Do you think Henry VII was a legitimate King and that the Windsors’ claim to the throne is good, or do you think the crown should have gone elsewhere at some point? Let me know below and remember to check out: BUY MY BOOK (Find Your Irish Ancestors Online): amzn.to/3Z2ChnG Website (with 2 FREE DOWNLOADS): www.historycallingofficial.com/ Patreon: www.patreon.com/historycalling Amazon storefront: www.amazon.com/shop/historycalling Instagram: instagram.com/historycalling/
Probably not, but at this point its of little consequence One could easily ask if any king is legitimate as they do not rule by the consent of the governed but of force and fiat.
Did he steal the throne? Well yeah, he was a usurper- like Richard III, Edward IV, Henry IV, Stephen & William I- but "by right of conquest" _was_ a legit way to get the crown back then, so just like them, he became the legitimate king by that right. And once that happened, you couldn't just say "well, my claim is better!" & expect them to step down for you- you had to fight them. If your claim _was_ better, you did have a better chance of rallying others to your cause, & holding the throne after you took it, but simply _having_ the best claim didn't magically make you king. (Or queen, but that's another matter).
Being the “rightful” ruler involves being the person who managed to get on the throne and stay on it, and then having the proper living children, given the rules of whatever years they lived.
@@HistoryCalling What about Richard Gloucester capturing Edvard V and his brother and then outright murdering them in the Tower so he could become and remain king? I don't see the concepts of "rightful" or "legitimate" applying in that instance. I think there has to be--or ought to be, at least--something additional in any deposition, call it morality or just "a very good reason," for the usurper to be considered "legitimate" or "rightful."
Brilliant analysis. This is a complex issue, but you explain it so well. If Henry VII wasn’t a legitimate king, neither was William the Conqueror. For that matter, none of the Saxon kings would be “legitimate” either. A lot of this comes down to the laws and customs of the times. If someone was acknowledged as monarch, crowned and anointed, they were the king or queen. It really doesn’t matter what modern day people think.
By the laws of the Saxons, all kings were legitimate. The Witan formally decided the next king. Up until the beginning of the 9th century, succession because of blood claim wasn’t necessarily a thing. No son in Wessex had succeeded his father really for a long time until then. Edward the Elder by blood claim was weaker, but the Witan was stacked with his father’s supporters and his cousin was killed in battle. The deposition of his niece in Mercia would not have really flied with legitimacy except by meddling in the affairs of a vassal kingdom. Aethelstan and his successors had no real claim to Northumbria except via conquest, the same with his father on annexing East Anglia. By blood claim, Harold Godwinson had none, but he was elected by the Witan.
actually with each house and it representatives i think with possession....it made the law 10 tenths :) they were the law til charles first pretty much
I just think it’s kinda hilarious that when Katherine Swynford’s Beaufort children were initially legitimized, they were barred from inheriting the throne; but two generations later the descendants sat on the Scottish Throne and about 4 generations later they were on the English throne. Oh and the whole Plantagenet dynasty is descended from William the Conqueror- illegitimate. So, Henry taking the crown was fair game.
@@HistoryCalling Rules don't apply to the people in charge. Rules are used by the people in charge to keep everyone else from doing what the people in charge don't want them to do.
To be fair I think one of William the Conquers descendants did marry an Anglo Saxon woman, Matilda of Scotland and she was the mother of Empress matilda and Elizabeth of York and Henry VII are descendend from her
Regarding Parliament's recognition of Henry VII's right to the throne; what would YOU do if you were faced with the prospect of DENYING that right to someone with an already victorious ARMY at his back, and a penchant for being very "unpleasant" toward people who attempt to take away what he considers to be HIS(an attitude which all the Tudors shared)? That was also why, when Shakespeare wrote Richard III, he was very careful to paint Richard as a monster, and Henry as the next best thing to a saint! Elizabeth I, and HER successor, James I, would have taken a VERY dim view of anything which suggested that THEIR right to the throne was "questionable"
Given the whole “right by conquest” thing, a king is legitimate as long as he and his heirs can hold onto the crown basically. So yeah, Henry VII won his crown by right of conquest and it is legitimate. If they thought it was illegitimate, any one during that time could have tried to overthrow him.
As an American, with ancestors who first helped to win our independence from the British Monarchy and later ancestors who helped to maintain the union in our War Between the States, I am a big believer in "governments ... deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." The UK is a Constitutional Monarchy, if I'm not mistaken, so the people's elected representatives (i.e. Parliament) have the final say in who the monarch should be, or if there should even be one. Since the King doesn't have any real power and is not even allowed to say what he REALLY thinks about governmental matters, I think the statement on the Royal website accurately states the situation: Parliament decides. If the British people still want to give staggering wealth and lots of pretty clothes, jewels and property to one family just so they can go around opening hospitals and naming battleships, attracting tourism, and holding huge parties for visiting heads of state, then that appears to be most of the people's preference at the moment. What "should have happened" at any time in the past is not relevant. It is 2023 (at least for a few weeks more), and what the citizens of the UK want in this day and age is what counts. Let us hope that right is never taken from them, or from us, by force.
You may be right about a lot of this, but I think it's a bit of a grey area that Parliament has the right to abolish the monarchy. Every Act of Parliament requires the consent of the monarch to become law, so a reigning monarch could in theory refuse to allow the abolition of the monarchy, even if it has gone through both houses. And, of course, the armed forces swear allegiance to the King, not to Parliament.
@@lelnewc Well, we'll just have to hope that never (again) gets put to the test! I would say it still depends on the consent of the governed as to whether Parliament and the army would continue to abide by those two points. But that's how the people want it to be for now.
@@lelnewc I don't think the chain of command for the armed forces goes up to the monarch without passing through the Ministry of Defence. If this is the real situation it means that even though the monarch is nominally the head of the armed forces he does not have the communication lines to issue orders that will allow the exercise of that role and overpower the will of Parliament. There is also an increasing movement to abolish the monarchy. There are now people willing to demonstrate their views on this by holding signs saying "Not my king" at various royal events. Polls show that since 2011 support for the monarchy has fallen steadily and at the same time support for a republic is growing. The problem for a modern monarchy is that they can be scrutinised by anybody who wants to look at modern media and a lot of people seem to find the "royal" family to be left wanting by this visibility.
Henry was apparently the last Lancastrian male who had any right to claim the throne. On the Yorkist side (disregarding whoever was the male with the best right) Edwards eldest daughter Elizabeth had the closest claim to the throne, her two brothers being regarded as most likely deceased. As Henry and Elizabeth married, their children inherited both their claims to the throne. Also, Henry won the throne by right of conquest.
Once King Henry VI was dead, the nearest Lancastrian heir was the King of Portugal, descended from King Henry IV's sister Phillipa. That is why Rchard III wa seeking a Portuguese bride after the death of Anne Neville.
@@neilbuckley1613 Which was why the Lancastrians settled on Henry's claim, despite the problems with the Beauforts' illegitimate birth - no one was going to rise up to put a foreign ruler on the throne. It's interesting that some of the other sisters of Henry IV had descendants living in England, but none really came forward to stake a claim over Henry Tudor.
Another entry I have to watch at least twice to soak up the rich detail, HC. Whew! Sorry to be a bit late today. Just back from the vet again with Lukas. He's got his spark back after surgery but we'll have to wait on the oncologist. 🤞
Ah, now there's a big historical what if. Of course, it ended up going to her son, so it's possible things would have stayed mostly the same in the long run.
It seems that, at the end of the day, Matilda was just as happy to agree to the arrangement that her son would become the first Plantagenet king. She didn't seem to have the energy or the influence to keep on fighting to get the throne for herself, if I correctly recall what historians have written about it.
A king or queen's right to wear the crown is only as strong their grip on it. If someone stronger comes along to wrench it from their grasp...or take it from off their dead skull, then as far as I'm concerned, they won the crown by conquest, and it's theirs. The line between usurper and rightful monarch usually comes down to which side of that line we find ourselves on.
Note somewhere at least the TV script writers forgot some Royal Blood was required. I found it very strange as the start first season of Game of Thrones hammers home how key having royal blood was. The Conqueror of Westross claimed their royal blood from Country which Westross was a Tributary to before it fell (sort of Rome of the story) Right of Conquest still required royal blood of some sort by this period. In all this mess including our history order of succession could be changed but you had to have royal blood and depending it was not required it be royal blood of your country just someones. @@HistoryCalling
If Anne ( Richard’s sister)’s line had been on the throne, none of her descendants who exist today would exist because Anne’s descendants would have married and had children with completely different people.
That is a really good point about a lot of these claims to the succession. Sitting monarchs would make entirely different (and more prestigious) marriage alliances for their heirs than the wannabes would be able to arrange. So none of these "what if" people would probably exist.
I love your content so much - the history is interesting and academically factual, your commentary is well-placed and a nice mix if snark and humor, and I find your voice soothing.
Haha, thank you. I'm glad the snark doesn't go too far though. Sometimes I am rolling my eyes at what people say about events and people now gone, but I try not to let it show too much in the final video.
THANK YOU SO MUCH AARON for your generous donation and kind words. My only advice about working in history is to probably steer clear of academia. It's a tough old life and very hard to get into.
Thank you for this laudably clear and well presented video. To deny Henry's accession to the throne by right of conquest is to ignore the practical realities of his day. Charles III's succession is the result of the development of a long and complicated relationship between the throne and Parliament. (There is a good book dealing with this topic, "The Right to be King: The Succession to the Crown of England, 1603-1714" by Howard Nenner, which might interest you, if you haven't run across it already.) If anyone else is old enough to remember the movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid": "Rules? What rules?"
I always find it interesting that through William the Conqueror's wife, Matilda, there is descent from Alfred the Great (a daughter of Alfred's married Baldwin II of Flanders who Matilda descended from).
Definitely agree with you. I honestly don't see how people are still questioning the legitimacy of the Tudors or the Hanoverians. As you said, if one chooses not to recognise monarchs by conquest, then you must return to the heirs of the Anglo Saxon Kings and then everything falls apart.
@HistoryCalling, oh some did, yes . ( Anglo saxons) I think Alfred the great. His nephew he was declared king by a council of nobleman. Several of the other kingdoms had bloody civil wars over succession disputes in family's.
@@shanenolan5625 Anglo-Saxon kings were elected by the Witan, and there were definitely some shenanigans if I remember correctly. In other words if you had a lot of support among the nobles who made up the Witan you could get the crown, which is how Harold Godwinson got it. I believe the best claimant by blood at that point was actually Harald Hardrada? The first one to lose the claim and his life!
@iriandia yes witen . I used council of Nobels alfred waa older more competent and had military victorys and government experience. Unlike the nephew. If the son inherited a witen would still confirm him .
@@shanenolan5625 yeah I feel like they just tried to make sure the crown went to a grown man and not a child, to make sure the realm was in strong hands. Which this story sort of confirms, because the princes in the tower got their throne (and their lives) stolen by their uncle. The Anglo-Saxons probably would have done it that way anyway, and made Richard king. Of course Henry taking it would have been the same in the end.
An excellent, intelligent and thorough analysis. Conquest and Parliament are two significant factors in the inheritance of the throne, equally if not more important than blood, as the presenter demonstrates. Well done!
Certainly a deep Complex subject HC, as you explained so eloquently parliament decides, you have waded through it brilliantly as always, thank you HC for another gem of a subject. 😊👏
Well done for your comments on the nature of monarchy - too many people go on about 'rightful monarchs' but the fact is, as you state, even 500 years or more ago, this was dependent on the support of others in positions of power
Interesting to note also that the 1936 Abdication Act barred Edward VIII / Duke of Windsor's descendants from the throne. Another example of parliamentary say-so. Ultimately they didn't have any anyway but still.
I've read a great deal about this period so was interested to see how you presented it. Must say that it's exceptionally clear and even handed to all the different theories of succession. (also have to say that you have a beautiful & melodious speaking voice!) Look forward to your next offerings!
Fantastic video! I love how informative and well - researched you are. Would you consider doing a similar video on Henry IV deposing Richard II? I find it fascinating and sad. Whatever one thinks of Richard II, starving him to death was barbaric.
