"The king is dead, long live the king!" is a traditional proclamation made following the accession of a new

monarch A monarch is a head of stateWebster's II New College DictionarMonarch Houghton Mifflin. Boston. 2001. p. 707. Life tenure, for life or until abdication, and therefore the head of state of a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest authority ...

in various countries. The seemingly contradictory phrase simultaneously announces the death of the previous monarch and assures the public of continuity by saluting the new monarch. More recently, this phrase has become a popular

phrasal template A phrasal template is a phrase-long collocation that contains one or several empty slots which may be filled by words to produce individual phrases. Description A phrasal template is a phrase-long collocation that contains one or several empty s ...

. Given the memorable nature of the phrase (owing, in part, to

epanalepsis Epanalepsis (from the Greek , ''epanálēpsis'' "repetition, resumption, taking up again") is the repetition of the initial part of a clause or sentence at the end of that same clause or sentence. The beginning and the end of a sentence are two po ...

), as well as its historic significance, the phrase crops up regularly as a headline for articles, editorials, or advertisements on themes of succession or replacement. Robert Cecil, one of the architects of the

League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...

, famously concluded his speech at the final session of the League of Nations with the phrase: "The League is dead. Long live the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

Origin

The original phrase was translated from the french: Le roi est mort, vive le roi !, which was first declared upon the accession to the French throne of Charles VII after the death of his father Charles VI in 1422. In

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, the declaration was traditionally made by the

Duke of Uzès Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of Royal family, royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, t ...

, a senior

peer of France The Peerage of France (french: Pairie de France) was a hereditary distinction within the French nobility which appeared in 1180 in the Middle Ages. The prestigious title and position of Peer of France (french: Pair de France, links=no) was ...

, as soon as the coffin containing the remains of the previous king descended into the vault of

Saint Denis Basilica The Basilica of Saint-Denis (french: Basilique royale de Saint-Denis, links=no, now formally known as the ) is a large former medieval abbey church and present cathedral in the commune of Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris. The building ...

. The phrase arose from the law of —that the transfer of sovereignty occurs instantaneously upon the moment of death of the previous monarch. "The King is dead" is the announcement of a monarch who has just died. "Long live The King!" refers to the heir who immediately succeeds to a throne upon the death of the preceding monarch. At the time, French was the primary language of the nobility in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, and the proclamation was quickly taken up as ideally representing the same tradition—which in England dates back to 1272, when Henry III died while his son,

Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassal o ...

, was fighting in the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...

. To avoid any chance of a

war of succession A war of succession is a war prompted by a succession crisis in which two or more individuals claim the Order of succession, right of successor to a demise of the Crown, deceased or deposition (politics), deposed monarch. The rivals are typic ...

erupting over the order of succession, the Royal Council proclaimed: "The throne shall never be empty; the country shall never be without a monarch." Thus, Edward was declared king immediately, and he reigned ''

in absentia is Latin for absence. , a legal term, is Latin for "in the absence" or "while absent". may also refer to: * Award in absentia * Declared death in absentia, or simply, death in absentia, legally declared death without a body * Election in absen ...

'' until news of his father's death reached him and he returned to England. Another example is among the French royalty. In France,

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...

was the predecessor of

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

. Upon Louis XV's death at around 11:00 pm on 10 May 1774,

heir-apparent An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the b ...

Louis-Auguste,

le Dauphin Le Dauphin was a French auto maker established in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris by André L. Dauphin. The company first presented a small two-seater cyclecar in the spring of 1941; production ended in 1942. The car was an open-roof cyclecar wit ...

, immediately became King Louis XVI of France. This quick transition of sovereignty was made within the phrase "the king is dead, long live the king!"

Usage

In Denmark, the prime minister makes a similar proclamation upon the death of a monarch—''Kongen leve, kongen er død'' (hail the king, the king is dead)—from the balcony of

Christiansborg Palace Christiansborg Palace ( da, Christiansborg Slot; ) is a palace and government building on the islet of Slotsholmen in central Copenhagen, Denmark. It is the seat of the Danish Parliament ('), the Danish Prime Minister's Office, and the Supreme ...

