If two rulers were to marry, how would that affect their kingdoms?

Question

Suppose a king and a queen (both with their own kingdoms) married. Would the king remain king of his own country as well as a prince of his wife's? Or would the queen give up her own country? Or would they join the kingdoms and rule together?

Answer 1

The phrase William and Mary usually refers to the joint sovereignty over the Kingdom of England, as well as the Kingdom of Scotland, of King William III and his wife Queen Mary II, a daughter of James II. Their joint reign began in February, 1689, when they were called to the throne by Parliament, replacing James II, who was "deemed to have fled" the country in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. After Mary died in 1694, William of Orange ruled alone until his death in 1702. Their rule was the only period in British history in which "joint sovereigns" with equal powers were allowed to reign; usually, the spouse of the monarch has no power and is simply a consort.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_and...

Another case was the union of Mary I of England and Philip II of Spain. Mary married Philip on 25 July 1554, at Winchester Cathedral. Under the terms of the marriage treaty, Philip was to be styled "King of England", all official documents (including Acts of Parliament) were to be dated with both their names, and Parliament was to be called under the joint authority of the couple. Coins were also to show the heads of both Mary and Philip. The marriage treaty further provided that England would not be obliged to provide military support to Philip's father, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, in any war. Philip's powers, however, were extremely limited, and he and Mary were not true joint sovereigns like William and Mary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_I_of_E...

Note: Neither of these "joint" marriages had any surviving issues, therefore, England and Spain was never unified as one. However, if Queen Mary and King Philip did have children, the heir to the throne English and Spain crown will be titled as "King/Queen of England and Spain." Their children will be formerly titled and styled as "Prince and Princess of England and Spain."

Answer 2

In the Middle Ages, it was taken for granted that the queen's husband would be king, in the full sense of the word,and would rule her kingdom as well as whatever realm he had in his own right. In the Renaissance this assumption frayed rather, and for the first time you got the concept of a "consort" - a queen's husband who was *not* king. An early example was Lord Darnley, who married Mary Queen of Scots confidently expecting to become King of Scots as a result, but the Scots Lords refused to agree to grant  him the "Crown Matrimonial", and so he got no political power and was basically just an appendage to the Queen. He was deeply p****ed off.

But even when the queen's husband became king, the two kingdoms remained separate political entities, with different laws and political systems, that just happened to have the same ruler. If the two kingdoms had different inheritance laws, they might separate later without any kind of administrative upheaval. This happened as late as 1837 when the Princess Victoria succeeded to the throne of the United Kingdom; since 1714 her predecessors had been rulers of both Britain and Hanover, but Hanover had the Salic Law which forbade females from inheriting. So Hanover went to one of her cousins, and Hanover and Britain, which had been linked together for more than a century, parted company.

Answer 3

It would merge their kingdoms, just as it did Isabel of Castilla and Fernando of Aragón.  They merged their countries into what we now know as Spain (well, there were still a couple of small adjustments to be made, but mostly).

In this case, they ruled together.  

Sometimes, it meant that the King subjugated the Queen, and He became ruler of the combined kingdom.  Depended on the laws of the two countries involved.

And, Svartalf, they were married in 1469.

Answer 4

The king would remain the ruler in his country, the queen would remain the ruler in her country and they would be each other's consorts. However, their first son (or daughter, if there were no sons) would become the ruler of both countries, as s/he would inhert those thrones. That doesn't automatically mean the kingdoms would merge - that would be something the people of both kingdoms would have to agree on. And if they did not wish to merge, or did not wish to accept the child of the two rules as their monarch, they might depose him and give the throne to the next in line.

Answer 5

technically, it would merge their kingdoms.

That's what happened in Spain when Ferdinand of Aragon wedded Isabel of Castile back in 1492.

Answer 6

In 1603, a similar thing happened between England and Scotland: on Queen Elizabeth's death, King James VI of Scotland became also King James I of England. Of course, he didn't give up either. Neither did the two countries become one, until later. Although James took up his principal residence at Westminster, the two countries simply shared a king.

By the Act of Union of 1707, assented to by the parliaments of both countries, the parliaments became merged, and The United Kingdom of Great Britain was established. It is an unusual country, in that it contains four countries that still exist with their national identities: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

But, for over a century: two entirely separate countries, one king.

So far as I know, no country has a law saying that its king can not also be somebody else's king; and no country has a law saying that it must merge with another country. And who would want such a law? It takes a very special act of legislation and much deliberation in both countries to accomplish such a merger. Even in an absolute monarchy, such as Spain's, the sovereign would wish to have the option and not be bound in advance by such a law. In such a case, I doubt that there would be two sovereigns.

The main thing to remember is that different countries have different laws and customs. German kingdoms had Salic law, for example, and, unlike England, would never admit a woman to the throne. Under Welsh law, on the other hand, no one was denied his inheritance by reason of  'illegitimacy'. (That would certainly have solved Henry's most pressing problem, of avoiding disputed succession and civil war on his death. There was plenty of precedent for such, both in and out of England.) There is certainly no world-wide law, on the subject, although several popes aspired to possess that power.

You could become king of any country if you had sufficient force, with or without the help of its people. On the other hand, in some countries - particularly on our unruly side of the Channel - an unpopular king or queen might find it difficult to stay, and no pope could be of much help. Things were much less orderly in the middle ages than some would like to remember. And civil wars over such matters have been routine.