# Why were there no queens for France? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 21, 2014, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043 "2014-10-21T16:57:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![blood63](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/97f17d/32.png) [@blood63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blood63)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/1 "2014-10-21T16:57:33Z")
As far as I know there were no queens of France. England had their share, Elizabeth, Mary etc. There is probably a simple answer to this. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/2 "2014-10-21T17:02:43Z")
> **[Salic law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_law)** > > The Salic law (/ˈsælɪk/ or /ˈseɪlɪk/; Latin: Lex salica), also called the Salian law, was the ancient Frankish civil law code compiled around AD 500 by the first Frankish King, Clovis. The written text is in Latin and contains some of the earliest known instances of Old Dutch. It remained the basis of Frankish law throughout the early Medieval period, and influenced future European legal systems. The best-known tenet of the old law is the principle of exclusion of women from inheritance of Salic... Because they couldn’t be legally recognized as such. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/3 "2014-10-21T17:28:42Z")
Yup, \*\*ZPG \*\*nailed it in one. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. Salic law was Frankish, i.e. _very early_ medieval law (think Charlemagne), and had long fallen by the wayside by the time the “real” Middle Ages rolled by. But the hardline agnatic Salic law regarding inheritances was dredged back in the early 14th century, in a bit of a frantic legislative bricks-shitting session, so that “the She-Wolf of France” (i.e. Isabella, wife of King Edward II of England and daughter of Philip IV of France), and through her her son, wouldn’t be able to claim a right to rule the kingdom after all of her brothers had died heirless. So the \*real \*answer is that there are no queens of France because fuck the Brits, that’s why :). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/4 "2014-10-21T18:09:47Z")
Salic Law is also the reason why Elizabeth II isn’t the Queen of Hanover. Great Britain doesn’t have a Salic Law\*. Hanover did\*. This wasn’t an issue for the first five Hanoverian monarchs - George I through William IV - but when William died in 1837, the British crown passed to his niece Victoria and the Hanoverian crown skipped Victoria and passed to William’s younger brother, Ernest Augustus. It would have been an interesting what-if if this hadn’t been the case and Victoria had been Queen of Hanover. It would have created a closer political connection between Britain and Germany and would have been a complicating issue during Germany unification in the 19th century. Germany might have ended up unifying under a Hanoverian center rather than a Prussian one. Or Prussia might have fought against Hanover and Britain for control of Germany. \*Nitpick. Great Britain and Hanover both had a partial version of a Salic Law. Neither gave women equal inheritance to the monarchy and neither absolutely prohibited women from the monarchy. But the exact procedures differed and Victoria got in under British law but not under Hanoverian law. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2014, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/5 "2014-10-21T18:16:45Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > So the \*real \*answer is that there are no queens of France because fuck the Brits, that’s why :). Well…not just them ;). [Joan of Navarre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_II_of_Navarre) would have been first in line way back in 1316 in preference to Philip V as the only surviving child of Louis X, but was passed over in favor of her uncle. The fact that she was all of four at the time probably had more to do with it than Salic Law, but the law was invoked. So the precedent was already set when the rest of the direct male-line Capetians died out in 1328. At that point she negotiated an inheritance of the little kingdom of Navarre ( previously attached to the French throne ), as the Valois had no claim there. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/6 "2014-10-22T01:55:46Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > …So the \*real \*answer is that there are no queens of France because fuck the Brits, that’s why :). English & British monarchs in turn included the title “King (or Queen) of France” in their official styles all the way up to 1801. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/7 "2014-10-22T02:22:35Z")
