If a childless king died, and his wife was pregnant, would that child become the ruler when it was born? • r/AskHistorians

slatestarscratchpad:
bartlebyshop:
Another fun learning a lot question!
Now, West Francia was nominally a monarchy, but in reality, its nobles exercised far more power than the king (Louis III spent basically his entire reign trying to quell one rebellion). With Louis II’s in-lifetime sons both dead, the West Francia nobles saw their chance. They railed Emperor Charles the Fat into seizing the crown. Why? Because Charles had plenty of territory over his own, and rather preferred his huge tracts of land that did not lie in West Francia. They wanted an absentee ruler who would let the nobles be the nobles–and that’s pretty much what they got. (Except for that one pesky time Charles promised to fight Vikings, and fought the nobility instead…oops.)
But the nobles of West Francia, it turned out, had conflicting agendas beyond simply “more power for us.” When Charles the Fat died, one group thought that a king with military skill who had promised to fight Vikings and actually fought Vikings was a good idea, and designated Odo, then count of Paris, as king. But Odo’s authority did not look so good from elsewhere in West Francia. And this particular group remembered that, somewhere in the mists of long ago, Louis II actually had had three sons. They hauled in Charles the Simple, or rather, Charles’ advisor-mentor-power-holders, and plopped a crown on his head.
Why read Game of Thrones when you could read shit like this instead?
@worldlypositions, remember that discussion we had about that period when all the kings of France had insulting names?
Update - some of the other kings from this period:
Charles the Bald (843 - 877)
Louis the Stammerer (877 - 879)
Charles the Fat (881 - 888)
Louis the Blind (887 - 900)
Charles the Simple (898 - 922)
Louis the Do-Nothing (966 - 987)
Louis the Fat (1081 - 1137)
Louis the Stubborn (1289 - 1316)
Charles the Bad (1349 - 1387)
Charles the Mad (1380 - 1422)
Louis the Universal Spider (1423 - 1483)

EDIT: Louis the Do-Nothing, Louis the Indolent, and Louis the Sluggard are all the same person.