Yes, I've been meaning to get to that actually. I don't know that much about it, but it sounds interesting. People don't seem to like my medieval videos though which is rather annoying (excepting the Wars of the Roses).
@@HistoryCalling OMG, I'd be stoked if you did! That's just me though, in the Mediaeval-loving minority. I'm glad people appreciate the Wars of the Roses stuff at least, & this topic is very closely tied to it, even though it occurred half a century beforehand. Years ago when I knew nothing, I legit thought it was "round 1" of the WoR, cos it was when Lancaster first took the throne. 🤦♀
@@HistoryCalling I hope people do come to love them one day. I myself have found a new and healthy respect for medieval culture and history. I used to not give it a second glance, but in the last few weeks, I actually started paying attention to it more. Not gonna lie, probably a result of the historical fiction I’m reading.
Henry VII won the throne the exact same way William the Conqueror did. Conquest, then strategic marriages to a daughter of the previous dynasty. If the Tudors are illegitimate so was Richard III’s entire line. If William the Conqueror is illegitimate, so is the entire Plantagenet line that claimed rights through his granddaughter. The first Plantagenet king did practically exactly what Henry VII did: gained an army, fought a war against his uncle, became heir and married a strategically important woman. Henry I’s wife wasn’t even English so if anything he had less of a claim through her. He was just the female line grandson of a deposed king. If Henry VII’s maternal claim to the throne was illegitimate, so was Henry I’s. His only claim was through his mother.
As far as I'm concerned, the throne belongs to whoever can acquire it and keep it with parliament's approval. Henry VII won it fair and square, so it should stay in his family until someone else manages to take it, if that ever happens. Being monarch isn't that much of an interesting or exciting job these days, anyway, so I doubt many people would particularly want the crown. It might as well stay where it is.
Like in 1688, when James VII/II was deposed. Both the English + Scottish parliaments declared that he had abdicated, + elected James’ eldest daughter Mary + her husband William as joint sovereigns. This was a compromise because William didn’t want to rule by conquest, while Mary had no desire to be queen.
Great explanation of the succession. Henry VII seems to have had the most legitimate claim and a better claim than many of the people who have held it since even though they are all related. It’s all very messy which makes the period so interesting.
Great episode. This is something I wondered about myself & u explained it very well. It was a case of grab the throne & hang on. There may be other claimants out there but I’m sure they know they have no chance of ever getting their hands on the crown.
This channel’s truly a great find. Narrative, narrator & editing, brilliant. Thanx x 10! Sad no one ever mentions Henry’s older brother who died of fever.
How important to Henry's claim do you think it was that his father, Edmund Tudor, while lacking any English royal blood himself, was a maternal half-brother of Henry VI and thus, along with his brother Jasper, had been made an earl and treated like part of the extended Lancastrian royal family? Certainly this was the basis on which Edmund was given the wardship and then the hand in marriage of such an important heiress as Margaret Beaufort. But given Edmund's early death before Henry was even born, did any of this quasi-royal status continue to attach to Henry in the years before 1485? He was, after all, genuinely Henry VI's nephew. So, was Henry Tudor perceived as a significant Lancastrian because of both his parents, rather than just his mother?
I don't think it helped him get the English throne, but being part of the extended French royal family may have at least give him greater kudos as a nobleman in general. I've never seen any source in which he discussed his French royal connections though, so I'm just speculating. Obviously he lived a big chunk of his life in France and must have spoken the language fluently, so I wonder if he felt attached in some way to his grandmother's homeland (not that that stopped him fighting with the French).
Let’s be honest. “Rightful” has just as much if not more to do with their ability to hold the crown as anything else. On another note, I think Henry VII was one of the more underrated kings in English history and I am amazed he does not attract the same kind of attention that his son and granddaughters do.
It could be argued the current british monarch has some of the best royal lineage out there. His great grandfather (several times) isnt just henry vii but longshanks, william the conqueror, alfred the great.. Not to mention several other great monarchs across europe. Impressive stuff. I always hear the argument but not only is it pointless, as history played itself out according to the circumstances, but the lineage you can trace back over a thousand years.
Well- no, he had little right to the throne, but taking the throne by force made one ruler, if one was able to keep it. His mariage to Bessy of York made, in my opinion, his children better claimants for the Kingship (or Queenship :). The Yorks were an utter internal mess, and, had they been a single unit, might've stayed on the throne for longer, but they each wanted the crown for themselves, leading to their downfall. For me, the truly rightbul claimants to the throne, given context and the fact that the Lancastrian takeover the throne had happened more than half a century prior, were Henry VI and his son Edward of Westminster. Have a nice weekend :)
Yes, the Yorks really were a mess. If only they'd stuck together they'd have been unstoppable. No one could really mess with them except each other. A classic example of the veracity of the phrase 'united we stand, divided we fall'.
Details, lady! Details matter! By 1483, it was the custom in England for the eldest male relative of a deceased king to be the Lord Protector of a minor king. That would be Richard, in this case. From York to London, he was accepted as such, and the Three Estates affirmed it. Indeed, while England used the term "Protector", Richard's true, legal powers were that of a European regent. What some historians conveniently omit is the fact that, in the spring and early summer of 1483, Richard still held the role of Admiral of England (navy), and Lord High Constable. He had held these roles for the past 14 years and was widely considered a very fair and just judge and administrator. As constable, Richard was entrused to act as police, trial lawyer, and judge in any treasonable act. For example, an act against the Lord Protector was an act of treason; so, if Rivers and Grey were conspiring against Richard in Northumberland - which his spies would have informed him about - Richard was legally responsible for arresting and executing them.
Kind of interesting about Elizabeth I. Though she was definitely Henry VIII's daughter (she acted and looked like him more than her two siblings), not only was she conceived out of wedlock (December 1532), but her parents were married in January 1533 while Henry was still married to Catherine of Aragon (that marriage did not end until May 1533). Thus, her opponents asserted that Elizabeth was an illegitimately conceived child who was in utero while her father was a bigamist!
Yes, I have a video on her legitimacy status actually and I basically agree that she was illegitimate for most of her life. Henry altered England's laws to make her legitimate at birth, but then reversed her status at the age of two and she was never legitimate again after that. It just goes to show that legitimacy really has no bearing on whether one can do the job or not.
Both Mary I and Elizabeth I succeeded to the throne technically as illegitimate. They succeeded to the throne on the basis of the Third Succession Act of Henry VIII.
OK so it's right of conquest. But what about the blatant murder of children? Is there no element of illegitimacy with such actions? After all, you could argue that men in battle have a fighting chance. But little kids?
" Increasingly the system was becoming reliant on a combination of blood, parliamentary recognition and occasional conquest". That statement by HC in yet another excellent discussion sums everything up perfectly. No doubt Henry VII's claim to the throne was very weak. But back then during the era of the Wars of The Roses, it was "winner take all". Besides before Henry VII there had already been several usurpations. William the Conqueror wasn't exactly "Legit" either. (blood/Occasional conquest) King Charles III is a direct descendant of Queen Victoria and through her to the Hanoverians who came over from Germany after Queen Anne died childless. Anne was the last of the Stewarts who came from Scotland when the last of the Tudors, Elizabeth I died childless. (parliamentary recognition)
I seriously wonder how people kept track of anyone's names with how there seemed to be like 3-4 total names for men and women every era. The titles must've been really helpful in that regard. The only pro with everyone having the same name is that if you can't remember someone's name you have a 25% shot of getting right XD
Lol, this is very like my late father’s family. So many Paul’s and Richards. Nicknames all round. Little Paul, Dick from Aimee’s. Otherwise no one knows who you’re talking about.
Yes, that's very true. I always find the number of Edwards, Prince of Wales to be particularly confusing along with the fact the Edward IV's father and son were both called Richard, Duke of York and EIV also had a brother, stepson and nephew called Richard too. Just manic!
Elizabeth Woodville eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York. Her great granddaughter Elizabeth I. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and her daughter Queen Elizabeth II. Lots of Elizabeths Not as confusing as the Kings of France with 16 or 17 all named Louis
I think he did but he married one of Edward IV's daughter and assuming the "Little Princes" were not living, I think his children were in line for the throne.
@@HistoryCalling I wonder if it was a love match from the beginning, or if it wasn't until later years that it became so? I believe I read that Henry VII was devastated when Elizabeth of York died giving birth to the baby they'd conceived after Arthur's death.
@@EarlyMusicDiva It probably wasn’t a love match from the beginning, Henry VII promised to marry Elizabeth of York while still in France. Also- as the video says, all sides of the family was killing each other so Elizabeth probably had some qualms.
This was a fantastic no-nonsense, common sense approach to this issue. Being American, I don’t really care or have a say, but I do find claims that someone else is rightful monarch to be a little silly. After all, the people they’re arguing against actually held the throne, which trumps all the what ifs. It’s an interesting thought experiment to look at how things might have gone differently, but nothing more than that. On another note, it would be interesting if you could do a video about the women who were able to inherit titles in their own right. I know it’s not many, but I think I’ve read about a few who were able to. I actually thought of this a few weeks but forgot to suggest it but then you brought it up here and I remembered.
That is an interesting idea, though as you say such women (excluding Queens regnant) were few and far between. Actually Queens regnant are few and far between as well...
I think some very old titles in England and Scotland were allowed to pass through the female line in the absence of a male heir. In England the earldom of Arundel and the original Eaeldom of Warwick [ which terminated with Edward son of Clarence mentioned in the video. In Scotland I think the earldoms of Mar and Sutherland can pass through the female ine.@@HistoryCalling
Fascinating and one of my favorites of all of your many videos that I've watched! You really did a great job of mapping out how the British and later the U.K. monarchy's succession twists and turns has worked. Thank you! You mentioned that ultimately who sits on the throne is up to Parliament (a lesson that Charles I (for one, never quite understood), so if the Parliament of his time validated Henry's usurpation of the throne (which is basically what it was), who are we to argue?! 😊
Richard Duke of York originally never claimed the throne. The battles of First St. Albans, Blore Heath and Ludford Bridge were about getting rid of counsellors. That changed at Northampton after which he claimed the throne and a pliant Westminster concocted a plan that would achieve it. He was on tenuous grounds because his own father Richard of Conisbrough was executed for his treason against Henry V in the Southampton Plot. Principally you needed military might, first and foremost. To get people to risk their lives for you you needed to be next to them in wars. This precluded most females. If a female proved herself to be an Amazon like Boudicca, she passes the test. Queen Philippa of Hainault the wife of Edward III probably came closest to it at Neville's Cross? This went for males too, you had to prove yourself, Edward the Black Prince at 16 at Crecy, Henry of Monmouth at 16 at Shrewsbury and Edward of Westminster at 17 at Tewkesbury. The latter prince had no brothers should the worst come to the worst and it was foolhardy for those around him to let him enter the field. You could say the same about Henry VII at Bosworth. He was risking it all on a moonshot. He was seriously outnumbered and outgunned, even with the Stanleys with the third army, he was still outnumbered. Right of Conquest won him the day but his own political acumen learnt off his mother, possibly the sharpest tool in the Tudor box - ever, secured his crown, politically. One of the first things he did was to ante-date his claim to the day before the battle. This ensured those who opposed him were traitors. John Howard the Duke of Norfolk sadly fell leading one of Richard III's three "battailes". His son Thomas Howard the Earl of Surrey was wounded and captured but showed loyalty to the new house and his titles were gradually restored and as High Admiral of England defeated the Scots in the last medieval battle at Flodden for Henry's son, Henry VIII. With his place secure Henry needed the Church. Through his mother he had John Fisher, Christopher Urswick, John Morton, Richard Foxe. Henry's first language was French not Welsh or English. As the Yorks were politically linked with Burgundy by marriage the Lancastrians naturally came into the orbit of the French. Anne of France the regent for her brother Charles VIII secured Henry French backing and French troops. It is said it is the professionalism of these French troops that when they were attacked and outnumbered by the Duke of Norfolk held and turned the battle in Henry's favour. Please note the only actual ennoblement for the battle itself given by Henry was to the French commander. That brings us to the next dimension, not only the recognition of one's troops, parliament, the Church particularly the Pope but the bourgeoisie, particularly in London but also of foreign rivals/powers. Jack Cade's rebellion was in recent memory and you needed the bourgeoisie on side. Henry Tudor often gets overlooked but he was maybe England's first Renaissance Man. Brought up on the continent and benefitted from Philip I cast on the English shore. He sent his son Prince Henry to accompany the Habsburg to Winchester. Henry is seen as penny-pinching but he spent the whole of England's yearly revenue on a loan to the Habsburgs paid in silver to Habsburg Netherlands. He knew the value of alliances and which way the cookie was crumbling in mainland Europe. He secured the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella for his son Arthur.