It is interesting that several heirs to thrones right now are female. Princess Victoria will be Queen of Sweden in her own right one day. The Swedish law was changed to favor her over her younger brother. Princess Catharina-Amalia of Holland will also be Queen in Denmark. Princess Elisabeth will be Queen of the Belgians. Infante Leonor will be Queen of Spain. Assuming that these thrones will still exist. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/8 "2014-10-22T03:29:22Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Princess Catharina-Amalia of Holland will also be Queen in Denmark. Nitpick: she’ll be Queen of the NETHERLANDS. Crown Prince Frederick and his son Christian have Denmark covered. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/9 "2014-10-22T03:40:06Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Nitpick: she’ll be Queen of the NETHERLANDS. Crown Prince Frederick and his son Christian have Denmark covered. Oops. That’s what I meant to write. The naming thing for the kings is so odd over there in Denmark. Always Frederick or Christian. Have they changed the laws in Monaco? Will a female twin take precedence if she’s born before a male sibling? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/10 "2014-10-22T03:54:30Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Have they changed the laws in Monaco? Will a female twin take precedence if she’s born before a male sibling? No. Male preference cognatic primogeniture. The Prince’s son will always succeed over his sisters, no matter how old they are or he is. They did change the laws about 10 years ago, to exclude adopted and illegitimate children from the succession and to let the Prince’s siblings inherit if he dies without children. Prince Ranier probably did this because Albert didn’t have any legitimate kids, and even though Ranier never came out and said this was the reason, Albert’s son has a West African mother, and Albert’s daughter’s mother was still married to somebody else when the baby was born. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/11 "2014-10-22T04:01:56Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Have they changed the laws in Monaco? Will a female twin take precedence if she’s born before a male sibling? There’s been no announcement yet, but various publications are [reporting](http://www.hellomagazine.com/royalty/2014101721480/princess-charlene-twins-announcement/) that an announcement is expected shortly from the palace. Incidentally, I’ve read in the past (sorry, no cites handy) that France under the ancien regime regarded the _last_ born of twins to be the heir, under a ‘first-in, last-out’ theory. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/12 "2014-10-22T04:05:14Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Infante Leonor will be Queen of Spain. Princess Leonor always in English, _Princesa_ Leonor in Spanish now that her father is King and she’s first in line; her sister remains Infanta Sofia and will hopefully stay so for the rest of her life (hopefully, because if Sofía becomes our _Princesa_, something very bad has happened to Leo). Think of it as: _Princesa_ means “Crown Princess”, _Infanta_ means “Princess”. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2014, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/13 "2014-10-22T05:06:57Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > \*Nitpick. Great Britain and Hanover both had a partial version of a Salic Law. Neither gave women equal inheritance to the monarchy and neither absolutely prohibited women from the monarchy. But the exact procedures differed and Victoria got in under British law but not under Hanoverian law. Nitpick of Nitpick. England has Cognatic primogeniture: Younger brothers of Victoria had priority over her, but she had priority over her father’s younger brother. Hanover’s semi-Salic Law meant that females were ineligible unless there were no male agnates left _in the entire dynasty_, i.e. the original founding King dynasty had no legitimate male agnates left whatsoever. (Semi-Salic is distinct from Salic Law in which females are completely ineligible – a new King from a new dynasty must be selected when the old dynasty goes extinct.) I’ve previously mentioned an application of semi-Salic law that I found astonishing. While Isabella and her son, King Edward III, were bypassed in favor of Isabella’s _1st_ cousin … > [@Most distant kinship for inheritance?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distant-kinship-for-inheritance/544455/1): > > … a very large estate once passed to an _ **18th cousin** _ ! > > The event **Polycarp** refers to involves a genealogical inheritance that almost staggers my imagination. Netherlands then followed the semi-Salic inheritance rule, so Willem III’s daughter Wilhelmina was allowed to inherit the Dutch crown in 1890 only because the (legitimate) Y-chromosome of the dynasty’s founder [Willem III’s grandfather] _had gone **completely** extinct_. > > Luxemburg also followed the semi-Salic inheritance rule, but it was an old heirloom of the Nassau family that predated their Kingship in Netherlands by many centuries. Actually, the entire House of Nassau was almost extinct … but not quite! > > From Queen Wilhelmina, the patrilineal line was followed back 19 generations to Heinrich the Rich (died 1251) before finding a non-extinct line, then forward 19 generations to Wilhelmina’s 18th cousin, Adolf, who became the Grand Duke of Luxemburg. (Wilhelmina and Adolf were much closer relatives than this, of course, but 18th cousins using the patrilineal connection that was the only connection relevant for the inheritance.) Ironically, the entire House of Nassau went extinct on the death of Adolf’s only son to reach adulthood, and Luxemburg, like Netherlands, passed to a Queen – a different Queen, since the criterion was kinship to the most recent Monarch. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/14 "2014-10-23T01:36:53Z")
