A CONFERENCE ABOUT THE NEXT SUCCESSION 1 ________________________________________________________________________ SUMMARY: The document below is a modern-spelling edition of A Conference about the Next Succession to the Crown of England. The frame story of A Conference is a fictitious conference in Amsterdam in the spring of 1593, fully described in the Preface to Part I. In that fictitious frame story, the principal speakers are two lawyers, the one an expert in the civil law of England, the other an expert in the common law. This frame story in itself makes it clear that the author himself had a legal background. The civil lawyer puts forward his arguments in Part I (or rather, the author of A Conference puts forward his arguments through the mouth of the fictitious civil lawyer). In Part II, it is the turn of the fictitious expert in the common law. The title page promises that ‘a new & perfect arbour or genealogy of the descents of all the Kings and Princes of England from the Conquest unto this day’ can be found at the end of the tract whereby the claims of all the current pretenders to the English crown will be made plain. This ‘arbour’ or genealogy may have been based on the work of Francis Peto (see below, and TNA SP 70/137, ff. 319-21). Unfortunately this promise is not fulfilled. The ‘arbour or genealogy’ does not appear, suggesting that the author of A Conference did not play a role in the book’s publication. A Conference is a well organized and well thought out presentation. As noted above, it is divided into two parts, whose contents are summarized immediately before the author’s dedication of the book to Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex: THE SUM OF BOTH PARTS MORE IN PARTICULAR The first declareth by many proofs & arguments that the next propinquity or ancestry of blood alone, though it were certainly known, yet that it is not sufficient to be admitted to a crown without other conditions and circumstances requisite be found also in the person pretendant. The second examineth the titles and pretensions of all such as may have claim or action to the crown of England at this day, what may be said for them and what against them, and in the end, though he leave the matter extreme doubtful as touching the best right, yet he giveth certain conjectures about some persons that are likest to prevail. Throughout the tract the author emphasizes the true Lancastrian line of succession, of which the members of the house of Tudor were not lineal descendants since they derived their claim from John of Gaunt’s mistress, Catherine Swynford. The author demonstrates that the true Lancastrian line is that of King Philip of Spain and his daughter, the Infanta, descendants of John of Gaunt’s first wife, Blanche of Lancaster. Although he does not make much of it, perhaps for fear of endangering their lives, the author points out that a branch of this true Lancastrian line exists in England in the Howard, Percy and Arundel families, who were also descended from the family of Blanche of Lancaster. Since the contents of each chapter are set out in a table immediately after the dedication to Essex, it is unnecessary to rehearse them here, other than to point out that in Chapter Modern spelling transcript copyright ©2012 Nina Green All Rights Reserved http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/ A CONFERENCE ABOUT THE NEXT SUCCESSION 2 ________________________________________________________________________ VIII, in which the author sets out the claims to the English crown of the house of Portugal, he digresses at length on the bastardy of Don Antonio (1531-1595), who had sought refuge in England and was currently living there, and whose pretensions to the crown of Portugal were being supported by the Queen and Privy Council. The author takes a negative view of the English support for Don Antonio’s pretensions to the crown of Portugal, as indicated by his ironic comment on p. 179: Thus passed the matter in the case of Don Antonio, who, if he had been legitimate, no doubt but by all right he should have been preferred before all the other pretenders to the crown of Portugal, and must be at this day towards the crown of England before all those that pretend to the house of Portugal if we grant him to be legitimate, and much more clearly may he pretend to the Dukedom of Lancaster, as before hath been declared, for that it must descend to the lawful heir of Lady Philippe, Queen of Portugal, whereof ensueth also one consideration not impertinent to us in England, that seeing we hold him there for true King of Portugal, I see not how we can deny him his right to the said Dukedom at least of Lancaster, whereof if we would give him but the possession with all the appurtenances as they lie, it were no evil entertainment for him in our country