Suppose the current queen of England had no sons, and no daughters. So, upon Elizabeth’s death, the UK would have no monarch. Would the parliament then “import” a prince from, say Denmark, Sweden, or Spain? All of those houses are of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Windsor line, so would a prince of these houses have a “right” to the British throne?
Like when the royal house of Sweden died out in the early 1800’s-and Marshal Bernadotte )a french nobleman) was hired on-how do royal vacancies get filled these days?
or suppose Greece dedided they wanted to be a monarchy again-who would they look to?
Well, that’s a faulty premise. If there’s no direct heir, British law provides for passing the crown to more distant relations. There’s an ordered list with something like 300 names on it.
If I’m reading this list correctly, the next in line for the throne after Lizzy’s children and their descendants is David Armstrong-Jones, Viscount Linley, the son of Princess Margaret. (Lizzy’s late little sis.)
It is possible for royal houses to die out, but the British Royal Family is in no danger of that, because Queen Victoria (lord bless her) had many children, and thus thousands of descendants scattered all over Europe. In addition, Britain does not follow Salic law, and succession can be through females as well as males (even if males take priority).
One royal house that’s awfully close to dying out is the Japanese Imperial Family, but that’s because descent is only through male descendants – and also because the Japanese emperors have stopped having multiple wives, which lessens the number of sons they are likely to have. They take the imperial Y chromosome very seriously.
And for the 274,839th time, she is the Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (or UK for short), not the “queen of England”.
Parliament could always choose to change the line of succession, but under the current law (and referring to the Wiki list so kindly provided by friedo) the British crown apparently wouldn’t pass to a non-Briton until #63, King Harald V of Norway, who’s followed by virtually the entire Norwegian royal family. (Oddly enough, King Ralph does not appear on that list. Hmmm :dubious: ).
Any national government is free to ask or appoint anyone it wants to when and if it decides to restore, or begin, a royal house. If Greece, for example, decided to restore its monarchy, presumably they’d look around at any living descendants of the last king of Greece (including HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, IIRC), and at least consider asking one of them to take up the crown again. Otherwise, there are plenty of ex-royals kicking around Europe from such former monarchies as Germany, Austria, France, Russia, etc. If they wanted to go a little further afield, and maybe assure a steady oil supply for the foreseeable future, the Saudis have a bumper crop of princes - hundreds, I believe. Presumably the Greeks could, after careful interviewing, and the obligatory talent and swimsuit competition, find a good one.
I think this might have been asked before, but… What would happen if a serial killer wiped out the first 62 in line so the next in line was King Harald of Norway? Would the crowns of the Commonwealth and Norway be united under one family, or would heirs keep deferring until someone was willing to accept the crowns of the Commonwealth and remove themselves from the line for the Crown of Norway?
Under non-Salic Law primogeniture inheritance – either the males-first system of the British Commonwealth or the sexes-equal system of most Continental monarchies – a monarch without children is succeeded by the eldest one of his/her siblings – or, if he/she is dead, by their children, eldest first, then by the next sibling or his/her children, etc. There are over 1,000 people in line for the British throne, listed in order of inheritance. If Elizabeth had had no children but with everything else in place as in the past, Margaret would have been heir presumptive, and Viscount Linley, her son, would have moved into that role on Margaret’s death.
If Margaret and her children were also all out of the picture, it would go to [the descendants of] George VI’s next-eldest brother, i.e., the present Duke of Gloucester, and his heirs in order. The brackets are there because he himself would have been her heir in those circumstances if still alive – since he’s pushing up daisies, his descendants would be the heirs, in primogeniture order.
In British usage, the order of precedence is eldest boy, next-eldest boy… youngest boy, eldest girl, next-eldest girl…, with brothers, followed by sisters, the heirs in the absence of children, and royal-side uncles, followed by aunts, succeeding in the absence of both children and siblings.
On the Continent, most royal houses have switched to children in order of age, followed by siblings in order of age.
There is nothing forbidding a childless monarch from adopting a prime candidate as his son and heir, as was done in the Swedish Vasa->Bernadotte sequence you noted. But the idea of a Royal Family seems important to people, and they try therefore to keep it within a bloodline.
