Hamlet and heir to throne??

[8filltheheart]

Dd and I finished Richard III (which I have subtitled And the eating of your young) a couple of weeks ago and are now studying Hamlet. Can someone help us understand royalty and who is heir? In Richard III, the crown passed to the sons. Why in Hamlet does the throne pass to the brother?

 

Thanks!

[Karen in CO]

because Hamlet is a wuss and the brother married the mother? seriously, I have never understood that either. I always assumed it was something that they had to stand up and fight for and Hamlet wasn't worthy and his uncle had the stronger claim - perhaps the wife was the royal one? But I'd love to hear a real answer too.

[Charles Wallace]

Dd and I finished Richard III (which I have subtitled And the eating of your young) a couple of weeks ago and are now studying Hamlet. Can someone help us understand royalty and who is heir? In Richard III, the crown passed to the sons. Why in Hamlet does the throne pass to the brother?

 

Thanks!

 

He was there.

Hamlet was off in school in Wittenberg.

Claudius married the queen -- easier to continue the "Out with the old boss, in with the new boss" policy.

He curried favor from those at the Danish court who helped him.

[Heather in VA]

I always assumed it was because Queen Gertrude was still queen and then married Claudius- making him King. Because if Hamlet had inherited the throne she couldn't have still been Queen and have her son as King, right? Maybe Queens are supposed to be unseated but I just assume she and her new hubby had priority over the son.

 

Heather

[8filltheheart]

I always assumed it was because Queen Gertrude was still queen and then married Claudius- making him King. Because if Hamlet had inherited the throne she couldn't have still been Queen and have her son as King, right? Maybe Queens are supposed to be unseated but I just assume she and her new hubby had priority over the son.

 

Heather

 

That is what I had always assumed that as well. However, after studying Richard III (this is the first time I have ever read Richard III and probably the last!) the poor queens were simply shoved aside when their spouse died and they had no children survive to take the throne. The queens had no power except through a male.

[Heather in VA]

That is what I had always assumed that as well. However, after studying Richard III (this is the first time I have ever read Richard III and probably the last!) the poor queens were simply shoved aside when their spouse died and they had no children survive to take the throne. The queens had no power except through a male.

 

Maybe that's why she married Claudius - to keep the power rather than be pushed aside by her son?

 

Heather

[pooh bear]

Here are a couple of things that I found online

 

How did Claudius become king?He was duly elected.

 

Did Gertrude commit adultery with Claudius?No.

 

Does Gertrude love Claudius?No.

 

Does Claudius love Gertrude?No. He did once, years earlier.

 

What's the message from Fortinbrasse that pesters Claudius?It's a challenge to single combat, from Fortinbrasse to the King of Denmark.

 

Why did Gertrude marry Claudius?She was afraid that Hamlet, despite being fat and scant of breath, would accept the challenge to single combat from Fortinbrasse, to the King of Denmark, and that Hamlet, as King, would get himself killed. She married Claudius as a political endorsement of him, and she used her influence with the electors to make Claudius, King. Essentially, then, Gertrude married Claudius to set him up to die. She wanted Fortinbrasse to kill Claudius instead of Hamlet.

And this

 

Why Claudius, Not Hamlet, Became King of Denmark

Keen readers and audiences often ask why Claudius acceded to the throne in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Should not the crown have passed to the dead king’s son, Prince Hamlet?

 

Not necessarily. In Denmark, the setting of the play, an elective monarchy held sway until 1660, when a hereditary monarchy replaced it. Therefore, Shakespeare’s fictional Hamlet, based on a legendary Dane of the Middle Ages, could not claim the crown as a birthright.

 

In an elective monarchy, court officials–noblemen in high standing–selected the new king by vote. The son of a king was, to be sure, the prime candidate for the royal chair, and usually he won it. But the voting nobles had the right to reject him in favor of another candidate. And that was precisely what happened in fictional Elsinore. The nobles approved the king’s brother, Claudius.

 

In a hereditary monarchy, the king’s oldest son automatically ascended the throne when his father died.

 

But of course Danish laws do not explain why the nobles chose Claudius over Hamlet. Shakespeare offers no explanation of their vote.

[8filltheheart]

Here are a couple of things that I found online

 

And this

 

Why Claudius, Not Hamlet, Became King of Denmark

 

Thank you! That actually clears up several of the other questions we were pondering. After spending so much time on Richard III, I think we have been trying to carry too much from it into Hamlet.

[Charles Wallace]

Here are a couple of things that I found online

 

Regrettably, I think your sources are inaccurate and really inaccurate to the point of needing to be discarded. Here's why. I've responded in red below.

 

How did Claudius become king?He was duly elected.

 

Well, no. In I.ii, in his first speech to the court, Claudius thanks those who have supported him, saying, "nor have we herein barr'd / Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone / With this affair along. For all, our thanks." This means merely that he has taken their advice -- their "better wisdoms" which he has not "barr'd," and that the members of the court agreed with "this affair," specifically Claudius' taking of the throne. In other words, Claudius usurped the throne, but with support from influential people in the court and government.

 

 

Did Gertrude commit adultery with Claudius?No.

There is no proof she did, indeed, but there is also no proof she did not. This is unknown. Claudius, in making his first reference to Hamlet in the play, addresses him as, "And now my cousin Hamlet and my son," but this is very likely only a courtesy -- a warmer form of address than "stepson." However, it could certainly turn the other way: Hamlet may very well be Claudius' actual son. We simply do not have sufficient data.

