law
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When Richard II and John of Gaunt decided (in view of the latter’s rather belated marriage to Katherine Swynford) that the Beauforts should be legitimated, they did two things. First they obtained a dispensation from the Pope removing any impediments to the Gaunt-Swynford marriage and legitimating the Beauforts. For example, the fact that Gaunt had…
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There was no ‘constitutional’ arrangement in place in the 14thcentury. For many years, father had been succeeded by son, and there had been no need to set out any arrangements for any other contingency. Late in Edward III’s reign, the king, who was losing his faculties and very much under the influence of Gaunt, produced…
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I have seen it asserted recently that Henry VII ruled ‘by right of conquest.’ This may be the de facto position, but it is not the de jure one. Parliament would never have allowed him to claim by conquest – it would have destroyed everyone’s – and I mean everyone’s – title to their lands. (This…
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It is sometimes asserted that Richard III ‘ought to have referred the legitimacy of the princes to a Church court’ or even ‘to the Pope’. Quite apart from the rather obvious fact that a late 15th Century Parliament was never going to allow the succession to be determined by a bishop or two, and still…
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We all know how the Plantagenet genes of Richard’s three nieces were hijacked by Henry VII and his relatives (John Viscount Welles was his uncle and Sir Richard Pole was the Weasel’s first cousin) in the immediate aftermath of Bosworth. It took over four centuries for a “Plantagenet” man to marry a “Tudor” woman. This…
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Do you know that there are people out there who are absolutely convinced that Edward IV did not marry Eleanor Talbot? I don’t mean that they doubt the marriage, but that they know it didn’t happen. I can only think they were alive in the 15th Century and in constant attendance on Edward as this…