I thought Paul Murray Kendall wrote that Parliament reversed Henry's antedating of his reign. Otherwise no man would ever fight for his king. Why bother keeping your oath of loyalty to the crown if it meant you'd be executed for treason the minute some usurper won and concocted a legal devise to make you a traitor?
Oh so if even Henry had gotten the rest of France likely French would have became the official language of both parts of the combined country. The Normans had fully converted to being French from being Danes and were French speakers, Parliament was held in France in some of this period and if they got the rest of France anywhere while they still had part of France, England in effect would have became part of France. So the English can thank Joan of Arc for avoiding that fate because before she talked her way into the French court the potential French King, but not official as the English side controlled the only place a French King could be crowned, was on the ropes.
It is like asking was Queen Jane (Lady Jane Grey) really Queen? She was proclaimed Queen on 10 July 1553, but did that make her Queen? Anyway nine days later, Queen Mary was proclaimed Queen, and the rest is history.
Whether by fair means or foul, Henry 7 earned the right to the throne after defeating Dicky 3 at Bosworth Field (probably with the aid of a lot of coercion and desertion). Now - where did I put me 'orse? 😁
😂😂 Well said, Chris. One of my favorite scenes in the surreal Richard III film adaptation is Ian Mckellan screaming for a horse because his jeep wouldn't start. Oops!
More accurately when Edward the Confessor died, Harold was only his Brother-in-Law, so no more in the royal blood line than William. If Harold won the battle of Hastings I am sure he would have sought a bride from the House of Wessex for one of his sons to marry to legitimise his line.
Thank you for this incisive explanation of why anyone making a serious claim that Henry VII (or various other monarchs) weren't "rightful" rulers is simply mistaken. Also glad to take this moment to celebrate all the moments in history that led to more self-determination for the people in general and minimized the rights of powerful aristocrats to control other people's lives.
Richard overthrew his nephews, which is still a conquest/coup. The only difference is if the eldest was 12, what would he have done against his uncle? If the Ricardians recognize Richard through that coup, then Henry's coup has more power because he not only held the crown, he was also able to pass it to his son, who held it.
Yes, Edward V was really helpless against Richard III. If he'd been even two or three years older he might have stood a better chance at claiming he didn't need a minority at all and starting his direct rule immediately, but it wasn't to be. The Ricardians I believe, claim that Edward V was illegitimate and therefore Richard did not engage in a coup.
Great video! Also explains how Edward VIII was made to abdicate though you don’t touch on it. If I’m not mistaken it was Parliament that insisted a King could not marry a divorced woman, so it was them that rejected him as king.
The Church ( the then Archbishop of Canterbury) raised objections to the marriage and the same thing happened with Group Captain Townsend and Princess Margaret.
Henry Tudor, the VII, won by right of conquest. He was crowned and underwent a formal coronation. He placated the country by wisely marrying the eldest daughter of Edward IV.
I agree that Henry VII got the throne and held it, so he was the "rightful" king. As an American, I am not affected too much by the change in primogeniture laws (although I'm sure the "butterfly effect" theory could argue that a government change in one country affects us all over the globe) but it will be interesting if the aristocracy inheiritance laws follow suit in allowing the eldest to get the titles, regardless of gender.
The worry about a woman on the throne wasnt just misogyny. It was political security that the throne would be and STAY English ruled. A reigning queen marrying a monarch would invite a scary and real threat of the outside monarch usurping the throne. Succession laws would mean the child would rule for his fathers house not his mother's and the child could possibly be used to gain power for another country. So yes. Women could be great ruler. But she'd need a really great ally match with laws protecting the throne or none at all.
Worth noting that Buckingham had the better Beaufort claim than Tudor by laws of the time. That is also what made him suspect in the Princes's Disappearance
Yes I agree with your argument which is well presented and easy to follow in yet another entertaining video. One question though. I don't think you indicated this in the video, but are there surviving descendants of the Salisbury line? My apologies if this question was answered. Regards from Sydney Australia
The best decision Henry VII made to legitimatize his capture of the throne was to undo the bastardization of Edward IV surviving daughters and to marry the eldest daughter, Elizabeth. Their children had more " rights" to the throne through their mother, strengthening Henry's hold
Ireland has never had an hereditary monarchy. Our kings were warlords, the strongest warrior ruled. It changed frequently and bloody battles were a common occurrence. This is why after we won our freedom we became a Republic. We had no direct line kings and queens.
Question: Is the picture of Henry and Elizabeth's dead children unusual? I haven't seen any other portraits like that in Tudor times, but maybe I just couldn't t find them? It seems weird to me at a time Infant mortality was so high and normalised to the point we can't even find a record of the Monarchs step sister (Mary Seymour) dying, that they painted three children that died in infanthood alot older than they would have been in real life.
I have seen other portraits where dead family members were included (sometimes because they died after the portrait had already been begun), but I can't think of any others that present children who died young as adults in the way that that one does.
Doesn’t matter if he was legitimate or not. He took the throne through right of conquest. His legitimacy never needed proving. His kids however needed to be legitimate.
Look forward to watching your videos every week! Fun question: which of Henry VIII’s wives do you think you resemble the most in physical appearance? And which of his wives do you think you resemble the most in character? Thanks for another great video HC!! X
@@HistoryCalling ooo interesting! I probably resemble Jane of Catherine P the most because of my blonde hair and fair complexion, although I think they were all stunning and definitely out of Henry’s league!
Spot on, HC. People can argue forever about strength or weakness of a blood claim, but it's NOT -- as you explain so thoroughly -- the sole criterion for claiming the monarchy. I'd be a bit more sympathetic with the argument for Henry VII's "theft" if the Platagenet line hadn't been riddled with treachery. (I mean, having your brother drowned?!?! That's harsh.) It's difficult to mourn for Richard III when you know how *his* unclean hands got him onto the throne. Besides... Margaret Beaufort totally *deserved* to have her son end up as king. 😉
When The Male Line Stuarts Became Catholic,The German Hanovers Came To Throne By The Act Of Succession Barring Catholics And Those Married To Catholics From The Throne. George I Was A German,But He Was Protestant And After Queen Anne's Reign He Was Also Desirable Because He Was Male!!!
I have had people try to tell me that when Henry the 8th gave Margaret of Salisbury her title back that it means she was allowed to inherit the throne... now I don't believe that this is true... I would think that she would need an act of parliament to grant her the right to inherit... and I have never seen an act of parliament granted to her for this... we should all know by now that a title given to you does not mean you can inherit the throne or even keep the title... I also feel that at this point it doesn't matter cause then marriages and births would change and it is highly likely that the lines would of merged at some point and the line would still have blood of both lines...
Yes, I've never seen anything that suggests that Margaret was put back in the line of succession. The entire Tudor family would have had to be wiped out first.
@@HistoryCalling Over on tiktok I have had someone try to tell me that because she was given the title Countess of Salisbury back from the king that she was able to inherit the throne again simply because it was a title held by her father... but it was just one out of many titles that he had... so to me if Henry the 8th daughters needed an act of parliament to be included back in the line of succession then a traitor's daughter should definitely need one too... lol
Henry took the throne by conquest, which is the oldest and most accepted means of seizing power. He also had support of much of nobility of England . And anyway, even if he did "steal" power in 1485, what can we really do about it in 2023 ?
I spent ages lookong online to see who wpuld be the eldest legitimate descendant of lady Margret pole.. turns out it is simon Abney-Hastings, 15th Earl of Loudoun, his father was featured as the alternative monarch on a 2004 documentary Britain's Real Monarch, i watched years ago and forgot all about it Perhaps her line wpuld have been alternative if the was an issue with having a scots as a English king, maybe George hastings, 4th earl of huntingson, great grandson of Margret would have been the most senior "Plantagenet", he would have been king from march untill December 1604 The royal family could have been very different
King Henry VII was the rightful heir to the English throne after the deaths of King Edward V and Prince Richard of Shrewsbury since his biological dad was King Edward IV’s younger brother Prince Edmund, Earl of Rutland. 🎭🩰🎨
Henry VII won the throne by right of conquest. He certainly strengthened his position through his marriage to Elizabeth, but that didn’t make him king. And if Charles isn’t the rightful ruler, it isn’t because of his descent from Henry. I *would,* however, be interested in seeing who would be monarch today if the Stuart line had been able to regain the throne. Charles and James younger sister, Henrietta, the Duchess of Orleans, had legitimate children…
This is easily determined. It is Franz, Duke of Bavaria, although it would be very different had the Act of Settlement not existed + the descendants of the Stuarts allowed to inherit
Would the Anglo-Saxon kings not also have obtained the throne by conquest? So technically you’d be looking at Celtic kings/cheiftains, who we have no record of.
2 ways to legitimately sit on the throne - by inheritance or by conquest. Henry VII took it by conquest fair and square, he didnt have to marry Elizabeth for it, but the marriage to the oldest daughter of Edward IV (also on the throne by conquest) consolidated it. And he dealt with all challengers. So he was the legitimate king, regardless of the status of the Duke of Clarence or the children of Edward IV. In fact, if ppl would argue, that Henry VII was NOT legitimate, and the throne shouldve gone to the heirs of Richard III (no direct heir), Edward IV (whose eldest Henry married) or of the Duke of Clarence regardless of him and his heirs being removed from the line of succession as per the laws of the day (as in that ridiculous Tony Robinson "doc" claiming the real king of England lived in Australia) - well, then I would like for them to answer, why Henry VII and his heirs arent legitimate, yet Edward IV and his heirs were, when both men took the throne by conquest. All in all, I think, its a pointless discussion for 2 main reasons. A. He was accepted as the legitimate king according to the laws of the time, and B. he sure wasnt the first king to become king by conquest, yet hes the 1 always being discussed, no1 else. Either all kings by conquest are legitimate or none. If all kings by conquest were to be illegitimate, u would need to go back a LONG way to find a legitimate ruler of a legitimate ruling line, whose descendant should in that theory be the real monarchs today. Honestly, I dont think, u could find any. No matter, how far back u go, either they themselves were kings by conquest, or they inherited the throne by a father or other ancestor, who took the throne by conquest. But Im glad, u took the time to debunk it on this channel, its still a far too commonly spread fallacy!
Thank you and I agree. You could never find a 'pure' line of descent not tainted by conquest and as you say, even if you didn't think Henry VII should have had the throne, the person with the best claim was Elizabeth of York whose legitimately born children inherited it, so Clarence's kids really don't come into the matter.
The current heir general of the Anglo-Saxon kings (the House of Wessex) is the same line for the Jacobite claims for England after the Glorious Revolution. The heir of Wessex in the 11th century married into the Scottish monarchy (hence why Henry I was so insistenton on marrying a Scottish princess; it gave the Norman heirs/Plantagenet kings descent from the House of Wessex, though by a junior female line, and placated the Anglo-Saxon nobles in England). The Scottish kings still held the senior claim to the House of Wessex. Thus, when the Stuarts inherited England in 1603, the House of Wessex had the English crown once again. From there, it's easy to track senior lines of descent to the Jacobite claimants.
Not really. The Balliols were more senior in terms of strict primogenature than the Bruces, and they had descendants who would be more senior than the Bruce and Stewart kings of Scotland. Info is a bit scarce, but it looks like the Duke of Norfolk, through his descent from the Balliols, would actually be the senior descendant of St Margaret.
