becoming king

[marycatelli]

What it takes to become a king --


Suppose a prince marries a princess from a neighboring country, with the approval of both the king and of his parliament.  And they have a son, whose birth is registered in the book of dynasts, and in due course this son -- who also married a princess with the approval -- is the heir to the throne, and the parliament says so and has officials take him outside to the crowd who hail him as king. . . .

You know, all of these things have been required in one country or another at some time, though not all at once.

Which would really put a spanner in any number of long-lost heir plots.  Finagling matches with isogamy -- marrying someone also from a sovereign house -- is not easy when you are a hunted fugitive.  Getting approved by parliament is silly.  Registering the birth is impossible. . . .

In real life, Russia didn't absolutely prohibit the succession of a female.  The requirement was, however, that a woman could succeed only the absolute extinction of all male dynasts.  Yet there are those that argue, because of isogamy requirement in Russian law, that the rightful heir to the Russian throne is a woman.

Comments

[alivion.livejournal.com]

Tolkien set up a Steward of Gondor and thus got around all sorts of problems with Aragorn.
The Steward (and his descendants) are supposed to babysit the throne until the King (or his descendants) return, which makes is easy for Aragorn to pop in a few generations later and take up the crown.

Of course, though, by the time Aragorn does get back to Gondor, some people (like Boromir) are starting to wonder just how long they should have a Steward before they just make that Steward a proper King.

[superversive.livejournal.com]

Which is a fine case of Tolkien knocking the pretensions out of somebody for fun: in this case, the House of Stuart and its descendants. By the laws of Gondor, the Kings of England since 1603, and of Scotland since 1371, would have been ineligible for the throne. (For that matter, I don’t suppose Tolkien thought much of the Tudors — and possibly not the Lancastrians either.)

[marycatelli]

Down to the name, since the House of Stuart comes from a High Steward.

[superversive.livejournal.com]

Bingo.

[marycatelli]

Well, they did go and change the spelling, just to confuse us.

[marycatelli]

Yeah, Tolkien had some notions of what history was like, and how it had to be juggled to work it all out.