The European Royals Message Board: Re: Living Male Agnates

Empresses Catherine I and II both succeeded their spouses with a living male dynast though in both cases a minor: Peter II and Paul I. In the Netherlands it will happen once Catharina-Amalia succeeds her father with presumably her uncle and cousin both alive. In Belgium when Elisabeth succeeds with two younger brothers an uncle and two male cousins alive. The same in Sweden when Victoria takes the throne with a younger brother with three sons and in Norway once Ingrid Alexandra succeeds in spite of her younger brother Sverre Magnus who at that time may have male descendants.

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What women in history managed to inherit thrones in their own rights, despite the living presence of male agnates? Obviously such a thing is possible only in houses where female succession is allowed -- if not fully cognatic primogeniture, then at least male-preference primogeniture (also known as the Castilian law).

But history has shown us that regardless of the official law, females do not easily succeed if there are male agnates still living. We have seen how the accessions of Queen Maria II of Portugal and Queen Isabel II of Spain were met with resistance by uncles: one usurped his niece's throne, while the other started a war to acquire his niece's throne.

The Tudor queens of England did not have living male agnates; neither did Mary Stuart of Scotland. The accession in 1688 of Mary II to the English and Scottish thrones (and her sister Anne later on, in 1702) was a special case: her father (King James VII/II) was deposed in the so-called Glorious Revolution, and her half-brother (Prince James Francis Stuart) was displaced in the succession.

Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, tried to get Parliament to pass the Salic law, in order to keep the British crown united with that of Hanover. As it was, he settled for the German kingdom as a consolation prize for being only heir-presumptive to his niece Victoria in Great Britain (until the birth of her first child). And he was not the only living male member of the house of Hanover, as there was still the Duke of Cambridge and cousin George ...

There was far less dissension in the 20th century, when the sonless King George VI of Great Britain was succeeded on the throne by his elder daughter, Queen Elizabeth II -- despite having brothers and nephews through them.

Unlike Prince Knud of Denmark (uncle of Queen Margrethe II), neither the Duke or Gloucester nor the Duke of Kent expressed bitterness about being displaced in the royal succession by their nieces. Of course, the said displacement resulted from an already existing law -- as opposed to a change of law which was retroactively applied, so as to displace the heir.

Can anybody name additional examples of women succeeding despite the living presence of paternal uncles or cousins?