History Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread VII

Agent327 said:

The point is, for it to be a title, you have be something of Oranje/Nassau/Amsberg/Habsburg. Once the principality is gone it is redundant to use any title associated with it.

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I want to point out this isn't necessarily true. Many people, at least in Spain, were or have been awarded titles of nobility which are merely symbolic and bear either landless estates or directly fictional ones.

Most of the viceroys fell in the later categories.

Plotinus said:

This is correct - for once FP is wrong here. Logically, you'd think that the oldest surviving son/child of the monarch would be the next in line, but this isn't the case. If Charles were to die tomorrow, William would be the heir to the throne, and his son, George, would be second in line. Harry would be third in line, and Andrew fourth. If Charles and William were to die tomorrow, George would be the heir to the throne, over both Andrew and Harry. For Andrew to become the heir to the throne, Charles and his entire line, i.e. William, Harry, and George, would all have to die before him.

This seems a bit illogical, as one imagines "monarchy" to sit in the current monarch and then pass to whoever is the oldest son/child of that monarch upon their own death, but I assume the reasoning behind it is that it preserves stability. I.e. as things currently stand we can be pretty confident that William will become king at some point, unless he dies first; and it makes no difference whether Charles predeceases his mother or not. If Andrew were to become next in line upon Charles' death there would be greater uncertainty about where things are going. Not, of course, that it makes any practical difference to anyone other than the people directly involved.

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If the monarch and heir die in the same incident, it also avoids having to figure out which one died just slightly earlier.

Can someone recommend a good history book on Russia covering its entire history? Or alternatively several books?

Plotinus said:

This is correct - for once FP is wrong here. Logically, you'd think that the oldest surviving son/child of the monarch would be the next in line, but this isn't the case. If Charles were to die tomorrow, William would be the heir to the throne, and his son, George, would be second in line. Harry would be third in line, and Andrew fourth. If Charles and William were to die tomorrow, George would be the heir to the throne, over both Andrew and Harry. For Andrew to become the heir to the throne, Charles and his entire line, i.e. William, Harry, and George, would all have to die before him.

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Although we might hit a complication if Scotland becomes independent and, in a fit of ill-considered enthusiasm, reintroduces tanistry.

Traitorfish said:

Although we might hit a complication if Scotland becomes independent and, in a fit of ill-considered enthusiasm, reintroduces tanistry.

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If an independent Scotland maintains the Windsor line as their head of state, they would need to negotiate with all the other (now) 16 states of which the Queen is the crowned head of state. If William never becomes king, Catherine is never called upon to become consort, but in this era with non-ruling monarchs, I'm not sure a regent would be necessary. We haven't needed a regent for a monarch in minority since Tudor times under Edward VI, but of course George IV was previously the Prince Regent and if such a role was to be reprised, I imagine that it would go to either Harry or Andrew.

warpus said:

Can someone recommend a good history book on Russia covering its entire history? Or alternatively several books?

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You can't really go wrong with the Oxford History of Russia.
http://www.amazon.com/A-History-Russia-Nicholas-Riasanovsky/dp/019534197X

Thank you!

Ajidica said:

You can't really go wrong with the Oxford History of Russia.

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You could use it as a weapon it to avenge your slain wife, only to find out you've killed the wrong man.

Or to build a nuclear shelter.

bhsup said:

Hmm, okay. One more thing to clarify and then I promise I'll butt back out of this thread

What would happen if The Queen, Prince Charles, and Prince William were to die? I understand from what you said that it would lead to King George, but he's only a baby. Would Andrew become regent, or would Princess Catherine still become Queen Catherine? Or maybe she'd be regent?

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Yes, Prince George would be king. The regent is prescribed by the Regency Act 1937 and would be Prince Harry of Wales, as the next adult in the line of succession. The Duchess of Cambridge would, however, be the King's legal guardian. That is, Prince Harry would be in charge of the state and Princess Catherine would be holding the baby. I think I prefer things that way round.....

An interesting question would be what happens if Prince Harry is on military service at the death of the king. The Regent must be "domiciled" in the UK and for routine tours of duty, HM Forces remain UK-domiciled under tax law. The question is then whether a trouble-maker could get a judicial review. It seems to me that there is no government decision to be reviewed - the procedure is automatic - so the Duke of York (next in line) would be the only person with standing.

