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Regnal numbers are ordinal numbers—often written as Roman numerals—used to distinguish among persons with the same regnal name who held the same office, notably , queens regnant, , and rarely and .
It is common to start counting either since the beginning of the monarchy, or since the beginning of a particular line of state succession. For example, Boris III of Bulgaria and his son Simeon II were given their regnal numbers because the medieval rulers of the First and Second Bulgarian Empire were counted as well, although the recent dynasty dates only back to 1878 and is only distantly related to the monarchs of previous Bulgarian states.Ian Mladjov, "Reconsidering Agatha, wife of Eadward the Exile," The Plantagenet Connection Summer/Winter 2003: 1-85, with sample pedigree at 78-85. available online. On the other hand, the kings of England and 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 called Edward I, even though there were three English monarchs named Edward before the Conquest (they were distinguished by instead).
Sometimes legendary or fictional persons are included. For example, the Swedish kings Eric XIV (reigned 1560–68) and Charles IX (1604–11) took ordinals based on a fanciful 1544 history by Johannes Magnus, which invented six kings of each name before those accepted by later historians. A list of Swedish monarchs, represented on the map of the Estates of the Swedish Crown, produced by French engraver (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 case of Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia, he chose his regnal number with reference to a mythical ancestor and Menelik I of his country (a supposed son of biblical King Solomon) to underline his legitimacy into the so-called Solomonic dynasty.
Ordinals may also apply where a ruler of one realm and a ruler of that realm's successor state share the same name:
It is rare, but some German princely families number all males whether head of the family or not; for example, Hans Heinrich XV von Hochberg was preceded as Prince of Pless by Hans Heinrich XI and succeeded by Hans Heinrich XVII; the ordinals XII, XIII, XIV, and XVI were borne by von Hochbergs who were not Prince of Pless. Similarly for the House of Reuss, where all men were numbered Heinrichs and some were reigning Princes of Reuss-Gera or Reuss-Greiz.
and rulers of formerly deposed dynasties are often given regnal numbers as if non-reigning pretenders had actually ruled. For example Louis XVIII of France took a regnal number that implicitly asserts that Louis XVII had been king, though he never reigned; his pretendership was during the First French Republic. A similar case is that of Napoleon III whose regnal number implicitly asserts a ruling Napoleon II. Louis XVIII numbered his regnal year from the death of Louis XVII, something Napoleon III never did.
As a rule of thumb, medieval European monarchs did not use ordinals at their own time, and those who used were rarities and even their use was sporadic. Ordinals for monarchs before the 13th century are , as are also ordinals for almost all later medieval monarchs. Still, they are often used, because they are a practical way of distinguishing between different historical monarchs who had the same name.
Popes were apparently the first to assume official ordinals for their reigns, although this occurred only in the last centuries of the Middle Ages. It is clear, from renumberings of Popes John XV–XIX and Popes Stephen II–IX, that as of the 11th century the popes did not yet use established ordinals. The official, self-confirmed numbering of John XXI means that at latest from the 13th century the popes did take official ordinals in their accession.
Emperor Frederick II, King Charles II of Naples and King Premislas II of Poland evidently used ordinals sometimes during their reign, whereas most of their contemporary monarchs did not. In the 14th century, Emperor Charles IV sometimes used that ordinal. Presumably, use of the ordinal of king Frederick III of Sicily also is contemporaneous. The royal chroniclers of the Abbey of Saint-Denis were using ordinals to refer to the French kings as early as the thirteenth century with the practise entering common usage among royalty and the nobility by the late fourteenth century. The United Kingdom tradition of consistently and prevalently numbering monarchs dates back to Henry VIII and Mary I; however, sporadic use occurred at least as early as the reign of Edward III. Some early accounts of Edward I number him the fourth, thus including the three pre-Norman Edwards.
The long history of the papacy has led to difficulties in some cases. For example, Stephen was only pope for three days before dying of apoplexy, and was never consecrated. Because not all list-makers count him as having been pope (as Stephen II), there has been some confusion in regard to later popes who chose the name Stephen. Later Stephens are sometimes numbered with parentheses, e.g., his immediate successor (in name) is denoted either Stephen (II) III or Stephen III (II). The church did consider Stephen II a pope until 1960, when he was removed from the list of popes in 1961. The history of the numbering of popes taking the regnal name "John" is even more convoluted, owing to the long history of popes taking the name (a common name, chosen frequently to honour the Apostle), bad record-keeping, and political confusion; among other results, the regnal name "John XX" is completely skipped under all reckonings.
