Elizabeth II at ninety represents succession in a constitutional monarchy ( though see my entry on the Republic of the Untied Kingdom) but we have lost the sense that ancestry provides a validation of a succession to power. That sense existed for centuries. To take a very clear example, the throne of Poland was for a time subject to election ( though of course from a small list of candidates ). One such King sent an embassy to Elizabeth I with a message which the Queen did not like at all, and in a powerful retort she argued that the Polish King, being merely elected, lacked the authority of birth
It may be thought that we have left all that behind, but there are examples of how the accidents of birth in ruling monarchies in the past still have very large effects today
Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII had several sons . But they died almost at once. Had one lived Henry would not have wanted to divorce Katherine in order to have a son, and would not have had to break with Rome in order to achieve that divorce ( marriage declared invalid 1533). He might of course have been tempted by the riches of the Church which after the break with Rome he seized and gave to his favourites ( as indeed did several of the German princes who followed Luther ). But maybe not.. After all, Henry had written a refutation of Luther's position which led the Pope to award Henry the title "Defender of the Faith" , still held by our monarchs. And, in particular, we should never have heard of Elizabeth I and never have seen the establishment of her amazing compromise between catholic ceremony and protestant theology which remains the Church of England to this day
Frederick the Great of Prussia ( see also my entry) was born in 1712 as the third son of his father King Frederick William. Had one of his two elder brothers not died before he was born, Frederic would not have become king And although no doubt providing his brother with excellent generalship, without Frederic in charge Prussia under a more ordinary man might well not have proceeded to seize Silesia from the Habsburgs and establish Prussia as a great power. This would have happened in due course anyway, but the tempo of history would have been different, with large consequences for the interplay of countries and events, such as the timing and structure of a united Germany
And, as a final example, the most dramatic of all, the Emperor Frederick III of Germany came to power in 1888, but died that year, the same year as his father, of cancer of the throat. He was married to Queen Victoria's daughter ( also Victoria) and had views far more liberal than those of his son who in the same year inherited as William II ( the Kaiser). How far the German constitution would have been changed under Frederick for the democratic better is a matter for speculation, as these constitutional matters have their own momentum, but the cards would have been played in a different order. And in addition, one thing Frederick was highly unlikely to have done was to build a fleet against England, which his son did, making sure that in any war England would be against Germany, and winding up the European tension. These developments would have ensured that the tempo of European history would have been different at the beginning of the 20th century from the tempo actually experienced.. With a different tempo there could well have been a war, as national rivalries were very strong, but with a different timing the unusual sequences of events that enabled Lenin to seize power in Russia, and Hitler in Germany, could hardly .have occurred. No doubt other tragedies would have been seen, but two most terrible and evil men would not have found their moments
It may be thought that we have left all that behind, but there are examples of how the accidents of birth in ruling monarchies in the past still have very large effects today
Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII had several sons . But they died almost at once. Had one lived Henry would not have wanted to divorce Katherine in order to have a son, and would not have had to break with Rome in order to achieve that divorce ( marriage declared invalid 1533). He might of course have been tempted by the riches of the Church which after the break with Rome he seized and gave to his favourites ( as indeed did several of the German princes who followed Luther ). But maybe not.. After all, Henry had written a refutation of Luther's position which led the Pope to award Henry the title "Defender of the Faith" , still held by our monarchs. And, in particular, we should never have heard of Elizabeth I and never have seen the establishment of her amazing compromise between catholic ceremony and protestant theology which remains the Church of England to this day
Frederick the Great of Prussia ( see also my entry) was born in 1712 as the third son of his father King Frederick William. Had one of his two elder brothers not died before he was born, Frederic would not have become king And although no doubt providing his brother with excellent generalship, without Frederic in charge Prussia under a more ordinary man might well not have proceeded to seize Silesia from the Habsburgs and establish Prussia as a great power. This would have happened in due course anyway, but the tempo of history would have been different, with large consequences for the interplay of countries and events, such as the timing and structure of a united Germany
And, as a final example, the most dramatic of all, the Emperor Frederick III of Germany came to power in 1888, but died that year, the same year as his father, of cancer of the throat. He was married to Queen Victoria's daughter ( also Victoria) and had views far more liberal than those of his son who in the same year inherited as William II ( the Kaiser). How far the German constitution would have been changed under Frederick for the democratic better is a matter for speculation, as these constitutional matters have their own momentum, but the cards would have been played in a different order. And in addition, one thing Frederick was highly unlikely to have done was to build a fleet against England, which his son did, making sure that in any war England would be against Germany, and winding up the European tension. These developments would have ensured that the tempo of European history would have been different at the beginning of the 20th century from the tempo actually experienced.. With a different tempo there could well have been a war, as national rivalries were very strong, but with a different timing the unusual sequences of events that enabled Lenin to seize power in Russia, and Hitler in Germany, could hardly .have occurred. No doubt other tragedies would have been seen, but two most terrible and evil men would not have found their moments
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