How does the line of succession work in England?
In: 0
After the monarch it passes to their eldest child (male/female). If there are no children it passes to their next eldest sibling (male/female). If there are no siblings of the monarch it passes to the eldest aunt/uncle still alive.
Step 1: Pretend that everyone in the royal family is alive.
Step 2: Starting with the current Monarch, label them 0. Then, find their eldest child, label them 1. Then find that eldest child’s eldest child, label them 2, and so forth, until there are no children.
Step 3: Once you run out of parent-child relationships, starting with the last person you labeled, go back up one, then find the *next* eldest child and repeat #2. Each time there aren’t any more children to label, go back up one.
Step 4: Repeat until everyone is labeled.
Step 5: Remove all the dead people and relabel, keeping everyone in the same relative order.
There is one hitch though. Prior to 2013, male children had precedent to female offspring. Legislation passed in 2013 changed this to be gender independent, but it did not retroactively alter the ordering.
As of now, the first 10 people in line to the throne are:
King Charles is 0, then:
1. Charle’s son, Prince William
2. William’s eldest child, Prince George
3. Williams second-eldest child, Princess Charlotte
4. William’s third-eldest child, Prince Louis
5. (No more children, move back up) Charles next eldest son, Harry.
6. Harry’s eldest child: Archie
7. Harry’s next eldest child: Lilibet
8. (Now, Harry has no more children, so we move back up to Charles, but Charles also has no more children so we move back up to Queen Elizabeth.) QEII’s next eldest son: Prince Andrew.
9. Prince Andrew’s eldest daughter (he has no sons): Princess Beatrice.
10. Princess Beatrice’s only child: Sienna.
Now, let’s say Prince Andrew dies. His children (and grand children) retain their relative ordering in the line and just all move up one.
England hasn’t had its own monarchy since 1707 so I’ll assume you mean the British monarchy.
In the UK’s system, the crown passes to the eldest child. So when King Charles dies, the crown will pass to his oldest child, William. After William – or if William had died before his father – comes William’s oldest child, George. After George come William’s other children in birth order, Charlotte then Louis. If, somehow, William’s whole branch of the family were to suddenly die then the crown would go to Charles’s second son, Harry, and then to Harry’s children, and so on.
Before 2011, male heirs took precedence over female ones, so despite Queen Elizabeth’s daughter Anne being the second-oldest child, she is last in the order of succession behind all her brothers.
Primogeniture – eldest born legitimate child of the monarch becomes the next in succession. The next in succession after that will be the eldest born legitimate child of the successor. And so on.
If the current monarch has no legitimate children/grandchildren… , then it goes to the monarch’s siblings (in order of age) and their children etc.
If that doesn’t work then it goes back up a generation to the monarch’s predecessor’s siblings. (By this time, we’re probably talking many dozens of persons away from the line of succession)
and in addition to what everyone else has said, you can do something completely different if you don’t like who would be monarch if you followed the rules strictly, for example, if they don’t have the right religion, like when they sent James II off to France, and brought in William III from Holland to be King. Or like when Henry III didn’t like the current king so killed him and made himself king instead.
Oh, and also, illegitimate children don’t count. Or Queen Victoria would never have been Queen, as William IV lived with an actress for 20 years and had ten children with her, and then had a 10 year marriage, but had 3 miscarriages and two children who died as children. So he was treated as childless as far as the succession went, and his niece, Victoria, became Queen in place of any of his own surviving children, as they weren’t legitimate.
The general rule is that for anyone born *before* November 2011, the oldest male child of the previous monarch inherits or (if they are already dead) their heirs (i.e. oldest male child). If there are no male children left, the oldest female child inherits along with their heirs. If there are no children or descendants at all, it goes to the previous monarch’s eldest brother and their descendants, and then if no brothers the eldest daughter and their descendants. And then it goes up another generation to look for possible heirs.
For anyone born *after* November 2011, the male/female part is ignored – so the eldest *child* inherits, ignoring gender.
The other main rule is that the path ignores anyone who is a Roman Catholic.
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Now for a more detailed look:
So… before 1700 succession to the throne of England (and the associated ones in Scotland and Ireland) was a bit messy.
The traditional idea is that the eldest son of the previous king inherited, but of the 30 or so monarchs of England from 1066 to 1700, only about 10 were the oldest son of the previous king at the time of his death (and even then, at least one’s father was deposed and murdered).
During the 1600s there were quite a few problems with monarchs not having their own, nominated heir (see Queen Elizabeth I), or having unsuitable heirs (King James II), and a little matter of a republican revolution leading to a brutal military dictatorship for a while. This all culminated in the invasion of 1688 (the “Glorious Revolution”) where the English Parliament essentially invited a foreign prince to invade and depose the King (then James II) and replace him.
The 1689 **Bill of Rights** established that the new monarchs would be King William III and Queen Mary II, jointly (William being the invader and nephew of the previously-deposed king, Mary – his wife – being the elder daughter of the previous king, despite him having a son). After them the line of succession would go through Mary’s children and descendants, and then failing that to her younger sister Anne and Anne’s descendants. But by 1700 Mary had died without having any children), and Anne’s only living son had just died aged 11 (Anne had been pregnant at least 17 times by then, only 3 had survived to birth, and the other two had died within a couple of years).