@@thomasrinschler6783 Nope. But let's both try again. Both the Balliol and the Bruce lines descended by primogeniture through David earl of Huntingdon, next eldest brother of William I of Scotland; Balliol through the youngest daughter of David's eldest daughter Margaret; Bruce via the senior line of David's next eldest daughter Isabel. The Stuarts then descended from the Bruces. Now, John Balliol's line is extinct; however, John's second eldest sister has a line surviving today, and its heir general is the current Baron Seagrave. His line does pass through the Dukes of Norfolk, but the lines diverge at the death of the 9th Duke, whose next brother left only daughters, who were barred the ducal title as it is entailed male, the 10th Duke being their male cousin by their father's next younger brother; however, they could inherit the senior claim to the House of Wessex.
No. "By Right of Conquest" is a millennial-old recognized legitimate means of obtaining the crown. Henry Tudor BEAT Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. Period. Everything else is irrelevant.
New subscriber. Just gotta say that I recoqnised the accent :) And no, I am not brittishapart from that I do have Scottish herritage (the Darling family of Prestonpans dating back to the 19th century (otherwise, Danish) so there was no cheat :). Thank you for your interesting videoes which made me subscribe, and keep up the good work :)
I'd say that even if Henry VII wasn't the rightful king, we still would have passed the statute of limitations by now! Five and a half centuries are plenty. Even though I sometimes call myself a Jacobite, it's a bit late for them, too. Once a line has been accepted for a certain length of time, it's legitimate regardless imo.
I mean....the throne has been usurped MULTIPLE times going back to the very beginning, so it doesn't really make sense to seriously debate if someone "stole" the throne.
Not very fair to Richard III. He became protector because his brother's will said so. The evidence for a prior marriage of Edward came from Bishop Stillington and was accepted by Parliament who passed Titulus Regius.
I take no issue with him wanting to be Protector. I think had he stopped there, that would have been fair enough (as long as he didn't kill Elizabeth Woodville's brother and son). As for Stillington's evidence, I just find it all a bit too convenient that he suddenly came forwards at that point and it still doesn't explain why the Princes in the Tower disappeared, why Richard never explained what had happened, produced any bodies or ordered an investigation.
@@HistoryCalling 1. He didn’t ask to be protector, his brother’s will made him protector. 2. As Stillington explained to *Parliament*, there was no reason to come forward before, only when it was a question of an illegitimate heir rising to the throne. It was Parliament who believed his testimony and passed Titulus Regius. 3. One explanation why Richard didn’t explain their disappearance was that they were still alive. Certainly, Henry did not make any accusation against Richard about their deaths. Try Tey’s “The Daughter of TIme,” a good popular treatment of these questions.
@@weemamaAlso any of the books by the late John Ashdown-Hill make a good case for the innocence of Richard III as to murdering the princes and the marriage of Edward IV to Eleanor Talbot before his ‘marriage’ to Elizabeth Woodville.
He didn't manfully conquest the throne and without the aid of his mother and treachery he, like the line he foundered would have withered and died on the vine.
Ouch. Harsh. :-) I'm not sure what 'manfully conquest the throne' means, but I will say that plenty of people who have conquered it have had help. It's impossible to take a throne without it after all and Henry fought bravely on the battlefield at Bosworth and nearly died. As for him withering and dying if he hadn't become King, I dunno about that. Henry was a real survivor who'd been in exile and successfully dodged the York's kill squads (for lack of a better term) for years, ever since his early teens. I wouldn't write him off so quickly.
Great explanation of this complicated topic, I understood the latter but was a bit fuzzy on Henry VII, the correct outcome should have been Edward IV's sons and Richard the protector, but the latter Orange and Hanoverian lines might still have happened as religion became a fourth and important factor. Of course it all should have ended with Charles I . . .))
Adam again. I think it doesn't matter too much because Henry married Elizabeth of York, who was considered to have a stronger legitimacy than him, which gave their children legitimacy points to me so Charles is the rightful king to me
Yes, that was definitely the smartest move. She couldn't have been allowed to marry elsewhere and he tied up that loose end very nicely for his children.
The romantic in me would have liked a continuation of the Yorkist line but my head goes with right by conquest. I have the same issues with who I wish had won the Battle of Hastings. Fantastic deep dive (as always).
@@HistoryCalling Yeah no, you literally just said "oh, women should only rule". disgusting feminist take and not based in reality which as a historian you should have a far more even take.
@@HistoryCalling It's funny when her opponents tried to say Elizabeth I wasn't the daughter of Henry VIII though, despite the fact she looked and acted like him!
Thank you for your reply! I came across the to me novel idea that the main reason Charles was pressured into marrying Diana was to keep Andrew away from the throne. Of course he could have found another more amenable partner but it was a long search with many rejections post Camila. The outcome may now seem inevitable but considering the marital/relationship history of the Windsors in particular and royalty in general that she became Queen is still shocking to me.
I agree that the Tudors were legitimate holders of the throne. I would compare it to the famous "artist" analogy. If a layperson sees a famous painting in a museum and announces, "That looks easy, I could have done that, so easy." Then someone counters, "But you did not. They did." :)
As a side note, it is interesting (!) that the title for prince harry chosen to mark his wedding was Sussex, the other title considered was Clarence. One of the titles inherited through his grandfather by Edward IV was Earl of Cambridge. His younger brother, of course, was Duke of Clarence and we all know how that relationship ended. The late Queen and her advisers obviously had prescience.
@@HistoryCalling you know what? I have Always wondered how they came to make the First King a King. Was ist a Battle, or a war? Or something completely different? I think this would be an amazingly interesting topic for a video. But I respect you so much I would never want to tell you how to Run your Channel. Still I have never seen anyone covering that Edit: i'm sorry for the spelling mistakes. My auto correct system is set on German. So there might appear some mistakes
One thing to remember is that when the Beauforts were legitimized by act of Parliament, they weren't specifically barred from the succession at that point (since Richard II was still king and the likelihood of them even coming close to the throne probably seemed remote at the time). It was only by personal decree by Henry IV that created that bar, which may or may not have been able to overrule an act of Parliament. So their bar from inheriting the throne was a bit shaky, and Henry VII rammed a truck right through what seemed to be a tiny loophole...
It would be wonderful to know about the descendants who didn't claim the throne but gave their DNA samples for testing. In general, do they live an aristocratic life or a typical life?
@HistoryCalling thank you. I was reading about how the Vanderbilt family fell from massive wealth to just successful and have heard that almost everyone with European heritage is in some way related to royalty. I'm fairly certain that I come from an unbroken line of peasants. Family fortunes do change.
@@ginkat1318 There's a great lecture available on RUclips about finding Richard III's remains, it's called "Solving a 500 Year Old Cold Case - with Turi King". Turi is an archaeological geneticist involved in the project and she gives a great talk about how they used DNA to confirm the remains. She mentions that a hell of a lot of people are related to Richard III.
Most Americans of English heritage are probably descended at some remove from the royal family. There must be millions of descendants. Many early English immigrants to the North American colonies were relatively ordinary people who were descended from Plantagenet royalty, for example.
My college-age child is interested in working at a museum in Northern Ireland (her biological father is from Lisburn). She's particularly interested in medieval history. Do you have any advice for a course of study or places you'd recommend she visits or people to speak with in Northern Ireland? She hopes to travel there in the next year or 2. Thanks!
Hi history calling don’t you think it would have been interesting had Anne of cleves Cathrine Howard and Catherine Parr had a kid of their own with Henry the 8 interesting question had Cathrine Howard now for the sake of this question let’s say she did cheat on Henry the 8 and she was not a virgin how come she was never pregnant did she have problems too just like Henry the 8 🤷♂️
I don't know if Katherine Howard had fertility issues, but Henry probably did by that point which explains why he never impregnated anyone again after early 1537.
Do you think Henry VII was a legitimate King and that the Windsors’ claim to the throne is good, or do you think the crown should have gone elsewhere at some point? Let me know below and remember to check out:
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Henry VII stole it.
He was as legitimate a king as any other king. History is just what happened and was written about
Probably not, but at this point its of little consequence
One could easily ask if any king is legitimate as they do not rule by the consent of the governed but of force and fiat.
I would love to see the Saxon pretender to the throne be king; but otherwise Henry VII was the legitimate king.
Did he steal the throne? Well yeah, he was a usurper- like Richard III, Edward IV, Henry IV, Stephen & William I- but "by right of conquest" _was_ a legit way to get the crown back then, so just like them, he became the legitimate king by that right. And once that happened, you couldn't just say "well, my claim is better!" & expect them to step down for you- you had to fight them. If your claim _was_ better, you did have a better chance of rallying others to your cause, & holding the throne after you took it, but simply _having_ the best claim didn't magically make you king. (Or queen, but that's another matter).
Being the “rightful” ruler involves being the person who managed to get on the throne and stay on it, and then having the proper living children, given the rules of whatever years they lived.
Yes, that's my attitude as well, though many would disagree (which I concede is absolutely their right).
What is meant by proper living children?
Legitimate I think.
Agreed 👍
@@HistoryCalling What about Richard Gloucester capturing Edvard V and his brother and then outright murdering them in the Tower so he could become and remain king? I don't see the concepts of "rightful" or "legitimate" applying in that instance. I think there has to be--or ought to be, at least--something additional in any deposition, call it morality or just "a very good reason," for the usurper to be considered "legitimate" or "rightful."
Brilliant analysis. This is a complex issue, but you explain it so well. If Henry VII wasn’t a legitimate king, neither was William the Conqueror. For that matter, none of the Saxon kings would be “legitimate” either. A lot of this comes down to the laws and customs of the times. If someone was acknowledged as monarch, crowned and anointed, they were the king or queen. It really doesn’t matter what modern day people think.
Yes, I agree. People try to retroactively apply modern laws and customs to centuries gone, but the world just worked differently then.
@@HistoryCalling
Thank you HC. Nicely done.
By the laws of the Saxons, all kings were legitimate. The Witan formally decided the next king. Up until the beginning of the 9th century, succession because of blood claim wasn’t necessarily a thing. No son in Wessex had succeeded his father really for a long time until then. Edward the Elder by blood claim was weaker, but the Witan was stacked with his father’s supporters and his cousin was killed in battle. The deposition of his niece in Mercia would not have really flied with legitimacy except by meddling in the affairs of a vassal kingdom. Aethelstan and his successors had no real claim to Northumbria except via conquest, the same with his father on annexing East Anglia. By blood claim, Harold Godwinson had none, but he was elected by the Witan.
Some of us still think Bloody Billy was illegitimate. The Harrowing of the North was hardly the act of a caring king.
Thanks to the Romans for wiping out legitimate rulers from the Gaels.
I think this is definitely a situation where possession is nine tenths of the law.
Absolutely. Couldn't have put it better myself. :-)
actually with each house and it representatives i think with possession....it made the law 10 tenths :)
they were the law til charles first pretty much
I just think it’s kinda hilarious that when Katherine Swynford’s Beaufort children were initially legitimized, they were barred from inheriting the throne; but two generations later the descendants sat on the Scottish Throne and about 4 generations later they were on the English throne.
Oh and the whole Plantagenet dynasty is descended from William the Conqueror- illegitimate. So, Henry taking the crown was fair game.
I know. It is a bit farcical. Rules are made to be broken I guess!
@@HistoryCalling Rules don't apply to the people in charge. Rules are used by the people in charge to keep everyone else from doing what the people in charge don't want them to do.
You forgot Henry IV seizing the crown from Richard II.
You nailed it.
To be fair I think one of William the Conquers descendants did marry an Anglo Saxon woman, Matilda of Scotland and she was the mother of Empress matilda and Elizabeth of York and Henry VII are descendend from her
Regarding Parliament's recognition of Henry VII's right to the throne; what would YOU do if you were faced with the prospect of DENYING that right to someone with an already victorious ARMY at his back, and a penchant for being very "unpleasant" toward people who attempt to take away what he considers to be HIS(an attitude which all the Tudors shared)?
