Now here’s an intriguing question for the weekend.

We received an email about Royal fertility tests for women intending to marry a senior Prince. I think it merits some careful consideration.

It’s known that this practice has traditionally been part of the process of the marriage ritual of heirs, or very near heirs, to the Throne. Diana had to undergo a medical examination and we know that it was successful.

What, though, if someone failed? These days the hurdles are much higher than even 20 years ago. It’s not just a Yes/No verdict that’s available. DNA testing can throw up a mass of probability data over a wide range of genetic diseases.

Where does the fail point lie: a one in ten chance, one in 100, one in a million? Most people would probably fail if the criteria were set too high.

Now here’s the rub. How would the Palace handle a situation where a young women was generally fertile, but who had a mild to medium chance of producing children with some genetic disability?

Obviously, they wouldn’t splash it all over the press. If some journalists discovered the truth, editors would be very wary of putting private medical information into the public domain. There might even be general agreement across the media not to publicize it at all.

And how would this play into the current situation of both the heir’s heir and the spare’s long-term girlfriends?

This is a hypothetical question, but one which will make life very difficult in the future for the Royal Family and pose a variety of ethical and practical questions in an age of maximum media exposure.