In the matter of thrones and crowns, sons take precedence over daughters, even if the daughter is older than her brother. From time immemorial, male heirs have taken precedence when it comes to the royal line of succession. Vera Baird, the solicitor general for England and Wales, vouchsafed to the London Sunday Times at the weekend that it is a priority in the government’s sights, and will be amended in its planned equality legislation later this year.

Curiously, it is a problem that may not exist for many decades to come. Princess Anne, who is now 10th in line to the British throne following the birth of Prince Edward’s son Viscount

Severn, is not exactly complaining about discrimination. The issue will eventually arise only if Prince William’s first child is female and ready to succeed him when he dies.

However, the legislation does at least give rise to some intriguing what-ifs. As every schoolboy knows, the last princess to be denied the throne in favour of a younger male heir was Amelia Sophia of Hanover. George II’s unmarried daughter was 49 when he died and the crown passed to a new generation, her nephew George III, in 1760. She died in 1786 aged75 so — arguably — Queen Milly might not have lost the Unted Kingdom the American colonies. Or, if she had followed family traditions of pig-headedness, perhaps she would.

Before her, Queen Mary I - Bloody Mary — had to wait for her younger brother Edward VI to die in 1553 before succeeding to the throne and instituting England’s brief counter-reformation. Had she followed their father Henry VIII in 1547, she would have had an extra six years to wreak revenge on Protestants and bring back the old religion. In that case, maybe Pope Benedict would have been visiting the United Kingdom last weekend, not the United States.

You need really to go back to Queen Matilda a mere 870 years ago to find the last time the succession of a woman was queried - and in those days it was really a question of who could grab power first. Matilda was Henry I’s only living legitimate child when he died, but the throne was seized by a powerful baronial rival, Stephen, resulting in a 14-year civil war.