explain queens to someone woefully ignorant of history

[Little_Nemo]

@Walther_Ego

When Roman law was reintroduced after AD 1000, written laws of inheritance started to appear. When a dispute of inheritance appeared, they came up with something and that became the law. This led to politically motivated legislation. In France, male inheritance was emphasized because it kept the kings of England out. In England, femalle inheritance was strong, because the womenfolks were more protestant. I don’t think sexism in either country had anything to do with it.

Sometimes it was just a matter of circumstances. For example, every French King from Hugh Capet to Phillip IV had a son who inherited the crown - a period of over three hundred years when there was no need to consider the issue of a female heir.

[Acsenray]

@RealityChuck

It did depend on the country. France had Salic Law, which meant that no woman could inherit the throne. They were also lucky – there wasn’t a time where there wasn’t a male heir available, so the question of a reigning queen never came up.

@mac_bolan00

from a very old book on english history, the salic law was put up to prevent women from transmitting royal blood, rather than allowing female ascension.

Yes, I was going to make this point. Salic law prevents not only a woman from holding the throne, but also prevents inheritance through a woman. Thus, should Salic law be in effect in Britain today, none of Elizabeth’s heirs would be eligible for the throne. Indeed, none of George VI’s heirs, since he had no sons. Actually, come to think of it, since the entire British royalty inherits through the Electress Sophia, you’d have changed the entirety of English history going back to the Stuarts if Salic law had been in effect.

[Farmer_Jane]

It was also politically prudent for some families to support Elizabeth as Queen. Henry, Edward, Mary, and Jane all died (not that Jane counts so much). Elizabeth was Protestant. Mary was a rabid Catholic and E. was the end of the Tudors. It was her or Mary Tudor. Or even worse, Mary, Queen of Scots.

[Giles]

@acsenray

Actually, come to think of it, since the entire British royalty inherits through the Electress Sophia, you’d have changed the entirety of English history going back to the Stuarts if Salic law had been in effect.

Well, if you just go back to 1837, since Salic law was in effect in the Kingdom of Hanover, we can follow what the succession to the UK throne would have been. Instead of Victoria becoming queen, the kings of the UK would have been:

1837-1851: King Ernest Augustus I

1851-1878: King George V

1878-1923: King Ernest Augustus II (who would hopefully have taken the British side in World War I, no longer being King of Hanover).

1923-1953: King Ernest Augustus III

1953-1978: King Ernest Augustus IV

1978- : King Ernest Augustus V

And the Prince of Wales would be Prince Ernst August of Hanover – who is currently about 430th in line for the British throne, but through a different line.

[Farmer_Jane]

Is he cute?

[Acsenray]

See for yourself

[Malthus]

Put it this way - which is more important to those with power in a kingdom: (a) sexism; or (b) retaining or gaining power for “their” faction?

Putting the question this way indicates why, in spite of widespread sexism, Queens on occasion ruled.

You can’t understand the “Bloody Mary”- “Good Queen Elizabeth” - “Mary Queen of Scots” dynamic, without understanding that England was at loggerheads over the Catholic/Protestant issue, with all this implied for its domestic and foreign policy.

[silenus]

Let us not forget the Pragmatic Sanction. Queens weren’t normal, but they were a fact of life, even if Prussia doesn’t think so.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@silenus

Let us not forget the Pragmatic Sanction. Queens weren’t normal, but they were a fact of life, even if Prussia doesn’t think so.

They weren’t normal, they weren’t a fact of life, and more than Prussia didn’t think so.

From your own cite.

The Pragmatic Sanction’s failure

Charles VI spent the time of his reign preparing Europe for a female ruler, but he did not prepare his daughter, Maria Theresa. He would not read documents to her, take her to meetings, or allow her to be introduced to ministers or have any preparation for the power she would receive in 1740. Charles VI may not have prepared Maria because such instruction implied an acceptance of his inability to produce a male heir.

Charles VI managed to get the great European powers to agree to the Pragmatic Sanction (for the time being) and died in 1740 with no male heirs. However, France, Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony reneged, and contested the claims of his daughter Maria Theresa on his Austrian lands, and initiated the War of the Austrian Succession, in which Austria lost Silesia to Prussia. The elective office of Holy Roman Emperor was filled by Joseph I’s son-in-law Charles Albert of Bavaria, marking the first time in several hundred years that the position was not held by a Habsburg. His wife would have inherited the Habsburg lands if the original pactum had been adhered to. However, he had bad luck even after being elected Emperor. As Charles VII, he lost his own country, Bavaria, to the Austrian army of his wife’s cousin Maria Theresa and then died. His son, Maximilian III Joseph, Elector of Bavaria, renounced claims on Austria in exchange for the return of his paternal duchy of Bavaria. Maria Theresa’s husband was elected Holy Roman Emperor as Francis I in 1745. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, finally recognized Maria Theresa’s rule.

[Septima]

Think of it this way:

The King is dead. He has no sons. He does, however, have a daughter.

His siblings married into other royal dynasties, as his family has done for centuries. Some had sons, or daughters, or both. Every singe male royal in all the neighboring countries has some sort of claim to the now vacant throne.

Do you stick the crown on the girl and call it a day?

Or do you ask which of the other powerful kings wants another crown? Maybe let them fight for it?

A quote, originally about family dynamics in Nordic sagas, but equally apt here: It is better to have son who is not your son, or a son who us your daughter, then to have no son at all.