Imagine a layman asking a medieval king that he is the one among the innumerable royal bastards and that he should be acknowledged as the rightful royal child. The next moments such claimant would be spent with the hangman before his last wish.

How far the civil rights have evolved through the recent centuries can be gauged from this that today a layman can bring a reigning king to the court, asking him to produce his DNA-test. This is happening in Belgium whose former King Albert 11 finally yielded to a decade-long demand by a ‘commoner’ woman that he is her biological father.

The King was first dragged to the court in 2013 along with his two sons when Delphine Boel, an artist and a sculptor, claimed that the king is her real father and that her paternity should be proved with the help of the royal DNA-test. The King denied and his kingship immunized him from conducting the matter further. However, the King Albert 11’s abdication in 2013 coincided with the end of the immunity he had been enjoying due to his position.

All this royal controversy unfolded in 1999 with the publication of the unauthorized biography of the Queen in which the king’s infidelity came to the surface. The King himself never commented on the issue except for his Christmas message in 1999 when he referred to the crisis in his marriage in 1960’s, the years during which Ms Boel was born, that could break his marriage.

Delphine was born in 1968 to Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps and was recognized by her mother’s husband, Jacques Boel, who eventually disowned and disinherited her following the revelations of her mother that Delphine is the product of the regal intercourse.

However, Delphine has always insisted that her paternity claim is not motivated by the inheritance claim as her legal father was much richer than the King Albert 11. She maintained that her principal motive due to which she brought the paternity case was anger that was sparked by the royal callousness towards her.

The King, who had been refusing to the judicial order of taking the paternity test eventually obliged on May 28 to do so “out of respect to the judicial authorities” following the daily fines of 5000 euros per day.

This case is fascinating in its own right, but it has far deeper importance than this. It suggests the evolution of civil rights from medieval ages to the modern age in which we are living. Since Magna Carta of 1215, when the barons began to devolve the power of kingship, the institution of monarchy has revolutionized in the world, (though there are a few exceptions in the Middle East).

Once omnipotent, the monarchy in the western world has been tamed by the growing realization of the masses about their civil and political rights and duties in the society. Thanks to the political thinkers such as John Lock, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Bentham and Mill and Karl Marx, the conception of civil rights and liberty has taken a center-stage in the societies to the level of such exalted consciousness that today even a commoner can bring a king to the court!

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