Note 372 — BOOK VII THE MONGOL EMPIRES OF THE LAND WAYS AND THE NEW EMPIRES OF THE SEA WAYS
Reading edition
The early Frankish and other German kings were not elective. They were hereditary; but as there was no primogeniture, there was either partition among the sons, or a struggle to decide which son or relative should succeed. In such a struggle the nobles might take part, and this might mean some form of election. But heredity is the thing: reges ex nobilitate sumunt, says Tacitus: the king must have the nobility of being Woden-born, or he cannot be king. The genealogies of our early Saxon kings all go back to Woden, and George V is Woden-born.—E. B.