The most royal candidate theory is the term given to the fringe belief that every presidential election in the United States has been won by the candidate with the most royal blood, i.e. the closest ties to the European bloodline.
Proponents of the theory, most notably the late Harold Brooks-Baker, claim that every U.S. president since George Washington can have their bloodline traced back to various European royals, with at least thirty-three presidents having been descended from Alfred the Great and Charlemagne. The theory is often cited as evidence that presidential candidates are not elected democratically, but chosen by a secret elite such as the Illuminati.
Critics of the theory claim that the odds of any given person being distantly related to royalty are remarkably high, with one estimate suggesting that more than 150 million Americans are of royal descent. This is because when ancestral lines are traced back through time, the number of ancestors doubles with each generation. If any person traced their bloodline back to the year 1500, for example, they would discover about a million ancestors. Although there are relatively few royal figures in history, pedigree collapse explains how so many people can be linked to famous rulers such as Alfred the Great, and indeed how any one person could be said to have a tenuous connection to almost anyone else in the world.
According to a chart published by twelve-year-old student BridgeAnne d'Avignon, all U.S. presidents except Martin Van Buren can trace descent from King John of England.
Famous quotes containing the words royal, candidate and/or theory:
“High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Show’rs on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence; and, from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue
Vain war with Heav’n, and by success untaught,
His proud imaginations”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“If we should swap a good library for a second-rate stump speech and not ask for boot, it would be thoroughly in tune with our hearts. For deep within each of us lies politics. It is our football, baseball, and tennis rolled into one. We enjoy it; we will hitch up and drive for miles in order to hear and applaud the vitriolic phrases of a candidate we have already reckoned we’ll vote against.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Could Shakespeare give a theory of Shakespeare?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)