The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

Monday 17 January 2005

Born to Rule, Like it or Not

Chances are, at one time or another, you’ve hated your job and have revelled in the idea – if not the deed itself – of making a proud and elaborate show of ending your misery by flat out quitting, preferably after using a few choice words in final retaliation. Whether you hated your boss, were unhappy with your salary, disliked your working conditions, or just realized that you were in the wrong profession, it’s unlikely that you were ever lacking choice in the matter – either stay and tough it out or quit and find something more appealing or fulfilling. And, whether you like your job or not, you live in full expectation of someday retiring and living out your golden years any way you choose. 

While there are many aspects of royal life that we can envy, this ability to choose our path in life is one of the clear advantages of being a commoner. Unlike a sovereign or an heir to the throne, you were not born into a role that you are expected to fulfill for your entire life without question or hesitation. Not that the choices of those born to fill a throne aren’t simple – they can reign and die or reign and abdicate. Many have chosen the latter option and, as a result, they frequently live on in the public consciousness more so than their counterparts who chose the former option. 

Of course, the first abdication that comes to mind for most people today is that of Britain’s King Edward VIII. But abdication is as old as monarchy itself and has never discriminated against race, sex or nationality. Whether forced or voluntary, Roman emperors, kings and queens, hereditary princes and grand dukes and, yes, even popes have abdicated. In times past, the primary impetus for abdication was frequently either political and/or popular upheaval or military loss, although both were undoubtedly the cause of abdications well into the 20^th century. In fact, no fewer than 44 European monarchs (including princes and grand dukes) either abdicated or were deposed between World Wars I and II.  

In more modern times, where monarchs tend to reign rather than rule, abdication frequently has more to do with personal interests that outweigh the monarch’s desire to do the job – as was the case with Edward VIII – or, increasingly, a desire to “pass the torch,” so to speak, to the younger generation. And while personal choice is almost certainly a modern invention, even where royalty is concerned, the idea of abdication as retirement is actually not a new one. Between the years 1555 and 1556, 55-year-old Holy Roman Emperor Charles V abdicated as ruler of each of his various domains – including Spain, the Netherlands, Austria and Germany – in order to retire to a monastery in Spain and tend to his gout. Many modern monarchs have done the same and, especially where age and/or ill-health are factors, it’s perhaps the most understandable of all forms of abdication.  

One of the most recent modern abdications falls to Norodom Sihanouk, who abdicated his position as King of Cambodia on October 7, 2004, citing poor health, and is now grandly known as “The Great Heroic King Sihanouk.” Other monarchies have turned “retirement” abdication into something of a family tradition. In the Netherlands, Queen Wilhelmina couldn’t possibly have realized that her voluntary abdication on September 4, 1948 would start a trend in her family. After more than 50 years as Queen of the Netherlands, she simply wanted to retire. As it turned out, her successor – her daughter Juliana – would do the same more than 30 years later in favor of her own daughter, the reigning Queen Beatrix. Interestingly, Wilhelmina is said to have considered abdicating more than once during the 1930s, a period when she felt unable to work with the government to reverse the economic depression of her country. According to Geoffrey Hindley in his book The Royal Families of Europe, “Wilhelmina’s great grandfather William I had abdicated because the newly emergent state of Belgium marked the failure of his policies. For Wilhelmina, abdication seemed the only tolerable perhaps honourable solution to her frustrated desire to help her country.” 

Another family that has made abdication as retirement something of a tradition is Luxembourg, although the family’s first abdication wasn’t quite so positive. When Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaďde inherited the throne on her father’s death in 1912, she considered herself sovereign by the grace of God and became politically controversial enough that, by 1919, the government demanded her abdication. She was succeeded by her sister, Charlotte, who reigned as Grand Duchess until she made a far more positive abdication on November 12, 1964, in favor of her eldest son, Jean. The new reigning Grand Duke had actually been Grand Duchess Charlotte’s Lieutenant-Representative (essentially a Regent) for three years prior to her abdication – a period that was undoubtedly meant to give her son time to acclimate to his future role under her guidance. The concept worked well enough that Grand Duke Jean followed his mother’s lead and, in 1998, made his own son, Henri, Lieutenant-Representative, before abdicating the throne altogether on October 7, 2000. Although it remains to be seen, it’s not beyond reason to suspect that reigning Grand Duke Henri will eventually do the same with his son, Prince Guillame. 