 

Does Gertrude love Claudius?No.

This is inaccurate, or at least incomplete. They evidently have an active s*x life. In the famous "bedchamber scene," (III.iv), Hamlet implores his mother not to be intimate any longer with Claudius, pleading, "Not this, by no means...Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed/Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse/And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses/Or paddling in your neck with his ****'d fingers/Make you to ravel all this matter out..."

 

Moreover, Claudius states (in private and in public) that he is in love with Gertrude and that she was one of the central reasons he assassinated his brother.

 

Claudius love Gertrude?No. He did once, years earlier.

Again, there is no proof of this assertion. Indeed, during the play, he makes several statements to the contrary, saying of Gertrude that he could not live without her: "She's so conjunctive to my life and soul/That as the star moves not but in his sphere/I could not but by her" (IV.vii), and during his private scene when no one can hear him, he admits that he cannot regret the murder of his brother because he did it for three reasons: "[his] crown, [his]own ambition, and [his] queen."

 

 

What's the message from Fortinbrasse that pesters Claudius?It's a challenge to single combat, from Fortinbrasse to the King of Denmark.

I distrust very deeply any source about the play in which the names of important characters are misspelled. Fortinbras does not challenge Claudius to single combat. In fact, he simply demands back those lands lost by his father to the former king of Denmark. This is an absurd statement.

 

Why did Gertrude marry Claudius?She was afraid that Hamlet, despite being fat and scant of breath, would accept the challenge to single combat from Fortinbrasse, to the King of Denmark, and that Hamlet, as King, would get himself killed. She married Claudius as a political endorsement of him, and she used her influence with the electors to make Claudius, King. Essentially, then, Gertrude married Claudius to set him up to die. She wanted Fortinbrasse to kill Claudius instead of Hamlet.

 

This is completely misguided. Hamlet is described as "fat and scant of breath" during his duel with Laertes, the son of Polonius, the man he killed. At this point, I am skeptical that your source has understood the play.

Edited May 8, 2010 by Charles Wallace

[8filltheheart]

Were the Danes just that completely different in ascendancy to the throne? Being away at school and the queen marrying definitely wouldn't have made any difference in Richard III (or the plot would have fallen apart! and I wouldn't have had to dub it the consuming of your young!) Those seem like rather weak reasons to not be crowned king.

[Laura Corin]

Were the Danes just that completely different in ascendancy to the throne? Being away at school and the queen marrying definitely wouldn't have made any difference in Richard III (or the plot would have fallen apart! and I wouldn't have had to dub it the consuming of your young!) Those seem like rather weak reasons to not be crowned king.

 

I've always felt that Claudius usurped the throne, but that there wasn't much opposition: he was a known quantity, an experienced and integral part of the court with a (burgeoning) relationship with the queen. It was expedient for the nobles to accept the usurpation and to lay aside Hamlet's claims; the alternative might have been civil war.

 

I don't know about the Danish court, but certainly the UK throne changed hands often on a combination of weak blood claims and strong political heft. I suspect that it was unlikely that Shakespeare knew a great deal about how Danish succession worked: he just used a good foreign story and otherwise wrote it as though it were a British tale. His Italian tales feel very British too, apart from the odd exotic touch.

 

Laura

[8filltheheart]

Thanks Laura. I appreciate the insigth from someone who actually understands British history from a British perspective!

[Charles Wallace]

I've always felt that Claudius usurped the throne, but that there wasn't much opposition: he was a known quantity, an experienced and integral part of the court with a (burgeoning) relationship with the queen. It was expedient for the nobles to accept the usurpation and to lay aside Hamlet's claims; the alternative might have been civil war.

 

I don't know about the Danish court, but certainly the UK throne changed hands often on a combination of weak blood claims and strong political heft. I suspect that it was unlikely that Shakespeare knew a great deal about how Danish succession worked: he just used a good foreign story and otherwise wrote it as though it were a British tale. His Italian tales feel very British too, apart from the odd exotic touch.

 

Laura

 

Yeah, think about the very, very weak claim Henry VII had to the throne! It was mostly based on little more than chutzpah.

[Willow]

Yeah, think about the very, very weak claim Henry VII had to the throne! It was mostly based on little more than chutzpah.

 

Which bring Richard III to mind again.....anyone read "daughter of time"?

[Charles Wallace]

Which bring Richard III to mind again.....anyone read "daughter of time"?

 

*CoughphilippagregorycoughCOUGH*:D

[Andrew Kern]

Thank you! That actually clears up several of the other questions we were pondering. After spending so much time on Richard III, I think we have been trying to carry too much from it into Hamlet.

 

Maybe, but I would caution you against letting anything "clear up" Hamlet. It is not meant to be clear. In fact, my theory is that it is about "Sin's true nature," and since sins' true nature is deceit the whole play is permeated by misdirection and indirection.

 

I would argue that Hamlet did not become king because Claudius was treacherous and had maneuvered and timed things so that he would be irresistable. Shakespeare says little about it in the play, but not many English of the late 16th century would, from what I understand, have thought Claudius had a legitimate claim.

 

Any solutions to the questions you have about Hamlet are almost certainly treacherous!