Posted by Jane
on 25/10/2009, 4:45:56, in reply to "purple-born imperial dynasts in Russia - last century porphyrogenites"
71.113.198.120
This reminds me of a thread I brought up some time ago on this board, on the subject of children born to reigning sovereigns (not just in Russia, but everywhere else in Europe) since circa 1800.
That the number is small is hardly surprising: one is talking here of improved medicine, and hence greater longevity. Just look (for one) at Sweden, which since the Bernadottes has had a history of several generations of direct heirs waiting to inherit the throne.
In earlier centuries, one usually didn't expect this sort of thing. If anything, given the high rates of mortality, it was actually common for minor-aged children to succeed their parents (under regencies, of course) -- marrying and begetting children well after accession (consider, as just one example, King Saint Louis IX of France).
But you're quite right that -- regardless of the era one is talking about -- a child born directly to a reigning parent didn't always stand a good chance of inheriting the throne himself. After all (once again), we're talking about the days before modern medicine -- thereby making for a high degree of uncertainty, when it came to survival.
And because it has largely been the young who have been vulnerable to the forces of poor medicine, infant and childhood mortality rates were the hardest hit. So for centuries, parents expected to bury some of their children. And in some cases, this meant a direct heir predeceasing his sovereign parent -- who thus would be survived by his grandchild, rather than child (wasn't King Louis XIV of France predeceased by two, if not three, direct heirs?).
It has usually taken a twist of fate to change a country's historical pattern of succession. In Sweden, a young (bachelor) king acceded to the throne in 1973 because the succession skipped -- and not because of poor medicine but rather, an airplane accident. In the Netherlands, Princess Wilhelmina -- one of few royals born to sovereign parents -- certainly wasn't expected at birth to succeed her father (since King Willem III still had a surviving son from his previous marriage). And because she was only a minor at the time (1890), she could expect to have children as a sovereign herself.
In Great Britain, Prince Andrew (in 1960) became the first royal born to a sovereign parent since
the 1857 birth of Princess Beatrice (youngest child of Queen Victoria). This might have happened sooner, had not his uncle (King Edward VIII) abdicated the throne to marry a woman deemed unsuitable by the Establishment for queenship (and moreover, one who likely was not very fertile).
In Luxembourg, the Grand Duchess Marie Adelaide was actually still a minor (albeit by only a few months) when in 1912 her father died -- thanks t to the late marriage of the Grand Duke Guillaume IV (who was already 41 when iin 1893 he married the Infanta Maria Ana of Portugal). And but for her politics and wartime conduct, she might not have been pressured to abdicate in favor of her sister Charlotte -- who (like herself, as of 1919) was not yet married.
In Belgium, circumstances (meaning the politics and wartime conduct of King Leopold III) might have been different -- so that King Baudouin might not have succeeded the throne in 1951, as a young bachelor. As it was, he was in a position to have children while sovereign -- but for the fertility problems of his wife, Queen Fabiola.
In Liechtenstein, the current sovereign and his siblings were born to a sovereign parent only because his grandfather (Prince Aloys) had renounced his succession rights in favor of his son (who inherited the throne from his great-uncle as Prince Franz Joseph).
In Monaco, once again the renunciation of a parents' succession rights paved the way to the accession of a young sovereign -- and moreover, a bachelor.
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