Nth in line to The Throne

Factual Questions
1

OK, if Queen Elizabeth died tomorrow, Prince Charles would be crowned king and thus we would have King Charles III. Prince Charles is said to be first in line to The Throne. Now, Prince Charles’ oldest son, Prince William, is said to be second in line to The Throne. That is, if Prince Charles were unavailable when Queen Elizabth died (for instance, Prince Charles is also dead), then the crown would fall to Prince William, and we would have King William [some Roman Numeral]. Prince William’s younger brother, Harry, is third in line to The Throne. Fourth is Prince Charles’ oldest brother, whutz-his-name. Fifth is… and so on.

Now, my question is: throughout British history, how deep into the pool, so to speak, have they had to go to find a monarch? And, how long is that list? I once heard tell on Dateline NBC of some minimum-wage-making schlub who was 240-something-th in line to The Throne. Do they go up to, say, 500? 1,000? And, most importantly, how many people would I have to knock off until it got to me?

2

The Act of Settlement (1701) extinguished the claims of everyone except Sophia, electress of Hanover, and her descendants. So, unless you’ve got her as a great-n[sup]th[/sup]-grandmother, or have some pretty effective political skills, you’re SOL, rastahomie.

The monarchy has never had to go beyond the first in line to the throne. Surprised? That’s because if Prince Charles, now first in the line, either becomes king or predeceases his mother, Prince William, now second in line for the throne, automatically becomes first in line.

As to distance of relatives succeeding: I believe that the biggest gap in a more-or-less legitimate succession was George I (Sophia’s son; she missed becoming queen regnant of Great Britain by dying 64 days too soon) succeeding Anne; both were great-grandchildren of James I. If you’re a Jacobite, then James I suceeding Elizabeth I was the biggest; James was the great-great-grandson, and Elizabeth the grandaughter, of Henry VII. In the series of dynastic conflicts called the Wars of the Roses (which ended with the aforementioned Henry VII being the last survivor with an army) a number of third cousins fought each other for, and often supplanted each other on, the throne.

Since William the Bastard got a better byname at Hastings, there have been (assuming that a quick count that I just did is correct) 41 successions. Twenty have been parent-child (mostly father-son, although there’s two father-daughter [James II-Mary II and George VI-Elizabeth II] and a mother-son [Victoria-Edward VII] in there).

3

setting aside dynastic changes caused by violence, acts of Parliament, and Elizabeth I dying without heirs of her body, and just thinking of those cases where someone succeeded to the throne because elder brothers died off, wouldn’t the longest leap have been John? He had three elder brothers (Henry, Geoffrey and Richard I), so his chances of inheriting were pretty slim. (And even then there was the little matter of Geoffrey’s son Prince Arthur, whom John is suspected of getting rid of.) So, at one point there were 4 people between John and the throne.

Don’t know how to treat Richard III - if you think he murderd the princes, then it’s not a straight hereditary succession. But when his brother Edward IV was on the throne, there were 5 people between Richard and the Crown: Edward’s sons Edward, Prince of Wales, and Richard, Duke of York; King Edward’s and Richard’s middle brother, George, Duke of Clarence, and George’s son and daughter.

Elizabeth I at one time was third in line, behind her brother Edward VI, and her sister Mary I.

More recently, there were three people between William IV and the throne: George, Prince of Wales and Prince Regent; George’s daughter, and Frederick Duke of York. If you’d asked someone in 1810 if there was any chance of William becoming King, they’d have said not likely - he only became king because George’s daughter (can’t remember her name at the moment) died in childbirth.

4

Rastahomie, please feel free to knock off as many as you like, as soon as you like, using the traditional axes, red hot pokers, or even Sarin (sp?) gas or Semtex, but, although I would be terribly impressed and would have a BIG party, I’m afraid I don’t want you as a monarch either. We could let you have a funny hat and a corgi, if that would do. And, (not re. Rastahomie, but other threads) - this mysterious entity Elizabeth II, the second Liz of where, exactly? Only of England. I suspect she is so called purely in order to suggest to us that the royals have enough in-bred brain cells left to count as far as two.

