His children
9ish) Princess Anne
10ish) Her children
But doesn’t the ranking of the grandchildren depend on their parent? As in, if Prince Charles dies BEFORE the Queen, then the ranking changes to something like:
Prince Andrew
Beatrice
Eugenie
Edward
(His children)
6ish) Princess Anne
7ish) (Her Children)
and only then
Prince William
Prince Henry
If so, what I am curious about is what happens if the Queen and Prince Charles were to die simultaneously? For example, they’re strolling about on the grounds of whatever palace after Prince William’s marriage, and a giant flaming meteor hurtles down into them. Boom! Instant incineration. IOW, absolutely no way to determine which of them died first.
Who would become king then? Prince William or Prince Andrew?
How would they determine it? Decided by Parliament? (Boring) Flip a coin? Both sides raise armies and fight it out? (oooh!)
I think the neatest solution would be for William and Andrew to fight it out, one on one. Jousting for the crown!
No, the 1st list above is the actual line of succession, as described by the current rules. If Queenie and Charlie had a big falling out and knocked each other off a cliff, Holmes and Moriaty style, then William would be king. Andrew would only become king if all of Charles’ line was eliminated (as soon as William has a child, Andrew will move a further place down the line of succession).
I’m afraid your original premise is wrong, so no jousting I’m afraid. Children of the first in line (charles) - of either sex - take precedent over the next (Andrew as was), even if the first in line dies before the monarch.
Victoria became queen after her uncle William IV died without legitimate living heirs. Had her father still been living he would have become king, but it still had to go through his line. She had male cousins but they were the children of yet younger brothers of her father and uncle.
Leaving aside the complications caused about religion, succession to the British monarchy operates by male-preference primogeniture.
If the Sovereign has had a male child (M1) who is still alive, then M1 succeeds. If the Sovereign has had other male children, then M1 still succeeds. If M1 is not still alive and has no living descendants, then the next eldest male child (M2) of the Sovereign succeeds if he is still alive. If M2 is not still alive and has no living descendants, then the third eldest male child (M3) of the Sovereign succeeds if he is still alive… and so on.
Once you’ve eliminated all the male children of the Sovereign (together with all the descendants of those male children), then if the Sovereign has had a female child (F1) who is still alive, F1 succeeds. If the Sovereign has had other female children, then F1 still succeeds (this is an important difference between the rules of succession to the throne, and the traditional rules for succession to property or to a peerage). If F1 is not still alive and has no living descendants, then the next eldest female child (F2) of the Sovereign succeeds if she is still alive… and so on.
If M1 predeceased the Sovereign, but has living descendants, then you apply the same logic as above. So if M1 has had a male child (M1a) who is still alive, M1a succeeds. If M1a is not still alive and has no living descendants, then the next eldest male child of M1 (M1b) succeeds if he is still alive… and so on. And then you work through M1’s female children… and so on.
If M1a predeceased the Sovereign, but has living descendants, all of the same logic is applied once again.
It’s actually quite simple, but on the other hand it’s a bit of a dog to explain. Except perhaps with an animated diagram!
The UK’s Deputy Prime Minister has announced today that discussions are taking place with the other Commonwealth realms to overhaul both the above and the restrictions imposed upon Roman Catholics. This is not the first time a British government has made these sorts of noises. We’ll have to wait and see to find out if anything changes. If Prince William and his new wife have a daughter as their first child, then that will likely push things along!
Dang. That’s sensible, I guess, but boring. I want that joust! Followed by combat on foot with those big pointy balls…yeah!
But your response raises another question: So, what if Prince Charles gets tired of waiting around and decides to kill his mother? That’s attempted murder, at least, and I’m guessing treason as well.
What happens if he succeeds? What happens if the attempt fails?
Does he go to trial? If convicted, does he still retain his place in line? Prince Charles, convict #12345678? (Possibly King Charles, convict #12345678?)
I’m thinking of the general principle that criminals shouldn’t be allowed to benefit from their crimes.
Technically, he’d be king, but that wouldn’t stop him being arrested. Pretty quickly there would be an act of parliment, and then he wouldn’t be.
Even if William was secretly in on it, it would be a bit of a phyrric victory, as it would do huge damage to the monarchy. I imagine the commonwealth realms such as Australia and Canada would quickly become republics, and possibly even the UK as well.
