Spurred by reading the Aubrey/Maturin series, watching The Madness of King Goerge, and by watching the Sharpe and Blackadder television series, I tried to sit down and figure out, once and for all, all the royal Georges, Williams, Dukes of Clarence, etc. who figure in these works.
So far, I’ve worked out:
George III (the mad king who may have had poryphyria). He had 15 children. He died and was succeeded by the Prince of Wales, his eldest son,
George IV (fat, dissipated king). He was married to a woman who hated him, but they managed to produce a daughter who predeceased him. George III’s next eldest brother had died, so when George died, the throne passed to the next eldest brother,
William IV (previously the Duke of Clarence, a cool guy, naval officer). He and his queen produced two daughters who died in infancy, so when he died the throne passed to his niece, who had until then been living in Germany,
Victoria.
I hope I have the facts straight up to this point. But here is where my brain starts to hurt and I can’t keep everything figured out. Why did the throne go to Victoria? Were there no more brothers left alive out of that brood of 15 children that George III had?
There were, but children (of either gender) inherit before siblings. Victoria’s father, the Duke of Kent, was the next brother of George IV and William IV, but he was already dead. Victoria inherited because she was his daughter (and only child). If she had never been born the succession would have gone to the next brother (who became Elector of Hanover because women couldn’t inherit that title).
I admire your endeavour in trying to unravel the spaghetti of the history of the British Crown using light entertainment sources. This seems like a very good link with access to PDFs of the family trees dating back as far as these things are possible. From the horses mouth, too.
For what it’s worth, I doubt that one in a thousand Brits could tell you why we have Dukes of Kent and Gloucester or a Prince Michael.
Alive At Both Ends has it. The British order of succession is explained in the Wikipedia article on Hereditary succession models, specifically the section “Feudal primogeniture”. Basically, the order is eldest son first, then children of the eldest son (males first), then second eldest son, children of the second son (males first), and so on until you run out of sons, then you start on the daughters and children of the daughters, always prioritizing males.
Victoria never lived in Germany, as far as I recall. Her mother was paranoid about Victoria’s place in the succession and refused to leave England out of fear the girl would be disinherited. They lived in shabby apartments in Kensington Palace, IIRC, because Victoria’s mother was a very unpleasant sort who alienated the king.
[Blackadder is interrogating Captain Darling who is suspected of being a German spy]
Captain Darling: I’m as British as Queen Victoria!
Captain Blackadder: So your father’s German, you’re half German, and you married a German!
If I may recommend, I just finished Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III by Flora Fraser which nicely covers the madness of King George as well as the race to procreate that occurred among the Dukes upon the death in childbed of the heiress presumptive to the throne, Princess Charlotte. Edward, Duke of Kent, was not the first to successfully have a legitimate child, but because he preceded his successfully reproducing brothers in the succession, his child preceded their children in the succession – even though his child (Victoria) was a girl and the legitimate child of his younger brother Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge was a boy (George).
If Britian followed the rue of primogeniture, George would have succeeded to the throne in Victoria’s place. As it was, her father the Duke of Kent was so anxious that her right to the throne be absolutely secure that he rushed his very pregnant wife out of Germany and across the channel to make sure Victoria was born in England.
If you’re interested in the life history of rather peripheral royals, along with a healthy amount of social history, you might enjoy Princesses.
