Introduction: the Succession in History and Theory Pp. (1-12)
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Notes Introduction: The Succession in History and Theory pp. (1-12) 1. Cooke, History of the Successions, p. 27. The story also figures in Shake speare's history plays, having been taken by him from Holinshed's Chronicles and used in Henry W, Part 2. In Shakespeare's account of the deathbed scene between Henry and his heir apparent Hal, Henry says 'God knows, my son, By what bypaths and indirect crooked ways I met this crown' (IV, v, 183-5). For Shakespeare, however, Henry IV was not so much uncertain of his right as he was burdened by his gUilt. The king agonises over his claim to the throne and asks God's forgiveness for having taken it from Richard IT: 'How I came by the crown, 0 God forgive, .. .' (IV, v, 18). Hal, on the other hand, is free of his father's misgivings. 'My gracious liege,' he says, 'You won it, wore it, kept it; gave it me. Then plain and right must my possession be, .. .' (IV, v, 220-2). 2. Twysden, Certaine Considerations, p. 62. 3. In the eleventh century William I, a bastard, claimed as a conqueror and by right of nomination, the promise of the throne having been made to him by Edward the Confessor; William Rufus and Henry I succeeded in tum to their father's throne despite the better hereditary claim of their elder brother, Robert; the Empress Matilda was forced to yield her right to her cousin, Stephen, who seized the throne and enforced his claim by citing his election by the barons; and Matilda's son, Henry IT, took the crown at Stephen's death in 1154, pursuant to a treaty concluded the year before. Not until 1189, with the accession of Richard I, was an English king succeeded by his eldest son. This, however, did not signal the transition to succession by hereditary right. Ten years later, John, rather than the under-age Arthur (son of Geoffrey, Henry II's deceased second son; John was Henry's third son), succeeded Richard. 4. Maitland, Constitutional History, p. 98. 5. Ibid., pp. 97-8. See, too, Stubbs, Constitutional History, vol. I, pp. 514-15. 6. Edward ITI, of course, came to the throne as a consequence of his father's having been deposed, but in his case the principle of election was both complicated and mitigated by the new boy king's having also been ac knowledged as Edwllfd IT's heir. Edward ill was fifteen in 1327. 7. Rotuli Parliamentorum, vol. VI, p. 270. 8. Bacon, History, p. 46. 9. 1 Jac.I. c.l. Statutes of the Realm (SR), vol. IV, pt IT, p. 1018. 10. Actually, an even better case was to be made for the inheritance having come from both parents. The point had not been lost on James I who, in that first statute recognising his title, was careful to trace his own descent not only from Henry VII,but from 'the highe and noble princesse Queene Elizabeth his wife, eldest daughter of Kinge Edwarde the Fourthe' as well. SR, vol. IV, pt II, p. 1018. 11. Immediately upon learning of her brother's death Mary claimed the throne 259 260 Notes to pp. 4-9 by the 'provisions as have been made by act of Parliament and the testa ment and last will of our late dearest father, King Henry VIII.' Letter to Sir Edward Hastings (9 July 1553), in Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. III, App. p. 3. Elizabeth's Act of Recognition (1 Eliz. c.3) not only cited the authority of Henry VIII's third Act of Succession, it went on to assert that 'the lymitacion and declaracion of the succession of this realme mentioned and conteined in ... [35 Hen. VIII. c.l] ... shall stande bee and remayne the law of this realme for ever.' SR, vol. IV, pt I, p. 359. 12. 13 Eliz. c.1. SR, vol. IV, pt I, p. 527. 13. Counting English 'civil wars' in the seventeenth century is not as historiographically dangerous as counting 'revolutions,' but it is still a tricky business and open to a number of conventions. My reference here is to 1642-46, 1648, and 1651. J. G. A. Pocock, in a recent article, extends the list to four. 'Fourth English Civil War,' pp. 151-66. 14. Dunham and Wood, 'Right to Rule,' pp. 739, 761. 15. Barrington, Revolution and Anti-Revolution Principles, p. 51. 16. Dunham and Wood, 'Right to Rule,' passim. 17. Doleman, Conference About the Next Succession, pp. 198-9. 'Doleman' was Parsons' pseudonym. 18. Treason Unmask'd, p. 251. To be sure, the belief in an hereditary crown indefeasibly vested by divine right did not die with Anne. The accession of George I could be regarded as merely one more breach in the descent of the crown which would need eventually to be put right; but as Jonathan Clark has demonstrated, it did not render 'the doctrine [of indefeasibility] intellec tually unavailable.' Clark, English Society 1688-1832, p. 125. 