Who Would Be King of America if George Washington had been made a monarch?

today I'm going to explore the question who would be king of America today if George Washington had been made a monarch the first thing you need to know is that there is no easy answer to this question George Washington did not have any biological children so even if there had been a King George the first of America it's not immediately clear who his successor might have been that's why I've come up with not one but three different scenarios based on three different relatives that he might have chosen and the second thing you need to know is that this video is not meant to be taken seriously like all of my who would be King videos I'm doing this just for fun and perhaps to teach a bit of history along the way now it is true that in 1782 a u.s. army officer by the name of Colonel Lewis Nicola did write a letter suggesting to George Washington that he accept the title of King but Washington strongly rejected the idea and since then the idea of an American monarchy has never been seriously suggested but let's have some fun anyway I've labeled the three lines that we're going to trace the senior line the Custis Lee line and the Mount Vernon line and we're going to look at each one in turn [Music] before we look at the potential heirs of George Washington let's first quickly look at his ancestors the first member of the Washington family to live in what is now the United States was John Washington he was born in England and first arrived in the colony of Virginia in 1657 there he ran a tobacco plantation was a colonel in the local militia and was elected to serve in the colonial government as a plantation owner in early America he obviously was also a slave owner as was George Washington a few generations later John's estate was inherited by his eldest son Lawrence who was George Washington's grandfather Lawrence married Mildred Warner who happened to be a twelfth generation descendant of King Edward the third of England this means that George Washington like most US presidents had a little bit of royal blood in him Lawrence died when his middle son Augustine was just four years old so Augustine who was George Washington's father was actually raised by some other relatives until he turned 18 after which he inherited some of the land previously owned by Lawrence and John Augustine married twice with his first wife Jane Butler he had two sons as well as a few children who died young so these two individuals here were half-brothers to George Washington after his first wife died Augustine married Mary ball George Washington's mother together they had four sons of which George was the oldest and a daughter named Betty Augustine died when George was only eleven at that point his older half brother Lawrence inherited the father's estate Lawrence served in a war against Spain known as the war of Jenkins ear and ended up naming part of his land after his commanding officer Edward Vernon so from this point forward the main washington property was known as mount vernon lawrence had four children but all four died very young so when he himself died the land was split between the next two eldest brothers Augustine jr. and George August jr. was supposed to get the main property Mount Vernon but he opted to take a different piece of land instead and this is why George Washington the third son ended up with the main estate there is obviously a lot that I could say about George Washington being that he is one of the most famous people in US history but let me just hit the highlights George served during the French and Indian War in which the British defeated New France he then ran his plantation becoming very rich and becoming involved in politics as tensions grew between Britain and the 13 colonies he sided with the revolutionaries and was eventually chosen to serve as the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution of course the Americans won that war and George Washington ended up serving as USA's first president now here's where we're going to depart from actual history and enter alternative history let's imagine that instead of becoming president he was made king and reigned until his death in 1799 what would have happened next of the three possibilities that I'm going to suggest with you let's start with the one that I think is the least likely to have happened it's the scenario shown in the middle in gray as I mentioned George Washington did not have any biological children however he did have stepchildren and adopted children after the French and Indian War he married a widow named Martha Martha had two young children from her first marriage John and his sister Patsy these two became George Washington's stepchildren and were raised at Mount Vernon John however died from an illness during the American Revolution his two youngest children one of which was his only son were then adopted by George and Martha Martha being the biological grandmother and George being the step grandfather that adopted son born the same year that his father died had been named after George Washington his full name being George Washington Park Custis Parke Custis being the name he inherited from his biological father's line when George Washington became president young George was only eight years old he was raised in the presidential mansions and was thus a member of the very first first family but if George had been king instead of president would he have chosen his adopted son as his successor especially since this George was so young probably not but let's imagine that he did what would have happened next well his adopted son would have reigned as George the second for a very long time 58 years and then the throne would have passed to his only surviving child Mary and guess who the Queen's royal consort would have been none other than robert e lee the famous general who led the Confederates during the u.s Civil War now we're dealing with alternative history here so if America had been a monarchy instead of a republic would it have even had a civil war perhaps in that scenario you would have had a row public in north separating from a royal south but let's imagine the country remained together remained a monarchy and ended up abolishing slavery without the civil war what would have happened then well Queen Mary would have reigned until her death in 1873 and then the firstborn son of Robert Lee named George Washington Custis Lee would have become George the third in real life he didn't have any children so let's assume in this alternative history that that was still the case the throne would then have passed to his nephew who was the third person to have the name Robert Ely but in this scenario he would be the first Robert to have been king so he would have been King Robert the first now obviously if all of this had happened you'd probably have ended up with different marriages different children and different lifespans but again we're just assuming that everything stays the same except for the existence of a monarchy in this case Robert the first would have been followed by his brother who would have become George the fourth and then by his son Robert Ely the fourth who would have been Robert the second now I wasn't able to confirm whether robert e lee the fourth is still living or not maybe someone can let us know in the comments if he is he's currently 95 and according to this scenario would be a longer reigning monarch than Queen Elizabeth the second if he since passed away the King according to this first scenario would therefore be his eldest son robert e lee v this robert e lee is a high school athletics director and was actually in the news recently stating that he was supportive of the statues of his famous great-great-grandfather being torn down okay so that was the Custis Lee line and like I said is probably the least plausible of the scenarios to have occurred the second line that we're going to look at is the line shown in red I call it the senior line because it follows the senior most biological line starting from George Washington's father Augustine in most royal dynasties if a King dies without a legitimate biological heir the throne usually passes to a younger brother or the younger brothers air because Kings usually don't