So we get the 1701 **[Act of Settlement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Settlement_1701)**. This started up a new line of succession:
> The Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, Daughter of the late Queen of Bohemia, Daughter of King James the First, to inherit after the King and the Princess Anne, in Default of Issue of the said Princess and His Majesty, respectively and the Heirs of her Body, being Protestants.
Princess Sophia was William&Mary’s grandfather’s elder sister’s daughter. But crucially, she was the next in line to the throne who was a Protestant. The Act of Settlement then created new rules for who would be the monarch of England (and would be applied to the new Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707, and then the new United Kingdom in 1800).
It would start with Princess Sophia. Then go to the oldest male child and his descendants, then the oldest female child and her descendants, then oldest male brother and down his descendants and so on. But it would skip anyone who was a Catholic, and anyone married to a Catholic.
Princess Sophia died before Queen Anne, so she was never Queen. Her eldest son (a Protestant) became King George I of Great Britain, succeeded by his eldest son (George II), similarly George III, and similarly George IV. George IV had no legitimate children (his marriage was forced on him and did not go well, his only daughter died before him in childbirth aged 21), so his younger brother became William IV, but William’s legitimate children all died very young, so after he died the throne passed to his then deceased younger brother’s daughter, Victoria.
After Queen Victoria the throne went to her eldest surviving son, Albert, crowned Edward VII of the United Kingdom, followed by his eldest son George V, his son Edward VIII, but he was forced to abdicate and was replaced by his younger brother George VI. George VI had no sons, so his elder daughter Elizabeth succeeded him as Queen Elizabeth II, and her eldest son Charles became King Charles III earlier this year.
Before Elizabeth II’s death a thing called [the Perth Agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth_Agreement) was passed; this was an agreement between the Governments of all countries where Elizabeth was Head of State, agreeing to change the rules for succession to remove the sexist element (and allow for the succession of people who had *married* a Roman Catholic, although it still excluded anyone who was a Catholic). But this wasn’t retroactive(ish), so only applies to anyone born after 2011.
So given that, the current heir to the throne of the United Kingdom is Charles’s elder son, William, Prince of Wales. Then his son, Prince George and (as George doesn’t have any children – he is only 9), William’s daughter Charlotte, then his younger son Louis (the Perth Agreement means that Charlotte is ahead of Louis, as she was born after 2011). If George has any legitimate, non-Catholic children they would go before Charlotte, and if she has children they would go before Louis.
After Louis (assuming William has no more children himself) it goes back up to William’s generation, to his younger brother Harry, Duke of Sussex, and then to Harry’s eldest child Archie, any descendants Archie might have by then, and then to Harry’s second child Lilibet and any descendants she might have. Once we run out of descendants of Harry, it goes back up a generation again to King Charles III’s next oldest brother Prince Andrew, Duke of York (which could be awkward), his eldest daughter Princess Beatrice (he has no sons) and her daughter. If we run out of descendants of Prince Andrew it goes to his next oldest brother, Prince Edward and his children, and then to Andrew’s ~~younger~~*older* sister (no more brothers and born pre-2011) Princess Anne and her family.
After Princess Anne’s family it has to go up another generation to Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth II’s sister, but as she died in 2002 it would go to her son David, Earl of Snowden and his family. If we run out of Margaret’s descendants it has to go up another generation to Elizabeth II’s uncle Prince Henry (who died in 1974), his eldest son (Prince William, died in 1972), and so ends with his eldest son Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester and his family. That gets us to 39 possible heirs before we have to go back up to another of Elizabeth II’s uncles Prince George and his family (Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, Elizabeth II’s cousin, who is still alive). Prince Edward’s son married a Catholic, but is now, post-Perth, eligible to inherit, but his older two children are Catholics themselves, so excluded. His youngest child, Lady Amelia Windsor is apparently not Catholic, so is 42nd in line to the throne.
There is a handy chart [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succession_to_the_British_throne#Current_line_of_succession) listing up to 62 of the current people in order of succession, although there are some question marks as to whether people are excluded due to being Catholic.
First in line of succession is the king’s oldest child, William, followed by his three children in order of age. Next is his second child, Harry, and his two children.
After them, the line of succession goes through other children of Elizabeth II and their descendants, e.g. eighth in line is Andrew, the king’s oldest brother, followed by his first daughter, then her child, then his second daughter, and her child. That brings us to thirteenth, which is the king’s next brother Edward, and so on.
After all of Elizabeth II’s descendants, next are descendants of her father George IV (i.e. the queen’s sister, Margaret) and then descendants of George V. That’s 62 people total, so there’s not much point going much further back.
However, anyone in this list is disqualified from succession if they are a Roman Catholic (and, until relatively recently, if they married a Catholic). Additionally, the first 6 people in the line of succession must have the monarch’s permission before they marry, or else they and their children are disqualified.
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