Family and Dynasty

Abstract

AbstractTo ensure that the state lived on, the monarch had to provide the regime with an heir, and hereditary succession arrangements are only as credible as the monarch’s biological ability to produce offspring. However, in an era when politics was based on personal relationships in general, and blood ties in particular, family also mattered in other ways. Daughters and sisters could, for example, be married into important domestic and foreign families to shore up the monarch’s alliances, whereas sons and brothers could be used as trusted governors of distant parts of the realm. This chapter shows that monarchs who had many children and siblings were less likely to be deposed. Female relatives reduced the risk of depositions from both outside and from within the family, whereas male relatives primarily reduced the risk of outside depositions (and of civil wars breaking out). Finally, the chapter shows how primogeniture created political stability by prolonging dynasties.