Actual kings thought otherwise strongly enough to have others who claimed to be king of their realm killed if at all possible.
My model for this: other claims to being king say nothing about the claimant, but send signals about the current king they need to quash.
1. There was always a population of people who are opposed to the king, or think they could get a better deal from a different one. This makes any other person who claims to be king a Schelling Point for the current king’s enemies, foreign and domestic. Consider Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth, where Mary garnered support from domestic Catholics, and also the French.
2. In light of 1, making a public claim to the throne implicitly claims that the current monarch is too weak to hold the throne. I expect this to be a problem because the weaker the monarch seems, the safer gambling on a new one seems, and so more people who are purely opportunistic are willing to throw in their lot with the monarch’s enemies.
My model for this: other claims to being king say nothing about the claimant, but send signals about the current king they need to quash.
1. There was always a population of people who are opposed to the king, or think they could get a better deal from a different one. This makes any other person who claims to be king a Schelling Point for the current king’s enemies, foreign and domestic. Consider Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth, where Mary garnered support from domestic Catholics, and also the French.
2. In light of 1, making a public claim to the throne implicitly claims that the current monarch is too weak to hold the throne. I expect this to be a problem because the weaker the monarch seems, the safer gambling on a new one seems, and so more people who are purely opportunistic are willing to throw in their lot with the monarch’s enemies.