Edward answers “Why was Claudius the one who inherited the...”

James Duško asked this question about Hamlet:

Why was Claudius the one who inherited the throne of King Hamlet, Claudius' brother and Hamlet's father, when prince Hamlet was the rightful heir to the throne and already 30 years old, and therefore, a person old enough to reign the kingdom?

Edward There are lots of possible reasons why Hamlet would not have inherited directly from his father. It's not that uncommon for monarchies to proceed with…moreThere are lots of possible reasons why Hamlet would not have inherited directly from his father. It's not that uncommon for monarchies to proceed with a line of succession that falls to siblings first.

The most likely possibility is that Denmark is a monarchy where the line of succession is decided by a group of electors. This would be the most likely answer, in my opinion, because in Act 5, Scene 2, line 65, Hamlet mentions that Claudius "Popp’d in between th’election and my hopes." That doesn't mean that there's a democratic election in Denmark of the play. It likely means that Denmark's most powerful nobles can decide which of a newly-deceased kings blood relatives gets to become king. They chose Claudius.

In real life, Denmark was indeed an elective monarchy. Almost always, the king's oldest son was selected as the heir, but the aristocracy could opt to hand the throne to someone else if they believed he would be a better ruler.

Is this plausible? Eh. Maybe?

Through a large chunk of the play, Hamlet is either crazy, or pretending to be crazy. Depending on how far back you think his eccentric behavior goes, it is plausible that he has shown a history of mental instability, and that Claudius became king because the electors thought Hamlet was unsuitable.

At the start of the play, Hamlet is newly arrived from university, and he seems pretty sane. But extensive university schooling is not an ordinary choice for a crown prince. Not by a long shot--normally, the heir apparent to a throne should be close at hand to the king or queen, learning how to govern, how to lead men in war, and so forth. It would have been normal enough for a young royal to attend lecture at a university, at perhaps the age of 16 or so. But in Shakespeare's day, study beyond that point largely was for people training for the clergy or to become lawyers or physicians. Hamlet was 30 years old, so we're left to ask what the heck he was doing in Wittenberg at his age.

Arguably, he was off being eccentric someplace where he couldn't make a mess of the succession. Compare Fortinbras, who is about the same age, but who has been spending his time learning to be a general and leader of men.

Now, some kingdoms followed what is called agnatic succession, which is what you normally think of when you think of inheritance to a throne: the oldest male descendant of the monarch inherits the throne. But there is also something called agnatic seniority, which instead prefer's the monarch's brothers. So it could be that. But probably not. Agnatic seniority was historically pretty uncommon, and it would be inconsistent with actual Danish history.(less)

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