Notable cases of the application of the maxim include the following monarchs:
John I, the short-lived, posthumous son of King
Louis X, who inherited the throne of
France in utero and, upon birth, he reigned for the five days of his post-natal life in 1316. In 1439, king
Albert II of Germany died and next year his son
Ladislaus the Posthumous succeeded him in
Bohemia and
Austria. In 1444, he was proclaimed King in
Hungary and
Croatia after the interim King
Vladislaus I Jagiellon died at the
Battle of Varna.
Germany went to Albert's second cousin, who became
Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, due to its
elective monarchy. In 1650 and 1711,
William II and
John William Friso,
Princes of Orange died before their sons and heirs
William III and
William IV were born. When
Victoria inherited the British throne in 1837, her proclamation of accession specified that she inherited it from her uncle "saving the rights of any issue of his late Majesty King
William IV, which may be born of his late Majesty's consort,
Queen Adelaide", because any such unborn progeny would have had a prior claim to the throne under
primogeniture. They would have
ipso facto displaced her as British monarch at birth. (William IV had then recently died, hence there was still a very remote chance of Adelaide's being pregnant with his offspring at the time of Victoria's accession, but Adelaide did not in fact go on to carry any further pregnancies to term, so the anticipated possibility this caveat accounted for did not eventuate.) In 1885, king
Alfonso XII of Spain died and was provisionally succeeded by his daughter
María de las Mercedes, Princess of Asturias until his
wife's pregnancy turned out to be a boy, who became
Alfonso XIII of Spain upon birth. ==See also==