That was also why, when Shakespeare wrote Richard III, he was very careful to paint Richard as a monster, and Henry as the next best thing to a saint! Elizabeth I, and HER successor, James I, would have taken a VERY dim view of anything which suggested that THEIR right to the throne was "questionable"
Given the whole “right by conquest” thing, a king is legitimate as long as he and his heirs can hold onto the crown basically. So yeah, Henry VII won his crown by right of conquest and it is legitimate. If they thought it was illegitimate, any one during that time could have tried to overthrow him.
Well, a few people did, but Henry was stronger than they were :-)
exactly
@@HistoryCallingwho were the ones who tried?
As an American, with ancestors who first helped to win our independence from the British Monarchy and later ancestors who helped to maintain the union in our War Between the States, I am a big believer in "governments ... deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." The UK is a Constitutional Monarchy, if I'm not mistaken, so the people's elected representatives (i.e. Parliament) have the final say in who the monarch should be, or if there should even be one. Since the King doesn't have any real power and is not even allowed to say what he REALLY thinks about governmental matters, I think the statement on the Royal website accurately states the situation: Parliament decides. If the British people still want to give staggering wealth and lots of pretty clothes, jewels and property to one family just so they can go around opening hospitals and naming battleships, attracting tourism, and holding huge parties for visiting heads of state, then that appears to be most of the people's preference at the moment. What "should have happened" at any time in the past is not relevant. It is 2023 (at least for a few weeks more), and what the citizens of the UK want in this day and age is what counts. Let us hope that right is never taken from them, or from us, by force.
Yes, I agree a constitutional monarchy is best. Absolutist governments never end well for anyone.
You may be right about a lot of this, but I think it's a bit of a grey area that Parliament has the right to abolish the monarchy. Every Act of Parliament requires the consent of the monarch to become law, so a reigning monarch could in theory refuse to allow the abolition of the monarchy, even if it has gone through both houses. And, of course, the armed forces swear allegiance to the King, not to Parliament.
@@lelnewc Well, we'll just have to hope that never (again) gets put to the test! I would say it still depends on the consent of the governed as to whether Parliament and the army would continue to abide by those two points. But that's how the people want it to be for now.
@@lelnewc I don't think the chain of command for the armed forces goes up to the monarch without passing through the Ministry of Defence. If this is the real situation it means that even though the monarch is nominally the head of the armed forces he does not have the communication lines to issue orders that will allow the exercise of that role and overpower the will of Parliament.
There is also an increasing movement to abolish the monarchy. There are now people willing to demonstrate their views on this by holding signs saying "Not my king" at various royal events. Polls show that since 2011 support for the monarchy has fallen steadily and at the same time support for a republic is growing. The problem for a modern monarchy is that they can be scrutinised by anybody who wants to look at modern media and a lot of people seem to find the "royal" family to be left wanting by this visibility.
Your ancestors did not, stop the cap.
Henry was apparently the last Lancastrian male who had any right to claim the throne. On the Yorkist side (disregarding whoever was the male with the best right) Edwards eldest daughter Elizabeth had the closest claim to the throne, her two brothers being regarded as most likely deceased. As Henry and Elizabeth married, their children inherited both their claims to the throne. Also, Henry won the throne by right of conquest.
Once King Henry VI was dead, the nearest Lancastrian heir was the King of Portugal, descended from King Henry IV's sister Phillipa. That is why Rchard III wa seeking a Portuguese bride after the death of Anne Neville.
@@neilbuckley1613 Which was why the Lancastrians settled on Henry's claim, despite the problems with the Beauforts' illegitimate birth - no one was going to rise up to put a foreign ruler on the throne. It's interesting that some of the other sisters of Henry IV had descendants living in England, but none really came forward to stake a claim over Henry Tudor.
Another entry I have to watch at least twice to soak up the rich detail, HC. Whew! Sorry to be a bit late today. Just back from the vet again with Lukas. He's got his spark back after surgery but we'll have to wait on the oncologist. 🤞
THANK YOU AS ALWAYS STEPHEN and I'm glad to hear Lukas is doing better. I hope he continues to improve very quickly :-)
@@HistoryCalling 🙏🏼
Glad to hear your pal is ok. 🤗
This makes me think of what would've happened if Matilda was able to take the throne instead of Henry II.
Ah, now there's a big historical what if. Of course, it ended up going to her son, so it's possible things would have stayed mostly the same in the long run.
@@HistoryCalling That's fair.
@@HistoryCalling isn't Henry II Matilda's son?
It seems that, at the end of the day, Matilda was just as happy to agree to the arrangement that her son would become the first Plantagenet king. She didn't seem to have the energy or the influence to keep on fighting to get the throne for herself, if I correctly recall what historians have written about it.
@@Moominrose Oh my! You're right! My bad! I was thinking of Stephen.
A king or queen's right to wear the crown is only as strong their grip on it. If someone stronger comes along to wrench it from their grasp...or take it from off their dead skull, then as far as I'm concerned, they won the crown by conquest, and it's theirs. The line between usurper and rightful monarch usually comes down to which side of that line we find ourselves on.
Exactly. It's a 'winner takes it all' situation for sure.
@@HistoryCalling Very "Game of Thrones" of me, to be sure.
Absolutely. You can see why GRRM modelled the story after this period.
“You win or you die.”
Note somewhere at least the TV script writers forgot some Royal Blood was required. I found it very strange as the start first season of Game of Thrones hammers home how key having royal blood was. The Conqueror of Westross claimed their royal blood from Country which Westross was a Tributary to before it fell (sort of Rome of the story) Right of Conquest still required royal blood of some sort by this period. In all this mess including our history order of succession could be changed but you had to have royal blood and depending it was not required it be royal blood of your country just someones. @@HistoryCalling
If Anne ( Richard’s sister)’s line had been on the throne, none of her descendants who exist today would exist because Anne’s descendants would have married and had children with completely different people.
Yes, that's true. You can't tug on a thread of history like that without the whole thing unravelling.
Right, and if their line had died out, then what?
That is a really good point about a lot of these claims to the succession. Sitting monarchs would make entirely different (and more prestigious) marriage alliances for their heirs than the wannabes would be able to arrange. So none of these "what if" people would probably exist.
I love your content so much - the history is interesting and academically factual, your commentary is well-placed and a nice mix if snark and humor, and I find your voice soothing.
Haha, thank you. I'm glad the snark doesn't go too far though. Sometimes I am rolling my eyes at what people say about events and people now gone, but I try not to let it show too much in the final video.
I watched one of your older videos recently and was struck by how much less annoyed you sounded then than in your recent ones.
Thanks! You constantly fire up my passion for history. My dream job is to work in history in some form, and these videos keep my drive going.
THANK YOU SO MUCH AARON for your generous donation and kind words. My only advice about working in history is to probably steer clear of academia. It's a tough old life and very hard to get into.
Thank you for this laudably clear and well presented video. To deny Henry's accession to the throne by right of conquest is to ignore the practical realities of his day. Charles III's succession is the result of the development of a long and complicated relationship between the throne and Parliament. (There is a good book dealing with this topic, "The Right to be King: The Succession to the Crown of England, 1603-1714" by Howard Nenner, which might interest you, if you haven't run across it already.)
If anyone else is old enough to remember the movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid": "Rules? What rules?"
Thanks Edith. Yes, it's not wise to try to apply our modern laws and customs to times gone by.
I definitely remember Paul Newman and Robert Redford in that great film. And the lovely "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head."
I have Nenner's book. It is perfect reading for this topic although it is mainly concerned with the succession under the Stuarts to the Hanoverians.
I always find it interesting that through William the Conqueror's wife, Matilda, there is descent from Alfred the Great (a daughter of Alfred's married Baldwin II of Flanders who Matilda descended from).
Definitely agree with you. I honestly don't see how people are still questioning the legitimacy of the Tudors or the Hanoverians. As you said, if one chooses not to recognise monarchs by conquest, then you must return to the heirs of the Anglo Saxon Kings and then everything falls apart.
Exactly and while I've never really looked into the Anglo-Saxons, I bet some of them got their crowns by nefarious means as well.
@HistoryCalling, oh some did, yes . ( Anglo saxons) I think Alfred the great. His nephew he was declared king by a council of nobleman. Several of the other kingdoms had bloody civil wars over succession disputes in family's.
@@shanenolan5625 Anglo-Saxon kings were elected by the Witan, and there were definitely some shenanigans if I remember correctly. In other words if you had a lot of support among the nobles who made up the Witan you could get the crown, which is how Harold Godwinson got it. I believe the best claimant by blood at that point was actually Harald Hardrada? The first one to lose the claim and his life!
@iriandia yes witen . I used council of Nobels alfred waa older more competent and had military victorys and government experience. Unlike the nephew. If the son inherited a witen would still confirm him .
@@shanenolan5625 yeah I feel like they just tried to make sure the crown went to a grown man and not a child, to make sure the realm was in strong hands. Which this story sort of confirms, because the princes in the tower got their throne (and their lives) stolen by their uncle. The Anglo-Saxons probably would have done it that way anyway, and made Richard king. Of course Henry taking it would have been the same in the end.
An excellent, intelligent and thorough analysis. Conquest and Parliament are two significant factors in the inheritance of the throne, equally if not more important than blood, as the presenter demonstrates. Well done!
Certainly a deep Complex subject HC, as you explained so eloquently parliament decides, you have waded through it brilliantly as always, thank you HC for another gem of a subject. 😊👏
Thanks Simon. Yes, it was a lot of royal houses to get through in a pretty short period of time. It was quite the mental workout assembling it all.
Well done for your comments on the nature of monarchy - too many people go on about 'rightful monarchs' but the fact is, as you state, even 500 years or more ago, this was dependent on the support of others in positions of power
Interesting to note also that the 1936 Abdication Act barred Edward VIII / Duke of Windsor's descendants from the throne. Another example of parliamentary say-so. Ultimately they didn't have any anyway but still.
I didn't know that actually. I suppose they had to do that though or there could have been an awful mess if he'd gone on to reproduce.
Picturing some seriously chic toddlers with little cigarette cases...
They probably added that, coz George VI only had daughters. And ofc, to avoid that Edward tried a takesy-backsy!
if he did have children, it would've been unclear where his children were in line. didn't matter anyways, so he had no children
If he'd named his kids after his fondest heroes, we could have had a King Adolf.
I've read a great deal about this period so was interested to see how you presented it. Must say that it's exceptionally clear and even handed to all the different theories of succession. (also have to say that you have a beautiful & melodious speaking voice!) Look forward to your next offerings!
Thank you so much. I'm glad you enjoyed it :-)
Fantastic video! I love how informative and well - researched you are. Would you consider doing a similar video on Henry IV deposing Richard II? I find it fascinating and sad. Whatever one thinks of Richard II, starving him to death was barbaric.
Yes! I'd love to know more about the Lancasters taking the throne!
Yes, I've been meaning to get to that actually. I don't know that much about it, but it sounds interesting. People don't seem to like my medieval videos though which is rather annoying (excepting the Wars of the Roses).
@@HistoryCalling OMG, I'd be stoked if you did! That's just me though, in the Mediaeval-loving minority. I'm glad people appreciate the Wars of the Roses stuff at least, & this topic is very closely tied to it, even though it occurred half a century beforehand. Years ago when I knew nothing, I legit thought it was "round 1" of the WoR, cos it was when Lancaster first took the throne. 🤦♀
@@HistoryCalling I hope people do come to love them one day. I myself have found a new and healthy respect for medieval culture and history. I used to not give it a second glance, but in the last few weeks, I actually started paying attention to it more. Not gonna lie, probably a result of the historical fiction I’m reading.
@@HistoryCallingThat's really frustrating. They don't know what a fascinating period of history they are missing out on!
Henry VII won the throne the exact same way William the Conqueror did. Conquest, then strategic marriages to a daughter of the previous dynasty. If the Tudors are illegitimate so was Richard III’s entire line. If William the Conqueror is illegitimate, so is the entire Plantagenet line that claimed rights through his granddaughter. The first Plantagenet king did practically exactly what Henry VII did: gained an army, fought a war against his uncle, became heir and married a strategically important woman. Henry I’s wife wasn’t even English so if anything he had less of a claim through her. He was just the female line grandson of a deposed king. If Henry VII’s maternal claim to the throne was illegitimate, so was Henry I’s. His only claim was through his mother.
