Board Thread:What If?/@comment-5674726-20130803001002/@comment-5674726-20130929124716

Fimber wrote: It was also important that the child was from the first wife/husband in case that the king or queen had children with a second wife or husband. Actually, in regard to history, Morgana would have had little chances to get the throne legally since she was an illegitimate child and a woman. Had she been Uther's and Igraine's daughter or the daughter of Uther and his second wife, Morgana would have been the legitimate heir after Arthur. However, I'm not sure whether she had the same right if she had been the legitimate daughter of Uther and Vivienne if they had been married before Uther married Igraine and before Arthur was born. I would imagine that this was up to the king to decide.

I meant to answer this before, so sorry for the delay.

In the event that a King had two or more wives, the child of the first wife would not be the automatic heir ahead of the child by the second wife. The children's sex and age would determine their positions in the line of succession, regardless of which wife was their mother, so, if you had a case that a King had a daughter by his first wife, a son and a daughter by his second wife, and a daughter and a son by a third wife, the line of succession under male preference primogeniture would be:

1. First son (by wife #2) 2. Second son (by wife #3) 3. First daughter (by wife #1) 4. Second daughter (by wife #2) 5. Third daughter (by wife #3)

If the second son died, the first son wouldn't have the option of passing over the first daughter, his half-sister, in favour of the second daughter, his full sister.

It wouldn't matter if Morgana was Uther's daughter by Ygraine, or if he married Vivienne before she was born, she'd still be second in line for the throne after Arthur. Her claim would come from Uther and it would make no difference whether or not she and Arthur shared a mother, or whether she was the child of a marriage that predated Uther's marriage to Arthur's mother.