Kings by Law, Lineal Succession, and Undoubted Right

Abstract

At the time of Elizabeth’s death any excursion through England’s dynastic history would have demonstrated one incontestable truth: there was an abundance of data but no settled rule of succession. Heredity as the determinant of right was no more than a vulnerable presumption. Although the roll call of monarchs in the almost five and a half centuries since the Norman Conquest pointed repeatedly to an hereditary principle, that principle had been honoured as much in the breach as in the observance. To argue, therefore, for James’s right to succeed Elizabeth on the basis of a rule of heredity was to require skilful navigation through dangerous waters. There were shoals everywhere. James was an alien incapable of inheriting English land and Henry VII, from whom the Tudor line derived, had no hereditary right at all. Despite a catalogue of manufactured claims, Henry was neither the Lancastrian nor the Yorkist heir. What, then, did it mean for James Stuart to contend for an indefeasible right of descent if it could be argued that although he was closest in blood to Elizabeth there were others who were, or might be, nearer to the Plantagenets, or to William the Conqueror, or to an even earlier Saxon king? Why not accept Robert Parsons’ candidate, Isabella, the Spanish Infanta, who could trace her own descent back through John of Gaunt to Edward III, and thence to the Conqueror himself?