The Worlds of Katherine Kurtz

Jean Ann Easter says: "I just purchased and read King Kelson's Bride (on the same day, no less) and I have a question regarding Queen Regnants. The question arises between Morgan and Kelson about possibly giving Kelson's intended Haldane powers. Morgan says that there has never been a Queen Regnant, so the idea had never been tried. Was Michaela Drummond Haldane effectively Queen Regnant with Deryni powers during King Oswins' minority? According to The Bastard Prince, Michaela executes one of the abusive Regency Lords in her husbands' burial crypt by using the hand clenching technique to stop a heart. Or would she be considered a Queen Mother as the respected late Queen Mother of England was? I'm imagining that this snippet of information is something that was lost during the years of King Owain's minority because of that typically short-sighted Human document called the Statutes of Ramos."


Katherine replies: "Well, Michaela definitely has Deryni blood herself, so that accounts for her basic abilities. A Queen Regnant would be a daughter of a king who becomes queen in her own right, because she has no brothers or uncles to take precedence over her—and we don't know what would happen in that case, re passing on the Haldane potential (or, more likely, activating it). It's only recently that Deryni powers have been deliberately and directly activated in a Haldane who is not the ruling monarch (Conall and Nigel). Of course, there's a reason for this prohibition. The original idea that only one Haldane at a time could hold the Haldane potential was deliberately fostered to prevent or at least discourage would-be usurpers from farther down the line of succession. We'll discover in future books, perhaps, whether there was a practical reason for this precaution."