In the event of one kingdom achieving independence from another but retaining the same monarch, the monarch often retains the same number as was already used in the older realm. King Christian X of Denmark thus became King Christian X of Iceland when Iceland became an independent kingdom in personal union with Denmark in 1918. The same is true for Commonwealth realms, where the monarch retains the regnal number from the British line of monarchs (see below).
| Last British monarchs of their names (disputed monarchs in italics) |
| !Last Monarch !End of Reign |
To rationalise this usage, it was suggested by Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of the day, that in future, the higher of the two numerals from the English and Scottish sequences would always be used. This had been the case de facto since the Acts of Union 1707; nine of the thirteen monarchs since the Act had names either never previously used in England or Scotland (Anne, six Georges, and Victoria) or used in both only after the 1603 Union of Crowns (three Charleses), which sidestepped the issue, while the English numbers for the remaining four monarchs' names have consistently been both higher and the ones used (William, two Edwards, and Elizabeth). Under the Churchill rule, if a future British monarch were to use the regnal name Alexander, even though there has never been a King of England of that regnal name, they would be Alexander IV, there having been three Kings Alexander of Scotland (reigning 1107–1124, 1214–1249, and 1249–1286).
Other monarchies assign ordinals to monarchs even if they are the only ones of their name. This is a more recent invention and appears to have been done for the first time when Francis I of France issued testoons (silver coins) bearing the legend FRANCISCVS I DE. GR. FRANCORV. REX. This currently is the regular practice in Spain and Monaco (at least for Prince Albert I, as Princess Louise Hippolyte, who reigned 150 years earlier, does not appear to have used an ordinal). It was also applied in Brazil, Greece, Italy, Mexico, and Montenegro. The ordinal for King Juan Carlos I of Spain is used in both Spanish language and English, but he is sometimes simply called King Juan Carlos of Spain in English. In Russia, use of "The First" ordinal started with Paul I of Russia. Before him, neither Anna of Russia nor Elizabeth of Russia had the "I" ordinal. In Ethiopia, Emperor Haile Selassie used the "I" ordinal (, qädamawi) although previous Ethiopian monarchs had not used it, and they are not referred as "the first" unless there were successors of the same name.
In Portugal and Sweden, the practice is not consistent. In Portugal, Kings Joseph, Louis and Charles are usually referred to as "Joseph I", "Louis I" and "Charles I" although there has not yet been any Joseph II, Louis II or Charles II, but Kings Denis, Edward, Sebastian and Henry are usually referred without the ordinal In Sweden, Sigismund and Adolf Frederick never have ordinals, whereas Frederick I often does.
The Catholic papacy used the ordinal I under Pope John Paul I, but early popes who are the only ones to have reigned under a certain name are not referred to as "the first" (for instance, Peter the Apostle; his immediate successor, Pope Linus, as well as Pope Anacletus, are referred to without an ordinal), but all of them reigned before regnal numbers became a common practice. The most recent, Pope Francis (2013–2025), however expressly declined the use of an ordinal, but his Orthodox counterpart, Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, uses one, as does Aram I, the catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
In Austrian Empire, Emperors Francis, Ferdinand, Francis Joseph and Charles all styled themselves as "the first" although all were the only Emperors of Austria with those names. Three of those names were previously the names of Austrian Archdukes (the Archduchy of Austria was a state within the Holy Roman and the Austrian Empires), which makes three of these emperors Francis II, Ferdinand V, and Charles IV in their capacity as Archdukes. Francis Joseph was the first Austrian Archduke of that name.
The use of "The First" ordinal is also common to self-proclaimed ephemeral kings or emperors, such as Napoleon in France; Jacques I, Henri Christophe and Faustin I in Haiti; Agustín I in Mexico; Zog I in Albania; Bokassa I in the Central African Empire; Boris Skossyreff in Andorra; Theodore I in Corsica; and Emperor Norton in San Francisco. In those cases, they wanted to emphasize the change of regime they introduced or attempted to introduce.
Non-consecutive ordinals of reigning monarchs may indicate dynastic claims for non-regnant monarchs. For example, after Louis XVI 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, after Emperor Napoleon 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 first cousin Louis Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor in 1852, he declared himself Napoleon III in recognition of his predecessor.
James VII's last legitimate descendant died in 1807, and the claim passed to descendants of his sister Henrietta, Duchess of Orléans. Although none of them has actively claimed the throne, their supporters have assigned them the regnal numbers that they "should have had"; for example, from 1919 to 1955, the claim was held by "Robert I & IV", which was numbered for England and Scotland respectively.
This custom is currently not followed by any other ethnic groups other than the French and British (Jacobites), being unique to them, monarchists from other nations do not usually use royal numbers for the pretenders they support.
The lack of an ordinal in the case of royal consorts complicates the recording of history, as there may be a number of consorts over time with the same name with no way to distinguish between them. For that reason, royal consorts are sometimes after their deaths recorded in history books and encyclopaedias by the use of their premarital name or, if they were from royalty or sovereign nobility, the name of the dynasty or the country. For example, Henry VIII's fifth wife, Katherine Howard (of noble but not sovereign ancestry), is known by her maiden surname, and George V's wife (a descendant of the sovereign ducal house of Württemburg) is commonly known as Mary of Teck (after her father's title) and Edward VII's wife (a daughter of the King of Denmark) is known as Alexandra of Denmark.
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