[father of Richard. Edward the Third had had many children besides his eldest son, Edward the Black Prince, who was the father of Richard the Second; but of these children we need mention only three, namely, William the second son, who died without issue, Lionel Duke of Clarence, the third son, and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the fourth son. By the rules of succession, therefore, the posterity of Lionel Duke of Clarence were entitled to the throne upon the resignation of Richard, and had been in fact declared by the king, many years before, to be his presumptive heirs; and that declaration had been also confirmed in parliament (n). Inasmuch, however, as Henry Duke of Lancaster, the son of John of Gaunt, had then a large army in the kingdom, it was impossible for any other title to be asserted, and he became king under the title of Henry the Fourth. But, as Sir Matthew Hale remarks (0), though the people unjustly assisted Henry the Fourth in his usurpation of the crown, yet he was not admitted thereto until he had declared that he claimed, not as a conqueror, which he very much inclined to do (p),-but as a successor, descended by right line of the blood royal. In order to this, he set up two titles; the one upon the pretence of being the first of the blood royal in the purely male line, the Duke of Clarence having left only one daughter, Philippa, from whom, through a marriage with Edmund Mortimer Earl of March, the house of York descended; the other, by reviving an exploded rumour, that Edmund Earl of Lancaster (to whom Henry's mother was heiress), was in reality the elder brother of King Edward the First, though his parents had, on account of his personal deformity, imposed him on the world for the younger. However, by the statute 7 Hen. IV. (1405) c. 2, it was enacted, that the inheritance of the crown should be and

(n) Sandford, Geneal. Hist. 246. (0) Hist. C. L. ch. 5.

S. C.-II.

2 6

(p) Seld. Tit. Hon. 1, 3

[remain in the person of Henry the Fourth, and in the heirs of his body issuing; and Prince Henry was declared heir apparent to the crown, to hold to him and the heirs of his body issuing, with remainder to the king's other sons, and the heirs of their bodies respectively. The enacting of this statute shows, that it was then generally understood, that the king and parliament had a right to new-model and regulate the succession to the crown (g); and thereafter the crown descended regularly from Henry the Fourth, to his son and grandson, Henry the Fifth and Henry the Sixth. But in the reign of the latter the house of York re-asserted their dormant title, and at last established it, in the person of Edward the Fourth. It is at the time of this king's accession that we first meet the distinction between a king de jure and a king de facto. Thus, the 1 Edw. IV. (1461) c. 1, designates Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI. as "late kings of England successively, in deed and not of right"; and in all the charters of King Edward, wherever he has occasion to speak of the line of Lancaster, he calls them " facto, et non de jure, reges Angliæ."

nuper de Edward the Fourth left two sons and a daughter. The eldest of these sons, King Edward the Fifth, enjoyed the regal dignity for a very short time, and was then deposed by Richard, his unnatural uncle, who immediately usurped the royal dignity, having previously insinuated to the populace a suspicion of bastardy in the children of Edward the Fourth, in order to make some show of hereditary title; and he is generally believed to have afterwards murdered his two nephews, upon whose death the true right to the crown devolved upon their sister Elizabeth. When the tyrannical reign of King Richard the Third gave occasion to Henry Earl of Richmond to assert his title to the crown, -a title the most remote that was ever set up, and one which nothing could have given

(q) 4 Inst. 37, 205.

[success to, but the universal detestation of Richard, who was regarded as a usurper of the rights of the last-mentioned Elizabeth ()-Henry procured from parliament a declaration of his title, and an Act was passed to the effect "that the inheritance of the crown should rest, remain, "and abide in King Henry the Seventh and the heirs of "his body," thereby providing for the future, and acknowledging the present possession, but not determining either way, whether that possession was de jure or de facto merely. But soon afterwards, Henry married Elizabeth of York, the true heiress of the Conqueror; and thereafter the Act made in his favour was totally disregarded, and was never printed in our statute books (s).

