Most royal candidate theory

The most royal candidate theory is the erroneous belief that, in every presidential election in the United States, the candidate who won was the one with the most royal blood, counting lineage in European succession terms.

This theory was pronounced "verified" by the late Harold Brooks-Baker, who, despite claims to the contrary, was never editor of Burke's Peerage, a publication which tracks royal lineage.

The odds of the most royal candidate winning by accident, assuming a 50/50 chance, 50 times in a row would be something like 2,251,799,813,685,248 to 1. Less than one in two quadrillion.

The proposition is disproven easily by counterexample:

Thomas Jefferson lost to John Adams in 1796

John Adams lost to Thomas Jefferson in 1800

Andrew Jackson lost to John Quincy Adams in 1824

John Quincy Adams lost to Andrew Jackson in 1828

William Henry Harrison lost to Martin Van Buren in 1836

Martin Van Buren lost to William Henry Harrison in 1840

Grover Cleveland lost to Benjamin Harrison in 1888

Benjamin Harrison lost to Grover Cleveland in 1892

Obviously neither of the candidates in these pairings had acquired "more" royal ancestry in the interval between the elections. And though the notion of "more royal" is nebulous in the extreme, some of these pairings leave no doubt: John Adams has no known royal descent, while Jefferson is a descendant of several kings; Jackson has no known royal descent (in fact, has no known ancestry beyond his great-grandparents) while John Quincy Adams is a descendant of several kings through his mother; and Martin Van Buren has no known royal ancestry, while William Henry Harrison is a descendant of King Edward I of England.

Even other times, the losing candidate could have more royal genes than the winning candidate. For example, Abraham Lincoln has no proven royal ancestry, while his rival in the 1860 election, Stephen A. Douglas, has three royal lines. It is exactly the same with the royally-descended candidates William Taft, Adlai Stevenson, Gerald Ford, and George H.W. Bush losing to Woodrow Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton in 1912, 1952 & 1956, 1976, and 1992 respectively.

Brooks-Baker's periodic announcements of the theory were decried by some as laughable, though regularly covered by American and British journalists in articles from the 1980s through the 2004 election. He claimed to have researched each candidate's ancestry himself. Some question his criteria—or indeed whether he even had any systematic method—for quantitation of royal ancestry, and whether he actually accumulated any data.

References

• Roberts, Gary Boyd, Ancestors of American Presidents, First Authoritative Edition, 1995. ISBN 0-936124-19-9
• Burke’s Peerage & Baronetage, 106th Edition, Charles Mosley, Burke’s Peerage, Crans, Switzerland, 1999, ISBN 2-940085-02-1.
• Harold Brooks-Baker's obituary in the Telegraph

External links

• Clinton vs Dole Brooks-Baker opines that Clinton has more "royal genes" than Dole - though in fact there is no proved Clinton royal descent.
• Bush vs Kerry - Brooks-Baker informs us: "Because of the fact that every presidential candidate with the most royal genes and chromosomes has always won the November presidential election, the coming election - based on 42 previous presidents - will go to John Kerry"