Introduction: The Succession in History and Theory

Abstract

According to a story current in the seventeenth century, Henry IV was never certain of his title to the crown, ‘With what right I got it,’ he was supposed to have said, ‘God only knows.’¹ The antiquary Sir Roger Twysden, repeating the story in the middle of the century and at a remove of over three hundred years from the actual event, claimed no better understanding. Of the first Lancastrian’s right to the throne, Twysden confessed, ‘ I will say nothing, but that his sonne and grandchild were reputed kings.’² The story, if apocryphal, was none the less instructive. To the Stuart political nation it underscored the dangerous failure of consensus on a question of fundamental importance: by what right did the monarch, any monarch, occupy the throne?