When Elizabeth’s father took the throne, Elizabeth became first in line, Margaret second. Charles wasn’t born yet. Best I can figure, next in line after Margaret would have been … Mary, Princess Royal??? Elizabeth’s aunt. Or would the rules in place at the time have skipped Mary in favor of Henry, Duke of Gloucester?
Good question. I can’t seem to find the answer either. Any anglophiles around who can clear this up?
It would take rebuilding the family tree as of 1952 to be perfectly accurate, but I believe the next in line after Elizabeth and Margaret would have been Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and his sons (William and Richard), and then George, Duke of Kent, and his children (Edward, Michael, and Alexandra).
This is right, except that Prince George, Duke of Kent, had died in 1942. Also worth noting that Princess Alexandra was his middle child, but as daughter she would have succeeded after her younger brother, Prince Michael of Kent.
Charles and Anne had both been born already.
1936, right? That’s when George VI became king, which is what the OP is asking.
The genealogist William Reitweisner published a series of lists of the British line of succession as of various dates; the list for January 1, 1941, is at Persons eligible to succeed to the British Throne as of 1 January 1941 There weren’t a lot of changes between December 1936 and January 1941; the first to affect the succession would have been the death of Queen Maud of Norway (she would have come between #13 and 14) in 1938.)
Short version:
- Elizabeth
- Margaret
- Henry, Duke of Gloucester (his kids hadn’t been born yet)
- George, Duke of Kent
- Edward of Kent
- Alexandra of Kent (younger brother Michael wasn’t born until 1941)
- Mary, Princess Royal
- George Lascelles
- Gerald Lascelles
- Alexandra, Duchess of Fife (daughter of George V’s oldest sister)
Oops that’ll teach me to read properly.
I will just chuck in that I read somewhere that at the time of the Abdication, there was some talk as to whether George (Kent) would be a better choice, since he and his wife were the glamour couple and he was the most polished at public performance.
Back then it was male-preference primogeniture so it would have been his oldest brother Henry.
I would think after everything that went down with Edward’s abdication, the last thing the government wanted was to play even more games with the order of succession. Even if Elizabeth’s father had passed on his taking the throne, that would I assume have been an abdication and the throne would have gone to Elizabeth, with a regent while she was underage. I can’t imagine a minor could choose to abdicate immediately, and someone attempting to abdicate on her behalf would probably have precipitated an even more divisive scandal.
(IIRC from other countries, “abdicate on behalf of myself and my heirs” is usually a thing when the children are tiny infants or not yet in existence, or the monarchy is being fully terminated. isn’t that what happened to Prince Phillip and also Tsar Nicolas?)
It also happened with Edward VIII. His Abdication Act excluded any future children.
Yes, but again there weren’t any at the time… (and unlikely to be.) I imagine if he’d already had a child, it would be monarch and there would be some serious objection to automatically disinheriting it.
But the “and any future heirs…” clause is a way of saying “no going back on this.” Having abdicated is like the person ceases to have a place any more in the existing order of succession calculations but doesn’t stop what’s already happened, it seems to me.
It would be like telling Betty “you’re next in line” and then later “oops you’re not…” But then, if the Queen mum had then ad a baby boy, that’s exactly what would have happened anyway.
I think excluding heir is more about practicality. Suppose Edward and Wallis had a child. Would that child supplant George VI as monarch? If not, where would they be in the line of succession?
Yes, I agree. I think in a pure, legalistic fashion - there is no simple provision for removing someone from succession once they have it, other than themselves abdicating. But once you abdicate you remove your right to create and add new members to succession, who do not yet exist - since passing on to your newborn heirs a right of succession is a feature/aspect of being in (or, your position in) the line of succession.
If you’re thinking of Philip’s claim to the Greek and Danish crowns, is abdication the right word or did he renounce any claim to the thrones? (In other words, is there such a thing as abdication in advance?)
I don’t think the question arose. His father was banished from Greece and stripped of Greek nationality, and being the second son of a fourth son of a king of Denmark would have been a remote prospect for the Danish succession (and maybe his father’s acceptance of the Greek kingship disqualified him anyway).
So by the time Philip got near adulthood, both lines had unfolded in other directions, and he was being “Britished” by his maternal uncle anyway, for obvious reasons.
What do you mean Britished? He had British citizenship (or had the right to it if he claimed) on the basis of the Sophia Naturalization Act of 1705 and being a direct descendant of Sophia of Hanover.
I meant culturally - brought up in the UK and trained for the Navy, where before the family was in Paris and his older sisters were sent to German relatives.
But he did also go through formal naturalisation as a British citizen just before the engagement was announced.
Interesting. I can see from a nationalist point of view that nobody wants a dual monarch, but is that specifically excluded, or just “something that was not done in polite society”? So Philip would have still been in line for the Danish throne, but so remote it did not matter, and should it actually happen, he would have declined? As for the termination of a monarchial position by the local government, I gather no abdication is necessary since it is not the monarch’s choice.
As for the Tsar, apparently the monarch could issue an abdication on his child’s behalf… if there were a good reason.
At the end of the “February Revolution” 15 March [N.S.]1917, he first abdicated in favor of Alexei, but a few hours later changed his mind after advice from doctors that Alexei would not live long enough while separated from his parents, who would be forced into exile. Nicholas thus abdicated on behalf of his son, and drew up a new manifesto naming his brother, Grand Duke Michael, as the next Emperor of all Russias. He issued a statement but it was suppressed by the Provisional Government. Michael declined to accept the throne until the people were allowed to vote through a Constituent Assembly for the continuance of the monarchy or a republic. The abdication of Nicholas II and Michael’s deferment of accepting the throne brought three centuries of the Romanov dynasty’s rule to an end.
I’m no expert, but I suspect the answer is neither. There was indeed a dual monarchy of William and Mary, which I believe was accepted as a good solution to the succession issues at that time. So that’s not unheard of. Likely in Philip’s case the policy makers just wanted to avoid such a prospect for policy reasons, not because it was banned or “not done,” that is, violating tradition.