The first Plantagenet king was Henry II. Henry I married a Scottish princess whose mother was a member of the Anglo-Saxon Royal family
As far as I'm concerned, the throne belongs to whoever can acquire it and keep it with parliament's approval. Henry VII won it fair and square, so it should stay in his family until someone else manages to take it, if that ever happens.
Being monarch isn't that much of an interesting or exciting job these days, anyway, so I doubt many people would particularly want the crown. It might as well stay where it is.
I agree. I wouldn't want that job. It looks like a nightmare of a fishbowl to me.
Like in 1688, when James VII/II was deposed. Both the English + Scottish parliaments declared that he had abdicated, + elected James’ eldest daughter Mary + her husband William as joint sovereigns. This was a compromise because William didn’t want to rule by conquest, while Mary had no desire to be queen.
Great explanation of the succession. Henry VII seems to have had the most legitimate claim and a better claim than many of the people who have held it since even though they are all related. It’s all very messy which makes the period so interesting.
It is indeed very messy, but as you say, that's what makes it interesting and a good debate. :-)
Great episode. This is something I wondered about myself & u explained it very well. It was a case of grab the throne & hang on. There may be other claimants out there but I’m sure they know they have no chance of ever getting their hands on the crown.
Thanks. Yes, the biggest bully won basically.
This channel’s truly a great find. Narrative, narrator & editing, brilliant. Thanx x 10! Sad no one ever mentions Henry’s older brother who died of fever.
Henry VII was a singleton. HC has a video about the death of his son Arthur's funeral.
How important to Henry's claim do you think it was that his father, Edmund Tudor, while lacking any English royal blood himself, was a maternal half-brother of Henry VI and thus, along with his brother Jasper, had been made an earl and treated like part of the extended Lancastrian royal family? Certainly this was the basis on which Edmund was given the wardship and then the hand in marriage of such an important heiress as Margaret Beaufort. But given Edmund's early death before Henry was even born, did any of this quasi-royal status continue to attach to Henry in the years before 1485? He was, after all, genuinely Henry VI's nephew. So, was Henry Tudor perceived as a significant Lancastrian because of both his parents, rather than just his mother?
I don't think it helped him get the English throne, but being part of the extended French royal family may have at least give him greater kudos as a nobleman in general. I've never seen any source in which he discussed his French royal connections though, so I'm just speculating. Obviously he lived a big chunk of his life in France and must have spoken the language fluently, so I wonder if he felt attached in some way to his grandmother's homeland (not that that stopped him fighting with the French).
Thanks!
THANK YOU SO MUCH WENDY. Hope you enjoyed this week's offering :-)
Let’s be honest. “Rightful” has just as much if not more to do with their ability to hold the crown as anything else.
On another note, I think Henry VII was one of the more underrated kings in English history and I am amazed he does not attract the same kind of attention that his son and granddaughters do.
Henry vii was in no way as flamboyant as Henry viii. When it comes to tv or movies Henry vii provides less opportunity for BIG BIG DRAMATIC LIECENCE.
He's my second-favorite Tudor (although he hasn't exactly got steep competition lol).
It could be argued the current british monarch has some of the best royal lineage out there. His great grandfather (several times) isnt just henry vii but longshanks, william the conqueror, alfred the great.. Not to mention several other great monarchs across europe. Impressive stuff. I always hear the argument but not only is it pointless, as history played itself out according to the circumstances, but the lineage you can trace back over a thousand years.
Well- no, he had little right to the throne, but taking the throne by force made one ruler, if one was able to keep it. His mariage to Bessy of York made, in my opinion, his children better claimants for the Kingship (or Queenship :). The Yorks were an utter internal mess, and, had they been a single unit, might've stayed on the throne for longer, but they each wanted the crown for themselves, leading to their downfall.
For me, the truly rightbul claimants to the throne, given context and the fact that the Lancastrian takeover the throne had happened more than half a century prior, were Henry VI and his son Edward of Westminster. Have a nice weekend :)
Yes, the Yorks really were a mess. If only they'd stuck together they'd have been unstoppable. No one could really mess with them except each other. A classic example of the veracity of the phrase 'united we stand, divided we fall'.
Hello friend, I just got done watching A two hour long video on the Chinese monarchy.
Oh gosh, that was quite a commitment! Well done.
@@HistoryCalling You didn't reply to my fourth comment.
@@DarthDread-oh2ne Hi. Interesting! Where can one find it?👀👀
Details, lady! Details matter! By 1483, it was the custom in England for the eldest male relative of a deceased king to be the Lord Protector of a minor king. That would be Richard, in this case. From York to London, he was accepted as such, and the Three Estates affirmed it.
Indeed, while England used the term "Protector", Richard's true, legal powers were that of a European regent.
What some historians conveniently omit is the fact that, in the spring and early summer of 1483, Richard still held the role of Admiral of England (navy), and Lord High Constable. He had held these roles for the past 14 years and was widely considered a very fair and just judge and administrator. As constable, Richard was entrused to act as police, trial lawyer, and judge in any treasonable act. For example, an act against the Lord Protector was an act of treason; so, if Rivers and Grey were conspiring against Richard in Northumberland - which his spies would have informed him about - Richard was legally responsible for arresting and executing them.
Kind of interesting about Elizabeth I. Though she was definitely Henry VIII's daughter (she acted and looked like him more than her two siblings), not only was she conceived out of wedlock (December 1532), but her parents were married in January 1533 while Henry was still married to Catherine of Aragon (that marriage did not end until May 1533). Thus, her opponents asserted that Elizabeth was an illegitimately conceived child who was in utero while her father was a bigamist!
Yes, I have a video on her legitimacy status actually and I basically agree that she was illegitimate for most of her life. Henry altered England's laws to make her legitimate at birth, but then reversed her status at the age of two and she was never legitimate again after that. It just goes to show that legitimacy really has no bearing on whether one can do the job or not.
Both Mary I and Elizabeth I succeeded to the throne technically as illegitimate. They succeeded to the throne on the basis of the Third Succession Act of Henry VIII.
OK so it's right of conquest. But what about the blatant murder of children? Is there no element of illegitimacy with such actions? After all, you could argue that men in battle have a fighting chance. But little kids?
@@matthewturner2803 Mary went and legitimized herself, I believe. Elizabeth never alluded to the subject.
@@edithengel2284 Yes that is correct.
" Increasingly the system was becoming reliant on a combination of blood, parliamentary recognition and occasional conquest". That statement by HC in yet another excellent discussion sums everything up perfectly.
No doubt Henry VII's claim to the throne was very weak. But back then during the era of the Wars of The Roses, it was "winner take all". Besides before Henry VII there had already been several usurpations. William the Conqueror wasn't exactly "Legit" either. (blood/Occasional conquest)
King Charles III is a direct descendant of Queen Victoria and through her to the Hanoverians who came over from Germany after Queen Anne died childless. Anne was the last of the Stewarts who came from Scotland when the last of the Tudors, Elizabeth I died childless. (parliamentary recognition)
Another great video, HC. As you say, the succession goes to whomever in power says it goes to. And that's all she wrote!
Precisely. It was more about how big your army was than who your daddy might have been. :-)
I seriously wonder how people kept track of anyone's names with how there seemed to be like 3-4 total names for men and women every era. The titles must've been really helpful in that regard. The only pro with everyone having the same name is that if you can't remember someone's name you have a 25% shot of getting right XD
Lol, this is very like my late father’s family. So many Paul’s and Richards. Nicknames all round. Little Paul, Dick from Aimee’s. Otherwise no one knows who you’re talking about.
Yes, that's very true. I always find the number of Edwards, Prince of Wales to be particularly confusing along with the fact the Edward IV's father and son were both called Richard, Duke of York and EIV also had a brother, stepson and nephew called Richard too. Just manic!
Hence surnames became essential ( they werent common before the late Middle Ages)
Elizabeth Woodville eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York. Her great granddaughter Elizabeth I.
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and her daughter Queen Elizabeth II. Lots of Elizabeths
Not as confusing as the Kings of France with 16 or 17 all named Louis
@@SheilaRough Isabelle and Isabella are Elizabeth in French and Spanish too
I think he did but
he married one of Edward IV's daughter and assuming the "Little Princes" were not living, I think his children were in line for the throne.
Yes, he did tie everything up in quite a neat little bow with that marriage.
@@HistoryCalling I wonder if it was a love match from the beginning, or if it wasn't until later years that it became so? I believe I read that Henry VII was devastated when Elizabeth of York died giving birth to the baby they'd conceived after Arthur's death.
@@EarlyMusicDiva
It probably wasn’t a love match from the beginning, Henry VII promised to marry Elizabeth of York while still in France.
Also- as the video says, all sides of the family was killing each other so Elizabeth probably had some qualms.
This was a fantastic no-nonsense, common sense approach to this issue. Being American, I don’t really care or have a say, but I do find claims that someone else is rightful monarch to be a little silly. After all, the people they’re arguing against actually held the throne, which trumps all the what ifs. It’s an interesting thought experiment to look at how things might have gone differently, but nothing more than that.
On another note, it would be interesting if you could do a video about the women who were able to inherit titles in their own right. I know it’s not many, but I think I’ve read about a few who were able to. I actually thought of this a few weeks but forgot to suggest it but then you brought it up here and I remembered.
That is an interesting idea, though as you say such women (excluding Queens regnant) were few and far between. Actually Queens regnant are few and far between as well...
Great suggestion!
I think some very old titles in England and Scotland were allowed to pass through the female line in the absence of a male heir. In England the earldom of Arundel and the original Eaeldom of Warwick [ which terminated with Edward son of Clarence mentioned in the video. In Scotland I think the earldoms of Mar and Sutherland can pass through the female ine.@@HistoryCalling
Got to love: "bouncing back and forth like a ping-pong ball!" You're turn of phrase never ceases to amuse me! ❤😂❤
Fun fact: In Vietnam, all the ruling dynasties initially started by right of conquest
I didn't know that, but I bet it's the same in many countries. Humans simply can't function without a bit of conquest here and there, even today.
Fascinating and one of my favorites of all of your many videos that I've watched! You really did a great job of mapping out how the British and later the U.K. monarchy's succession twists and turns has worked. Thank you!
You mentioned that ultimately who sits on the throne is up to Parliament (a lesson that Charles I (for one, never quite understood), so if the Parliament of his time validated Henry's usurpation of the throne (which is basically what it was), who are we to argue?! 😊
Richard Duke of York originally never claimed the throne. The battles of First St. Albans, Blore Heath and Ludford Bridge were about getting rid of counsellors. That changed at Northampton after which he claimed the throne and a pliant Westminster concocted a plan that would achieve it. He was on tenuous grounds because his own father Richard of Conisbrough was executed for his treason against Henry V in the Southampton Plot.
Principally you needed military might, first and foremost. To get people to risk their lives for you you needed to be next to them in wars. This precluded most females. If a female proved herself to be an Amazon like Boudicca, she passes the test.
Queen Philippa of Hainault the wife of Edward III probably came closest to it at Neville's Cross?
This went for males too, you had to prove yourself, Edward the Black Prince at 16 at Crecy, Henry of Monmouth at 16 at Shrewsbury and Edward of Westminster at 17 at Tewkesbury.
The latter prince had no brothers should the worst come to the worst and it was foolhardy for those around him to let him enter the field.
You could say the same about Henry VII at Bosworth. He was risking it all on a moonshot.
He was seriously outnumbered and outgunned, even with the Stanleys with the third army, he was still outnumbered.
Right of Conquest won him the day but his own political acumen learnt off his mother, possibly the sharpest tool in the Tudor box - ever, secured his crown, politically. One of the first things he did was to ante-date his claim to the day before the battle. This ensured those who opposed him were traitors.
John Howard the Duke of Norfolk sadly fell leading one of Richard III's three "battailes". His son Thomas Howard the Earl of Surrey was wounded and captured but showed loyalty to the new house and his titles were gradually restored and as High Admiral of England defeated the Scots in the last medieval battle at Flodden for Henry's son, Henry VIII.