5

BTW, rastahomie, Prince William would be King William V, if he keeps the name. There’s some precedent that a king chose a different name upon coronation, kinda like the Pope.

6

jti writes:

Off the top of my head (and I was up much of the night doing tech support, so I’m blowing off doing any actual research today), I think that the longest leap was probably Stephen of Blois. He was the grandson of William the Love Child by his daughter Adel(a/e). William not only had at least three sons who survived into adulthood (Robert, William, and Henry), but Robert had a son, Henry had a legitimate son and daughter (to say nothing of about a score of bastards), and Stephen himself had an older brother. All of the above may not been alive at the same time; I don’t think that William the Ætheling (Henry’s legitimate son) was born until after the death of William II Rufus (son of William the Conqueror).

If anyone wants the (heh, heh) straight dope on this, I recommend Brian Tompsett’s Directory of Royal Genealogical Data as an on-line resource. If you have access to a recent Burke’s, Debrett’s, or Almanach de Gotha, even better.

7

Burke’s Peerage and Debrett’s Peerage both have websites, but neither of them have the list of succession. Debrett’s Peerage’s site, however, is a real eye-opener. The title screen proclaims that the peerage book is “a guide to contemporary Britain”–says it all about the British class system, really. Also, Debrett’s stresses that it doesn’t just sell the Peerage, but also a lot of other books including “Debrett’s Guide to Outrageous Party Games.” “Ooooh, one more sherry and I’ll be under the host,” etc.

You can take in the whole gory spectacle at www.debretts.co.uk.

BTW, David Starkey (a historian and constitutional analysist) believes that after about 100th in line or so the list gets highly theoretical–after all Parliament has the right (allegedly) to choose a successor, even though this right has never been used. If it got down to putting someone on the dole on the throne (and I’m surprised no one has mentioned King Ralph yet) I’m sure they would.

I suspect it was to differentiate her from the earlier Elizabeth, but, hey, it could just have been something Winston Churchill thought up when he was drunk :smiley:

8

What earlier Elizabeth? That is the point - there was a Queen Liz of England, but there was never a Queen Liz of the U.K. Look, I might not like monarchy, but this isn’t even politics - it is an important matter of pedantry here!

9

I think you’re right, Akatsukami - it would be Stephen - dangers of posting in the wee hours, I suppose.

Celyn, we had a thread on Elizabeth Deuce and the numbering system a while ago that you might find interesting: British monarchy - Elizabeth 2nd or 1st?

10

The answer would appear to be Stephen, but only if one anachronistically applies the modern rules for primogeniture. The concept of a line of succession did not exist in England in the twelth century.

What they did have was the idea that the most suitable male relative should succeed. If the late king had an adult son, this usually did not cause a problem; if he did not, the result might be a disputed succession. The idea of strict primogeniture was not taken for granted until the later medieval period. It was arguably not until the passage of the Act of Settlement that the rule was unambiguously stated in statute (although, of course, the Act of Settlement did introduce its own major caveat).

11

Her name was Charlotte, the Princess of Wales, after her grandmother, Queen Charlotte.

She was married to Queen Victoria’s maternal uncle, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield (later Saxe-Coburg-Gotha), who later became King Leopold I of Belgium.

Russia has had some pretty bizarre claims: Ivan VI, whose Great-Grandfather was Ivan V, who was only Co-Tsar with his brother, Peter the Great. (Ivan V is believed to have had Down’s Syndrome…poor guy!)

12

Duke writes:

> If it got down to putting someone on the dole on the
> throne (and I’m surprised no one has mentioned King Ralph
> yet)

You do realize that the movie King Ralph was nonsense, don’t you? It has the lineage passing through an illegitimate birth, which isn’t allowed. It has people claiming that because when the first (approximately) 40 people in line for the throne are killed, they can’t find anyone else. In fact, the line of the throne goes for several hundred people. It was obviously written by an American with no actual knowledge of the U.K. At one point, people are playing darts in a British pub. You can see the scores at the chalkboard on one side, and there’re going upwards. Any Brit could tell you that scores go down in darts.

13

Wendell: Actually, I’ve never seen King Ralph. I was just using it to refer to the concept of a large number of royal family members dying, then the search for the next in line to the throne.

