In the end, I wanted to focus only on what DID happen: the actual ACCESSION of second sons -- not what might have happened under alternative scenarios.
Of course, Prince Frederik grew up as a *spare*, and in another thread I did bring up cases where such persons would have succeeded had they lived -- something we could say with hindsight. His situation might have been comparable to that of Prince Gustaf of Sweden, second son of King Oscar I, whose older brother (King Carl XVI) died without any surviving male issue. Certainly a younger brother stands a greater chance of surviving an older brother, than an uncle stands of surviving a nephew ...
Prince Frederik of the Netherlands, the second son of King Willem I declined to become king of Greece. Had he lived longer he would have become king of the Netherlands.
His nephew Willem III died in 1890 having outlived all three of his sons with his first wife Sophie. The youngest died in 1884. Had Willem III died a year later and had Frederik survived he would have become king.
From Frederik's marriage to his first cousin Louise of Prussia four children were born. Louise, Willem, Frederik and Marie.
Both sons died as children. Louise married Carl Bernadotte the oldest son of Oscar I of Sweden and Norway. When her husband succeeded she became Queen of both nations.
She died in 1871 so would not have been her father's heiress. Neither would her only surviving child Louisa Bernadotte by marriage crown princess and later queen of Denmark, mother of Christian X of Denmark and Haakon VII of Norway, grandmother of Olav V of Norway, his wife Martha of Sweden, Frederik IX of Denmark and Astrid, queen of the Belgians.
The heiress of Frederik of the Netherlands would have been his younger daughter Marie. The semi salic law speaks of the female closest to the last sovereign so as a daughter she would go before her niece.
Marie married Wilhelm von Wied brother of the first Queen of Romania (Elisabeth/Carmen Sylva). Their oldest son Frederik (II) married princess Pauline of Wurttemberg herself a first cousin of Wilhelmina of the Netherlands.
When was the last time a second son succeeded to throne as sovereign, in each of the various European dynasties? Of course, one should be careful in qualifying the position of *second son* in a family, for reasons that infant and childhood mortality rates have traditionally been very high throughout history. So to be practical, I'm restricting discussion only to royals who survived at least early childhood -- meaning the first 10 years of life. If, say, a prince was technically born as the third son to his parents, but one of his older brothers was stillborn, then he basically counts as a second son.
UK: King George VI
Norway: none since the house of Glücksburg came to the throne (King Haakon VII doesn't count, despite being born a second son, for reasons that the particular point of focus here is the Norwegian throne to which he got elected -- not Danish, which he never occupied)
Denmark: none since the house of Glücksburg came to the throne (it would have been Prince Knud, but for the 1953 constitutional amendment that changed the succession law)
Sweden: none since the house of Bernadotte came to the throne (King Oscar II was born as the third son of King Oscar I, with both older brothers surviving to adulthood)
The Netherlands: none since the house of Orange came to the throne
Belgium: King Albert II
Spain: King Carlos IV (his own second son and namesake attempted to claim the throne, thereby igniting the Carlist wars in the country, but never succeeded)
Luxembourg: none since the house of Nassau-Weilburg came to the throne
Liechtenstein: Prince Franz I
Monaco: can anybody fill me in on this?
What about the non-reigning houses? I believe that in Portugal, it was King Luis I; in Russia, it was Czar Alexander III.
I'm less clear about German and Italian houses -- excepting the Wittelsbachs of Bavaria, where that distinction would be King Otto.
Austria is tricky, because the Habsburgs were originally Holy Roman emperors (elected), and the dynasty branched out -- just like the Bourbons.
Is all this correct? Can anybody fill me in on the dynasties of Germany and Italy?
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