With his place secure Henry needed the Church. Through his mother he had John Fisher, Christopher Urswick, John Morton, Richard Foxe.
Henry's first language was French not Welsh or English. As the Yorks were politically linked with Burgundy by marriage the Lancastrians naturally came into the orbit of the French. Anne of France the regent for her brother Charles VIII secured Henry French backing and French troops. It is said it is the professionalism of these French troops that when they were attacked and outnumbered by the Duke of Norfolk held and turned the battle in Henry's favour. Please note the only actual ennoblement for the battle itself given by Henry was to the French commander.
That brings us to the next dimension, not only the recognition of one's troops, parliament, the Church particularly the Pope but the bourgeoisie, particularly in London but also of foreign rivals/powers.
Jack Cade's rebellion was in recent memory and you needed the bourgeoisie on side.
Henry Tudor often gets overlooked but he was maybe England's first Renaissance Man. Brought up on the continent and benefitted from Philip I cast on the English shore. He sent his son Prince Henry to accompany the Habsburg to Winchester.
Henry is seen as penny-pinching but he spent the whole of England's yearly revenue on a loan to the Habsburgs paid in silver to Habsburg Netherlands. He knew the value of alliances and which way the cookie was crumbling in mainland Europe. He secured the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella for his son Arthur.
I thought Paul Murray Kendall wrote that Parliament reversed Henry's antedating of his reign. Otherwise no man would ever fight for his king. Why bother keeping your oath of loyalty to the crown if it meant you'd be executed for treason the minute some usurper won and concocted a legal devise to make you a traitor?
Oh so if even Henry had gotten the rest of France likely French would have became the official language of both parts of the combined country. The Normans had fully converted to being French from being Danes and were French speakers, Parliament was held in France in some of this period and if they got the rest of France anywhere while they still had part of France, England in effect would have became part of France. So the English can thank Joan of Arc for avoiding that fate because before she talked her way into the French court the potential French King, but not official as the English side controlled the only place a French King could be crowned, was on the ropes.
It is like asking was Queen Jane (Lady Jane Grey) really Queen? She was proclaimed Queen on 10 July 1553, but did that make her Queen? Anyway nine days later, Queen Mary was proclaimed Queen, and the rest is history.
Whether by fair means or foul, Henry 7 earned the right to the throne after defeating Dicky 3 at Bosworth Field (probably with the aid of a lot of coercion and desertion). Now - where did I put me 'orse? 😁
Haha, yes, I think so too, though I know a lot would disagree with us (as it their right of course).
Even offering his kingdom for a horse put him in his grave under a car park.
😂😂 Well said, Chris. One of my favorite scenes in the surreal Richard III film adaptation is Ian Mckellan screaming for a horse because his jeep wouldn't start. Oops!
I haven't seen that one. Sounds funny though :-)
@@HistoryCalling It's a wild ride. The bard's play is transposed to 1930s England. McKellan does some exquisite chew-the-furniture acting.
Love how you present the argument clearly and anticipate conquering evidence!
If the Tudors had no right to the Throne, than neither did the Plantagenets, or Normans. Legitimacy died in 1066 with Harold Godwinson's death.
Maybe even before that. I don't know much about the Anglo-Saxons, but I'll bet some of them got their crowns thanks to some dodgy tactics.
@@HistoryCalling Exactly, succession is messy and the House of Wessex through Cerdic were conquerors as well coming from Modern Germany.
More accurately when Edward the Confessor died, Harold was only his Brother-in-Law, so no more in the royal blood line than William. If Harold won the battle of Hastings I am sure he would have sought a bride from the House of Wessex for one of his sons to marry to legitimise his line.
Thank you for this incisive explanation of why anyone making a serious claim that Henry VII (or various other monarchs) weren't "rightful" rulers is simply mistaken. Also glad to take this moment to celebrate all the moments in history that led to more self-determination for the people in general and minimized the rights of powerful aristocrats to control other people's lives.
Richard overthrew his nephews, which is still a conquest/coup.
The only difference is if the eldest was 12, what would he have done against his uncle? If the Ricardians recognize Richard through that coup, then Henry's coup has more power because he not only held the crown, he was also able to pass it to his son, who held it.
Yes, Edward V was really helpless against Richard III. If he'd been even two or three years older he might have stood a better chance at claiming he didn't need a minority at all and starting his direct rule immediately, but it wasn't to be. The Ricardians I believe, claim that Edward V was illegitimate and therefore Richard did not engage in a coup.
Great video! Also explains how Edward VIII was made to abdicate though you don’t touch on it. If I’m not mistaken it was Parliament that insisted a King could not marry a divorced woman, so it was them that rejected him as king.
The Church ( the then Archbishop of Canterbury) raised objections to the marriage and the same thing happened with Group Captain Townsend and Princess Margaret.
Henry Tudor, the VII, won by right of conquest. He was crowned and underwent a formal coronation. He placated the country by wisely marrying the eldest daughter of Edward IV.
Yup, that about sums it up :-)
I agree that Henry VII got the throne and held it, so he was the "rightful" king. As an American, I am not affected too much by the change in primogeniture laws (although I'm sure the "butterfly effect" theory could argue that a government change in one country affects us all over the globe) but it will be interesting if the aristocracy inheiritance laws follow suit in allowing the eldest to get the titles, regardless of gender.
Right, if the crown had not gone to the Hanoverians, what would have happened to the English colonies in North America?
Good question. A more competent King than George III might have been able to hold on the Americas.
Yes, I'm a little surprised the aristocracy hasn't followed suit yet.
The worry about a woman on the throne wasnt just misogyny. It was political security that the throne would be and STAY English ruled. A reigning queen marrying a monarch would invite a scary and real threat of the outside monarch usurping the throne. Succession laws would mean the child would rule for his fathers house not his mother's and the child could possibly be used to gain power for another country. So yes. Women could be great ruler. But she'd need a really great ally match with laws protecting the throne or none at all.
Worth noting that Buckingham had the better Beaufort claim than Tudor by laws of the time.
That is also what made him suspect in the Princes's Disappearance
Yes I agree with your argument which is well presented and easy to follow in yet another entertaining video. One question though. I don't think you indicated this in the video, but are there surviving descendants of the Salisbury line? My apologies if this question was answered. Regards from Sydney Australia
Yes, there are some very distant descendants I believe. I don't think they want the throne though.
I believe the bottom line is that the sovereign is whomever parliament says it is.
Hi HC Great video, I do agree with you. Henry V11 was the legitimate King. Thank you looking forward to next week's video.
Thanks Vernon. See you then :-)
Splendidly written and presented. Entirely convincing. How rare to see a video on RUclips so logically and lucidly argued. Who is this woman?
The best decision Henry VII made to legitimatize his capture of the throne was to undo the bastardization of Edward IV surviving daughters and to marry the eldest daughter, Elizabeth. Their children had more " rights" to the throne through their mother, strengthening Henry's hold
Yes, absolutely. That was always his plan of course. He promised to marry Elizabeth even while he was still in exile.
Ireland has never had an hereditary monarchy. Our kings were warlords, the strongest warrior ruled. It changed frequently and bloody battles were a common occurrence. This is why after we won our freedom we became a Republic. We had no direct line kings and queens.
Question: Is the picture of Henry and Elizabeth's dead children unusual? I haven't seen any other portraits like that in Tudor times, but maybe I just couldn't t find them? It seems weird to me at a time Infant mortality was so high and normalised to the point we can't even find a record of the Monarchs step sister (Mary Seymour) dying, that they painted three children that died in infanthood alot older than they would have been in real life.
I have seen other portraits where dead family members were included (sometimes because they died after the portrait had already been begun), but I can't think of any others that present children who died young as adults in the way that that one does.
Doesn’t matter if he was legitimate or not. He took the throne through right of conquest. His legitimacy never needed proving. His kids however needed to be legitimate.
Look forward to watching your videos every week! Fun question: which of Henry VIII’s wives do you think you resemble the most in physical appearance? And which of his wives do you think you resemble the most in character?
Thanks for another great video HC!! X
Hmm, probably Anne Boleyn in appearance. I don't know about character. Maybe AB or Catherine Parr, as they both liked learning new things and so do I.
@@HistoryCalling ooo interesting! I probably resemble Jane of Catherine P the most because of my blonde hair and fair complexion, although I think they were all stunning and definitely out of Henry’s league!
I think I am probably most like the Flanders Mare, Anne of Cleves LOL in character too, I think I would try to fly under the radar and keep my head
Thank you for making the contemporary rules of kingship clear and highlighting that resets happened.
Spot on, HC. People can argue forever about strength or weakness of a blood claim, but it's NOT -- as you explain so thoroughly -- the sole criterion for claiming the monarchy.
I'd be a bit more sympathetic with the argument for Henry VII's "theft" if the Platagenet line hadn't been riddled with treachery. (I mean, having your brother drowned?!?! That's harsh.) It's difficult to mourn for Richard III when you know how *his* unclean hands got him onto the throne.
Besides... Margaret Beaufort totally *deserved* to have her son end up as king. 😉
Yes, none of them were angels for sure and whatever else we can say about Henry VII, he never had the stain of 'child killer' hanging over him.
And, of course, bloodline was conveniently overlooked when the "wrong" religion became a factor.
When The Male Line Stuarts Became Catholic,The German Hanovers Came To Throne By The Act Of Succession Barring Catholics And Those Married To Catholics From The Throne. George I Was A German,But He Was Protestant And After Queen Anne's Reign He Was Also Desirable Because He Was Male!!!
Yes, H7 was legitimate. I can't think of a way to more cleanly and precisely detail why, than what you did with this post. Well done. Love your work.
I have had people try to tell me that when Henry the 8th gave Margaret of Salisbury her title back that it means she was allowed to inherit the throne... now I don't believe that this is true... I would think that she would need an act of parliament to grant her the right to inherit... and I have never seen an act of parliament granted to her for this... we should all know by now that a title given to you does not mean you can inherit the throne or even keep the title... I also feel that at this point it doesn't matter cause then marriages and births would change and it is highly likely that the lines would of merged at some point and the line would still have blood of both lines...
Yes, I've never seen anything that suggests that Margaret was put back in the line of succession. The entire Tudor family would have had to be wiped out first.
@@HistoryCalling Over on tiktok I have had someone try to tell me that because she was given the title Countess of Salisbury back from the king that she was able to inherit the throne again simply because it was a title held by her father... but it was just one out of many titles that he had... so to me if Henry the 8th daughters needed an act of parliament to be included back in the line of succession then a traitor's daughter should definitely need one too... lol
Henry took the throne by conquest, which is the oldest and most accepted means of seizing power. He also had support of much of nobility of England . And anyway, even if he did "steal" power in 1485, what can we really do about it in 2023 ?
even if he did steal power, he was married to the York heiress, Elizabeth
Exactly. :-)
Great video once again, its so interesting
Thanks Lulu. It has a little bit of everything from the Plantagenets to the Windsors.
I spent ages lookong online to see who wpuld be the eldest legitimate descendant of lady Margret pole.. turns out it is simon Abney-Hastings, 15th Earl of Loudoun, his father was featured as the alternative monarch on a 2004 documentary Britain's Real Monarch, i watched years ago and forgot all about it
Perhaps her line wpuld have been alternative if the was an issue with having a scots as a English king, maybe George hastings, 4th earl of huntingson, great grandson of Margret would have been the most senior "Plantagenet", he would have been king from march untill December 1604
The royal family could have been very different
I bet Lord Loudoun doesn't fancy the job though. It's quite the fishbowl to live in.
@@HistoryCalling yes ma'am, I think being on the opposite side the world kinda tells us he doesn't intend to claim the thone by conquest
King Henry VII was the rightful heir to the English throne after the deaths of King Edward V and Prince Richard of Shrewsbury since his biological dad was King Edward IV’s younger brother Prince Edmund, Earl of Rutland. 🎭🩰🎨
Henry VII won the throne by right of conquest. He certainly strengthened his position through his marriage to Elizabeth, but that didn’t make him king. And if Charles isn’t the rightful ruler, it isn’t because of his descent from Henry.
