Pretender

:This page is about the word Pretender as it applies to a monarchy. For other meanings, see Pretender (disambiguation).

British, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish Pretenders

Pretenders to the thrones of the United Kingdom and its predecessor realms and other historical jurisdictions of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, were essentially taken care of by making the Irish and English (and subsequently, British) monarchies purely statutory institutions.

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This change was first effected in England following the accession of Henry VII, after a long series of strife and civil wars that began when Henry IV deposed Richard II. Attempts to disrupt the statutory nature of the monarchy in England were made by some of the Stuart monarchs, who had not experienced the English checks on royal power when they were up north in Scotland. The Act of Settlement 1701 took care of that problem, and the Act of Union of 1707 essentially extended the Act of Settlement to Scotland. The Act of Union of 1800 subsequently extended the Act of Settlement to Ireland, but the Irish monarchy had already been made a statutory institution when Prince Henry, Lord of Ireland (Henry VIII of England) was named King of Ireland by the Irish Parliament in 1542.

Related Topics:
Henry VII - Henry IV - Richard II - Act of Settlement 1701 - Act of Union of 1707 - Act of Union of 1800

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Nevertheless, there have been some great pretenders over the centuries. A few famous ones are noted here, and a few passive claims are still made.

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James Francis Edward Stuart was the Roman Catholic son of the deposed King James VII and II, forever eclipsed in the succession to the throne by the Act of Settlement 1701. Notwithstanding the Act of Union of 1707, he claimed the separate thrones of Scotland, as James VIII, and of England and Ireland, as James III, until his death in 1766.

Related Topics:
James Francis Edward Stuart - James VII and II - Act of Settlement 1701 - Act of Union of 1707

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James's sons carried on their own claims. The would-be Charles III, still famously known as "Bonie Prince Charlie" (there is only one 'n' in 'bonie' because he's male; 'bonnie' would make him female; the Scots word 'bonie/bonnie' being a translation of the French 'bon/bonne'), died in 1788. He is unquestionably the most famous pretender in British history, if not world history.

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His younger brother, Henry, took up the mantle after his death, if only symbolically, as the would-be Henry IX, II, and I - that is, he would have been Henry IX of England, II of Ireland (Henry VIII of England having been the first English monarch to carry the title "King of Ireland," all of his English predecessors in Ireland having been styled "Lord of Ireland" and called "Prince"), and Henry I of Scotland. (Henry, Lord Darnley, had been named king when he married Mary, Queen of Scots, but he was merely king consort to a queen regnant, so he doesn't count.) Henry Stuart died in 1807.

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James VIII & III was commonly called "the King over the water," because he was resident in France (across the Channel) and is also known as The Old Pretender. Bonie Prince Charlie is also called The Young Pretender. See Jacobitism and the related category for more information including the current Jacobite "pretender".

Related Topics:
Jacobitism - The related category

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Owain Glyndwr (1349-1416) is probably the best-known Welsh pretender, though whether he was pretender or Prince of Wales depends upon your source of information. Officially, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, who died in 1282, was the last native Prince of Wales. Since 1301, the Prince of Wales has been the eldest living son of the King or Queen Regnant of England (subsequently of Great Britain, 1707, and of United Kingdom, 1801). The word "living" is important. Upon the death of Prince Arthur, the Prince of Wales, Henry VII invested his second son, the future Henry VIII, with the title. The title is not automatic, however, but merges into the Crown when a prince dies or accedes to the throne, and has to be re-created by the sovereign.

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Nevertheless, it is Glyndwr whom many remember as the last native Prince of Wales. He was indeed proclaimed Prince of Wales by his supporters on 16 September 1400, and his revolt in quest of Welsh independence was not quashed by Henry IV until 1409. Later, however, one of Glyndwr's cousins, Owain Tudor, would marry the widow of Henry V, and their grandson would become Henry VII, from whom the current British monarch is descended (through his daughter Margaret Tudor, who was married off to James IV of Scotland). So, in a way, Glyndwr might be said to have had the last laugh.

Related Topics:
Henry IV - Henry V - Henry VII - James IV of Scotland

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The business of Irish pretenders is rather more complicated because of the nature of kingship in Ireland before the Norman take-over of 1171. In both Ireland and Scotland, succession to kingship was elective, often (if not usually) by contest, according to matrilineal descent. That is, the head of state of any kingdom, sub-kingdom, high kingdom, etc., was always a king, but the king always inherited the crown through his mother, as a ranking princess royal, not through his father.{{dubious}}

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Thus, you, as king, would not be succeeded by your own son but would normally be succeeded by your mother's other sons; then by your sisters' sons; then, your maternal aunt's sons; and so on, traveling through the female line of the royal house. This combination of male succession through matrilineal descent produced a cumbersome system under which the throne passed cyclically from brother to brother, then uncle to nephew, and then cousin to cousin, before starting over as brother to brother, uncle to nephew, etc.{{dubious}}

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In Scotland, Malcolm II tried to get around this system and by killing off all of the heirs between himself and his grandson, Duncan; except for Prince Lulach of Moray, who was just five years old at the time and - more importantly - was successfully rumoured to be half-witted (thus, he survived). Duncan I did become king, but Lulach's step-father, Maelbeth -rendered "Macbeth" in English - successfully claimed the throne in his own right and on Lulach's behalf.

