: Had the Duke of Kent outlived his brother
: William he would have succeeded as Edward
: VII and his grandson would have been Edward
: VIII.
My bad ... I was tired when posting, and didn't bother to check the postnominal numbers.
: My guess is that the grandson would not have
: been the child of Victoria but of a younger
: brother who would probably have been George
: V as he would have been born during the
: reign of his uncle George IV.
This is a likely scenario. That being said, I realize that engaging in this sort of "what-if" speculation only leads to an endless change of similar questions. For then, one could ask "What if Princess Elizabeth Georgina of Clarence (daughter of the future King William IV) had lived?"
In that case, the potential for the Duke of Kent to sire a son to displace Princess Alexandrina Victoria would have been a moot point, since his niece would have had precedence over him in the British succession (thanks to primogeniture). Indeed, at the time of her christening, Londoners actually jumped the gun by dubbing her "Little Queen Bess".
Well ... we know that an uncle-to-niece succession occurred among the Jacobites, when in 1875 Duke Francesco V of Modena (styled King Francis I of England and Scotland) died, whereupon Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria-Este was hailed as "Queen Mary III and II." If her father (Archduke Ferdinand Karl Victor) had lived to sire a son, this obviously would not have happened.
But then, her cousin (Anna Beatrice, only child of her uncle) would have had precedence over him in the Jacobite succession (whatever might be said about the duchy of Modena), anyway, had she lived. As it was, this Hapsburg archduchess died in infancy, just like the Hanoverian princess who might have become Queen Elizabeth II of England.
As I understand, the daughter of Duke Francesco V of Modena would have been styled as "Queen Anne of England and Scotland" (not Anne I) by Jacobites, who do not regard Anne Stuart (who succeeded to the British throne in 1702) as a rightful queen regnant. Rather, she was a usurper ...
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