Note that all of this only applies to the UK and realms which have been granted Dominion status since 1937 and have not legislated otherwise (e.g. Jamaica, Belize). Canadian law provides for the Governor-General to have pretty much all powers normally held by a regent. New Zealand's Constitution Act 1986 provides for the NZ Regent to be whoever the UK has.

Australian law is as clear as mud in this area. Canberra hasn't passed a Regency Act (and would one be needed in each state as well?). The Regency Act 1937 was passed after the UK Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster but before the Australian Parliament incorporated the Statute into municipal law (backdated to the outbreak of war with Germany, just to complicate things further). I think the key factor is that the Commonwealth Government would always be under nationalist political pressure to claim the earliest possible date for Australian sovereignty, in this case 1931, so the Regency Act would not apply. There is a line in the preamble to the Constitution about Australia being under the UK Crown. The common law principle is that preambles can guide interpretation if they don't contradict the body of the law, so perhaps this could be used as a last resort to say that the Regency applied, but I could see the High Court being very unhappy about that, even rejecting the Regency.

JoanK said:

I want to point out this isn't necessarily true. Many people, at least in Spain, were or have been awarded titles of nobility which are merely symbolic and bear either landless estates or directly fictional ones.

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I believe the Kingdom of Jerusalem hung around the Hapsburg title lists until 1918, centuries after the Crusaders went home. And the Stuarts and Hanoverians claimed the Kingdom of France for more than two centuries after England lost Calais. So I don't think there's any clear principle against a continuing Dutch claim to Orange and Nassau.

EDIT: And of course there have been sees in partibus infidelium for millennia.

JoanK said:

I want to point out this isn't necessarily true. Many people, at least in Spain, were or have been awarded titles of nobility which are merely symbolic and bear either landless estates or directly fictional ones.

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That would be the difference between actual nobility and (postrevolutionary) created nobility. (Also, keep in mind the buying of titles.) But we were discussing actual nobility. As concerns created nobility there really are no rules.

All nobility is created nobility - unless you totally swallow said nobility's take on things.

Re: Harry on tour of duty:

You could pull something like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Margriet_of_the_Netherlands#Birth_and_Canada

Flying Pig said:

All nobility is created nobility - unless you totally swallow said nobility's take on things.

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I admire your ability to completely miss the point.

The term 'created' is really not helpful in such a discussion though. After all, all British titles are ranked by order of creation, so I'm not sure what shade of meaning you're driving at by describing some titles (presumably pejoratively) as created.

Agent327 said:

I admire your ability to completely miss the point.

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I'm not sure what your point is, to be honest. Nobility by definition is a conferred status - that's what separates the Duke of Devonshire from Lakshmi Mittal or the master of Trinity College Cambridge.

For what it's worth, my grandfather still claimed to be the rightful King of the United Kingdom. This in spite of the fact that my ancestors were kicked out of the country before it was even united.

Indeed.

Arakhor said:

The term 'created' is really not helpful in such a discussion though. After all, all British titles are ranked by order of creation, so I'm not sure what shade of meaning you're driving at by describing some titles (presumably pejoratively) as created.

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Flying Pig said:

I'm not sure what your point is, to be honest. Nobility by definition is a conferred status - that's what separates the Duke of Devonshire from Lakshmi Mittal or the master of Trinity College Cambridge.

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Right. So, pray tell, who 'created' the Habsburgs?

The creation of nobility - although not exclusively, mind you - dates primarily from postrevolutionary France, where it became habit to confer (in essence meaningless) titles on certain persons of prominence (read: bourgeois) without any connection to land at all. Now, I'm not the first to call this 'created nobility'. This does not imply that (in or outside France) nobility disappeared, just that there was an entire new category added to it.

Summing this development up as being a meaningless distinction is indeed missing the point entirely. (Not to mention that arguing back from the present situation is never good arguing, whatever is being argued.)

You know how dukedoms werent even a thing in England until the late Middle Ages, do you? That wasnt 'created'? It sure seems to have been created on purpose.

Also my memory may be failing here, so if I am wrong on theage of English dukedoms, excuses.