"Why isn't Prince Charles king?"

Both Ryan and Jambo sent me texts asking me about the means by which someone ascends the throne of England... and I still don't know why, but the question led me to read up, and here's what I found out.

All prospective monarchs (in England) must be legitimate Protestant descendants of Sophia, Electress of Hanover, since the Act of Settlement of 1701 came into effect. The tradition of primogeniture, or the primacy of the first-born male child as heir, is still in place, unless there are no eligible male heirs, in which case the oldest, legitimate Protestant female child is heir.

So, George VI had no male children, and Elizabeth II becomes Queen Regnant (THE Monarch, in other words). Her husband, Prince Phillip, is the Prince Consort and NOT the King. Her mother, Elizabeth, was the Queen Consort, wife of the King, but NOT the monarch. Neither Phillip nor the Queen Mother could ever rule as monarch.

Elizabeth has four children: Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward (I was wrong yesterday, I thought her daughter was Margaret, but that is Liz's sister, not daughter). Charles has two sons, William and Harry.

Thus, the Line of Succession is:

Charles, Prince of Wales. His sons, William and Harry, follow him in the line of succession.

If none of these three can ascend to the throne, then the crown passes to Andrew, Duke of York. His two daughters (Beatrice and Eugenie) then become the primary heirs to the throne, with Beatrice and her children coming first.

In other words, the primacy of a candidate's claim to the throne is based on the relationship with the last monarch, and while males have first dibs (based on age), females are not excluded from the throne, as Elizabeth I, Anne, Victoria and Elizabeth II are all examples of. These women were monarchs in their own rights, and their heirs (with the exception of Anne, who had no surviving children) became ruling (regnant) monarchs.

NOTE: Anne's reign as the last true monarch of both England and Scotland (the Act of Union merged the two crowns into one, and started the United Kingdom) marks a huge turning point in British history. She saw the passage of the Act of Settlement, which forbade Catholics any access to the throne, and because of her lack of issue, she was followed by George I, eldest son of Sophia, Electress of Hanover, forever ending the rule of the House of Stuart in the British Isles.

So, to sum up... if Charles were to renounce the throne upon the death of his mother (or her abdication), his brothers Andrew and Edward (and his sister, Anne) have no claim to the throne under British law, because Charles's sons are the next legitimate claimants as heirs to the Prince of Wales. This would be true if Charles had daughters, too... the crown passes to the direct descendants of the last reigning monarch, and Elizabeth's most direct primogeniture heirs after Charles are William and Harry, not Andrew or Edward.