Simon Abney-Hastings, 15th Earl of Loudoun

The Earl of Loudoun is the son of Michael Abney-Hastings, 14th Earl of Loudoun, whom he succeeded in 2012. He resides in Wangaratta and Melbourne, Victoria.[1]

The heir presumptive to the title is the present holder's brother, the Hon. Marcus William Abney-Hastings (born 1981).

Abney-Hastings was chosen to carry one of the gold spurs of the royal regalia,[2] emblems of knighthood and chivalry[3] to be presented to the king at the 2023 Coronation.[4] Abney-Hastings is the only Australian to have played an official role in the coronation. In a statement provided to some media outlets, his private secretary Terence Guthridge said Abney-Hastings was "delighted" to be asked to bear the large golden spurs, part of the ceremony dating back to the coronation of Richard I (Richard the Lionheart), in 1189.[5]

Through his grandmother Barbara Huddleston Abney-Hastings, 13th Countess of Loudoun, he is directly descended from, and heir-general of, George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV and Richard III.

In 2004, Britain's Real Monarch—a documentary broadcast on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom—repeated the claim that the Earl's father, as the senior descendant of George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, was the rightful King of England. This argument involves the claim that Edward IV of England was illegitimate.[6] The Earl, following his father's death, would have become the rightful monarch of England under this alternative path of succession, rather than Elizabeth II, and would be the current monarch rather than Charles III. Abney-Hastings was invited to the royal coronation of King Charles III, notwithstanding such putative competing claims being intermittently discussed by some media sources.[5]