Henry the Eighth, the issue of the marriage of Henry the Seventh and Elizabeth, succeeded to the crown by clear indisputable hereditary right, his eldest brother, Prince Arthur, having died without issue; and on his death transmitted the crown to his three children in due order. But in his reign we find the parliament, at several times, occupied in regulating the succession to the kingdom. Thus, first, the 25 Hen. VIII. (1533), c. 22, which recites the mischiefs which had ensued and might ensue by disputed titles, enacts that the crown shall be entailed to his Majesty, and the sons or heirs male of his body; and in default of such sons, to the Lady Elizabeth (who is declared to be the king's eldest issue female, to the exclusion of the Lady Mary, on account of her supposed illegitimacy by the divorce of her mother Queen Catherine), and to the heirs of the body of the Lady Elizabeth; "and so from issue female to issue female, and the heirs of "their bodies, by course of inheritance according to their "ages, as the crown of England hath been accustomed "and ought to go, in case where there be heirs female. "to the same: and for default of such issue, then to "the king's right heirs for ever." Afterwards, on the

[king's divorce from Anne Boleyn, this statute was, with regard to the settlement of the crown, repealed by the 28 Hen. VIII. (1536), c. 7. By this Act the Lady Elizabeth was bastardized as well as the Lady Mary, and the crown was settled on the king's children by Queen Jane Seymour, and his future wives, and, in default of such children, then with this remarkable remainder, "to such persons as the king by letters-patent, or last "will and testament, shall limit and appoint the same." But a few years afterwards, by the 35 Hen. VIII (1543), c. 1, Mary and Elizabeth were again legitimated, and the crown was limited to Prince Edward by name, after that to the Lady Mary, and then to the Lady Elizabeth, and the heirs of their respective bodies. And this succession, which was indeed no other than the usual course of the law with regard to the descent of the crown, took effect accordingly; although the Act still left the king the right of appointing his successor on failure of those three lines.

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Lest there should remain any doubt in the minds of the people, through this jumble of Acts for limiting the succession,-Queen Mary's hereditary right to the throne was acknowledged by the 1 Mar. (1554) sess. 2, c. 1, in these words:- The crown of these realms is most law"fully, justly, and rightly descended and come to the "queen's highness that now is, being the very, true, and "undoubted heir and inheritrix thereof." And, again, on the Queen's marriage with Philip of Spain, by the statute which settled the preliminaries of the match, the hereditary right to the crown was again asserted (†).

On Queen Elizabeth's accession, her right was also recognized by parliament, and in still stronger terms than her sister's, namely, in the words following :-" the queen's "highness is, and in very deed and of most mere right "ought to be, by the laws of God and the laws and statutes "of this realm, our most lawful and rightful sovereign

(t) 1 Mar. sess. 3 (1554), c. 2.

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["liege lady and queen; and her highness is rightly, lineally, and lawfully descended and come of the blood “royal of this realm of England, in and to whose "princely person, and the heirs of her body lawfully to be "begotten, after her, the imperial crown and dignity of "this kingdom are vested, limited, and annexed” (u). And by the 13 Eliz. (1571), c. 1, we find the right of parliament to direct the succession of the crown distinctly asserted. This Act provides, that it shall be treason to affirm that the laws and statutes do not bind the right to, and the descent, limitation, and inheritance of, the crown; and that any person who shall, during the queen's life, expressly affirm, before the same is established by parliament, that any particular person is or ought to be heir and successor to the queen, except the same shall be the natural issue of her body, shall, for the first offence, suffer imprisonment and the loss of half his goods, and for the second, incur the penalty of a pramunire.

On the death of Queen Elizabeth without issue, the line of Henry the Eighth became extinct; and it became necessary to recur to the other issue of Henry the Seventh by Elizabeth of York. Their eldest daughter Margaret had married King James the Fourth of Scotland, and James the Sixth of Scotland, and the First of England, was the lineal descendant from that alliance; so that in his person, as clearly as in Henry the Eighth, centred all the claims of different competitors, from the Conquest downwards, he being indisputably the lineal heir of the Conqueror. And what is still more remarkable, there also centred in him the right of the Saxon monarchs, which had been suspended from the Conquest, till his succession. For Margaret (sister of Edgar Atheling, daughter of Edward the Outlaw, and granddaughter of Edmund Ironside) was the person in whom the hereditary right of the Saxon kings, supposing it not to have been abolished

(a) 1 Eliz. (1958), c. 3.