they were French, they were all queens. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/15 "2014-10-23T13:59:13Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > they were French, they were all queens. **Moderator Note** **johnpost** , this is offensive on several levels. No warning issued, but let’s save the offensive jokes for the next MPSIMS thread on the subject. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/16 "2014-10-23T14:29:50Z")
Another practical politics reason for Queens regnant in England was that England had gone through a bloody dynastic war, the War of the Roses, and much of the close heirs had been killed off. The Tudors were very distant from the main Plantagent line, and Henry VII succeeded on the “last man standing” rule. When Edward VI died, there were no close, obvious males to succeed, so Mary I was a strong candidate to avoid re-opening the dynastic struggle. (Note that the closest candidate that some Protestants put forward as an alternative to Mary was also a woman: Lady Jane Grey. ) Once Mary died, the precedent had been established and Elizabeth succeeded as a matter of course. Plus, there still weren’t any close male alternatives - James VI hadn’t been born yet. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/17 "2014-10-23T16:26:49Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Incidentally, I’ve read in the past (sorry, no cites handy) that France under the ancien regime regarded the _last_ born of twins to be the heir, under a ‘first-in, last-out’ theory. I read that too many times, but I’m not sure on what it is based, since there has been no actual instance. Maybe a custom in the French nobility, with the assuption it would have applied to the crown too? Maybe at some point there has been twins in the royal lineage and someone had to decide who would be listed 65th in line and who would be listed 66th? maybe it has just been made up by Alexandre Dumas, who is a plausible source, since he imagined that Louis XIV had a twin brother? ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/18 "2014-10-23T16:44:33Z")
A Queen regnant was repugnant to the republicans. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/19 "2014-10-23T16:48:41Z")
Of course, there were queens of France, but they were queens consort, not queens regnant - although no fewer than nine served as regents for various lengths of time: [List of French royal consorts - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_consorts) > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Salic Law is also the reason why Elizabeth II isn’t the Queen of Hanover. > > Great Britain doesn’t have a Salic Law\*. Hanover did\*. This wasn’t an issue for the first five Hanoverian monarchs - George I through William IV - but when William died in 1837, the British crown passed to his niece Victoria and the Hanoverian crown skipped Victoria and passed to William’s younger brother, Ernest Augustus… An earlier thread on Ernest Augustus and the reign that might have been: [If Queen Victoria had died early - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=588942) A minor plot point in Jeffrey Archer’s excellent political novel _First Among Equals_ is the birth of twins to a British titled couple. The first born is a dullard, while the second is very sharp. The dullard inherits the title and lounges about the family’s stately home to the end of his days; the smart younger brother goes into politics and does very well for himself. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2014, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043/20 "2014-10-23T17:12:16Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Yup, \*\*ZPG \*\*nailed it in one. > > But it’s a bit more complicated than that. > Salic law was Frankish, i.e. _very early_ medieval law (think Charlemagne), and had long fallen by the wayside by the time the “real” Middle Ages rolled by. > But the hardline agnatic Salic law regarding inheritances was dredged back in the early 14th century, in a bit of a frantic legislative bricks-shitting session, so that “the She-Wolf of France” (i.e. Isabella, wife of King Edward II of England and daughter of Philip IV of France), and through her her son, wouldn’t be able to claim a right to rule the kingdom after all of her brothers had died heirless. > > So the \*real \*answer is that there are no queens of France because fuck the Brits, that’s why :). Was it this that lead to the Hundred Years war? I know Salic Law played a large part in the justification of the Agincourt campaign. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-no-queens-for-france/702043.md?page=2)