THE tiny village of Stichill in the Scottish Borders is at the centre of a court case which yesterday rocked the British aristocracy to its very roots.
For seven Supreme Court judges sitting as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council have ruled that DNA evidence should be used to settle a dispute over the Scottish baronetcy of Pringle of Stichill.
They promptly decided that accountant Murray Pringle, 74, of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, is the correct baronet Pringle of Stichill and not his second cousin, businessman Simon Pringle of Hastings, East Sussex.
The decision could mean titled families finding themselves in court over claims of what the judges called “irregular procreations” in past or even present generations.
For many aristocratic families in Britain and around the world have skeletons in their closets involving ancestors who were conceived during affairs, leading to what one of the judges, Lady Neuberger, called a “cuckoo in the nest”.
The Royal Family has itself been beset with rumours of such infidelities, and not always in the distant past, while legal experts think aristocratic claimants around the world – there are reportedly hundreds – can cite the ruling and now use DNA testing to prove, or disprove, their case.
Scottish judge, Lord Hodge, delivered the verdict in a case which involved many ancient tenets of Scots law regarding succession and legitimacy.
Lord Hodge said the case raised “a question of general importance” about the use of DNA evidence “to challenge an apparent heir’s entitlement to succeed to a title or to property by its exposure of irregular occurrences in previous generations of a family”.
He said in the past an absence of scientific evidence meant that the “presumption of legitimacy could rarely be rebutted” and claims based on assertions that “irregular procreations had occurred in the distant past” were particularly difficult to establish.
But he said DNA evidence had the ability to “reopen a family succession many generations into the past”.
In the Stichill case, the DNA evidence demonstrated to “a high degree of probability” that Murray Pringle was the “heir male”, and entitled to be enrolled in the Official Roll of the Baronetage as the baronet of Pringle of Stichill.
Lord Hodge added: “(We note) the ability of DNA evidence to reopen a family succession many generations into the past.
“Whether this is a good thing and whether legal measures are needed to protect property transactions in the past, the rights of the perceived beneficiary of a trust of property, and the long established expectations of a family, are questions for others to consider.”
The Queen herself had referred the case for “consideration and report’’ under section 4 of the 1833 Judicial Committee Act.
During earlier hearings, the judges had heard that King Charles II granted the baronetcy of Stichill – two miles north of Kelso in Roxburghshire – to Robert Pringle of Stichill and the “male heirs from his body’’ on January 5, 1683, as part of the royal drive to make money by selling titles.
The 10th baronet, Sir Steuart Pringle – a retired Royal Marines commander who survived an IRA bomb attack – died in 2013 aged 84.
His son, Simon Pringle, and his second cousin Murray both advanced claims to the title.
Murray Pringle said Simon Pringle should not become the 11th baronet because there had been a “break in the line of paternity’’.
His lawyers said tests taken for a genealogy project had shown that Sir Steuart’s DNA “did not match that of the Pringle lineage’’. The DNA evidence showed that Sir Steuart’s father Norman was the product of an affair between Norman’s mother Florence and another man who was not her husband, the 8th baronet.
Simon Pringle was gracious in defeat: “I want to congratulate Murray for winning the verdict and express the hope that he and his successors will wear the title as honourably as my father.”
Specialist lawyer Andrew O’Keefe, partner, head of the contentious trust and probate team at law firm Wedlake Bell, said: “Now that DNA evidence has been allowed in evidence to decide this dispute, it must, by corollary, mean that it is likely to be used in any future challenges of this nature.
“Therefore, this case could have far-reaching implications for titled families facing a challenge over succession.”
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