parents of 3 Kings or Queens?

Queen Victoria comes to mind.

Jim, What were the three REIGNING monarchs? One was Edward VII.

Isn't Eleanor of Acquitaine another parent of 3 monarchs? Or is it just 2? I count Richard the Lionhearted and King John but I think there was a third whose name escapes me.

Philip IV of France was father to three French kings: Louis X, Philip V, Charles IV.

Francis I of France was father to three French kings: Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III.

Louis, dauphin of France (son of Louis XV) was father to three French kings: Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, and Charles X.

Alexei I of Russia was father to three tsars: Fedor (Theodore) I, Ivan V, and Peter (the Great) I (although Ivan and Peter were, in effect, co-tsars until Ivan's death in 1689)

Maria Theresa, ruler of Austria, was mother to three monarchs: Emperor Joseph II, Emperor Leopold II, and Frederick Ferdinand, duke of Modena.

Philip V of Spain was father to FOUR monarchs: Luis I of Spain, Ferdinand VI of Spain, Charles III of Spain, and Philip, duke of Parma.

Carlo Buonaparte was father to FIVE monarchs: Napoleon, emperor of France; Jerome, king of Westphalia; Joseph, king of Spain; Louis, king of Holland; and Marie Anne, grand duchess of Tuscany.

Welcome, joefromchicago!

Actually, I've some difficulties with the original question: independent rulers of independent states? (Than all the Bonapartes had to be deleted.) Just having a "ruling" title? (Than I could add dozens of German kings, [arch-]dukes, princes, counts ...)

These, however, should fit:

Louis the German, king of the East Franks, was the father of

- Carloman (king of Bavaria, of Carinthia, of Pannonia, of Moravia and of Italy,
- Louis the Younger (German king, ruler over Saxony, Franconia, and Thuringia,
- Charles the Fat (king of the East Franks, king of the West Franks, later Emperor of the West Charles III).

I suppose I should also add Maximilian Franz as one of Maria Theresa's children--Archduke Max Franz was the last Archbishop Elector of Cologne, which made him both a prince of the church and a secular ruler.

Walter: I agree, the Bonapartes are not your "typical" royal family, but then the question didn't exclude parvenus and military despots/nepotists :wink:

Well, Emperor Franz I. of Austria had 13 children,
- Archduchess Maria Luise was married to Napoléon I.,
- Archduke Ferdinand, who became Emperor Ferdinand I.,
- Archduchess Leopoldine, married to Emperor Pedro I. of Brasilia,
- Archduchess Karoline Ferdinanda, married to King Frederick August of Saxony

For Alexei Mikhailovitch Romanov, you've forgotten Sophia, who was regent from 1682 until 1689, and Ivan V died in 1696

Alexei Mikhailovitch (1645-76):

Fedor Alexeevitich III (1676-82),
Petr Alexeevitch (1682),
Regency of Sofia Alexeevna for co-tsars Petr & Ivan (1682-89),
Co-tsars Petr Alexeevitch & Ivan Alexeevitch V (1682-96),
Petr Alexeevitch (1682-1725).

And, Petr's descendants (not all in direct line):

Petr Alexeevitch II (son of Alexei Petrovitch), Petr's grandson (1727-30),
Anne Ivanovna (daughter of Ivan Alexeevitch V, Petr's brother), Petr's niece (1730-40),
Ivan VI, was the great-nephew of Anne Ivanovna--you figure out how that relates him to Petr (1740-41),
Elizabeth Petrovna (took the throne from the infant Ivan VI in a coup), daughter of Petr (1741-62).

By the by, since this thread says parents of three kings or queens, i don't think aristocracy, no matter how royal, counts--no Archdukes or -duchesses, no Dukes or Ducheses, etc.

Thus, zsars and emperors wouldn't count either. :wink:

Point taken

But dov1953's original post referred to "reigning monarchs." So not only do emperors and tsars qualify, but also rulers of sovereign principalities, grand duchies, etc.