(the Danish Parliament building). This declaration is official and marks the ascension of a new monarch immediately after the death of the old. This is because Frederick III abolished the coronation ceremony with the introduction of the hereditary and absolute monarchy in 1660. The king was now supreme and accountable only to God, so the crown became a birthright, and not something to be bestowed only after the father's death with the nobles' and the church's approval. With the introduction of constitutional monarchy in 1849, the monarch's power over the State was again limited, but his claim to the throne remained undisputed and absolute. In some monarchies, such as the United Kingdom, an

interregnum An interregnum (plural interregna or interregnums) is a period of discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order. Archetypally, it was the period of time between the reign of one monarch and the next (coming from Latin '' ...

is usually avoided by using the idea of immediate transferral of power behind the phrase (i.e., the

heir to the throne An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the b ...

becomes a new monarch immediately on his predecessor's death). This famous phrase signifies the continuity of

sovereignty Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...

, attached to a personal form of power named ''

Auctoritas ''Auctoritas'' is a Latin word which is the origin of English "authority". While historically its use in English was restricted to discussions of the political history of Rome, the beginning of phenomenological philosophy in the 20th century e ...

''. This is not so in some other monarchies where the new monarch's reign begins only with

coronation A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a coronation crown, crown upon a monarch's head. The term also generally refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the ...

or some other formal or traditional event. In the

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of ...

for instance, kings were elected, which often led to relatively long interregna. During that time it was the Polish

primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...

who served as an

interrex The interrex (plural interreges) was literally a ruler "between kings" (Latin ''inter reges'') during the Roman Kingdom and the Roman Republic. He was in effect a short-term regent. History The office of ''interrex'' was supposedly created follow ...

(ruler between kings).

Ernst Kantorowicz Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz (May 3, 1895 – September 9, 1963) was a German historian of medieval political and intellectual history and art, known for his 1927 book '' Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite'' on Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, and ''The Kin ...

's famous theory of ''the king's two bodies'' (1957) showed how ''auctoritas'' (Kantorowicz used the synonym term—here—of ''dignitas'') was transferred from the defunct sovereign to the new one. "The King is dead, long live The King!" was last properly used in the United Kingdom in January 1936 when

King George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother Que ...

was succeeded by his son

King Edward VIII Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972), later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire and Emperor of India from 20 January 1 ...

, who later

abdicated Abdication is the act of formally relinquishing monarchical authority. Abdications have played various roles in the succession procedures of monarchies. While some cultures have viewed abdication as an extreme abandonment of duty, in other societ ...

. In the Kingdom of

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

, to conclude the national televised address on October 13, 2016, regarding the passing of His Majesty

King Bhumibol Adulyadej Bhumibol Adulyadej ( th, ภูมิพลอดุลยเดช; ; ; (Sanskrit: ''bhūmi·bala atulya·teja'' - "might of the land, unparalleled brilliance"); 5 December 192713 October 2016), conferred with the title King Bhumibol the Great ...

, the Prime Minister proclaimed "His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Rama IX, has passed away. Long live His Majesty the new King."

x is dead, long live y

In the United Kingdom and other realms which permit female succession to the throne, the phrase can be altered to accommodate succession between monarchs of different sexes, e.g. which happened in 1558, when

Queen Mary I Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558), also known as Mary Tudor, and as "Bloody Mary" by her Protestant opponents, was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 and Queen of Spain from January 1556 until her death in 1558. Sh ...

died and was succeeded by her half-sister,

Queen Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...

, which happened in 1952, when

King George VI George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was also the last Emperor of Ind ...

died and was succeeded by his daughter,

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

, or which happened in 2022, when

died and was succeeded by her son,

King Charles III Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to a ...

x is dead, long live x

In other contexts, the phrase is frequently used and adapted as a

to form a

snowclone A snowclone is a cliché and phrasal template that can be used and recognized in multiple variants. The term was coined as a neologism in 2004, derived from Journalese, journalistic clichés that referred to the number of Inuit words for snow. H ...

, for example: or and and and ), source=

Die PARTEI (''Party for Labour, Rule of Law, Animal Protection, Promotion of Elites and Grassroots Democratic Initiative''), or Die PARTEI (''The PARTY''), is a German political party. It was founded in 2004 by the editors of the German satirical magazi ...

and

Notes

References