Naturally, there is the rare instance of a monarch using abdication as a temporary political or personal device. This was certainly the case when, in 1990, King Baudouin of Belgium, a deeply religious man, was faced with giving Royal Assent to legislation that liberalized Belgium’s abortion laws. Unwilling to give his official endorsement to what he found personally objectionable, the King chose instead to temporarily abdicate his throne on April 4^th, the day he was expected to sign the bill. He was back to work the following day and continued to reign until his death in 1993. 

By now you may have noticed that none of the positive examples of abdication are related to Britain. Clearly, while a great many cases of abdication on the Continent have been negative, it seems that Britain’s association with abdication is a terminally negative one. Although some will point to Edward VIII’s abdication in 1936 as the main reason that abdication is such a dirty word in Britain, Geoffrey Hindley draws another conclusion, again in The Royal Families of Europe, “Among European royal houses abdication does not have the negative resonances associated with it in the English tradition. Here it has been a ten-letter work of blackest omen ever since in 1399 Richard II made the ‘voluntary gesture’ of resignation to his cousin Henry IV and was never seen alive again.” An excellent point considering that Richard II’s abdication was, in fact, a forced deposition, not unlike that of Scotland’s Queen Mary and Britain’s James II. In fact, I’m at a loss to cite one single abdication in British history that has been a “good” one. 

As if the connotation of abdication wasn’t already bad enough in Britain – what with all those monarchs being forced to abdicate and another voluntarily abdicating for a so-called “horrid” American woman – the reputation of the act can be further associated with Georgian-era monarchs behaving more like spoiled children determined to get their way. Two cases in point – George III and George IV. In 1783, with Tory Prime Minister Shelbourne’s government in ruin, George III was appalled at the idea of accepting a Whig as prime minister. As his desperate bid to convince any Tory politician of merit to start a government began to crumble before him, he began drafting his abdication speech and even considered leaving England instead of accept a Whig. He eventually came to his senses and, resuming his dignity, accepted Whig politician Charles James Fox as the new prime minister. Like father, like son – shortly after his ascension to the throne, George IV threatened to abdicate rather than accept his wife Caroline as queen consort. Instead, Queen Caroline literally had the door unceremoniously slammed in her face when she attempted to attend her husband’s coronation. Luckily for the future of the new king’s reign, Caroline died shortly thereafter. 

Of course, there is at least one aspect of abdication that ties all monarchies together and that is monarchs who just weren’t fit to rule. Although it has never been officially considered as a pretext to abdication, suitability for the job has certainly come into question on more than one occasion in every monarchy. While physical and mental defects play a big role in unsuitability, more than a few such monarchs have lived out their reign with one or both conditions, generally with the help of a regent. Surprisingly, it is personal faults that have had a more disastrous effect because, although it’s possible to train an individual for the job they were born to take, a personality or temperament can not always be so easily molded. To make matters worse, it has frequently occurred that an individual is not only unsuited to the job, but also untrained, as in the case of a second son who was not initially expected to take on the role of monarch.  

It almost goes without saying that a great many monarchs in history were not only ill-equipped to effectively carry out their role (many to their own admission), but were also drastic liabilities to their domains. Among these individuals, the lucky ones managed either to live out their reign or were forced to abdicate, while the unlucky met with overthrow and execution. At least if you do badly in your job, the worst you’ll get is fired.

Until next week, 

- Tori Van Orden Martínez