And they also have to be reigning monarchs -- so spouses of reigning monarchs don't count, Walter. If they did, the list could be filled with hundreds of Habsburgs. There wouldn't be any challenge in that.



I mentioned Ivan V. And I think you double-counted Peter the Great: Alexei I didn't have two sons named Petr. As for Sophia, although she ruled as regent for her brothers, she didn't reign, for the simple fact that she wasn't entitled to be Tsarina due to the primacy of her brothers' claims to the throne.

If you're going to split hairs, i would point out that Sophia did indeed reign, she made the decisions, she determined policy, she gave Golytsin and the army its marching orders. As she ruled alone, that makes her a monarch. When George III went permanently mad, George, Prince of Wales, became George, Prince Regent. He was a monarch in every sense of the word. All regents, Sophia, George, John of Gaunt, Anne of Austria--they all have been the power of the throne, not the power behind it.

I didn't count Petr twice, i simply listed the fact that, briefly, in 1682, he was the sole monarch, before the Streltsy revolt, the attack on the Narishkins, and the re-instatement of the Miloslavskys who backed Sophia as regent for two co-tsars, one fourteen and very infirm, the other, Petr, robust and healthy, and ten years of age. Sophia put the Miloslavskys in positions of influence, but she made her own decisions.

I was simply listing the order of succession.

Not so. Sophia did not reign, for the simple reason that she was not the hereditary ruler of Russia -- i.e. she was never the tsarina. True, she performed all of the functions of a monarch (that's what regents do), but she was never a regnant monarch: she was entitled to deference due to her power, not due to her imperial status. After all, even if she wielded all the real power, she still ruled in the name of her brothers. They reigned, she ruled.

Furthermore, if we simply assert that all sole-rulers are monarchs, then we can equally assert that Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung were all monarchs -- and that's simply wrong. If "monarch" is to mean anything, it means a sole ruler who has a hereditary (or, in some cases, electoral) claim to royal status. Sophia, the Prince Regent, John of Gaunt -- none of them could claim this status.



OK, I understand now.

You'd really be put out with Hillaire Belloc, who, in his introduction to his 1930's biography of Louis XIV, describes FDR as a monarch. I see nothing in the definition of monarch which excludes anyone you've listed. That definition does not entail hereditary descent, or membership in any royal family. You point out that some monarchs have been electoral--the point is an individual weilding sole power--and i therefore include regents, who are chosen for the task, even if they have engineered the "choosing."

Well, I suppose Aristotle would agree with you, so at least you're in good company. On the other hand, I don't think that the common understanding of "monarch" includes dictators such as Stalin and Hitler.



I would maintain that one indispensable attribute of being a "monarch" (and this would even include monarch-dictators) is that there is no other person who can rightfully claim a share of power. Thus, e.g., under the Spartan system's two kings, neither could claim to be a monarch, even though both were kings (at best, they could claim to be "duarchs"). A monarch, as such, holds a monopoly of legitimacy as ruler.

Regents simply cannot claim a sole right to power because they always rule in the name of the true monarch. Their authority derives from the monarch, it is not inherent. And it is understood that, when the monarch comes of age, the regent will step aside, whether the regent wants to go or not. Dictators and kings are alike in that no one has a better claim than they do to wield sole authority, whereas regents can never make the same claim.

