Laws of Succession in Europe

There are three systems of "Succession to the throne" in force among the civilized powers of Europe, namely, the Salic, the Russian, and the Cognate, or Castilian system. The Salic system governs the right of succession in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Saxony, Italy and the Balkan States. It completely excludes all women from the throne; and yet in nearly all of these countries women have been noted rulers as Regents--notably Queen Margaretha of Norway and Denmark, called the "Semiramis of the North." After the death of her husband she conquered Sweden and added it to her crown. The Union of Calmar confirmed the union of the Scandinavian Kingdoms, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, under one sovereign; and, by the request of the Queen, her nephew Eric was appointed her successor. She died in 1412.

France, also, has had famous women rulers as Regents. But the system of exclusion still continues, and were the King of Belgium to lose his only surviving nephew, Prince Albert, he would be obliged to adopt some foreign prince as his successor, with the consent of the National Legislature, although he has two daughters and several nieces.

Queen Victoria came to the throne of England under the Cognate System, but was debarred from the throne of Hanover by the Salic law.

The Russian System prevails not only in the Muscovite Empire, but in Holland, Greece, Bavaria, and Wurtemberg. This system provides that all male heirs to the throne shall take precedence of the Princesses of the reigning House, and that no Grand Duchess shall come to the throne except on the complete extinction of the male line. The Czar of Russia is not only the temporal ruler but the spiritual autocrat of the Russian people, holding the same position in the Greek Church as the Pope in the Roman Catholic Church; therefore no heir can succeed to the throne of Russia unless he is a member of the Orthodox Greek, or Eastern, Church.

But Russia has not always been governed by this system. Peter the Great discarded it in order that he might disinherit his disobedient son Alexis, and he decreed that the succession should be at the discretion of the Sovereign. The plan of Peter the Great prevailed, and the eighteenth century has been called, in Russia, the "Women's Century," from the many noted women who ruled. But in the early part of this century it was found that the Emperors in appointing an heir to the throne inevitably bequeathed a civil war at the same time. The System of Peter the Great was then discarded, and the Russian system was restored by Nicholas I.

The Cognate, or Castilian, system prevails in Spain, Portugal, and Great Britain. According to this system, male heirs in the same relation to the sovereign exclude all female heirs, without regard to priority of birth. The boy King of Spain takes precedence of his two elder sisters, even though one of them actually reigned for the six months that intervened between the death of her father and the birth of her brother, the present King. The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of England in lieu of his elder sister, the Dowager Empress of Germany.

According to this same Cognate system, the little daughter of the Duke of York, in the event of the death of her two elder brothers, would of right come to the throne prior to the sisters of her father.

Queen Victoria's great-grandchildren are nearer to the throne than her own sons, except the Prince of Wales. There is one thing that can debar an English prince or princess in direct line from the throne of England, namely, a marriage with a Roman Catholic. There is but one of Queen Victoria's descendants who has thus debarred herself, namely, her granddaughter, the Princess of Roumania, eldest child of Duke Alfred of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Edinburgh. The English law of succession does not exclude any other creed. This Cognate law of Succession disposes forever of the story, widely circulated, that upon the death of Queen Victoria the Emperor William would put in a claim for the throne of England as being nearer in line of succession than his uncle, the Prince of Wales.

There is but one more system of succession in Europe, that of Turkey, where the crown devolves at the death of the Sultan not, necessarily, on his son, but goes to the oldest living prince of the reigning House--a succession according to priority of birth.