Of course of England I mean the UK, it sounds better to day England 
In the another thread someone asked “What are the chances Charles will take a pass on being King and let his son William take the thone.”
That question comes up a lot, so I thought I’d ask, how many times in the past has someone in line to the British throne taken a pass?
My understanding being a colonist and all is never.
My understanding is that if you are next in line, you automatically become the monarch upon the death of the previous one. Edward VIII decided to abdicate but that wasn’t because he didn’t want to be King but to avoid a parliamentary power struggle (i.e. how far can the monarch act against Parliament’s wishes)
Edward VIII (aka the Duke of Windsor) is the only British monarch to ever voluntarily abdicate. James II fled England (dropping the Great Seal in the Thames in the process) because he was afraid of being deposed or worse. Mary I of Scotland was forced to abdicate in her son’s favour after the Scottish nobles got sick of her. Richard II was deposed by his cousin before being murded.
Henry I’s daughter and heir Matilda ultimately gave up the struggle against her cousin Stephen for the crown, retiring to France. She lived to see her son take the throne as Henry II.
Henry VI was overthrown by Edward IV, but later overthrew Edward (or, rather, his wife did it for him while he was a prisoner) for a few months before Edward came back to overthrow Henry again.
Though he didn’t officially abdicate, Edward III stopped governing after the death of his son, Edward the Black Prince, leaving John of Gaunt to run the country.
Don’t forget Edward II. The nobles really stuck it to him.
This was actually a double case of a legitimate heir not inheriting. Matilda was usurped by Stephen, but then Stephen’s heir William was displaced by Henry II.
Not quite a usurpation, Stephen agreed that Henry should be his heir, not least because the nobles were sick of the fighting and put him under pressure.
But did Stephen have the right to do that? I don’t know what the rules were in the 12th century, but today the monarch cannot legally prevent the Heir Apparent from becoming king except by ouliving him.
The rules were a lot vaguer in the 12th century, and well beyond. In the 16th century, Henry VIII regulated the succession by his will (and changed his mind several times, making new wills, leaving his crown to different of his children, and sometimes even attempting to say who would succeed his children). Elizabeth I died without any descendants and, while the claims of James VI of Scotland were strong, they were undoubtedly strengthened by Elizabeth’s own deathbed endorsement of them. When James II (was deemed to have) abdicated, parliament decided who would be offered the crown. (It was offered jointly to his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange, despite the fact that James had a son, who - but for the fact that he was a Catholic, and an infant - had a stronger claim.)
It was partly in an attempt to put an end to uncertainties like this (and, of course, to exclude those troublesome Catholics) that parliament sought to determine the matter by statute in 1701.
I believe that it is considered to be the DUTY of the heir to assume the throne whether they wish to reign or not.
I have no cite but will have a looksee.
Oliver Cromwell was offered the crown but turned it down in favor of being Lord Protector.
The rules were not solidified until the Act of Settlement in 1701.
It’s also an open question as to whether Stephen or Matilda was the legitimate heir. In her defense, she was the only legitimate child of the old king still living, and Henry had apparently named her heir. However, Stephen was Henry’s nephew, and Matilda was a woman, and married to an enemy of Normandy, so the question has to be raised, can a woman legitimately become queen in her own right, and if she could, her husband would become king jure uxoris.
Do you mean ‘the question had to be raised?’ Because it obviously doesn’t need to be raised now, since we’ve had plenty of women who became Queen in their own right, and their husbands didn’t become King because of it.
And Sociopath-In-Charge-Of-Religious-Genocide, don’t forget that!
Beyond all that Henry I left a boatload of bastards and Robert of Gloucester, his favorite natural son, was wealthy, popular and highly competent. The Church wasn’t keen on the idea, but after all Robert’s grandfather William I had been a bastard as well.
The “laws” of inheritance were still a muddled mess back then. Neither William the Bastard nor Harold Godwinson, nor Harold Hardraada, nor Sweyn Estrithson had as good a claim to succeed Edward the Confessor as Edgar Atheling, but that didn’t make Edgar the most likely candidate in actual fact.
If Robert Curthose’s son William Clito had survived, it is highly likely he would have succeeded Henry I by acclamation as a direct, legitimate male heir and in the senior line at that. But once he was gone, it was open season.
Gloucester would have made a good candidate, and had he claimed, I don’t think Stephen would have, or even if he had, I don’t think he would have gotten any baronial support. So maybe he counts as someone who took a pass at being king.