I know this is old but the Times had an alternative list of who would have been the Kings and Queens of Britain if we hadn’t gone to the Hanoverians. Something a little fun perhaps, although there are a number of different rules that one can twist to get to almost any result you want. Do we start with James II? Or with the settlement after William? Or Anne? Can women inherit in their own right? (I can never remember whether the Salic Law means they can or can’t). Actually, given the number of depositions, murders, invasions and so on if you start with Harold Godwinson and explore all the possibilities I’m reasonably certain that any one of us has a claim to the throne. Certainly, given the permutations, just about anyone with a title in Europe is in with a shout of getting into the top 100.

For example, if you start with James II and ignore the Act of Settlement we would have the current Duke of Bavaria, rather than the eccentric dog breeder the Times puts forward.

However, while such games are fun I think they manage to miss one grand point. Until very recently Royals and other aristocrats were very loose, almost careless, about who they bred with informally (for men, anyway…look at the popularity of Fitz as part of a surname), while very careful indeed about who they did so with formally, the higher up the chain one was the more restrictive the rules about who one actually married, produced legitimate offspring with. Thus I would say that if the succession in the earlier years had been different, the marriages would have been different, the children similarly so, and in fact, none of those bandied about as possible successors would actually have existed. From the Times list:

Queen Mary III
b. 1924
Exiled Countess who married Robert Gasche in Egypt

King Uberto I
(Uberto Omar Gasche) b. 1951
Dog breeder, photographer and aristocrat

Somehow, I don’t think that the ruling Queen of England would have married a Swiss industrialist in Egypt, and that Uberto would therefore not exist…..and similarly throughout the putative line of inheritance.