Who would be next in line, English royalty?

Question

If the king has a only a daughter and the king dies, the daughter will become queen. But what happens if the kings wife got pregnant just before the kings death and the birth produces a son in that 9 months, will he automatically become king or does the line now go through that current queen?

Answer 1

I'm not sure but I think that only children born before the death of the present monarch can inherit the throne directly.  Therefore whereas if the new child was born after the death of his father he cannot inherit the throne and his sister who was already Queen would be Queen.

Of course many European monarchies don't have male-preference Primogeniture so the eldest child will always inherit no matter what.

Answer 2

It depends on the constitution. In some countries no gender is favored, however in most cases a male heir is favored over a female. In Britain she would be the heir presumptive and can be removed from the line if another child is born. The heir who cannot be removed from the line is the heir apparent (aka Prince of Wales). You might want read the wikipedia articles on that.

Answer 3

The son becomes king if he was born before the king's death,but as he is only a minor a regent would be appointed to reign until he reached his majority.The elder sister would probably get that job.If he is born after the king's death,his sister,the heir presumptive becomes the monarch.It is only when she has no children that the line continues through her brother and heirs.

Answer 4

The phrase is only occasionally found used as a title, but as such it is usually capitalized ("Heir Apparent"). Most monarchies give the heir apparent the title of "Crown Prince" or have or had a more specific version, such as Prince of Orange in the Netherlands or Prince of Wales in the United Kingdom.

When a monarch dies, and the Prince of Wales assumes the throne, the title is "absorbed" into the crown, and is not given out to the next in line except at the monarch's pleasure.

Answer 5

The present Queen of England, Elizabeth II, was called the Heir Presumptive right up to the day she became queen.

That means that she would become queen if her mother did not have a son conceived before George VI died.

She was pronounced Queen immediately after her father's death because her mother was definitely not pregnant - though how this was determined I have no idea.  The mother was 51, almost 52, so in those pre IVF days a pregnancy was extremely unlikely! Not to mention that the father had been critically ill for a couple of years with cancer.

But if her mother had been younger, or the father had died unexpectedly,  there may have been an embarrassing lull until she was proven to be not with child.

And had she been, with a male, that child would have become

Edward(or whatever)IX king of England, at birth.

Answer 6

The young prince would be heir when he reaches his majority - age 18, depending on the country.  Some countries go through a matriarchal line, and have kings only when there is no female to put on the throne or through marriage.

Now, his elder sister may remain queen regent for him, or that duty may fall to his mother.

Answer 7

As the eldest child the daughter would remain Queen....In English monarchy males do not take precedence over females

Answer 8

Prince Charles, then Prince William then Prince Harry. Although Camilla is in question.

Answer 9

When Queen Victoria was proclaimed queen, there was a provision made for any possible unborn child of the widowed Queen Adelaide, wife of her uncle and predecessor.

I do, however, have an example for you from the Spanish monarchy if you'd like to hear it:

Alphonse XIII of Spain was born after his father died and was King of Spain from the very moment he took his first breath.

Alphonse XII of Spain died on November 25, 1885, leaving two daughters, Mercedes, Princess of the Asturias and Infanta Teresa (both also had the first name Maria) and a pregnant widow, Maria Christina of Austria. An interregnum was immediately declared which meant that there was no king until the widowed queen could give birth and they could see if it was a boy or a girl. If it had been a girl, the Princess of the Asturias would have retroactively become queen. Since it was a boy, Alphonse XIII was king from birth on May 17, 1886 (122 years ago tomorrow) with his mother as Queen Regent.

For other monarchies, it depends though what provisions are in place. I have heard of a number of cases where inheritances of titles or territories are deferred until a birth.  Usually it is dealt with case or case, usually a queen would obviously be pregnant but I have heard cases of German duchesses, etc, claiming to be pregnant as a tactic to defer the succession of someone else.

In cases where it is explicitly unspoken, it could raise an interesting situation. A genealogically senior heir (in terms of being male) having been displaced by a sister before birth. It brings the question, does he replace his sister, does he come immediately after her, does he come after her descendants or does he, for the purposes of succession, "not exist"? This is a question we will not know until it occurs because

In the case of the British monarchy there is no rule but there seems to be a case of making provisions for unborn heirs if there are thought to be any. I don't know if this was done with the late Queen Mother after her husband's death because theoretically she could have been pregnant with a son but this was obviously not the case.

Holly, you are wrong, and God only knows why people have upvoted that answer!