Who is the legitimate king of england

The recent death of year-old Mike Hastings in a quiet town in New South Wales highlights the genetic lottery of monarchy and how dynastic fortunes hang by a thread. His claim to the throne, which he cheerfully rejected when he discovered it, goes back to medieval England and the reign of King Edward IV. Edward ruled England from to his death in , a period marked by the Wars of the Roses. These were a series of violent dynastic squabbles between two rival branches of the Plantagenet family — the houses of Lancaster and York whose heraldic symbols were the red and white roses for the English Crown.

Those doubts were nothing new. Edward, at over 6 feet, was also exceptionally tall for the period, which was unusual for the House of York. It is unlikely that Edward was born premature, as there is no evidence from the time to suggest that he was premature babies with a claim to the throne were a risk and therefore almost certainly would have had their births recorded. It is possible of course that Richard could have returned to Rouen from Pontoise, or that Edward could have been born premature.

Richard never contested his paternity. However, the documentary considered that, if Edward was indeed illegitimate, then every single monarch who came after him followed the wrong bloodline to the throne. As George was the direct ancestor of Mike Hastings then, under the strict rules of succession, Mike should have been on the throne, not Elizabeth II. Instead of the Tudors, Stuarts, Hannoverians and Windsors, this intact Plantagenet lineage, whose fortunes waxed and waned over the centuries, would have thrown up some interesting alternative Kings and Queens of England.

However, he was politically useful to all of them and garnered titles, honours and influence as a result. He inherited the title the 14th Earl of Loudon on the death of his mother in However, he effectively rejected the British class system, and his double-barrelled name, when he emigrated to Australia as a young man in He lived out a very contented life with his family as plain old Mike Hastings in the small outback town of Jerilderie for over 48 years.

He confined any taste for power to serving as a shire councillor and as chairman of the local historical society. What a terrible way to live. As a teen, his golden childhood was ripped away from him by the Civil War. Fight and flight marked these years with the execution of his beloved father shattering his world.

His twenties were spent hopping around continental courts, begging favours and finances. On his thirtieth birthday, he left all that behind and triumphantly returned to London as King. In the end, the national experiment with republicanism had collapsed and the dour days of Cromwell and the Commonwealth were swept away with festivities and mirth. Charles II was tall, handsome, sharp of mind, impeccably attired and charming.

But he would need all his guile to manoeuvre and survive the tempestuous times in which he ruled. However Richard lacked the leadership qualities of his father, and he was quickly resigned. It was decided that Charles' son should return to his rightful role, and become king. He would rule closely with parliament, and returned to popular acclaim.

New regalia was made the previous crown had been melted down when Charles I was executed and the coronation took place on 23 April Villiers came to symbolise the excess and promiscuity of the Restoration court. The early years of his reign were marked by a flair for public spectacle, winning over nobility and commoner alike.

There was also private tragedy with the death of two of his closest family members. Despite having fathered a child by his mistress, Charles was keen to marry. Her dowry was generous indeed: two million crowns and the cities of Bombay and Tangiers thrown in for good measure.

The marriage was to be courteous rather than passionate. Worse, the King insisted on openly carrying on his affair and fathering a second child with Barbara. Just as Charles negotiated the conflicts of marriage and mistresses, the nation was an irreconcilable tangle of religious conflicts.

Puritanical Protestants still had great sway in England and even more so in Scotland. It shifted the line of succession to an absolute primogeniture system, meaning the kingdom would pass to the first-born heir, regardless of their gender. The Royal Marriage Act of granted the monarch the right to veto any match within the royal family.

This permission was not always granted. To create a sense of distance between the British throne and their overseas relations, the family name was replaced with a more modern, English surname: Windsor. The name was inspired by Windsor Castle , which was founded by William the Conqueror. British royals were marrying commoners as early as the 15 th century, though in a family where bloodlines determine power, the pairings were always controversial.

As societal rules around marriage, divorce, and partnership shifted, so did royal marriages. Both children of Prince Charles and Princess Diana were permitted to marry commoners: Prince William married Kate Middleton , the daughter of parents who own a party supplies company, in and his brother, Harry, married American actress Meghan Markle in