I was reading a bio of Queen Elizabeth II, which made me wonder about the following:
She became queen because her father, King George VI only had 2 daughters and no sons. But what would have happened if the Queen Mother was pregnant when he died, and that child was born a male? Would they have waited until after the birth to announce the new monarch?
ETA: I also learned that the aforementioned King George VI only became king because his brother abdicated the throne in order to marry a twice-divorced American. I know very little about the histories of monarchies, so this may not be news to many of you. But I found that fascinating.
When Victoria acceded to the throne in 1837, the official proclamation included a provision “saving the rights of any issue of His late Majesty King William the Fourth which may be borne of His late Majesty’s Consort”. Presumably, this meant that if Adelaide had given birth, that child would have replaced Victoria.
The question can no longer arise out of a younger son replacing an older daughter, since the succession is now always to the oldest child. It could still arise in a situation like Victoria’s where the senior line dies out and the succession passes to a junior branch.
Her mother was a few years older than Queen Adelaide was at Victoria’s accession, and by 1952 medical science was perhaps a bit less approximate about pregnancy and menopause.
As a rough guide, Queen Elisabeth the Queen Mother was born in 1900, so she was always the same age as the century. In 1952 she was 52, and so on. Few women were mothers at 52 in that period.
Victoria’s proclamation was required by the Regency Act 1830 to have that provision. Parliament did not act during the reign of George VI to explicitly provide for the possibility of him having a posthumous heir, as it did during the reign of William IV. The government received legal advice that it was unnecessary, as the 1830 legislation merely restated a general rule that could be followed without fresh legislation each time.
Out of curiosity, how would this work? My understanding is that the crown automatically passes to the next person in the line of succession (i.e., Charles became king immediately upon the death of his mother).
But, let’s say hypothetically, an incumbent king dies shortly after (unbeknownst to all) conceiving a legitimate heir. Does his successor (let’s say his brother) reign legitimately for a period of time? Is there a retroactive regency to the death of the father? Are the acts taken by the brother illegitimate once the existence of the heir is discovered?
This seems like something that might have come up, but I don’t know.
It hasn’t come up in Britain, but Spain had that situation when Alfonso XIi died in 1885 leaving two young daughyers and a pregnant wife; nobody was monarch until Alfonso XIII was born six months later.
Here’s an example using real-world people and dates:
Set the Wayback Machine to June 15, 2013. A freak meteor storm occurs and in some sort of total, freakish coincidence, kills Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, and Prince William instantly.
Who’s next in line if that happens? Prince George (in utero, about a month to go) or Prince Harry (de jure next in line)?
According to the Regency Act 1830, which @Lord_Feldon referred to above (as Wikipedia describes):
Sections 3, 4 and 5 were to apply if, after King William’s death and Victoria’s accession, Queen Adelaide gave birth to his posthumous child. In that event the child would become monarch, Queen Adelaide was to become regent, the Privy Council was to proclaim the accession of the new sovereign “without delay”, both Houses of Parliament were to assemble, and the laws concerning the demise of the Crown were to apply as though Queen Victoria had died and the new monarch was her heir.
So in that case, at least, Victoria would have been the legitimate monarch but immediately would have ceased to be so when the posthumous child was born.
In 1830 the Lord Chancellor explained it by analogy to the death of Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany in 1186. Geoffrey died with a living daughter Eleanor and a pregnant wife. Eleanor evidently inherited the Duchy for the few months until the birth of her brother.
Considering they didn’t have ultrasound back then, I assume those were some anxious times for her. That brings into question whether an ultrasound would be used these days to make faster decisions.
To the extent that there is any actual clarity on what to do in this situation (there’s probably a good chance it would just be a mess), the next in line would have been Prince Harry, and he would have ceased to be king a month later on the birth of his nephew. (Under the terms of the Regency Acts, Harry would then have acted on behalf of King George as his regent for 18 years.)
In 1937, the Law Officers (senior legal advisors to the government) were asked WTF should happen if a male heir was born after the death of George VI: The question and answer are way down near the bottom of this page, but the nut of the question is:
THE LAW OFFICERS AND COUNSEL are accordingly asked to advise…whether a posthumous son of His Majesty would succeed to the Throne if at the demise of His Majesty there were no living male issue of His Majesty
And the answer was:
We have no doubt that the answer to this question is, Yes.
They go on to explain that they think that the 1830 legislation, which explicitly provided for Queen Victoria to succeed but then be knocked off the throne by her newborn cousin, was merely how Parliament thought the law already worked, so if necessary, it could happen again without explicit legislation.
If that precedent was followed, yes. That’s what definitely would have happened to Victoria in that situation, it was explicit law. She could have been the Queen (not a regent) for a very short period of time, then returned to her previous life as if it had never happened. (In the event, her aunt was 45 years old and had not been pregnant in quite a few years, so it wasn’t much of a worry.)
The opinion went into how that happened in some other countries, but was of the view that “no such halt in the succession could arise in this country unless Parliament expressly so provided.” In other words, there’s always a king (or queen), and the person who is next in line automatically succeeds, period.
I’m not sure that there’s really a definite answer here, though. Hard cases make bad law, etc.
Things would be very interesting if the hypothetical newborn king were to succumb to some childhood illness. Would I be right in presuming that, until said newborn grew up and had offspring of his own, Victoria would still have been the next in line? She could have ended up with a disconnected reign, queen for a few months, then not, then queen again.
Assuming the offspring wasn’t twins, you’d be correct: Victoria was next in line behind William IV’s daughter Princess Elizabeth (who died in infancy), and would have been next in line behind any later-born children as well.
Her grandfather, King George V, became king because his older brother, Prince Albert Victor, died suddenly at the age of 28, leaving Prince George directly in the line of succession.