19. See Dickinson, 'Eighteenth-Century Debate on the "Glorious Revolution",' pp. 28-45; Dickinson, 'Eighteenth-Century Debate on the Sovereignty of Parliament,' pp. 189-210; and FrankIe, 'Parliament's Right to Do Wrong,' pp.71-85. 20. Deuteronomy 17:15. 21. Nalson, Common Interest of King and People, p. 88. 22. Barrington, Revolution and Anti-Revolution Principles, p. 16. 23. Assheton, Royal Apology, p. 1. 24. Whig historians tended to overlook the values of certainty and continuity in the making of a stable political order and focused instead on the indefeas ible right of hereditary succession as a support for absolutism jure divino. Macaulay, especially, was critical of what he believed was the slavish worship of hereditary monarchy. He regarded it as 'a good political institution,' but lamented that 'bigoted and servile theologians had turned it into a religi ous mystery, almost as awful and as incomprehensible as transubstantiation itself.' Indefeasible right, he believed, was an 'abject and noxious super stition' which had made hereditary monarchy 'a curse instead of a blessing to society.' Macaulay, History, vol. III, p. 1287. See also Speck, Reluctant Revolutionaries, pp. 2-3. 25. Kantorowicz, King's Two Bodies, pp. 11-12, n.9. 26. Coke, Third Institutes, p. 7. See, too, Coke's report of Calvin's Case. 7 Reports 18. 27. Cowell, Interpreter. 28. Coke, 7 Reports 17. Notes to pp. 10-17 261 29. Doleman, Conference About the Next Succession, p. 185. 30. Wentworth, Discourse, p. 8. 31. Treason Unmask'd, p. 251. 32. Fortescue, De Laudibus, p. 87. 33. Any remedy that smacked of conquest was fraught with danger. Hooker, Bacon, and Coke, three of the era's best minds, worried that conceding a title by conquest would allow the conqueror 'the power of disannulling of laws and disposing of men's fortunes and estates'. Bacon, History, p. 40. See, also, Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, Book VIII. ch. 6.1; and Coke, Calvin's Case, 7 Reports 30. 34. Parliamentary History (PH). vol. III, p. 1125. 35. Mulgrave, Humanum est Errare, p. 5. 1 The Late Elizabethan Succession Question (pp. 13-25) 1. Other routes to Elizabeth's throne, especially attractive to those advocates whose candidates never got there, were more fanciful. The Jesuit, Robert Parsons, was drawn in 1596 to the notion that the Pope, as 'feudal overlord of England by virtue of King John's submission in 1212 to the legate Pandulphus', had the right to choose the queen's successor. P. Holmes, 'Authorship and Early Reception of A Conference,' p. 424. There was also the report in 1602 that the throne would go to no one, that the English intended, after Elizabeth's death, 'to govern the kingdom by States, as they do in the lowe Countries'. Letter, cited by Cheyney, History, vol. n, p. 558. 2. 13 Eliz., c.l. See also Levine, Tudor Dynastic Problems, pp. 119-20; Stafford, James VI, p. 8; and Hurstfield, 'Succession Struggle,' p. 107. 3. Smith, De Republica Anglorum, p. 49. 4. 13 Eliz. c.l. 5. 35 Henry VIII. c.1. 6. Harbin, Hereditary Right of the Crown, pp. 208-9. 7. Levine, Early Elizabethan Succession Question, pp. I, 10-11. 8. Ibid., pp. 21, 203. Yet even were it to be conceded that the children of Catherine Grey were illegitimate and thereby incapacitated from the succes sion, there was still the cadet branch of the Suffolk line, descended from Catherine's younger sister Eleanor. See Harbin, Hereditary Right of the Crown, p. 207. 9. Neale, Queen Elizabeth I, p. 292. 10. Axton, Queen's Two Bodies, p. 132. 11. Letter from Father Parsons to Sessa, 1600, cited by Hicks, 'Sir Robert Cecil, Father Persons, and the Succession,' p. 120; Scaramelli, Venetian Ambas sador, to the Doge, 1603. Calendar of State Papers . .. Venice . .. (CSP Venetian) (1603-1607) p. 49. Hicks asserted that 'a party was being won for the Infanta in the course of 1599 and 1600.' Hicks, p. 98. It was a devel opment that the government took seriously. Hurstfield, 'Succession Strug gle,' pp. 112-13. None the less, the Spanish procrastinated and ultimately took no action at all. Hicks, p. 130; Pollen, 'Accession of King James I,' p. 573; Pollen, 'Question of Queen Elizabeth's Successor,' p. 532. 12. Stafford, James VI, p. 287; Willson, King James VI and I, p. 157. 13. Bruce, Correspondence, xii; Neale, Queen Elizabeth I, p. 403. 262 Notes to pp. 17-19 14. Smith, Elizabeth Tudor, p. 218. See also Neale, 'Peter Wentworth,' p. 181; and Hurstfield, 'Succession Struggle', pp. 104-34. Hurstfield believed that James's accession was assured by the time of Blizabeth's death although he allowed for considerable uncertainty in the succession as late as 1599.