Heir apparent

Person who is first in line of succession

For other uses, see Heir apparent (disambiguation).

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An heir apparent, sometimes femininely heiress apparent, frequently heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person.^{[note 1]} A person who is first in the current order of succession but could be displaced by the birth of a more eligible heir is known as heir presumptive.

Today these terms most commonly describe heirs to hereditary titles (e.g. titles of nobility) or offices, especially when only inheritable by a single person. Most monarchies refer to the heir apparent of their thrones with the descriptive term of crown prince or crown princess, but they may also be accorded with a more specific substantive title:^{[note 2]} such as Prince of Orange in the Netherlands, Duke of Brabant in Belgium, Prince of Asturias in Spain (also granted to heirs presumptive), or the Prince of Wales in the United Kingdom; former titles include Dauphin in the Kingdom of France, and Tsesarevich in Imperial Russia.

The term is also applied metaphorically to an expected successor to any position of power, e.g. a political or corporate leader.

This article primarily describes the term heir apparent in a hereditary system regulated by laws of primogeniture—it may be less applicable to cases where a monarch has a say in naming the heir (performed either while alive, e.g. crowning the heir as a rex iunior, or through the monarch's will).

Heir apparent versus heir presumptive

Crown Prince Hirohito for the recent proclamation of his official recognition as the heir apparent to the Japanese Imperial Throne

– New York Times, 1916.

The clearest example occurs in the case of a childless bearer of a hereditary title that can only be inherited by one person. If at any time the title bearer were to produce children, those children would rank ahead of any person who had formerly been heir presumptive.

Many legal systems assume

This provided for the possibility that William's wife, Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, was pregnant at the moment of his death, since such a posthumous child, regardless of its sex, would have displaced Victoria from the throne.^[1] Adelaide was 44 at the time, so pregnancy was possible even if unlikely.

Daughters in male-preference primogeniture

Daughters (and their lines) may inherit titles that descend according to male-preference primogeniture, but only in default of sons (and their heirs). That is, both female and male offspring have the right to a place somewhere in the order of succession, but when it comes to what that place is, a female will rank behind her brothers regardless of their ages or her age.

Thus, normally, even an only daughter will not be heir apparent, since at any time a brother might be born who, though younger, would assume that position. Hence, she is an heir presumptive. For example, Queen Elizabeth II was heir presumptive during the reign of her father, King George VI, because at any stage up to nine to ten months after his death, George could have fathered a legitimate son.

However, a granddaughter could for example be heir apparent if she were the only daughter of the deceased eldest son of the sovereign (e.g. Queen Elizabeth II would have been heir apparent to George V if her oldest uncle and father both had died before their father).

Women as heirs apparent

In a system of absolute primogeniture that disregards gender, female heirs apparent occur. As succession to titles, positions, or offices in the past most often favoured males, females considered to be an heir apparent were rare. Absolute primogeniture was not practised by any modern monarchy for succession to their thrones until the late twentieth century, with Sweden being the first to adopt absolute primogeniture in 1980 and other Western European monarchies following suit.

Since the adoption of absolute primogeniture by contemporary Western European monarchies, examples of female heirs apparent include

In 2015, pursuant to the 2011 Perth Agreement, the Commonwealth realms changed the rules of succession to the 16 thrones of Elizabeth II to absolute primogeniture, except for male heirs born before the Perth Agreement. The effects are not likely to be felt for many years; the first two heirs at the time of the agreement (Charles, Prince of Wales, later Charles III, and his son William, Prince of Wales) were already eldest born children, and in 2013 William's first-born son Prince George of Wales became the next apparent successor.

In one special case, however, England and Scotland had a female heir apparent. The Revolution settlement that established William and Mary as joint monarchs in 1689 only gave the power to continue the succession through issue to Mary II, elder daughter of the previous king, James II. William, by contrast, was to reign for life only, and his (hypothetical) children by a wife other than Mary would be placed in his original place (as Mary's first cousin) in the line of succession—after Mary's younger sister Anne. Thus, although after Mary's death William continued to reign, he had no power to beget direct heirs,^[2] and Anne became the heir apparent for the remainder of William's reign. She eventually succeeded him as Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Displacement of heirs apparent

The position of an heir apparent is normally unshakable: it can be assumed they will inherit. Sometimes, however, extraordinary events—such as the death or the deposition of the parent—intervene.

People who lost heir apparent status

• Al-Mufawwid on 30 April 892, al-Muwaffad was removed from the succession (heir apparent) completely,^[3] and when al-Mu'tamid died in October 892, he was succeeded by Al-Mu'tadid.^[4]
• Parliament deposed
  Protestant half-sister, Mary (along with her husband, Prince William of Orange). When the exiled King James died in 1701, his Jacobite
  supporters proclaimed the exiled Prince James Francis Edward as King James III of England and James VIII of Scotland; but neither he nor his descendants (the last of whom died in 1807) were ever successful in their bids for the throne.
• Crown Prince
  Gustav VI Adolf
  onwards, the kings of Sweden are direct descendants of both Gustav IV Adolf and his son's replacement as crown prince, Charles XIV John.
• Prince Carl Philip of Sweden, at his birth in 1979, was heir apparent to the throne of Sweden. Less than eight months later, a change in that country's succession laws instituted absolute primogeniture, and Carl Philip was supplanted as heir apparent by his elder sister Victoria.
• Mohammad bin Salman
  .

