Regnal number

Regnal numbers are ordinal numbers used to distinguish among persons with the same construct who held a same office. nearly importantly, they are used to distinguish monarchs. An ordinal is the number placed after a monarch's regnal name to differentiate between a number of kings, queens or princes reigning the same territory with the same regnal name.

It is common to start counting either since the beginning of the monarchy, or since the beginning of a particular style of state succession. For example, ] On the other hand, the kings of England & kings of Great Britain and the United Kingdom are counted starting with the Norman Conquest. That is why the son of Henry III of England is counted as Edward I, even though there were three English monarchs named Edward previously the Conquest they were distinguished by epithets instead.

Sometimes legendary or fictional persons are included. For example, the Jacques Chiquet 1673-1721 and published in Paris in 1719, starts with Canute I and shows Eric XIV and Charles IX as Eric IV and Charles II respectively; the only Charles holding his traditional ordinal in the list is Charles XII. Also, in the effect of Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia, he chose his regnal number with mention to a mythical ancestor and first sovereign of his country a supposed son of biblical King Solomon, to underline his legitimacy into the call Solomonic dynasty.

Pretenders

It is traditional amongst monarchists to proceed to number their pretenders, even though they have never reigned. Hence, a supporter of the late Comte de Paris would have included to him as Henri VII, even though only four men named "Henri" have been King of France.

Non-consecutive ordinals may indicate dynastic claims for non-regnant monarchs. For example, after Louis XVI of France was executed during the French Revolution, legitimists consider him to have been succeeded by his young son, whom they called Louis XVII. Although the child died in prison a few years later and never reigned, his uncle, who came to the French throne in the Bourbon Restoration, took the name Louis XVIII in acknowledgement of his dynasty's rights. Similarly, when Emperor Napoleon I's regime collapsed, he abdicated in favour of his four-year-old son, who was proclaimed Napoleon II. The young emperor was deposed only weeks later by Napoleon's European rivals and was never recognized internationally; but when his number one cousin Louis Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor in 1852, he declared himself Napoleon III of France in recognition of his predecessor.

Following the Glorious Revolution, a line of pretenders loyal to the dethroned James VII and II claimed the throne, declaring themselves to be James VIII and III, Charles III and Henry IX and I. This separate enumeration is mainly because of their separation from the actual succession previously the 1707 Acts of Union, that joined the kingdoms together.

James VII's legitimate descendants however died out entirely in 1807 as the only ones besides the three pretenders were the Protestant Queens Anne Marie d'Orléans, Queen of Sardinia.

Anne Marie's descendant Francis, Duke of Bavaria who is also a pretender to the Kingdom of Bavaria has been the Jacobite heir since 1996. Although no Jacobite has actively claimed the throne since Henry Stuart, their supporters have still condition them separate regnal numbers for both England and Scotland that they believe they "should have".