have any older brothers because if you're the King you were either the oldest brother to start with or your older brother died without any heirs and that's why you ended up as king but in this case King George the first would have had an older brother with an heir and I think there's a good argument to be made that he would have passed the throne on to that senior biological line rather than to an adopted line or to the line of his eldest younger brother although Augustine jr. was only his half-brother whereas Samuel Washington was his full brother Augustine jr. and George shared the same father and therefore Augustine juniors son William would have been seen as being the most senior male in the whole Washington family in fact George Washington's nephew William was the first name listed among the executor of George Washington's will so if we imagine that William would have been the next king of America the line would have proceeded as follows there would have been King William the first for eleven years King Bushrod for twelve years King Spottswoode for 34 years and then a king Bushrod the second for a nice long fifty-three years and these unusual names certainly would have set the American monarchy apart as being unique but from this point there are two different ways that history could have gone I think it's most likely that if America had adopted a monarchy it would have adopted a system of male-preference primogeniture like Great Britain had at the time of the revolution male-preference primogeniture means that the throne always goes to a son unless there aren't any sons and in that case it can go to a daughter so this Bushrod Washington did not have any sons and therefore in this scenario he likely would have been followed by a queen Estella Estella didn't have any children though so the throne after her would have passed to her male cousin named Lee before passing to Lee's daughter who would have become Queen Adele after Queen Adele we would get the current Queen which would be Queen Brenda so under this scenario we now have a queen Brenda reigning since the year 2000 and we would have a new royal house the house of Hanson named after her father the husband of Odell now at this point I should mention that all of the names at the bottom of this chart are all real people who live in the real world as private citizens am therefore not going to give you a much information about them because I don't want people tracking them down and doing what Tony Robinson did in britain's real monarch in that documentary he showed up at some guys house in australia and said hey guess what you're the real king of england so yeah please don't do anything like that now for those of you who are curious as to what would have happened had a male-only system been used in that case the throne would have passed from Bushrod ii to his brother who would have become king james and then it once again would have gone to kingly although in this scenario kingly would have reigned a little longer and would have been followed by his cousin's son William who would have become William the second but here something interesting happens William was actually the last male only descendant of Augustine Junior and therefore upon his death the line actually would have jumped to a male descendant of George Washington's eldest younger brother Samuel so even if we had gone with George's younger brother to start with and had followed a strictly male only succession we would have ended up with this same person here eventually and that person would have been King Paul he would have reigned for twenty years and would have been succeeded by his son Richard who would be King Richard and the current king note that this male only scenario is the only one in which we get a House of Washington still in place okay so that's kind of scenario 2a and 2b we still have one more scenario to look at and it's shown in green on the right hand side and personally I think it's the most plausible of them all remembering of course that none of these theories are actually all that plausible I call this last line of descent the Mount Vernon Line and as far as I know it's never been suggested by anyone else in any various imaginary scenarios whereas these lines have the Mount Vernon scenario who is based on looking at the will of George Washington for a clue as to who he might have chosen as his royal successor in his will he left the bulk of his estate not to his eldest nephew but to this nephew here named Bushrod a different Bushrod than this Bushrod over here the inheritance included the main Mount Vernon property which is why I call this the Mount Vernon line but it also included all of the private papers of George Washington we can therefore conclude that Bushrod must have been someone that George trusted and admired a great deal Bushrod is also the only person in the Washington family other than George Washington to hold a really high-ranking position in the US government Bushrod served on the Supreme Court from 1798 to his death in 1829 he was appointed by the second US President John Adams therefore in this alternative world that we are imagining I think there would be a strong case to be made that Bushrod was the kind of person that George Washington might have chosen as his royal successor so if he had what would have happened next basically we just have to trace the ownership of the Mount Vernon property Bushrod didn't have any children so after he died Mount Vernon was inherited by his nephew John Augustine Washington the second so we would have had a king Bushrod for 30 years and then in King John the first for 26 years followed by a king john ii for just six years if we go back to actual history for a moment I should mention that John a Washington the third was actually a Confederate officer he died during the Civil War he was also the last private owner of the Mount Vernon estate he was unable to keep up with the maintenance of the property and so he petitioned both the federal government and the state government to purchase the estate in order to make it a historical site neither showed any interest though and therefore instead he ended up selling it to the Mount Vernon ladies Association who has owned it ever since and currently runs it as a charity but back to the imaginary scenario if John had been made King he would have been followed by a king Lawrence or perhaps nicknamed King Larry and then by three more John's we would have gotten a John the third John the fourth and a John the fifth now according to my research this John a Washington died in 2009 and left no biological heirs so to find the most senior heir after this point we'd actually have to go back a few generations and then trace down another branch of the family where we'd end up with a Mary Washington who coincidentally served in several leadership positions over the years in the National Society of Washington family descendants now I wasn't able to find her obituary so I assume she's still living if she's not the next person in line would be her son Lawrence so we get a king Larry the second if anyone has any better information about this particular branch here you can mention that in the comments so there you have it I've given you three possible scenarios resulting in four possible candidates for the throne of America today if George Washington had been made King which line do you think would have been most likely do you support Queen Brenda King Robert King Richard or Queen Mary let me know in the comments if you find history genealogy and monarchies interesting be sure to subscribe to the channel if you check the playlists you'll find that I have videos covering the family trees of famous dynasties from all over the world and to see what else I'm up to follow me on Twitter or Instagram thanks for watching

Channel: UsefulCharts

Views: 2,257,558

Rating: 4.8874774 out of 5

Keywords: george washington family tree, washington family tree, alternative history, american monarchy, george washington parke custis, custis lee family, lee family tree, robert e lee family tree

Id: ZxnBveop5no

Length: 21min 38sec (1298 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 04 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/DankNerd97]

I didn’t know that GW had living descendants.