And yes, having lived in both the States and the UK, I am well aware that many Hollywood films seem to know nothing about cultural differences with the UK. I think http://www.moviemistakes.com has a whole bunch of them.

14

Duke,

Where was that link supposed to go? It lead to a message saying that the URL was registered but not yet in use.

15

And rightly so Celyn … the person commonly termed Bess mark two is also the reigning monarch of Australia [embarrassment] sob, sob, sob [/embarrassment]and is designated Bess of Oz (the first).

Whilst the Act of settlement did combine Scotland with England, the designations have always been the English ones. James the first of England was not James the first of Scotland, which must have caused some difficulty in drafting legistation. In general this has not caused much confusion due to the English preference of being boring and naming their heir Henry, George or William.

16

Yes, what name shall Charles take? He could be King Philip?
King Charles? King Arthur or King George?

A few interesting points:
Queen Victoria’s first name was Alexandrina, after Tsar Alexander I
Her son’s name was Albert Edward, and called Bertie. Later he was King Edward VII, despite Victoria’s deepest wish for him to call himself Albert Victor.
King George VI’s real name was also Albert and called Bertie-infact, George was his BROTHER’s name, the Duke of Kent.
King Edward VIII was called David his whole life.

17

English Monarchs since the Conquest:

[li]William II, son of William I[/li][li]Henry I, brother of William II[/li][li]Stephen, nephew of Henry I (as against Matilda, daughter of Henry I, who fought Stephen most of his reign)[/li][li]Henry II, grandson of Henry I and first cousin once removed to Stephen[/li][li]Richard I, son of Henry II[/li][li]John, brother of Richard I[/li][li]Henry III, son of John[/li][li]Edward I, son of Henry III[/li][li]Edward II, son of Edward I[/li][li]Edward III, son of Edward II[/li][li]Richard II, grandson of Edward III by his eldest son[/li][li]Henry IV, grandson of Edward III by his third son and cousin of Richard II[/li][li]Henry V, son of Henry IV[/li][li]Henry VI, son of Henry V[/li][li]Edward IV, descended from Edward III by his second (maternally) and fourth (paternally) sons, and about third cousin to Henry VI[/li][li]Edward V, son of Edward IV[/li][li]Richard III, uncle of Edward V and brother of Edward IV[/li][li]Henry VII, son-in-law of Edward IV, illegitimately descended from Edward III’s third son, and some Nth cousin to everybody between Edward III and Richard III[/li][li]Henry VIII, son of Henry VII[/li][li]Edward VI, son of Henry VIII[/li][li]Mary I, sister of Edward VI[/li][li]Elizabeth I, sister of Mary I[/li][li]James I, great-great-grandson of Henry VII and second cousin twice removed to Elizabeth I[/li][li]Charles I, son of James I[/li][li]Charles II, son of Charles I[/li][li]James II, brother of Charles II[/li][li]Mary II, daughter of James II and co-ruler with[/li][li]William III, grandson of Charles I and husband of Mary II[/li][li]Anne, sister of Mary II and therefore sister-in-law of William III, whom she succeeded[/li][li]George I, descendant of James I (see someone’s earlier post for the Electress Sophia and how he got the throne), some half-baked cousin to Anne[/li][li]George II, son of George I[/li][li]George III, grandson of George II[/li][li]George IV, son of George III[/li][li]William IV, brother of George IV[/li][li]Victoria, neice of George IV and William IV[/li][li]Edward VII, son of Victoria[/li][li]George V, son of Edward VII[/li][li]Edward VIII, son of George V[/li][li]George VI, brother of Edward VIII[/li]Elizabeth II, daughter of George VI

18

A few Points: 'Edward V" was never a Monarch, was never crowned.

Henry VII is the furthest off from the “line”, he had virtually only two claims to the throne- he married an ex-queen, and he had a big army. Despite the decimations of the wars of the Roses, there were dozens closer to the line than he was (many of whom he promptly killed).

19

I like Woollie. Woollie is good. Woollie can be the first president of the new republic. (And it is a very democratic choice because I say so!)

20

True, very true Daniel, but he’s still counted.
After all, Edward VIII was never crowned either.