Now we are in fuzzy areas indeed, because we discuss what is understood by a term. I agree with you that those such as Stalin are not thought of as monarchs, because of what is traditionally understood in the use of the term. However, the term does apply in the simple definition of monarch--and as for what is traditionally understood by a term, the evolution of governmental systems assured that Wilhelm II was about the last European monarch who truly deserved the title. Certainly George V was no monarch in such terms, as not only had the English monarchy lost the power which George III had hoped to weild, and failed to do, but the loss of the veto on the part of the House of Lords assured that all royalist and oligarchic influence in England was subject to challenge. Once challenged by any Premier with a solid majority in the commons, there was no royal or oligarchic program which could stand. In that regard, Elizabeth II is no monarch, merely a symbol for a tradition. The last Prime Minister to sit in the House of Lords was Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury. He was as deferential to Victoria as any Premier ever was to an English monarch, and still found himself obliged to tell her what could not be done. I acknowledge the force of your "rightfully claim a share of power;" but would point out that such a claim can be nugatory--such as the "legitimate" claim of Charles Stuart to the throne, which was worth no more than the paper on which he might have written it, so long as Oliver Cromwell controlled the New Model Army, or ruled as Lord Protector.

There have also been many examples in history in which a monarch was no ruler at all, even having attained his or her majority. Anne of Austria, with the guidance of Richelieu and his understudy, Mazarin, ruled France through the war with Spain and the end of the Thirty Years War, as well as the civil wars, the "Wars of the Fronde," until Louis XIV finally took power in his own right at age 23. Margaret of Denmark was the daughter of the King of Norway; her husband, the King of Demark, was the son of the eldest daughter of the King of Sweden, none of whose sons survived into adulthood. When her husband died, followed shortly by the Kings of Norway and Denmark, she found herself the mother of the King of Norway, Denmark and Sweden, united in a toddler. She took power as regent, a move in which the chief ministers of all three nations acquieced with a good grace, and weilded that power for 16 or 17 years, until she felt her son was ready for the responsibility. Hatshepsut was the widow of one pharoah, and the mother of his successor, but she siezed power as regent when her husband died, and held that power for 21 years, well past what the ancient Egyptians considered to have been the majority of her son--usually 12 years of age. The records are not good, because her son apparently resented her, and attempted to efface her memory from all records--but it appears that he eventually organized a coup to drive her from the throne. What her end was, we will likely never know. Some regents are indifferent to the power available to them, such as the first Lord Protector, William Marshall, who only assumed the position reluctantly, and relinquished it with a good will as soon as Henry III was willing to assume the power. John of Gaunt was thoroughly unimpressed with Richard II, as was likely good judgment, but he made no move to supplant him. However, his son, Henry of Bolingbroke, was not so tolerant, and when Richard banished him, and seized Lancastrian estates, Henry invaded England and usurped the throne.

This is a very complex subject, much more so than the simple question first posed. It is fascinating as well, in the clinical sense of studying a system of government of dubious provenance, with little claim to legitimacy beyond the seizure of power at the time of the establishment of a dynasty.

How about any Roman Emperors and Popes. Any triple fathers there? There certainly were Popes that were fathers of other Popes, but 3 times I dunno? How about Queen Victoria? If she wasn't a mother of three she should have been considering she had nine children.

Victoria's eldest daughter, the Dowager Empress, married the Crown Prince of Prussia, Frederick, whose son Wilhelm became Wilhelm II, deposed at the end of the First World War--her Husband was Emperor of Germany briefly, but died not very long after his father, Wilhelm I, thus, Victoria (the daughter) was known as the Dowager Empress. Her son Albert Edward became King Edward VII. I forget all of the other children who were married off to royalty across Europe, but, technically, only one of her children became a monarch--Albert Edward.

Iulius Caesar adopted his nephew, Octavian, as his legal heir, and he became Caesar Augustus. His wife, Julia, is thought to have poisoned some of his children (his most capable son, Giaus Nero Germanicus, became ill, and then died after Julia's physician went to the Rhine frontier to treat him), and had others exiled, so that her son Tiberius could succeed Octavian. Tiberius was succeeded by Julia's grandson, Giaus, know by his cognomen, Caligula. I don't believe you'll find any emperors who sired more than one, two at the most.

In recalling the regency of Margaret of Denmark, i realized she is the most "efficient" parent of three kings. Her son was King of Norway, King of Denmark and King of Sweden. Beat that!