I know there is a lot of historical shifting of nationalities among royals, such as England’s German George III.
Are all royals in one “club”?
Or do Scandinavian royalty have to come from Scandinavia, and Spanish from Spain, and Monaco’s from Hollywood.
(For Spain, of course substitute Spanish Royalty in Exile, which is still quite serious business for those involved…)
In short, no (or yes, depending on which question I’m answering.) Being a prince in Belgium don’t get you squat in Sweeden.
European royalty is terribly inbred, of course, but it’s more along the lines of distant cousins. Prince Phillip is vaguely related to Queen Elizabeth, somewhere back up the line, but he’s not in the line to the throne of England.
Nations get to determine their own laws of succession. These can range from strict laws of primogeniture, which pass down purely male lines (along the lines of France) to constitutional monarchies where the legislative has the final say on succession (as does England, and has since Henry IV overthrew Richard II).
Generally, most succession laws require the person succeeding to have some real genetic claim to the throne, which of course led to all of the inbreeding, viz. the turn of the 20th century royal houses all ruled by 1st cousins.
The OP misidentified the United Kingdom’s german king: It was George I. But the reason for his succession is that English law states that the successor to the throne must be a Protestant, which about eliminated all of the major claimants.
Plus, things get rather nutty once claimants get fairly far away in bloodline. France’s “The War of the Three Henris” is a prime example of what happens when it is unclear whose piss-poor claim to the throne is better, when all that one has is piss-poor claims. Is the 14th cousin 8 times removed a better claimant than the 16th cousin 4 times removed? In that case, it’s whoever has the biggest army.
And some European monarchies have declared that the oldest child of the reigning monarch, without regards to sex, is the automatic successor, thus greatly simplifying the succession issue.
Strictly speaking, merely being the King of Sweeden doesn’t mean anything in Belgium, but the King of Sweeden is probably the umpteenth successor for the throne of Belgium, which is by pure coincidence of a 200 year old marriage.
I suppose you mean all european royals. I doubt that Prince Charles’ second son (I lose track with all the Williams and Andrews’, is the second one called Andrew?) could try to be nominated for the japanese throne in case the current emperor has no children.
Charles’ younger son is Harry. Please be nice on the poor lad. He already has to put up with all of those “The Heir and the Spare” jokes as it is.
Harry can’t become emperor of Japan because only someone in the direct line can become emperor, and it’s specifically forbidden to adopt (see the current New Yorker).
Usually a prince from country A can’t rule country B unless he is a either descendant of a king from country B (Like James I of England, or George I), or if he conquers country B (like William I and Henry IV (who had a blood claim, but ruled by right of conquest, not of blood)).
The Wars of the Roses occurred because no one was really sure who was the rightful king once Richard II was deposed. The Yorks claimed the throne through primogeniture, while the Lancasters disallowed the Yorkist claim due to Salic Law, which prevented someone inheriting through his mother’s line (and which didn’t really apply in England in any case).
If you’re talking ethnic heritage, Great Britain’s Elizabeth II is German (I believe her husband, Prince Philip, is Greek) and Sweden’s Carl XVI Gustaf is French (from Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, one of Napoleon’s officers who was given the crown in the 19th century). But you’ll have to admit both have assilimated rather well.
While it’s true that the Lancastrians used the Salic Law to **justify their continued possession of the throne **, I believe that the actual claim that Henry IV used when he took possession of the throne was that he was rightful heir, through his mother (note that this violates Salic Law), to the crown through Edmund Crouchback, the younger brother of Edward I (“Longshanks” of Braveheart fame), who the Lancastrians claimed was unlawfully passed over (Edmund, that is). I say that this is the claim Henry put forth, because, if I’m not mistaken, this was what was written into the parliamentary act proclaiming Henry IV king.
This bit of fiction re Edmund Crouchback’s being passed over fooled no one, but the fact that Henry IV held the throne and that Richard II was unpopular and in Henry’s custody was persuasive enough. It’s true that the Lancastrians used Salic Law when disputing the claim of Richard of York. They also claimed that possession of the throne over time legitimized the “usurpation” of the throne, and that Richard of York had sworn oaths of fealty to the king, and could not now put in his own claim.
I don’t believe Henry IV claimed the crown through right of conquest. William I did, and Henry ** VII ** did.
>> (For Spain, of course substitute Spanish Royalty in Exile, which is still quite serious business for those involved…)
Show_Biz, I do not understand this, can you explain?
I’m the first to admit I don’t know squat about any of this royals stuff, but I pass along something I read once that stuck with me:
George II of Greece was not King of Greece, but “King of the Hellenes,” being of non-Greek (i.e., Danish) descent. Similarly, Baudouin I was not the King of Belgium, but “King of the Belgians,” being of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha descent.
Enjoy, and have a good day.
Yes, what is this about Spanish royalty in exile? Last I heard, Juan Carlos and Sofia were trekking about Spain cutting ribbons like all the other monarchs.
