Since my question is long, I did my best to ask in the subject, but here is the real question. Also this is actually two questions, so here goes:
Say there are two Princes, one (obviously) being older, how many documented cases have there been of the younger Prince murdering his older brother due to envy of him being entitled to the crown? Did this happen often?
I would think so since the laws and investigation techniques at the time were very limited. I mean, what was to stop the younger brother from making his older brother have some sort of tragic “accident”?
Second question:
The same scenerio, but the two brothers/Princes are identical twins. How did they work out who got the crown? The one who popped out first? Were there any cases of this ever happening?
I can think of but one example concerning full brothers which even gets near to an answer to your first question.
When Shah Jahan, the fifth Emperor of the Mughuls, was reported to have died in 1657 his four sons fell into dispute as to who should become Mughal Emperor No.6. In descending order of age, these sons were Dara, Shuja, Aurangzeb and Murad. Following a protracted conflict, the triumphant Aurangzeb had Dara and Murad executed while Shuja disappeared presumed dead.
There are more examples of older brothers murdering younger brothers in order to consolidate power than there are of the kind you are looking for. Also, half-brothers offing one another to gain power of a contested crown, irrespective of their relative ages, are not uncommon in the rich panoply of historical royal murders.
This is what I was going to say. No sense grabbing the scepter if you have to worry about Baby Bro coming along and spoiling things. Best throw him off a cliff ahead of time, eliminate the competition.
The Romans were chock full of this stuff but it wasn’t just limited to brothers. Whole families including baby girls were killed or otherwise eliminated to ensure there would be no contest for rule.
IIRC it was the policy of the Ottoman Empire for quite a while that once an emperor was chosen from among the eligible sons all of the others would be systematically executed to avoid strife.
I once read a book which noted that during the late middle ages France was very fortunate in that it produced one and only one male heir at a time while England had a plethora of heirs with some claim on the throne driving all manner of coups and civil wars. Of course, the risk of having only one heir is that it may become zero heirs, which causes its own problems.
Keep in mind that not all monarchies followed hereditary primogeniture. Among non-Europeans, where polygamy was common, the ruler (or his ministers, if he died suddenly) would often have to designate a successor, and fratricide and wars of succession were common. I know there were many cases among the Ottomans, the Arabs, and the Chinese, as well as the well known case of Huascar and Atahualpa among the Incas.
Christian Europe practiced monogamy, and illegitimate children weren’t allowed to inherit, which made matters a little more manageable. I can’t think of any European heir who killed his brother, although other Dopers will probably name some.
More common, perhaps, were cases where heirs killed their brothers’ children. In England, Bad King John probably had his nephew Arthur murdered, and there was the case of Richard III and the princes in the tower.
Yes, the older twin would have the “birthright”, as in the Biblical story of Jacob and Esau. Surviving twins were somewhat less common before modern medicine and fertility treatments, and I know of no cases among the major European monarchies.
There’s always been some suspicion about the death of William II (William Rufus) of England, who was found dead in the New Forest at the end of a long day of hunting. His younger brother, Henry, was in the area and got to Winchester in time to seize control after his brother’s death, becoming Henry I, since William didn’t leave any heirs.
Where things really got ugly was between uncles and nephews. If a king had a male heir, the male heir would be in line to become the next king. If a king died without heirs, the next in line would be any surviving brothers of his. If a king died, and his younger brother claimed that the king’s son was unfit or ineligible to ascend the throne, especially if too young to effectively rule… then it came down to who had the most effective support in the court and the nobility. Or (and it was often the same thing) the largest army. Or if frankly the uncle could get away with assassinating his nephew.
Just a minor nitpick — while this is, on the whole, quite accurate, both Ireland and Wales allowed children of multiple mothers to inherit. The systems were officially monogamous but not necessarily so in practice.
Cite: “For the purpose of inheritance, a man’s son by another woman — provided the union is recognised by his kin — has the same rights of inheritance as the son of his chief wife. (This was one of the many features of Irish society which shocked English commentators…” Fergus Kelly, Early Irish Law, p. 102.
When the Conqueror died in 1087 he named his eldest son Robert Duke of Normandy and left the crown of England to his second son William Rufus. Robert and Rufus apparently had an agreement that whichever of them died first, the other would assume control of the deceased ruler’s lands.
When Rufus died, Robert was returning from the First Crusade and Henry took the throne, as you say. When Robert eventually got back he was less than happy with this situation and mounted an invasion of England in pursuit of the crown. It failed. Relations between Henry and Robert remained abrasive and in 1106 Henry invaded Normandy and defeated his elder brother at Tinchebray. Robert was captured and imprisoned for the last 25 years of his life. While Henry didn’t actually kill Robert he took Normandy from him, and probably England as well.
Finally, I visited the supposed site of Rufus’ death in the New Forest recently and I can tell you there is simply no evidence that he was murdered.
I give you the Twin Counts of Barcelona, Ramón Berenguer and Berenguer Ramón.
At that time, family names weren’t in use in the area, at least not in the same fashion they’re now. So while their father was Ramón Berenguer, when they had the surprise of two firstborns they just named one the expected “Ramón Berenguer” and inverted the order for the other. The twins were co-counts for several years, before BR died in a hunt; popular belief has always held he was murdered by order of his brother.
And in the Song of Mio Cid (or in the Charlton Heston movie if you prefer a look at Sofía Loren to some medieval saga) there’s another instance of a king (Sancho de Navarra) being murdered and people suspecting his brother (Alfonso de Castilla). Alfonso exiled el Cid for having the balls to make him swear in public that he hadn’t been part of Sancho’s murder.
Well, I don’t know that we can be that definitive, a thousand years on. As summarised by Wiki on The Unusual Death of William II:
Two of the chroniclers quoted by Wiki said that Tirel shot the king by accident; the third states that Tirel denied that he ever shot him. Either way, it is unusual for a king to die of an arrow wound, with only one other person being present. Accident? murder? Tirell? not Tirell? It certainly benefitted William’s younger brother Rufus.
As I said in my first post, not proven, but suspicious.
From Chinese history, the eldest son tended to inherit the throne, but if dear old dad felt that his heir wasn’t up to snuff he might name a different guy.
This led to quite a few suspicious deaths and outright coups/murders of either the siblings or even Daddy himself. The Tang emperor Taizong killed his brother the Heir Apparent and forced his father to go into retirement. The Qing emperor Kang Xi managed to avoid the same fate and removed the Crown Prince before this could happen.
A new king might also banish/demote his other siblings on various charges (real or otherwise) to consolidate powers. This happened quite famously in the Three Kingdoms Era with Cao Pi of Wei and with Kang Xi’s successor Yong Zheng.
Concubines were also said to have murdered (or attempted to, anyway) other concubines’ infant sons and conspired against each other as well, because being the Mother of the Future Emperor has great perks.
A few yards away from the Rufus Stone there was a large branch lying on the grass, shaped like a club. I pondered this awhile and decided it could have been the real murder weapon, hitherto undiscovered by historians and archaeologists. Spotting a potential financial opportunity, I took the branch home with me with a view to selling it on Ebay.
I sincerely respect your knowledge of past events but please don’t take this post as seriously as my previous one.
