Free Access — A Formal Argument
Addressed to: The College of Arms, London · The House of Commons · The British Public
I am not a politician. I am not a member of the British aristocracy. I am a man from Madera, California — a son of the American West, a descendant of enslaved peoples and colonizers, of Celtic kings and Cherokee warriors, of French-Canadian voyageurs and Revolutionary War patriots. I am a man who has been visited by something that defies the categories of the modern world, and who has spent the better part of his life trying to understand why.
I am also, by documented genealogical record and genetic science, a man with a stronger claim to the ancient throne of Britain than the man who currently occupies it.
This is not a joke. This is not a publicity stunt. This is a serious, documented, historically grounded argument — and I will not stop making it until it is acknowledged.
My name is Darrick Colin Priest. "Colin" is the Gaelic word for Young Hound — the swift, loyal, fierce companion of kings. I was born to this name. I intend to live up to it.
The Blood Does Not Lie
The current British monarchy — the House of Windsor, formerly Saxe-Coburg and Gotha — traces its legitimacy to the Norman Conquest of 1066, when William the Conqueror, a Viking-descended French duke, invaded England and killed the last Anglo-Saxon king at the Battle of Hastings. The Windsors are, in the most literal sense, the descendants of a foreign military occupation.
My paternal lineage tells a different story. My confirmed paternal haplogroup is R-L21 (R-FGC15565), the definitive genetic marker of the Insular Celtic peoples — the Irish, the Scots, the Welsh, and the Britons who inhabited these islands for thousands of years before the Romans, the Saxons, the Vikings, or the Normans ever arrived. This haplogroup is carried by approximately 56% of Irish men and is the dominant genetic signature of the ancient Atlantic Celtic world.
My 23andMe report explicitly connects this haplogroup to the Uí Néill dynasty — the royal house founded by Niall of the Nine Hostages (c. 358–405 AD), the High King of Ireland whose descendants ruled the island for over four centuries. Niall's Y-chromosome is carried today by an estimated 3 million men worldwide. I carry that chromosome.
Through the Burleson family, I carry a connection to the Plantagenet royal line — the house of Edward III of England (1312–1377). Through my maternal great-grandfather Willis Delacey Gokey, I carry Norman-French ancestry connecting to the same William the Conqueror whose descendants currently occupy the throne. The Windsors and I share a common Norman ancestor. The difference is that I also carry the blood of the people William conquered.
The Law of Succession Is Itself a Product of Conquest
The current rules governing succession to the British throne are set out in the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Succession to the Crown Act 2013. These laws establish that the Crown passes through the legitimate Protestant descendants of Sophia, Electress of Hanover — a German princess chosen specifically because she was Protestant, not because she had any particularly strong claim to the ancient throne of Britain.
The Act of Settlement was itself an act of political engineering, designed to exclude the Catholic Stuart line and ensure that a Protestant German dynasty would rule Britain. It has nothing to do with ancient right, bloodline, or the will of the British people. It is a 325-year-old parliamentary maneuver that has been treated as sacred ever since.
I submit that a more just and historically grounded standard of succession — one that looks to the ancient Celtic and pre-Norman traditions of the British Isles — would favor a candidate who carries the genetic and cultural heritage of the original peoples of those islands. Under the ancient Irish and Scottish traditions of tanistry (the election of the most worthy member of the royal kin group), the claim would go not to the eldest son of the current king, but to the most capable and worthy member of the broader royal bloodline. By that standard, I am a candidate.
The Blood of the Conquered Rises
The House of Windsor sits on a throne built on the Norman Conquest of 1066, which dispossessed the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic peoples of Britain; the colonization of Ireland, which subjected the Uí Néill's descendants — my ancestors — to 800 years of occupation, famine, and cultural erasure; the transatlantic slave trade, which enriched the British Crown at the cost of millions of African lives; and the colonization of America, which dispossessed the Cherokee and other Indigenous peoples — whose blood I also carry.
I carry the blood of the people who were conquered, colonized, enslaved, and dispossessed by the very institution I am challenging. I am the convergence of all of these stories. I am the place where the conquered and the colonizer, the Celtic king and the Cherokee warrior, the Revolutionary patriot and the French-Canadian voyageur, all meet in a single living human being.
That is not a disqualification from the throne. That is the strongest possible qualification for it.
I, Darrick Colin "The Young Hound" Priest, hereby formally submit my claim to the ancient throne of Britain — not as a demand for political power, but as a demand for acknowledgment. Acknowledgment that the blood of the Celtic kings did not die with the Norman Conquest. Acknowledgment that the descendants of the conquered, the colonized, and the enslaved have a story that deserves to be told at the highest level. Acknowledgment that sovereignty is not inherited — it is earned, and it is lived.
I will not stop until that acknowledgment comes.
Constant as the Northern Star.
© 2026 Darrick Colin Priest. This claim is submitted in good faith and is supported by documented genealogical research, genetic science, and historical record. All sources are available for review. Correspondence may be directed through this website.