Why did Victoria become Queen of Great Britain after William IV died?

Question

Considering William IV became king because he was the brother of George IV who had no kids, shouldnt Ernest Augustus have been next in line as he was a son of George III and brother of George IV and William IV instead of Victoria who was William IV's niece and George III's granddaughter?

Answer 1

In Great Britian, "Succession is according to the rules of male-preference cognatic primogeniture, under which sons inherit before daughters, and under which elder children inherit before younger ones of the same sex." (1)


"Male-preference primogeniture allows females to succeed after their brothers (or their dead brothers' descendants), but before uncles and cousins. The term agnatic-cognatic primogeniture is used in the same meaning. This was the most common primogeniture practiced in Western European feudalism, such as the Castilian Siete Partidas. In modern Europe, male-preferred primogeniture has been the norm in Greece, the Netherlands (formerly), Portugal, and the United Kingdom."(2)


Victoria succeeded because she was the only child of the deceased Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, who would have been the next in line to inherit the throne when Willian IV died.

This is also the reason Elizabeth II is on the throne instead of Prince Richard, current Duke of Gloucester, whose father was a son of Elizabeth's grandfather, George V.

Answer 2

No. Her father, the Duke of Kent and Strathearn was the 4th son of George III, Ernest Augustus the 5th. So when first George IV and then his brother William IV died childless, the succession would have passed to the next in line and Victoria's father should have inherited. But he had died 8 months after Victoria's birth. The next in line of succession was therefore his issue. The fact that Victoria was female did not mean she should have been passed over. It passed down her father's line. Only had he died childless would the crown have gone the Ernest Augustus.

Answer 3

Ernest became the more youthful brother of Queen Victoria's father, the Duke of Kent. The Duke of Kent became next in line to the throne after William IV, so even as he died Victoria took his position interior the succession. Ernest ought to purely have inherited the throne if Victoria had died. the reason Ernest inherited Hanover became that Hanover became subject to the Salic regulation, which reported that females human beings ought to not inherit.

Answer 4

Victoria was the daughter of Edward, fourth son of George III, who married hastily in order to provide an heir to the throne. When Princess Charlotte, daughter of George IV, died in 1817, there was no obvious legitimate heir. Those princes, senior to Prince Edward, had either produced no heirs or had large families of illegitimate children. When Victoria was told, at the age of ten, that it was inevitable that she would succeed her uncle, William IV, she winsomely replied “I will be good.”

Answer 5

she was a female and he was a male.it would be ridiculous to have a male for queen dint you think