How to become the British Monarch: Historically, the crown sat upon your head
mostly because you had the biggest army. When you died usually your eldest son kept
control over that army and so the crown relocated to his head, though, of course, someone with
a bigger army could change the political landscape quite abruptly. As time marched on and the world grew less
violent eventually in 1701 Parliament established a set of rules to transfer the crown from
one head to another -- hopefully with less turmoil than before. So here's how the 1701 rules work: Frist: don't be Catholic. The British Monarch is also the head of the
Church of England to which the monarch much convert if not already a member. Except that if you're Catholic, no crown for
you. The history of the royal family and how this
rule came to be is a story for another time, but suffice it to say that bigger-army diplomacy
was involved. And, BTW, no you can't cleverly get around
this rule by converting from Catholicism to something else then to Church of England. In the eyes of the crown, Catholicism is transitive. Second: don't be a bastard. Sometimes it's good to be the king, but it's
never good to be the illegitimate children of the king -- who are out of line for the
crown literally from the moment of their conception. If you're related to the monarch but are either
a Catholic or a bastard or both, the crown has the delightful term 'Naturally Dead' to
refer to you and your lack of right to succession. Third spouses don't count. While people often think of kings and queens
as a pair: that's not the way it works here. Spouses of Monarchs are known as Royal Consorts. They may be called 'prince' or 'queen' but
as far as the crown is concerned, they're not in line for the throne, they're just the
matching 23 Chromosomes needed for the creation of the real heir. Fourth and Finally: Male Primogeniture (whatever). This is the algorithm of inheritance. When the Monarch dies -- or abdicates -- but
usually dies -- the crown goes to the eldest son who isn't 'naturally dead'. If there happens to be an elder daughter tough
luck to her: baby brother gets the crown. It's Simple enough, but there are non-obvious
cases: take a king with two sons: if the eldest dies before the king does, obviously the crown
goes to the youngest (now oldest) brother. But what if the eldest son gave the king a
grandson before death? Where does the crown go then? Well, the crown basically pretends that everyone
-- except the naturally dead -- is alive: so upon the death of the king the crown goes
to his eldest son -- who is now sort of the king who just really happens to be dead -- so
the rule kicks in again, and the crown goes to *his* son, not as seems obvious now, his
brother. But if this 1701 rule means that eldest sons
get the crown, how did queens ever come to be? Basically, daughters were the last choice
of the crown, which is why there have been so few. To get the crown, a daughter had to be either
the only child of the monarch or the eldest child without competing brothers. So pregnant mothers must have made any daughters
with queenly aspirations quite nervous. Now sometimes the branch of a family tree
die out: be it from war or plague or whatever so the crown's contingency plan if it's at
a dead end is to back up one level, and then apply the rules forward again looking for
a living head to sit upon. If no luck, back up again, and repeat and
repeat until a living heir is found. And there will always be an heir. The first king of England was over a thousand
years ago and the mathematics of human reproduction backed up by DNA evidence reveals that just
about every European alive is distantly related to him. So the crown will eventually find a way. So from the first king through the new millennium,
the various rules when along, making monarchs, though with a gender biased result, that no
one seemed too bothered about until suddenly, in 2013 for no particular reason at all, everyone
decided that the rules needed to be updated *right now*. So, Parliament and the Monarchy got together
and made some changes: most notably striking the male part of rule #4. From 2013 on the crown views all royal sons
and daughters with equal favor. The only thing that matters is the order of
their birth. So prior to 2013 the boy in a set of fraternal
twins in development could sit back and relax -- secure that the crown would be his no matter
what happened on delivery day, but in the post 2013 gender-equal world it's now a race
for the door to win the crown.
Great video, as always.
Just to clarify, it wasn't just the British Parliament that had to go along with the Monarchy to change the Gender Bias in the line of succession - all members of the commonwealth had to agree. David Cameron lead the charge, but all Commonwealth nations signed on as well, to make it legit.
Wikipedia has a list of the heirs to the throne.
The current list is much shorter than it used to be. This old version of the page lists the top 2511 candidates.
For anyone interested, The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros use the same system.
Which is why Stannis Baratheon is the one true King.
This video failed to tell me how I would become the british monarch, which was the sole purpose for me to watch it.
After following on twitter, I did not see a video about conception, chromosones and english knights being about how to become british monarch.
So all I have to do is murder a couple of my fellow Europeans and I become king? Sounds easy enough...
Yeah, I've seen King Ralph. I fully understand how it works.
Is the new rule about men and women being equal not retroactive? I'm looking at this line of succession and princess Anne is still 10th even though she is the second eldest of the Queen's children.
according to Johnny English, it's whoever the Archbishop puts the crown on.