Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/356

 point on which extreme legitimists and extreme advocates of popular right have agreed. Edward IV was heir general of Edward III, therefore he pleases the legitimists; he came to the throne by a revolution, therefore he satisfies their extreme opponents. From a legal point of view it is different; Henry VI was the heir, in the male line of succession, of Edward III, and also, by descent from Henry IV, was heir male of a new purchaser under a new and parliamentary title. Henry VII's title was of course very debateable. With relation to Edward III, he was not heir general, for that place belonged to the daughters of Edward IV: nor was he heir in the male line of succession, because the line was broken in the person of his mother. With relation to John of Gaunt, accepting the legitimation of the Beauforts by king, pope, and parliament, he was heir general; whilst with reference to Henry IV, he can hardly be said to have been heir by collateral descent or heir at all.

But a question arises, on what analogy does the royal succession proceed. If on the analogy of a private estate, then Henry VII, as the nearest kinsman to Henry VI on the side of the purchaser Henry IV, had a claim to succeed: that claim was barred, it is said, by reason of the half-blood; and to that the answer is given that the doctrine of the half-blood, does not affect the royal succession. If, on the other hand, we take for analogy the descent of peerages limited to heirs male, there can be no question that the Earl of Warwick was the right heir through the line of York, irrespective of the line of Clarence; but Warwick's claim and that of all the line of York was crossed by attainder: so also was the claim of Lancaster.

Well, all this argument serves not to prove that Henry VII had a hereditary claim, but to explain what he meant when he said he had. And, although not very important, it is as well to try to understand it. In truth, the law of royal succession, except where it has been settled by parliament, has never been very certain. Mary I and Elizabeth were akin by the half-blood only to Edward VI, yet they claimed hereditary right: disputable, perhaps, in itself, that