She is unlikely to be appearing on Jeremy Kyle any time soon but DNA testing on the body of Richard III may have shaken the Queen’s claim to the throne.
Scientists have compared genes from the dead king with some of his living descendants and discovered that someone in the royal line was illegitimate.
‘We are not in any way indicating that Her Majesty should not be on the throne,’ said team leader Professor Kevin Schurer.
‘But a false paternity event at some point in this genealogy could be of key historical significance.’
The team at the University of Leicester have been studying the body of Richard since it was discovered under a Leicester car park in 2012.
And the mismatch in his male Y chromosome could mean the Queen’s own Tudor ancestors were castle-hopping.
‘We don’t know where the break is,’ the professor wrote in the journal Nature Communication.
‘But if there’s one link that has more significance than any other, it has to be the link between Edward III and his son John of Gaunt.
‘Arguably (John’s son) Henry IV had no legitimate right to the throne, and therefore neither did Henry V and, indirectly, the Tudors.’
The team now say they are 99.999 per cent sure the body is that of Richard who was just 32 when he died at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.
He had seized the crown two years earlier and is alleged to have murdered his two young nephews in the Tower of London to cling on to the throne.
But rather than the dwarfish and beetle-browed hunchback of legend, the king was likely to have been blonde and blue-eyed, the scientists discovered.
Despite his findings, the professor was keen not to restart the War of the Roses or challenge the Queen’s right to the throne.
‘Some may wish to do that,’ he said.‘I don’t think I should do it.’
The king’s body is due to be reburied in Leicester Cathedral early next year.
