So, while visiting my parents, my step-dad and I ended up getting into a conversation about the monarchy. We’re both republicans—it is the natural position considering our whole family is quite Leftist—and as such opposed to the monarchy on principle. And we discussed a little back and forth on the role of the monarchy in modern Denmark and so on, and we got to a point of discussing the celebrity status that royals have, and how it has a role in maintaining the “magic” that is part of the justification for the monarchy.
So, imagine a scenario where the monarch and the most immediate heirs to the throne, were removed from those positions. It could be due to a tragic accident, or to a pandemic, or to a resignation on behalf of the family, or whatever. The point is, in this thought experiment, the next heir to the throne is an anonymous person, completely unknown to the broad public. A member of the traditional nobility, perhaps, who was slotted in somewhere in the line to the throne, and now find themselves thrust from their position as an unknown count or baron or whatever, to the next monarch. Do you think your monarchy could survive such a turn?
18 comments
If the heirs disappeared I’m pretty sure Spain would give a shot to the Third Republic.
Basically because if there aren’t any heirs, who you’re going to put into the throne? No other member of the Royal family would have enough support to be the new monarch. In that scenario, I think people would prefer a Republic.
4th in line of succession is princess Martha, the sister of the crown prince. She claims to have psychic powers, can talk to the dead and so on.
Unless the event that killed the 3 ahead of her boosted support for the monarchy I don’t see the monarchy surviving.
This would require the death of the current king and his three children, his brother and his three children, his aunt and her two children who didn’t marry without parliament’s permission, and their combined 6 children (although let’s be realistic nobody is going to accept Prince Landlord as the king so he’s functionally out).
There are no other people in line for the throne due to a law limiting the succession to children of the early 20th century Queen Wilhelmina. One of the King’s brothers and two of his aunts were removed from the line of succession when they married without permission, so I guess maybe that could be reversed. If that doesn’t happen or they all die as well and parliament were to pass the relevant laws I guess the Crown would go to Elisabeth, the older sister of the current Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Her and the current king share a great-great-great-grandfather, King Willem II.
I don’t think anybody will be OK with making a random German lady queen (although she was briefly married to a Dutch guy) so I guess Parliament just wouldn’t pass the relevant laws and the monarchy would die out.
I have a hard time seeing it remain if the kings kids and grandkids die, the cousins aren’t in the public eye, so why should we pay for their lavish lifestyle?
Spain:
The King has two daughters. Both have not been part of any scandal so far as they’re quite young, so if the heiress died and her sister survived, the monarchy (which is not that popular either way) would probably survive too. If they both died, the heiress would be the king’s sisters and their families. In that case, the answer to the monarchy’s survival is an astounding NO WAY.
Even most of the most staunch conservatives in the country would prefer a republic to them and their families.
Probably would survive. The monarchy is popular enough among the people, not least because of the holiday; and the king serves an important political role despite his constitutionally limited powers. If the democratic government is defeated by a vote of no confidence, the king has several powers to keep the government in working order until a new one can be elected and then formed. [From Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demissionary_cabinet):
“In both cases the prime minister hands in the resignation of his cabinet to the Dutch Monarch. The Monarch will not accept full resignation until a new cabinet has been formed. (…) By constitutional convention, a demissionary cabinet has fewer powers than a conventional cabinet. Besides organising elections, the main aim of a demissionary cabinet is to take care of ongoing business until the new cabinet comes into power.”
If it’s a random person, who happens to have the “right” blood? No, I don’t see that surviving.
I don’t feel strongly for or against our monarchy, but I think a lot of their current support stems from their reputation as uniting figures – especially with Christian X being a symbol during ww2, and Margrethe II being seen as a kind and intelligent person caring for national unity. Frederik (the crown prince) doesn’t have much of a reputation yet, and that association only gets weaker the further down the line of succession you go. If we have someone in top 5 (*maybe* 10) of the line still around, it could pull through, but I don’t see anyone further down being welcomed with open arms
It should be mentioned that in the case of the Danish royal family we wouldn’t reach the point of any unknown royals becoming the monarch. Because it’s written in the constitution that the monarch must be a descendant of Christian the 10th. So if those eligible die off, then that’s it. No more Danish monarchy.
Christian the 10th had 2 sons, and the youngest was Prince Knud whose descendants are all either dead or no longer have a claim to the trone due to marrying commoners.
So really it’s just the descendants of Frederik 9th.
That’s Margrethe, her descendants and her sister Benedikte.
So if Margrethe and her descendants all die then it’s Princess Benedikte. Her children are not in line to the throne so when she dies it’s done.
