How does the line of succession work in England?
In: 0
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.
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