Ah, what it must be to be royal. That incredible crown, the throne, those millions of people obeying and respecting you, and that awesome responsibility. But I’m confused. Where does it all start. Take Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, for example. There’s just something about her I love. Her mannerisms, genuineness, and concern for her people, and that wonderful, compassionate promise to the empire that you can see her make on television in reruns every now and again (as opposed to Saddam Hussein, who’s a royal not near as nice but who I’d like to p…, well, that’s another story for another time). But where does the first royal come from? At some point, a particular person has it decided, unbeknownst to him or her or maybe aware the whole time, by I guess maybe a priest? or a test? that he/she is royal. What is the test or criteria? The queen has the actual DNA sequence in her blood, centuries old, that of the Saxons and Danes and first rulers of Britain (Ethelred, Egbert, etc.). Truly royal blood. Also is “royalty” necessarily the same as “monarchy?” I like our democracy. Bill Gates-type “royalty” would be just fine with me (still within the confines of the Constitution). But does a person or people just suddenly decide “we need royalty” or “let’s change that person’s and that person’s descendants’ lives and destinies for hundreds of years of generations for the infinitely better by proclaiming him/her royalty?” How does it work? This question has become a royal mess. Thanks!
Let’s look at the second part first. Royal DNA. DNA-wise we are all royalty. I am also descended from the early English kings, Charlemagne, William the (Bastard) Conqueror, etc. (Just last year I worked out the details of ancestry going back to the old Norse kings, just to please an uncle.) No big deal. Almost everyone reading this thread is also descended from the same group a thousand years ago.
So absolutely nothing special DNA-wise. In fact, due to inbreeding they have a less diverse ancestry than you and I do. The only thing special is that (usually) just one child is the next royal and the rest become (relatively) 2nd class citizens.
Just in the news a couple weeks ago was a story about how a bloke in Australia was declared the true King of England. It was claimed that long ago, his ancestor was kid #2, but that kid #1 wasn’t reallly fathered by the King. Ergo, he could become a pretender to the crown (but probably doesn’t care a whit). If the difference between Queen Liz and King Bruce is that small, it doesn’t make royals in the least special.
As to the first question: creating a king. Lots of different methods. For most it probably was the sequence of: village boss -> local chieftain -> major chieftain -> petty king -> king (of a chunk of a modern country) -> king of a country. Usually many, many generations, but sometimes a determined individual can do it all at once, e.g., Napoleon.
But over generations, there’s usually a class system and kings come from the top class, with overturn of leading families (dynasties) from time to time. In the old Norse days, most people belonged to one of three classes: The top, quasi-royal class, the freemen class, and the slave class. Slaves could work their way up to freemen, a few freeman can move up a notch based on winning in battle, etc. But kings generally were drawn from the top class. Either you were born a lord or you weren’t. Of course, ancestry myths about descent from gods were created
to drive this point home.
But, surprisingly, on a day-to-day basis such divisions didn’t amount to much. The earliest recorded encounter with a Viking force by mainstream Europeans says that the Vikings were asked to send their leader up to talk and their response was that they had no leader, they were all equals. But in the last days of the Viking era, traditional European ideas of royalty took over and ruined all that.
not sure about how it comes about obviously someone of high social stature begins campaign against others becomes leader of group, group defeats other groups so on and so forth until this leader has been accepted as the leader for entire populous. this is only a very run down opinion though.
anyway about the australian who was found to be the true and rightful king of england King Mick.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3368731.stm
hepas on him and they showed heaps of A current affairs style shows on him as well here in Australia.
very ammusing and very laid back bloke has belnded well into the Aussie lifestyle.
Zaphod
Simple. You just take over a country and declare yourself king/queen. All your children will be royal after that.
Sweden’s royal family is descended from a French marshal, all his progeny “became” royal. He was the first to have blue blood.
I believe the founder of China’s Ming dynasty was a peasant. He was the first royal in that line.
Basically you outmuscle or outkill your competitors and you become royal. Legitimacy comes with time. They’re just the same as you and me.
He also had a tattoo saying mort aux rois, death to the kings.