King Henry VIII is the archetypal English king. A man born to be king, one would say. But he was a second son, a ‘spare’ to the firstborn, Arthur.<br><br>Henry was not the only spare to become king of England. When Edward VIII abdicated in 1936 for Wallis Simpson, his younger brother George became king. Similarly, their father, George V, only became heir apparent when his older brother Albert Victor died during the influenza pandemic of 1892.<br><br>In the 17<sup>th</sup> century, Charles I went to the scaffold on a freezing January morning in 1649, but he had only assumed the throne (24 years earlier) after his older brother Henry died from typhoid fever. The monarchy was restored in 1660 with the return of the dead king’s eldest son, Charles II, from exile, but he died childless, leading to the short reign of his brother James (1685–1688), the last Roman Catholic monarch.<br><br>The <em>White Ship</em> disaster of 1120, whose casualties included Henry I’s heir, led to civil war between Henry’s daughter Matilda and his nephew Stephen. Stephen prevailed but, upon his death, was succeeded by Matilda’s son Henry II in 1154. <br><br>Henry II was blessed with five sons, three of whom he outlived. Richard ‘The Lionheart’ died ignominiously, slain by a boy archer whilst besieging an unimportant castle, and the youngest of Henry’s sons, John, became king in 1199.<br><br>The men not born to be king led lives at least as interesting as those destined from birth: Henry VIII, notwithstanding his six wives, was once meant for a celibate career in the Catholic Church, Charles lost his head, and John was responsible for Magna Carta.<br>