Breaching legal qualification of heirs apparent

In some jurisdictions, an heir apparent can automatically lose that status by breaching certain constitutional rules. Today, for example:

• A British heir apparent would lose this status if he or she became a Catholic. This is the only religion-based restriction on the heir-apparent. (Previously, marrying a Catholic also equated to losing this status, however, in October 2011, the governments of the then-16 Commonwealth realms—now 15, of which King Charles III is monarch—agreed to remove the restriction on marriage to a Catholic. All of the Commonwealth realms subsequently passed legislation to implement the change, which fully took effect in March 2015.)
• Swedish Crown Princes and Crown Princesses would lose heir apparent status, according to the Act of Succession, if they married without approval of the monarch and the Government, abandoned the "pure Evangelical faith", or accepted another throne without the approval of the Riksdag.
• Dutch Princes and Princesses of Orange would lose status as heir to the throne if they married without the approval of the States-General, or simply renounced the right.
• Spanish Princes and Princesses of Asturias would lose status if they married against the express prohibition of the monarch and the Cortes.
• Belgian Dukes and Duchesses of Brabant would lose heir apparent status if they married without the consent of the monarch, or became monarch of another country.
• Danish Crown Princes and Princesses would lose status if they married without the permission of the monarch. When the monarch grants permission for a dynast to enter marriage, he may set conditions that must be met for the dynasts and/or their children to gain or maintain a place in the line of succession; this also applies for Crown Princes and Princesses.

Current heirs apparent

Country	Picture	Name of heir apparent	Title	Date of birth (age)	Relation to monarch
Bahrain		Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa	Crown Prince of Bahrain	(1969-10-21) October 21, 1969 (age 53)	eldest son
Belgium		Elisabeth	Princess, Duchess of Brabant	(2001-10-25) October 25, 2001 (age 21)	eldest child
Bhutan		Jigme Namgyel Wangchuck	Dragon Prince of Bhutan, Druk Gyalsey of Bhutan	(2016-02-05) February 5, 2016 (age 7)	elder child
Brunei		Al-Muhtadee Billah	Crown Prince of Brunei Darussalam	(1974-02-17) February 17, 1974 (age 49)	eldest son
Denmark		Frederik	Crown Prince of Denmark, Count of Monpezat	(1968-05-26) May 26, 1968 (age 55)	elder son
Jordan		Hussein bin Abdullah	Crown Prince of Jordan	(1994-06-28) June 28, 1994 (age 28)	elder son
Kuwait		Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah	Sheikh, Crown Prince of Kuwait	(1940-09-27) September 27, 1940 (age 82)	younger brother
Lesotho		Lerotholi Seeiso	Crown Prince of Lesotho	(2007-04-18) April 18, 2007 (age 16)	only son
Liechtenstein		Alois	Hereditary Prince of Liechtenstein, Count of Rietberg	(1968-06-11) June 11, 1968 (age 54)	eldest son
Luxembourg		Guillaume	Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg	(1981-11-11) November 11, 1981 (age 41)	eldest child
Monaco		Jacques	Hereditary Prince of Monaco, Marquis of Baux	(2014-12-10) December 10, 2014 (age 8)	only legitimate son
Morocco		Moulay Hassan	Crown Prince of Morocco	(2003-05-08) May 8, 2003 (age 20)	only son
Netherlands		Catharina-Amalia	Princess of Orange	(2003-12-07) December 7, 2003 (age 19)	eldest child
Norway		Haakon Magnus	Crown Prince of Norway	(1973-07-20) July 20, 1973 (age 49)	only son
Oman		Theyazin bin Haitham	Sayyid, Crown Prince of Oman	(1990-08-21) August 21, 1990 (age 32)	eldest son
Saudi Arabia		Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud	Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia	(1985-08-31) August 31, 1985 (age 37)	child
Sweden		Victoria	Crown Princess of Sweden, Duchess of Västergötland	(1977-07-14) July 14, 1977 (age 45)	eldest child
Tonga		Tupoutoʻa ʻUlukalala	Crown Prince of Tonga	(1985-09-17) September 17, 1985 (age 37)	elder son
United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms		William	Prince and Great Steward of Scotland	(1982-06-21) June 21, 1982 (age 40)	elder son

Heirs apparent who never inherited the throne

Heirs apparent who predeceased the monarch

Heirs apparent who were forced to abandon their claim

Heirs apparent of monarchs who themselves abdicated or were deposed

See also

• List of heirs apparent
• President-elect
• Prime minister-designate
• Heads of former ruling families

Notes and references

Notes

References

Sources

• Fields, Philip M., ed. (1987). The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XXXVII: The ʿAbbāsid Recovery: The War Against the Zanj Ends, A.D. 879–893/A.H. 266–279. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.
  ISBN 978-0-88706-054-0
  .
• ISBN 978-90-04-09419-2
  .