As early as 2021, the code for Queen Elizabeth's death, "London Bridge is down", was reported by a US media, which caused a large number of British people to be dissatisfied.
Unexpectedly, in less than a year, the secret code was really used.
The queen, who died at the age of 96, worked almost to the last moment of her life. Three days before her death, she also met and appointed a new Prime Minister, Elizabeth Tras.
Even if the female prime minister has been criticized for only performing a "half-knee salute" and not respecting the queen enough.
But Queen Elizabeth II was still smiling and received her very kindly.
And the Queen's death at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, which may also be her most ideal choice.
Balmoral Castle is the queen's and Prince Philip's favorite estate. Back in 2016, Elizabeth II biographer Clive Owen said he believed the Queen wanted to stay in Balmoral Fort in the Scottish Highlands in the last months of her life.
The Queen couple of Balmoral Castle
At this juncture, the Queen of England, who died of illness in Scotland, can be said to be using her last life as a glue to maintain the increasingly restless Scotland for the declining British Empire.
Although the Queen cannot participate directly in politics, you have to admit that she is indeed a very clever politician.
1975, Balmoral Castle, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip
Contrast with the Queen's father, George VI, who inspired the British people to defeat fascism and win the Second World War, and the code number at the time of his death - Hyde Park Corner (Hyde Park Corner); Elizabeth II's London Bridge is down, obviously more earth-shattering, and it also shows how important the queen is to contemporary Britain.
King George VI and two daughters— Elizabeth and Margaret
Historically, there have been many female monarchs in Europe, and most of them have done a good job.
However, unlike Britain, Austria, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain and other countries, France and Germany, which are influential in Europe, have almost never been queens.
For example, Queen Maria Teresa of the 18th century, whose father was Holy Roman Emperor, Grand Duke of Austria, Bohemia and King of Hungary. Even though dad had earlier left a testament, the Edict of the Nation, which determined the inheritance of the eldest daughter Teresa, but because she was a woman, as soon as the queen ascended the throne, it immediately caused disobedience from the German states, as well as armed intervention led by Prussia and France.
This was the War of the Austrian Succession.
In the end, in the case of both sides losing and no one could hold on, the two sides signed the Treaty of Dresden.
Austria recognized Prussia's possession of Silesia. By vote of the German states, Queen Maria Theresa's husband, Archduke Franz Stefan, succeeded her as Holy Roman Emperor, while her own titles of Grand Duke of Austria, Bohemia and King of Hungary were simultaneously recognized.
Teresa, Franz and some of their children (the two married for thirty years and gave birth to 6 boys and 10 women)
Of course, for the Teresa, the queen is the one who really holds real power, and his husband, the Holy Roman Emperor, is a symbol.
Even so, the Germans were reluctant to make Maria Theresa their emperor, and even thought at one point that she was not eligible to inherit her father's throne.
In addition to the essential struggle for interests, they openly gave the reason that the female monarch violated the ancestral Salic Code.
This Salic Code, which originated in the Middle Ages, was promulgated in the late reign of Clovis (c. 507–511), the founder of the Merovingian dynasty of the Frankish kingdom. There is a clause in this code that a daughter may not inherit the land of her father.
Later, the provisions of the Salic Code on women's inheritance spread to many continental European countries with the division and marriage of the Frankish Empire, and the fact that women had no right to inherit land gradually evolved into the deprivation of women's right to inherit the throne.
However, in terms of specific implementation, the royal families and nobles of various countries have their own opinions, and the controversy over the Salic Code has triggered many scuffles of varying scales, which have profoundly affected the political structure of medieval and modern Europe.
For example, the aforementioned War of the Austrian Succession, and the subsequent Hundred Years' War between England and France, were both due to the controversy over the rights of the female heirs of the direct line by the male heirs of the collateral lineage.
On the contrary, Britain and Russia, neither of which belonged to the large group of the Frankish Kingdom, paid much attention to the Salic Code.
France and the German region (the unification of modern Germany only in 1871) were split from the Frankish Empire, so they were very concerned about the Salic Code.
In this case, the trigger that strengthened the French's rejection of female heirs was a sex scandal in the Kingdom of France in the early 14th century.
Philip IV, the famous "cold-faced handsome king" of the Capetian dynasty of France, and his wife Juana I, Queen of Navarre (at this time, There were also female lords in France), had three males and one female and four direct descendants.
They were the three princes Louis, Philip and Charles, and Princess Isabella, known as the "French she-wolf".
The husband of Princess Isabella is the brutal King Edward II of England in the movie "Braveheart".
Queen Isabella of Braveheart
Originally, everything on the surface seemed very peaceful. Until 1313, Queen Isabella took her English husband Edward II on a trip to "return to her mother's house", which triggered a "French adultery".