When you have Salic descent, it must pass through a male line – no queens, no inheritance through a daughter. France would have this issue if it were still a monarchy. It’s possible for a Salic line to die out, but there’s generally a cadet branch that split off as younger descndants of a prolific monarch a century or two back. In France’s case, the main-line Capetians died out, and the Valois line, also Capetians but from a younger branch of the family, succeeded – to be succeeded in turn, when they themselves died out, by the Bourbons. The present pretenders to the French throne are the House of Bourbon-Orleans, a cadet branch of the Bourbons. (The main-line Bourbons survive as the Borbons of Spain, but they’ve specifically removed themselves from claims to France.)
So doesn’t that make her the Queen of England too? In that England is part of Great Britain (and is generally the part of Great Britain that people think about when they think of Great Britain)…
Actually, a little more trolling on Wiki discloses that King Constantine II, deposed by a 70-30% majority in a 1973 referendum after being forced from the country by a military cabal, is still alive. Doesn’t look like either he or his progeny have much chance of ever being asked back to rule Greece, however.
In the same way as she is Queen of Cornwall, and George W. Bush is President of California. Her title in England starts with “Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”, and doesn’t mention England, Wales or Scotland.
The last monarch of England was Queen Anne, and she ceased to be Queen of England when she became Quuen of Great Britain in 1707.
When they called in George I to be King of Great Britain after Queen Anne died, he was elector of Hanover. He continued to be elector of Hanover after he became King of Great Britain.
Since there’s a precedent, theoretically there shouldn’t be any problem with the same person being ruler of both Great Britain and Norway. Of course, by the same argument, there shouldn’t be any problem with a monarch being divorced, either (precedent: Henry VIII) or married to a divorced person (precedent: Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine after she divorced Louis VII of France). There’s clearly more to this than precedent.
No, they didn’t. Or more exactly their ancestor Philippe V of Spain renounced to any claim to the french throne, but his descendants don’t think this renunciation can be opposed to them (based on their interpretation of the “fundamental laws of the kingdom”, and correctly so in my uninformed opinion).
So as a result, there are currently two pretenders to the french throne, even though the one you mentionned is more well-known. The other pretender isn’t the current king of Spain, though, since Juan Carlos is a descendant of Philippe V in female line, excluding him from the french succession.
Anecdotically, french courts had to rule several times on this issue, since, having found themselves incompetent regarding the main issue of the succession (quite logically in a republic), they had to settle related disputes about the right to use the french coat of arms or the name “Bourbon”.
There is a far more recent precedent: the current Prince of Wales divorced his first wife, and is now married to a divorced woman. Since he is still Prince of Wales, he will become king if he outlives his mother, so the precedent has already been established.
:mad: Speak for yourself.
I’ve mentioned before that it is more accurate to describe Elizabeth as Queen of Jamaica or Queen of Australia than Queen of England.
England does not exist as a country that has its own head of state.
And that’s because she is in fact Queen of Jamaica and Queen of Australia – it’s not just “more accurate”, it’s absolutely completely accurate.
England exists as a country in name only, with almost no national institutions apart from a few sporting teams. I don’t think there are any government officials or government bodies with jurisdiction over all of England and only England (though I could be wrong).
There was quite a bit of debate over whether he should be allowed to get a divorce, though, IIRC. It’s also not clear that Camilla will be Queen if he does become King. AFAIK, there was no question that any of Henry VIII’s wives after Catherine of Aragon were Queens, or that Eleanor of Aquitaine was Queen. Of course, it’s probably a bit safer now to question that sort of thing… Charles doesn’t strike me as the type to order an archbishop murdered in a cathedral or have someone’s head chopped off, somehow.
Maybe a tunnel in Paris though.
I kid.
Which means of course that, ipso facto, the description “queen of England” is absolutely correct. And the fact that you have precedent of direct predecessors such as Queen Anne and King Henry VIII being formal bearers of the title “king/queen of England,” it makes perfect sense to use it as an informal synonym.
All right. I readily confess to being a loutish American who has undoubtedly on occasion conflated England with Briain (or Great Britain, or whatever exactly you want to call it). I dunno, but I guess I kinda consider it the same as calling my country the US, the USofA, America, The United States, etc. But I see your point.
But Jamaica and Australia? How do you see that? At least England IS a part of GB. The way Bush IS president of California - in addition to the other 49. But Jamaica and Australia? I hope I’m not that terribly Americentric and ignorant of the world around me, but I really thought both had been independent from the crown for quite a little while.
They’re politically independent but the Queen is still their head of state. Did you realise that that applies to Canada as well?