The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

The Men Who Would Not Be King

Since the Norman conquest in 1066, England had over a dozen heirs who should have expected to be king or queen, but who never wore the crown. We might have had a King Eustace, two King Arthurs, a King Frederick and a Queen Charlotte, among others, if it hadn't been for the intervention of death or other untoward events.

The first of the eldest sons of a king who would never inherit the throne was the son of William the Conqueror, Robert, nicknamed Curthose. He was reputed to be a courageous soldier, but was far less gifted in matters of state. William I, the Duke of Normandy who had conquered England, chose to divide his two domains between his sons, granting Normandy to Robert and England to his second son, William (II). After William I�s death, his sons, the king and the duke, entered an agreement by which each would be the other�s heir, but supporters of Robert staged an abortive attempt to depose William within a year. When William II died in 1100, Robert was away on Crusade, and the third brother, Henry, took the opportunity to seize the English crown. On returning to Normandy, Robert attempted to overthrow Henry, but was defeated and forced to renounce his right to England in 1101.

Despite his defeat, Robert continued to sew discord in England, but in 1105, Henry I invaded and conquered Normandy. Robert was captured and he remained in captivity until his death in 1134, the year before Henry�s.

Henry�s death was followed by a period of turmoil, in which his daughter, Matilda, and nephew, Stephen, fought for the throne. Stephen held the throne throughout most of the conflict and expected to pass it on to his son Eustace. Eustace's death in 1153 actually came as a relief to many because it left Stephen without an heir, thus facilitating an end to the hostilities with an agreement between the king and Matilda under which Stephen retained the throne but Matilda's son Henry was his heir.

Henry duly succeeded as King Henry II in 1154. His eldest son (other than the one who died at three days old), also called Henry, was, uniquely in English history, crowned king in his father's lifetime, although the reigns of government remained in the hands of his father, and he is not counted among the kings of England. In subsequent years, he entered into rebellious conflict with Henry II. The young king died in 1183, unreconciled with his father, on whose death the crown passed to his next son, Richard the Lionheart.

Richard spent most of his reign abroad, leaving the government of the realm in the hands of his youngest brother, John, who seized the throne on Richard's death in 1199. John was not Richard's heir, though. That distinction went to the son of their deceased brother, Arthur Duke of Brittany, who fought for possession of the king's lands in France, but was captured by John's forces in 1202. Arthur was held prisoner until he mysteriously disappeared in April 1203. It is suspected that he was killed on John's orders, or even by John himself, but the truth is never likely to be known.

For the next four generations, the succession passed, as expected, to the king's oldest son, but this period ended with perhaps the most illustrious heir apparent never to inherit the throne. Edward of Woodstock, later known as the Black Prince, was the son of Edward III, and distinguished himself as a military leader in the Hundred Years War. For ten years, from 1361 to 1371, the prince gained experience of government, by ruling the Duchy of Aquitaine on his father's behalf, before returning to England, where he pre-deceased his father by a year. The Black Prince was the first Duke of Cornwall.

Whereas the Black Prince was an illustrious soldier and died in his bed, the next heir who failed to become king died too young to have made a real mark on history, and was the only Prince of Wales ever to die in battle. Edward of Westminster was the son of Henry VI, and became caught up in the Wars of the Roses between his father and the Yorkist claimants (Richard Duke of York and Edward IV). Edward's cause was pressed by his domineering mother, Margaret of Anjou, with whom he went on the run, first to Scotland and Wales and then to France, when the Yorkists were in the ascendant. Having been deposed in 1461, Henry VI enjoyed a brief restoration in 1470-71, but was deposed again by the time Margaret and Edward came back to England. They fought a final battle in an attempt to restore Lancastrian power, and the young prince was killed either during the battle or as part of a massacre afterwards.

Yet another Edward failed to achieve his inheritance thirteen years later. After Edward of Westminster's death, his widow, Anne Neville, married Richard Duke of Gloucester, who went on to become Richard III in 1483. Richard and Anne son, Edward of Middleham, was born in 1473 but died at the tender age of eleven in 1484, leaving the king without an heir. Anne's father is known to history as the Kingmaker, but although she had both a husband and a son who were destined to be kings, they never achieved their destiny, while her second husband who was not so destined, did become king!

The next two "unfulfilled" princes of Wales were Arthur, son of Henry VII and Henry Frederick, son of James I. Both died of natural causes in their teens, and in both cases it is speculated that they may have been better monarchs than the younger brothers (Henry VIII and Charles I) who took their places on the throne.

Political conflict became the cause of an heir being deprived of his inheritance again in 1688, and, in fact, his very existence helped precipitate the crisis which led to his father's, and therefore, his own, downfall. The Catholic James II had come to the throne in 1685 and had two protestant daughters by his first marriage, but the birth of a son to his second wife, the Catholic Mary of Modena, increased fears that England would eventually be returned to the Catholic fold. Within a year of the birth of James Francis Edward, Prince of Wales, Parliament deposed James II, and his parents fled to France with the infant prince. After his father's death, the 17 year-old prince acquiesced in the 1715 uprising which attempted to place him on the throne in place of the protestant George I. After its failure, James lived in France and later in Rome, recognized by opponents of the protestant settlement as James III of England and James VIII of Scotland. He didn't take part in the 1745 uprising in his favour, which was led by his son, Charles (Bonnie Prince Charlie).

James lived to see the failure of another Prince of Wales to become king. Frederick, Prince of Wales was the son of George II, with whom he had a tempestuous relationship, but died at the age of 44 in 1751.

The 19th century saw the early deaths of two more potential heirs, both grandchildren of the reigning sovereign. The loveless marriage of the future George IV to Caroline of Brunswick managed to produce a daughter, Charlotte. She married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, but after two miscarriages, died after giving birth to a stillborn son in 1817. She was widely mourned, and left an uncertain future for the British succession until her cousin, Victoria, was born two years later. Had Charlotte lived, it would have been her marriage which brought the House of Saxe-Coburg to the throne, instead of the later marriage of her cousin, Victoria, to her husband's nephew, Prince Albert.

It was, perhaps, fortuitous for Britain that the final heir never-to-succeed died at the age of 26. Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence was the son and heir of Edward Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), but was a man of little intellect or stamina. While the theory that he was Jack the Ripper is probably untrue, he was involved in at least one hushed-up scandal involving rentboys (the Cleveland Street Scandal of 1899). His death in 1892 left his younger brother, George, to succeed to the throne in due course as George V, and to marry his fianc�e, Mary of Teck. George was the founder of the House of Windsor, when he changed the family name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1917.

Today, there are those who would like to see Prince Charles join the ranks of Princes of Wales who didn�t inherit the throne, but there seems little likelihood of that happening, unless he pre-deceases his mother.

- Paul James