After arriving in France, Isabella presented her three sisters-in-law, Margaret, Joan and Blanche, with exquisite embroidered purses.
Unexpectedly, later that year, at a banquet in London, Isabella found that the purse she had given to her sister-in-law was worn by two Norman knights Gautier and Philip de Onai, who had come to England for a "business trip".
Isabella judged that there must be adultery in it, so she quickly told her father.
Philip IV immediately put an eye on the two knights, and finally concluded that The Crown Princess Margaret, Prince Charles's wife, Blanche, and the two knights had been committing adultery in the Nesleta in Paris for a long time, while Prince Philip's wife Joan was unaware of it and was suspected of messing with men and women.
Eventually, the two knights were tortured to death, and the princesses, Blanche and Margaret, were punished with life imprisonment by shaving off their heads and sending them to the monastery.
Louis's wife, Princess Margaret
Prince Charles's wife, Blanche
Originally, Joan was about to be convicted, but she and her husband Prince Philip had a good relationship, and under the hard work of her husband, she was finally saved.
Prince Philip's wife, Joan
The scandal severely damaged the prestige of the French royal family, making it a laughing stock throughout Europe, causing the French aristocracy to have a great distrust of women, and thus affecting women's right to inherit the throne.
The following year, Philip IV died and the crown prince Louis ascended the throne (Louis X), but it was not long before he was also hanged.
Louis X and Margaret, who were imprisoned in the convent, left only one daughter, Princess Jeanne. However, due to the fact that the king had been wearing a "green hat" before, the European royal family at that time expressed deep doubts about whether Jeanne belonged to the bloodline of the Capetian dynasty.
Therefore, under philip's various manipulations, the French nobles removed the provisions of the Salic Code on women's inheritance rights and directly passed off Princess Jeanne.
In this way, Philip seized the throne of his niece, became Philip V of the Capetian dynasty of France, and laid down the principle that France would not recognize female monarchs.
Philip V (1293–1322), sixteenth king of the Capetian dynasty of France (reigned 1316–1322)
Ironically, Philip himself eventually gave birth to only 3 daughters, and the throne was "picked up" by his younger brother Charles.
However, Charles was also unable to leave a male heir, and the Capetian dynasty went extinct.
At this time, the son of Isabella, the "French she-wolf", King Edward III of England, suddenly jumped out and asked to inherit the French throne. But Edward III was immediately rejected on the grounds that the Salic Code, the French did not recognize the inheritance rights of female descendants.
Most of the French nobles elected Philip of Valois, the son of Philip IV's younger brother, Count Valois, as king (Philip VI).
Edward III of England insisted that although the king's daughters could not directly inherit the throne, they should also have the right to inherit, which would be passed on to her son, who was himself, the grandson of King Philip IV of France.
Masquerade ball of the British Royal Family in 1842. Prince Albert played Edward III, while Queen Victoria played his wife, Queen Felipa of Aisno
As a result, this became a major cause of the Later Hundred Years' War between England and France.
Similarly, there was the German-Austrian region, which was born out of the Frankish kingdom, but in practice, they were more flexible than the French.
For example, Charles VI, the father of Queen Maria Teresa, did his best to revise the Edict of the Nation, declaring that all hereditary territories of the Austrian Empire were indivisible. If there is no male heir, the throne is inherited by the eldest daughter.
In addition, in some areas, although a woman cannot directly inherit the throne, her inheritance rights can be transferred to her husband or children and grandchildren.
However, throughout the Middle Ages and modern times, the situation of the German states was very complicated, divided and combined, tossing and turning, especially chaotic, and many times hundreds of regimes coexisted, and in the late modern period, there were 38 states. In this case, some royal families may not be crushed before they can give birth to a man.
But compared to the British, the Germans were largely practitioners of the Salic Code.
Typically, when Queen Victoria succeeded to the British throne in 1837, she had to transfer the Hanoverian throne to her uncle, Prince Ernst, in view of the Salic Code. Because the Hanover side of Germany did not recognize female heirs.
However, with the progress of the times, the remaining European royal families are constantly revising the rules of succession.
Since the end of the 1970s, Western monarchies have begun to abolish the old inheritance system of male priority. To this day, including the British Royal Family, male and female family members of the same bloodline will only refer to the birth order to determine the order of succession - the first child born to the monarch or hereditary nobles, both men and women will enjoy the same right to inherit the throne, and the nobles such as the prince and the prince will also refer to the above rules.
At present, in the European royal circles, the crown princes of Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden are all girls.
This fat girl was Princess Amalia, Crown Prince of the Netherlands, and the middle-aged man was her father, William Alexander
Interestingly, although these "there are really thrones/titles to inherit in the family" royal families are so open; But some ordinary people, sometimes, still regard the birth of a man as a "continuation of incense" as a big thing.