Based on a true story?
Is this based on a true story?
shareI rather doubt it.
In the real world, a child born out of wedlock CANNOT inherit a title. This includes a royal title. And, as was pointed out when they first approached Ralph, Ralph's father was an illegitimate child.
BTW: That law is also the reason the U.S. has the Smithsonian Institution.
From Wikipedia:
James Smithson, FRS, M.A. (ca. 1765 – 27 June 1829) was a British chemist and mineralogist. He was the founding donor of the Smithsonian Institution.Frustrated at not being able to inherit his father's title, he willed his fortune "to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge among men."
Smithson was the illegitimate child of the 1st Duke of Northumberland, and was born James Lewis Macie, in secret in Paris. Eventually he was naturalized in England and he attended college, studying chemistry and mineralogy. At age twenty-two he changed his name to James Smithson, his father's surname.
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"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things,"
Of atoms, stars and nebulæ, of entropy and genes.
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