I don’t think it would survive, no. The monarchist movement in Spain has been highly based on the person of the former king, Juan Carlos, and his son the current King Felipe.
Juan Carlos was held in high regard, even among some people who wouldn’t otherwise be monarchists, for his role during Spain’s transition to a democracy after Franco died. As for Felipe, he was praised for many years as “the best prepared heir in history”. His supporters argued that no one could be better equipped for the role of Head of State than someone who had been preparing for it almost from birth.
However, the rest of the royal family is not that popular. One of Felipe’s sisters them would be a no-no since her husband has been in prison for embezzlement. The other sister is not very popular either: her eldest son (now a young adult) is regarded as an irresponsible, spoiled party boy and has been at the forefront of multiple bizarre news stories.
If even Felipe’s sisters were gone, and the throne were to go to some random aristocrat, I’m pretty sure it would mean the end of the monarchy.
In all honesty, I think even if only the King were gone right now it might trigger a crisis, since the heir is still a minor. Having a 16-year-old Head of State sounds and looks pretty bizarre, at the very least. I guess her mother could be appointed “Queen Regent” but the mere concept sounds so archaic. I just feel like it might trigger very serious discussion about it.
I think this is exactly what happened in Nepal actually, the Crown Prince at the time basically murdered most of his family (including his dad, and then finally himself), leaving his uncle to take over as King. The new King was extremely unpopular, took over absolute power in a coup and then got overthrown. Nepal is now a Republic.
It really depends what you mean by ‘immediate heir’ though. If Charles dies, William will become King and I think people will accept that, in fact he’d probably be more popular than Charles. If he dies though, the throne would pass down to his children, the oldest one of which is only 8, which means that a regent would have to take over and the choice of regent would probably be very controversial. If somehow all of William’s children died, the throne would have gone to Harry but he’s basically abdicated. This leaves Prince Andrew and his children, and there’s absolutely no way anyone would accept that ever since the trafficking allegations. Now if somehow *his* branch of the family died, then we’d be getting into Prince Edward’s branch and they seem to all be more interested in showjumping.
TL;Dr, if the throne doesn’t go down to William or his children, I don’t think the monarchy can survive. Especially since one of the arguments of having a monarchy in the first place is that the royal family all have such a weird upbringing that they can be above party politics and not be as biased by it as ordinary mortals (not a stance I agree with, but anyway). Whereas minor nobility or commoners will always be biased in some way.
Tricky question because if all heirs died in downward/direct line, it would go to the sister of the future king, Martha Louise. She has been into much during the years. Probably the most striking in the later years with angels.. Even having a school about angels. Being blamed for fraud. Claiming to be high sensitive. Being able to speak with horses etc. Having 3 kids with a former author/artist that killed himself some years ago… now together with a [shaman](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7832243/Princess-Martha-Louises-bisexual-shaman-boyfriend-fire-flirting-girl.html) from usa, that claims to be bisexual.. Norways future queen and prince if the downward/direct line of heirs should disappear.. doubtfull
Probably. The only one deeply unpopular would be Prince Andrew who is [fourteenth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succession_to_the_British_throne#Current_line_of_succession) in line, but he’d likely just step aside if somehow all 13 above him died. If it was a child they’d make some arrangement and by the time they were 18 would be solidly prepped for the role of King or Queen. If it was an unknown they have a blank slate, it would be like Designated Survivor. Or King Ralph. The monarchy can still exist and have basically no visible role in British life. They have none in practice other than ceremonial stuff as it is.
No. I don´t even consider that the current heiress to the Spanish throne will be Queen.
Yepp, I’d say if like some part of the House of Bernadotte was still around it’d survive. Like if only the Crown princess Victoria and her children lost their lives it’d most likely survive without much of a hiccup if one of her siblings become next in line. But if the entire immediate family dies, Im less sure of the Monarchies survival.
Most likely not. If it ends up in the crown prince’s crazy sister she would be very unpopular and we will become a republic. Though if we run out of heirs and still want to be a monarchy the parlament will ask someone to become monarch. Most likely I would guess it would have been someone from the Danish house.
No I don’t think it would.
But I don’t think our Monarchy will survive anyway. It’s barbaric. We have a 10 year old girl who is told now and it was known since she was born that she has no choice in what to do, that she will take over as queen when her mother dies.
That’s alot of pressure and kinda messed up we do that to individuals
In Spain, it would be the ideal excuse to get rid off of them, the current political forces that sustain them would have a hard time to join the almost-nazis right wing in defending whoever remote heir survived, even considering that there are dozens of sons, they fuck like rabbits.
Jeg hader, hvordan i den moderne dag, når jeg læser republikanske.. Mit sind går til USA..