I *would,* however, be interested in seeing who would be monarch today if the Stuart line had been able to regain the throne. Charles and James younger sister, Henrietta, the Duchess of Orleans, had legitimate children…
Good question. I don't know about Henrietta's descendants.
This is easily determined. It is Franz, Duke of Bavaria, although it would be very different had the Act of Settlement not existed + the descendants of the Stuarts allowed to inherit
Would the Anglo-Saxon kings not also have obtained the throne by conquest? So technically you’d be looking at Celtic kings/cheiftains, who we have no record of.
2 ways to legitimately sit on the throne - by inheritance or by conquest. Henry VII took it by conquest fair and square, he didnt have to marry Elizabeth for it, but the marriage to the oldest daughter of Edward IV (also on the throne by conquest) consolidated it. And he dealt with all challengers. So he was the legitimate king, regardless of the status of the Duke of Clarence or the children of Edward IV.
In fact, if ppl would argue, that Henry VII was NOT legitimate, and the throne shouldve gone to the heirs of Richard III (no direct heir), Edward IV (whose eldest Henry married) or of the Duke of Clarence regardless of him and his heirs being removed from the line of succession as per the laws of the day (as in that ridiculous Tony Robinson "doc" claiming the real king of England lived in Australia) - well, then I would like for them to answer, why Henry VII and his heirs arent legitimate, yet Edward IV and his heirs were, when both men took the throne by conquest.
All in all, I think, its a pointless discussion for 2 main reasons.
A. He was accepted as the legitimate king according to the laws of the time, and
B. he sure wasnt the first king to become king by conquest, yet hes the 1 always being discussed, no1 else. Either all kings by conquest are legitimate or none. If all kings by conquest were to be illegitimate, u would need to go back a LONG way to find a legitimate ruler of a legitimate ruling line, whose descendant should in that theory be the real monarchs today. Honestly, I dont think, u could find any. No matter, how far back u go, either they themselves were kings by conquest, or they inherited the throne by a father or other ancestor, who took the throne by conquest.
But Im glad, u took the time to debunk it on this channel, its still a far too commonly spread fallacy!
Thank you and I agree. You could never find a 'pure' line of descent not tainted by conquest and as you say, even if you didn't think Henry VII should have had the throne, the person with the best claim was Elizabeth of York whose legitimately born children inherited it, so Clarence's kids really don't come into the matter.
To be pedantic, three ways: English kings used to be elected. But after the battle of Hastings, that method was abandoned.
The current heir general of the Anglo-Saxon kings (the House of Wessex) is the same line for the Jacobite claims for England after the Glorious Revolution. The heir of Wessex in the 11th century married into the Scottish monarchy (hence why Henry I was so insistenton on marrying a Scottish princess; it gave the Norman heirs/Plantagenet kings descent from the House of Wessex, though by a junior female line, and placated the Anglo-Saxon nobles in England). The Scottish kings still held the senior claim to the House of Wessex. Thus, when the Stuarts inherited England in 1603, the House of Wessex had the English crown once again. From there, it's easy to track senior lines of descent to the Jacobite claimants.
Not really. The Balliols were more senior in terms of strict primogenature than the Bruces, and they had descendants who would be more senior than the Bruce and Stewart kings of Scotland. Info is a bit scarce, but it looks like the Duke of Norfolk, through his descent from the Balliols, would actually be the senior descendant of St Margaret.
@@thomasrinschler6783 Nope. But let's both try again. Both the Balliol and the Bruce lines descended by primogeniture through David earl of Huntingdon, next eldest brother of William I of Scotland; Balliol through the youngest daughter of David's eldest daughter Margaret; Bruce via the senior line of David's next eldest daughter Isabel. The Stuarts then descended from the Bruces. Now, John Balliol's line is extinct; however, John's second eldest sister has a line surviving today, and its heir general is the current Baron Seagrave. His line does pass through the Dukes of Norfolk, but the lines diverge at the death of the 9th Duke, whose next brother left only daughters, who were barred the ducal title as it is entailed male, the 10th Duke being their male cousin by their father's next younger brother; however, they could inherit the senior claim to the House of Wessex.
No. "By Right of Conquest" is a millennial-old recognized legitimate means of obtaining the crown.
Henry Tudor BEAT Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. Period. Everything else is irrelevant.
New subscriber. Just gotta say that I recoqnised the accent :) And no, I am not brittishapart from that I do have Scottish herritage (the Darling family of Prestonpans dating back to the 19th century (otherwise, Danish) so there was no cheat :). Thank you for your interesting videoes which made me subscribe, and keep up the good work :)
Thanks Jan and welcome aboard :-)
I'd say that even if Henry VII wasn't the rightful king, we still would have passed the statute of limitations by now! Five and a half centuries are plenty.
Even though I sometimes call myself a Jacobite, it's a bit late for them, too. Once a line has been accepted for a certain length of time, it's legitimate regardless imo.
I mean....the throne has been usurped MULTIPLE times going back to the very beginning, so it doesn't really make sense to seriously debate if someone "stole" the throne.
Not very fair to Richard III. He became protector because his brother's will said so. The evidence for a prior marriage of Edward came from Bishop Stillington and was accepted by Parliament who passed Titulus Regius.
I take no issue with him wanting to be Protector. I think had he stopped there, that would have been fair enough (as long as he didn't kill Elizabeth Woodville's brother and son). As for Stillington's evidence, I just find it all a bit too convenient that he suddenly came forwards at that point and it still doesn't explain why the Princes in the Tower disappeared, why Richard never explained what had happened, produced any bodies or ordered an investigation.
@@HistoryCalling 1. He didn’t ask to be protector, his brother’s will made him protector. 2. As Stillington explained to *Parliament*, there was no reason to come forward before, only when it was a question of an illegitimate heir rising to the throne. It was Parliament who believed his testimony and passed Titulus Regius. 3. One explanation why Richard didn’t explain their disappearance was that they were still alive. Certainly, Henry did not make any accusation against Richard about their deaths. Try Tey’s “The Daughter of TIme,” a good popular treatment of these questions.
@@weemamaAlso any of the books by the late John Ashdown-Hill make a good case for the innocence of Richard III as to murdering the princes and the marriage of Edward IV to Eleanor Talbot before his ‘marriage’ to Elizabeth Woodville.
The question is redundant and a debate on the issue is pointless as several Acts of Succession have regulated the accession since Queen Anne.
He didn't manfully conquest the throne and without the aid of his mother and treachery he, like the line he foundered would have withered and died on the vine.
Ouch. Harsh. :-) I'm not sure what 'manfully conquest the throne' means, but I will say that plenty of people who have conquered it have had help. It's impossible to take a throne without it after all and Henry fought bravely on the battlefield at Bosworth and nearly died. As for him withering and dying if he hadn't become King, I dunno about that. Henry was a real survivor who'd been in exile and successfully dodged the York's kill squads (for lack of a better term) for years, ever since his early teens. I wouldn't write him off so quickly.
Great explanation of this complicated topic, I understood the latter but was a bit fuzzy on Henry VII, the correct outcome should have been Edward IV's sons and Richard the protector, but the latter Orange and Hanoverian lines might still have happened as religion became a fourth and important factor. Of course it all should have ended with Charles I . . .))
Adam again. I think it doesn't matter too much because Henry married Elizabeth of York, who was considered to have a stronger legitimacy than him, which gave their children legitimacy points to me so Charles is the rightful king to me
Yes, that was definitely the smartest move. She couldn't have been allowed to marry elsewhere and he tied up that loose end very nicely for his children.
The romantic in me would have liked a continuation of the Yorkist line but my head goes with right by conquest. I have the same issues with who I wish had won the Battle of Hastings. Fantastic deep dive (as always).
Thank you :-)
To be honest you don’t know if any king was really the father of their children.
Yes, I agree that there are lots of cases where we can't be sure. Of course the answer would be to let women rule and pass their claims on :-)
@@HistoryCalling Yeah no, you literally just said "oh, women should only rule". disgusting feminist take and not based in reality which as a historian you should have a far more even take.
@@HistoryCalling It's funny when her opponents tried to say Elizabeth I wasn't the daughter of Henry VIII though, despite the fact she looked and acted like him!
Thank you for your reply! I came across the to me novel idea that the main reason Charles was pressured into marrying Diana was to keep Andrew away from the throne. Of course he could have found another more amenable partner but it was a long search with many rejections post Camila. The outcome may now seem inevitable but considering the marital/relationship history of the Windsors in particular and royalty in general that she became Queen is still shocking to me.
I agree that the Tudors were legitimate holders of the throne. I would compare it to the famous "artist" analogy. If a layperson sees a famous painting in a museum and announces, "That looks easy, I could have done that, so easy." Then someone counters, "But you did not. They did." :)
I hadn't heard that analogy before, but yes, it's true.
As a side note, it is interesting (!) that the title for prince harry chosen to mark his wedding was Sussex, the other title considered was Clarence. One of the titles inherited through his grandfather by Edward IV was Earl of Cambridge. His younger brother, of course, was Duke of Clarence and we all know how that relationship ended. The late Queen and her advisers obviously had prescience.
Well, if you really think of it, the first king ever conquered the crown as well.
Yes, absolutely.
@@HistoryCalling you know what? I have Always wondered how they came to make the First King a King. Was ist a Battle, or a war? Or something completely different? I think this would be an amazingly interesting topic for a video. But I respect you so much I would never want to tell you how to Run your Channel. Still I have never seen anyone covering that
Edit: i'm sorry for the spelling mistakes. My auto correct system is set on German. So there might appear some mistakes
One thing to remember is that when the Beauforts were legitimized by act of Parliament, they weren't specifically barred from the succession at that point (since Richard II was still king and the likelihood of them even coming close to the throne probably seemed remote at the time). It was only by personal decree by Henry IV that created that bar, which may or may not have been able to overrule an act of Parliament. So their bar from inheriting the throne was a bit shaky, and Henry VII rammed a truck right through what seemed to be a tiny loophole...
Very informative video. Many thanks. So there is no constitutional threat if Charles consents to DNA testing of the possible Princes in the Tower.
Conquest outweighs everything else, parliament’s decision outweighs blood claim, and blood claim is actually the least important part of it.
It would be wonderful to know about the descendants who didn't claim the throne but gave their DNA samples for testing. In general, do they live an aristocratic life or a typical life?
I'm only aware of the ones who gave DNA for Richard III's identification and they were two very 'normal' people. I think one was a cabinet maker.
@HistoryCalling thank you. I was reading about how the Vanderbilt family fell from massive wealth to just successful and have heard that almost everyone with European heritage is in some way related to royalty. I'm fairly certain that I come from an unbroken line of peasants. Family fortunes do change.
@@ginkat1318 There's a great lecture available on RUclips about finding Richard III's remains, it's called "Solving a 500 Year Old Cold Case - with Turi King". Turi is an archaeological geneticist involved in the project and she gives a great talk about how they used DNA to confirm the remains. She mentions that a hell of a lot of people are related to Richard III.
Most Americans of English heritage are probably descended at some remove from the royal family. There must be millions of descendants. Many early English immigrants to the North American colonies were relatively ordinary people who were descended from Plantagenet royalty, for example.
My college-age child is interested in working at a museum in Northern Ireland (her biological father is from Lisburn). She's particularly interested in medieval history. Do you have any advice for a course of study or places you'd recommend she visits or people to speak with in Northern Ireland? She hopes to travel there in the next year or 2. Thanks!
What about strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords?😉
That's a whole other video :-)
Thank you for all your works of research!
I'm glad you mentioned Harold Godwinson; the research on that would be interesting to see the "what if"
Yes, I'd like to do some more earlier medieval stuff as well.
Hi history calling don’t you think it would have been interesting had Anne of cleves Cathrine Howard and Catherine Parr had a kid of their own with Henry the 8 interesting question had Cathrine Howard now for the sake of this question let’s say she did cheat on Henry the 8 and she was not a virgin how come she was never pregnant did she have problems too just like Henry the 8 🤷♂️
I don't know if Katherine Howard had fertility issues, but Henry probably did by that point which explains why he never impregnated anyone again after early 1537.