until he could get the possession of the crown in his own. The author of A Conference is commonly stated to have been the Jesuit Robert Parsons. Parsons was also at one time considered to be the author of Leicester’s Commonwealth (1584), which, in terms of its frame story, content and style is very similar in many respects to A Conference. However the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography now states that Parsons was almost certainly not the author of Leicester’s Commonwealth. The claim that Parsons was the author of A Conference is equally lacking in support, although he indisputably had something to do with its publication, and with preventing the Catholic authorities from inhibiting its publication. The principal reason for doubting Parsons’ authorship of A Conference is that the known facts of his life fail to match the profile of the author revealed by internal evidence in the tract. For example, Parsons lacked the extensive legal knowledge which the author of A Conference demonstrably possessed. Moreover Disraeli, in Amenities of Literature, Vol. II, p. 85, states that Parsons had only slight acquaintance with French, whereas the author of A Conference is fluent in that language, and cites numerous histories and other works in French in his marginal comments. In addition, these same marginal comments indicate that the author had access to a very extensive and expensive library while writing A Conference, a fact which rules out Parsons as the author from a very practical standpoint since Parsons, who lived in exile for most of his adult life, was founding seminaries in Spain at the time A Conference was written in late 1593, and the likelihood that he had access to a personal library of this sort is virtually nil. Moreover modern commentators appear to have taken little notice of indications in the tract suggesting that the author was living and writing in England and was not living in Spain. These indications include the phrases ‘a hundred shillings’, ‘which is as much as Lord Chancellor with us’, ‘to us in England’, ‘in our country’, ‘to draw near homeward’, ‘at home’, ‘from thence’ (meaning Spain), as well as comments which would have been ill-received by King Philip of Spain, on whose sufferance Robert Parsons was living in Spain at the time, and on whose Modern spelling transcript copyright ©2012 Nina Green All Rights Reserved http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/ A CONFERENCE ABOUT THE NEXT SUCCESSION 3 ________________________________________________________________________ assistance he depended, such as the statements that King Philip came from a junior line (‘cometh of Don Sancho, the younger brother’), that he had taken Portugal ‘by force’, and might ‘prejudice greatly the English liberty’ and bring the English ‘into servitude’ if he succeeded to the crown of England, and that he should confer his claim to the English crown on his daughter, the Infanta, rather ‘than that the King of Spain should pretend for himself’. Another very significant argument against Parsons’ authorship is that A Conference is entirely lacking in Catholic sentiments, and in fact the author’s use on several occasions of the phrase ‘true religion’ in connection with the word ‘establishment’ has distinctly Protestant overtones, as do his references to the Archbishop of Canterbury as ‘my Lord of Canterbury’ and as ‘Primate of England’. His references to ‘the Romish religion’ and to ‘the Roman party’, to Catholics as ‘Papists’, as those who ‘call themselves Catholics’, and as ‘recusants’, also suggest a Protestant author. The immense scholarship and fluency in foreign languages of the author of A Conference are manifested in his citation of his sources. For example, as his authority for the account of the controversy concerning the succession to the Portuguese crown in January 1580 he cites a 10-volume work in Italian and a work in Latin: . for which the authors that I have read about this matter, which are principally two, the first named Hierom Franke, a gentleman of Genoa who wrote ten books in Italian of the union of the crown of Portugal to the crown of Castilia, and the second is named Ioanes Antonius Viperanus, a Sicilian, as I take him, who wrote one book only in Latin, De obtenta Portugallia a rege Catholico Phillippo, ‘Of Portugal got by King Philip the Catholic’, both these books (I say) out of whom principally I have taken the points which here I will touch do severally set down the causes following why the King Cardinal did reject the pretence of Don Antonio before all other pretenders, and pronounced him a bastard. The 10-volume work in Italian is Dell’ Unione del Regno di Portogallo Alla Corona di Castiglia Istoria by Signor Ieronimo de Franchi Conestaggio, gentilhuomo Genovese (Genoa: Girolamo Bartoli, 1585).