It does happen, sometimes, that a royal from one nation will take the throne in another. This could happen when a royal family completely dies out, or when they become so incredibly unpopular that they get thrown out. As you can imagine, this is not a common occurence, so younger siblings of heirs apparent are basically looking at life as an also-ran.
As far as I know the last time this happened in Europe was 1905. Norway had been ruled by Denmark for about 400 years, and then been in a personal union with Sweden for about another century. Most of the Norwegian royal family had been wiped out in the Black Death, which is how the Danes got their foot in the door in the first place; the lineage of the few who had survived had disappeared. So the Norwegian Parliament invited Prince Carl of Denmark, second in line to the throne, to become King of newly independent Norway. He agreed and took the name King Haakon VII; his only child, three-year-old Alexander, became Crown Prince Olav. So it happens, but it tends to be seen as an emergency measure.
(Juan Carlos became King of Spain after Franco’s death, of course, a switch from a republic to a monarchy. But Juan Carlos was a direct descendant of the last King of Spain, so they weren’t substituting a new royal but reinstating the old lineage.)
Henry IV claimed the throne from his father, John of Gaunt, the third son of Edward III. Once Richard II (Edward III’s grandson through his oldest son, the Black Prince) was deposed, Henry was one of the closest male clamants. There were grandchildren of Leopold, the Duke of Clarence (Edward III’s second son, for those keeping score), but only through a daughter (I don’t think Leopold had any sons). Technically, these grandsons would have been the heirs, but the rules of promogeniture were not fully established back then, so it was unclear as to who had the stronger claim at the time. Also, they were too young at the time to rule in their own right, and after Richard II, no one was anxious to get a regent. Once you eliminated these heirs through Salic Law, Henry IV was indeed the rightful king. The question was whether Salic Law actually applied in England, since the entire Plantagenet dynasty, from which Henry got his claim, inherited the throne through the female line.
But I misstyped Henry IV when I meant Henry VII (It’s hard keeping the roman numerals straight :)). Henry VII’s blood claim was that he was descended through Owen Tudor, who was a descendant of John of Gaunt (see above). However, Henry IV was not the rightful Lancastrian claimant (I’m not sure, but it may have been the king of Portugal). In order to solidify his claim on the throne, he married Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward IV (who, BTW, was descended from two sons of Edward III), thus uniting the York and Lancaster branches, something that people were happy to see happen after the Wars of the Roses. However, Henry knew his blood claim on the thone was tenuous, so based his claim to kingship on the fact he whupped Richard at Bosworth (i.e., by right of conquest).
Having only skimmed the other answers, I can’t be sure that anyone else pointed this out, but my understand of why a lot of royalty is related is because at one time alliances between countries were often cemented with marriages. Certainly this wasn’t the case 100% of the time, and there were no real laws dictating the practice, but if England wanted to firm up an alliance with Russia, they might encourage a marriage between the two families. Queen Victoria’s grand-daugher married Tsar Nicholas II. At the time of their execution, the couple had cousins as the head of both England and Germany. I understand that the thinking was that a rival country was much less interested in starting a war with you if one of the heads of the country was related to you. Or they would be more likely to come to your rescue if another country invaded.
End result? A lot of royal families are related.
>> Juan Carlos became King of Spain after Franco’s death, of course, a switch from a republic to a monarchy. But Juan Carlos was a direct descendant of the last King of Spain, so they weren’t substituting a new royal but reinstating the old lineage.)
Well, not exactly. Let me try to encapsulate in a nutshell some decades of Spanish history.
King Alfonso XIII reigned in Spain. In 1931, in local elections, the leftists won and declared a republic. (just one of those things, the elections were very limited in scope). The royal family went into exile.
The republic started making a mess of things as it went more and more to the left. There was civil disorder, churches were being burnt etc. In 1936 the army revolts and the civil war starts which lasted until 1939 when the republic loses the war to the nationalists. Franco is head of state but the country is declared a kingdom. Franco is not regent but a transitional head of state. Still, the country is a kingdom, not a republic.
King Alfonso dies in exile. The successor to the crown is his son Juan de Borbón who does not get along with Franco in the least. After many years of uncertainty in 1969 Franco nominates Juan Carlos (son of Juan) to succeed him as king. Franco feels Juan Carlos is not so liberal and also will be better controlled by the army etc.
Juan Carlos plays along and is proclaimed King after Franco’s death in 1975. Many monarchists dispute his rights. After some time of transition Spain converts to a formal democracy and Juan de Borbón abdicates all his rights on his son King Juan Carlos. It is at that point that Juan Carlos inherits formally the dinastic rights to the crown even though he was already king in fact.
two minor points:
the Duke of Clarence was Lionel, not Leopold.
Prince Philip is a direct descendant of Queen Victoria, through her daughter Princess Alice, so he has a claim to the throne in his own right - but it’s so distant that he’ll never get there. All of his own children have better claims than he does. (Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth are third cousins).