Technically again, I believe we still have the death penalty for treason, but the chances of this being enforced are close to zero.
The death penalty has been abolished in the UK, so no.
Accession to the throne is automatic, so he’d be King Charles III (or whatever he decided to call himself). The Sovereign can’t be prosecuted in his own courts, so he couldn’t be convicted of murder.
If he was insane, then he’d be nudged aside with a Regency.
Those are the legalistic options. The reality would come down to the circumstances and practical politics. Prince William seems to be quite popular (certainly more so than his father), so the worst-case scenario would probably see Charles being deposed in favour of his son. If you’d asked the question around fifteen years ago, though, I’d say that there was a real likelihood that the monarchy itself would come to an abrupt end.
There’s no existing constitutional mechanism within the UK for permanently removing a particular monarch. The other Commonwealth realms don’t have any difficulty because of how their constitutional/legal systems works. But in the UK the Sovereign is formally part of Parliament, and would have to assent to any Act of Parliament deposing themselves. Thus, when Edward VIII abdicated, he had to assent to the Act of Parliament confirming it.
If Charles the Bad won’t play ball, then that leaves two precedents for politicians to choose from. In 1689 the King was declared to have abdicated the throne by the two Houses of Parliament in England; while in 1811 the two Houses of Parliament followed an elaborate fiction so that the royal assent could be given to the Regency Bill that was necessitated by George III going permanently doolally (with George thus unable to properly assent to the bill himself). Since in both those cases they made the rules up on the spot, it’s quite probable they’d make up new rules to deal with Charles.
True, but as long as Parliament is passing an act deposing King Charles III it could also convict him of treason and sentence him to death in that same act (without bothering with a trial).
You people will embrace anything that sets you apart from Americans, won’t you?
Good God! If we became republics or elected a president in Canada, then we’d turn that into a repository of used politicans, who are more likely to end up in jail than the House of Windsor. It was nice that for a while (until last year) we had a few Governors General devoid of political connections. Look at the hassles in palces like Italy and Israel over their presidents. The last thing we need is more jobs for used politicians.
In S.M. Stirling’s Dies the Fire series it’s intriguing to see the fate of the British Royal family. The Queen dies the winter following the Change(3/17/1999). It was said to be of grief, overwork, and because she “wouldn’t take a crumb extra, not a crumb!” So Charles is king and at first he isn’t so bad. But somewhere along the way he dumps Camilla and marries a third time, to an Icelandic immigrant. She promptly pops out three kids and conspires to dump William and Harry in their favor. When Charles(who by this time has gone bonkers, and is called “the Bad” behind his back) finally refuses to disinherit his first two sons, his wife kills him but doesn’t succeed in taking the Regency in favor of her own brood. William becomes king and by twenty five years after the change is already styled “The Great”
This is caught in bits and pieces when several English characters important to the series manage to make it to the American Northwest regions.
It’s all about descent. Even if Prince Charles kicks the bucket before ever ascending to the throne, William’s place in the succession is guaranteed. Lesser noble titles work the same way*. The first grandson by an Earl’s eldest son, for example, is second in line to the title. If his father dies while the grandfather is still living, then the grandson moves up to first place in line. Otherwise, that happens when the old Earl finally dies and his father becomes the new Earl. It’s also immaterial if the grandson in question is older or younger than his cousins.
OTOH, early Germanic history is replete with stories of uncles who eliminated young nephews who were expected to become rulers, or at least eliminated them from the political life of the country.
Depending on the letters patent that go with a particular title, some UK titles can descend through the female line in the absence of sons, but they remain in abeyance until a male descendant is born.
*In the UK (and usually not always–see Lord Feldon’s post below)
Some can actually be held outright by women. Most everything really old that was created by writ of summons rather than letters patent goes to heirs general, and a single female heir will succeed to the peerage in her own right (although she couldn’t sit in Parliament until the 50s or 60s, and that was taken away in 1999 (although I think a couple of hereditary peeresses were elected to take a couple of the remaining seats)). (If she has a sister, the title will go into abeyance until one line dies out or the abeyance is terminated by the Crown.)
Also, every once in a while, a peerage granted to a man who only had daughters would have a special remainder specifying that it would go to the eldest living daughter in the absence of a son (that’s why Earl Mountbatten’s eldest daughter is Countess Mountbatten in her own right).
