the peerage were allowed to sit on the steps: eldest sons of peers; eldest daughters or grand-daughters of peers if they were heiresses presumptive; grandsons of peers when heirs apparent and eldest sons of those having disclaimed a peerage.

References

• “heiress presumptive”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.