Related Topics:
Malcolm II - Lulach - Duncan I - Macbeth

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Duncan I's son, Malcolm III Canmore, ultimately returned from exile in England and took the throne from Maelbeth and Lulach (the latter reigning 1057-1058, after the death of Maelbeth in battle against Malcolm). Malcolm was succeeded by his brother, as Duncan II, but then by four of his own sons - one of whom, Edgar (1097-1107), changed the official language of Scotland from Gàidhlig (then, still a Scottish dialect of Old Irish) to Scots (then, a language similar to English but missing the Saxon element that has always been part of standard English). Gaelic dominance of Scotland ended during the reign of Alexander I (1107-1124), and the old Celtic system of matrilineal kingship finally ended and was replaced by a system of primogeniture.

Related Topics:
Malcolm III Canmore - Edgar - Alexander I

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Such a transition never happened in Ireland, but civil war and the imposition of Anglo-Norman rule intervened. Although Ireland had been culturally unified for centuries, it was not politically unified, even as a tribal nation. The Romans having ignored the big green island west of Britain, the Gaels themselves were the last people to successfully invade Ireland and, notwithstanding 750 years of English rule, it is very arguable whether the Norman English ever truly conquered Ireland. (They controled Ireland, certainly, but that is not all there is to conquest.) So, even serious coastal encroachments by the Vikings a millennium after their arrival did not prompt the Gaels of Ireland to see a need for political unity even to build a concerted national defence. When a people believe they and their country are immune from invasion, it takes a while for them to realise how vulnerable they actually are.

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The High King of Ireland was essentially a ceremonial, pseudo-federal overlord (where his over-lordship was even recognised), who exercised actual power only within the realm of which he was actually king. In the case of the southern branch of the Uí Niall, this would have been the Kingdom of Meath (modernly the counties of Meath, West Meath and part of County Dublin). High Kings from the northern branch of the family ruled various kingdoms in what eventually became the province of Ulster.

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Nevertheless, the Uí Niall were apparently powerful in ceremony if not in politic, so that political unification of Ireland was not aided by the usurpation of the high kingship from Mael Sechnaill II and the southern Uí Niall in 1002 by Briain ?Boruma? mac Cennédig, of the Kingdom of Munster. This was the third of the so-called "Three Usurpations of Brian Boru."

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Brian Boru was a strong king who could have unified Ireland politically, and there is some suggestion he intended to make himself High King of Scotland as well. But he was killed in the Battle of Contarf in 1014, and twelve years as High King was not long enough to unify the island politically. Mael Sechnaill II was restored to the High Kingship but he died in 1022, too soon to undo the damage done by Brian's "coup." From 1022 through the Norman take-over of 1171, the High Kingship was held by "Kings with Opposition" - that is, whoever was strong enough to overthrow the High King of the day and take the Hill of Tara simply did so. This 150-year period of regnal unrest between families now called O'Brian, O'Conner, McLoughlin/O'Melaghlin, and others, was eventually immortalised in the children's game called "King of the Hill." The game is still popular among American children, who take turns trying to push each other off a low stool, chair, or other make-shift hill while arguing, "I'm king of the hill!" "No! I'm king!"

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Because the native Irish high kingship never transitioned to a system of nation-state kingship primogeniture but simply faded into an oblivion of civil war between competing Irish royal families, there are literally as many as a million or more people who can make a claim to the ancient high kingship of Tara that is as equally valid as anybody else's under the old system disrupted by what may be called Brian Boru's "coup de tribe." Indeed, as a reputed descendant of Brian Boru and of the Uí Niall Dynasty both through his late grandmother, the current heir to the statutory throne that includes Northern Ireland, Prince Charles, could be considered a viable pretender to the high kingship of Ireland, especially as he would be making the claim through the female line of his ancestry.{{dubious}}

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Perhaps it is just as well the main of Ireland is a republic with an elected president, while the six northeastern counties still operate under the successor to the old Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Scottish Lords and Kings of Ireland, pursuant to the Act of Union of 1800 and the subsequent partition of 1921.

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Otherwise, there are at least two people who are publically known to make such a claim to the Irish throne that is otherwise still occupied in Northern Ireland by Queen Elizabeth II - who might herself be considered a pretender for the abolished throne of the Irish Republic (and, coincidentally, is a descendant of Brian Boru through her late mother). Both of the male claimants have ancestral connections to the Uí Niall Dynasty and presumably make their claims in the purely passive interest of family tradition. One is the senior member of the Chichester family of England, which has long claimed the high kingship through matrilineal O'Neill ancestry. The other is an Irish-Scottish-Algonquian-Dutch Sephardic Jewish American named McLoughlin, who informally styles himself "Sh.R. Príonnsa na hÉireann, hAlba agus na hEileanan Siar." He lives in California. {{dubious}}

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The senior member of the O'Connor family in Connacht, The O'Conor Don, would have a valid right to stand for election to the throne of Connacht and high throne of Ireland under the old Gaelic system. But he has no valid right or claim to the High Kingship pursuant to the Treaty of Windsor; first, because the recognition under that treaty was personal to Rory O'Connor, who died in 1198; last, because the legal provisions of that treaty were subsequently nullified by acts of the Irish and British Parliaments. However the O'Conor Don is popularly seen as the most credible claimant to any Irish throne. His status as Ireland's senior royal was recognised when he was asked to participate in the ceremonial at the coronation of King Edward VII carrying the banner of Ireland. {{dubious}}

Related Topics:
O'Conor Don - Treaty of Windsor - Edward VII

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Other Americans of Irish regal ancestry include the late former presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, both of whom were reputedly descended from brothers of Brian Boru.{{dubious}}

Related Topics:
John F. Kennedy - Ronald Reagan

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