Section 57 of 58 - Table of Contents
Nevertheless although there were other indubitably legitimate descendants
of John of Gaunt living, no claim on behalf of any of them was put forward
till a full century had elapsed. The royal House of Portugal sprang from
the second and that of Castile from the third daughter of Lancaster; so
that after the death of Mary Stewart, Philip II. of Spain, posing as their
representative, claimed the inheritance, ignoring the superior title of his
cousin Katharine of Braganza. But in 1485, the title of any alien would
have been flatly repudiated by the whole country. There remained only in
England, descending through his mother from John of Gaunt's eldest
daughter, a young Neville who had just succeeded to the Earldom of
Westmorland; whose line was extinguished in the person of the Earl who took
part in the Northern rising of 1569. This branch however appears to have
been completely ignored from first to last.
The vital fact remained, that Henry was the representative, acknowledged on
all hands, of the House of Lancaster. He claimed the throne on that ground,
ratified the claim on the field of Bosworth, and confirmed it by a
Parliamentary title. The Plantagenet Princess, he married: their offspring
combined the titles of the two Houses. The Plantagenet Earl was shut up in
the Tower, and finally perished on the scaffold without offspring.
The accession of Henry was bound politically, in spite of his marriage, to
have the effect of a Lancastrian victory. The extreme Yorkist partisans,
who could always find asylum and encouragement with Margaret of Burgundy,
were not likely to be satisfied with such a result; but they had nothing
approaching a case for anyone except the young Earl of Warwick, a prisoner
in the Tower. Hence the first attempt was to put forward a fictitious
Warwick, Lambert Simnel. This scheme collapsed at the battle of Stoke. Then
it was that the Yorkists fell back on the resuscitation of Richard of York,
murdered in the Tower with Edward V. If he was alive, his title could not
be seriously challenged. So he was brought to life in the person of Perkin
Warbeck. When Warwick and Perkin were both dead, there was no one to fall
back on but the De la Poles of Suffolk; since at this stage the two senior
Yorkist branches--the Courtenays of Devon, and the Poles (a quite different
family from the De la Poles) could not be erected into dangerous
candidates. [See _Frontispiece._] The claims of the Courtenays would
derive from the younger daughter of Edward IV.: those of the Poles from the
Countess of Salisbury, Warwick's sister: those of the De la Poles from
Elizabeth, sister of Edward IV.
HENRY VIII
Under Henry VIII., there was no claim which could stand against the king's
own. But in the course of his reign, he found it convenient to put out of
the way Buckingham, who was not only (like the Tudors) of Beaufort blood
but also traced descent from Thomas, sixth son of Edward III.; and
twenty-five years later his grandson Surrey: also the heads of the De la
Poles, the Poles, and the Courtenays.
EDWARD VI
Edward succeeded his father as a matter of course, being his one
indubitably legitimate son. But who was to follow Edward? Henry had two
daughters, born ostensibly in wedlock. But the marriages of both mothers
had been pronounced void by the courts. _Prima facie_ therefore, the
succession went first to the offspring of Henry's eldest sister Margaret;
but these might be ruled out as aliens. Next it would go to the offspring
of his younger sister Mary, the Brandons, of whom the senior was Frances
Grey; who however gave place (as Margaret of Richmond had done for Henry
VII.) to her daughter Lady Jane. It will thus be seen that Lady Jane had
technically a respectable title. It left out of count however that the
Lennox Stewarts, the offspring of Margaret Tudor by her second marriage,
were English as well as Scottish subjects and therefore not barred as
aliens.
But, in spite of the ruling of the Courts, no one who believed in the Papal
authority could admit that Mary Tudor was illegitimate. Again both she and
Elizabeth were the children of unions entered on in _bona fides,_ and
only invalidated subsequently on technical grounds: grounds, in the one
case, inadequate in the eyes of the Roman Church, and in the other never
made public. Hence; although it is perfectly clear that if Katharine was
Henry's lawful spouse, the marriage with Anne was bigamous and its
offspring illegitimate, whereas, if Anne was Henry's lawful spouse then the
marriage with Katharine was void from the beginning and its offspring
illegitimate--that is, while both Mary and Elizabeth might be illegitimate,
it was quite impossible that both should be legitimate--yet the advantages
of setting the whole problem on one side by acknowledging the right of each
to the succession, in order, were obvious. And this was done by the Will of
Henry VIII. to which Parliament by anticipation gave the validity of a
statute.
Mary then succeeded Edward, and Elizabeth succeeded Mary, in virtue of
their recognition under Henry's will.
ELIZABETH
On Elizabeth's accession then; the validity of Henry's Will being admitted,
no other title could stand against that instrument, and the Brandon branch
would succeed in priority to the Stewarts. But evidently it could be argued
that no instrument whatever could confer priority on an illegitimate heir
over a legitimate one; or on a junior over a senior branch; and since no
secular authority had power to annul the marriage between Henry and
Katharine, nothing after Mary Tudor's death could set aside the title of
Mary Stewart. Mary might accede to an arrangement as a matter of policy,
but she could not abrogate her right, or admit that she was barred as an
alien. On the other hand, the Greys might be pushed forward under the Will
as heirs, in opposition to Mary; but they could not be seriously upheld as
rivals to Elizabeth herself; and the same applied to the living
representatives of the Poles, the Earl of Huntingdon and Arthur Pole. There
were now no De la Poles, nor Courtenays.
With Mary Stewart as the only possible figure-head for a revolt, Elizabeth
had no disposition to strengthen her position by acknowledging her as heir
presumptive, since that would be an immediate incentive to her own
assassination by Mary's adherents, who would be anxious to secure their
candidate against the possible appearance of an heir apparent. It was safer
to leave the question of her successor an open one, so that any overt act
in favour of any particular candidate would be tolerably certain to recoil
on that candidate's head. Therefore Elizabeth would acknowledge neither
Mary nor another, though it can hardly be doubted that she did herself look
upon the royal Stewarts as the rightful claimants, throughout her reign.
But when the Queen of Scots was dead, the Catholics were at once in want of
a Catholic candidate. James of Scotland was a Protestant: so was Arabella,
representing the Lennox Stewarts; so were Katharine Grey and her husband
Lord Hertford (the son of the old Protector Somerset); so was their son.
Lord Beauchamp; Huntingdon, the Pole representative, was a Protestant too.
The Countess of Derby, like Katharine Grey, was a grandchild of Mary
Brandon; but the Stanleys, though Catholics, rejected all overtures. As
Elizabeth's end approached, various schemes were no doubt propounded for
marrying Arabella to a Catholic, even to Beauchamp on the understanding
that both were in due time to declare themselves Catholics. But the
immediate result of Mary Stewart's death was that Philip of Spain entered
the field as the Catholic candidate, as tracing descent from John of Gaunt
through both his father and his mother. Later, his daughter Isabella was
put forward.
From the legitimist point of view however the title of James of Scotland
was indisputable. The stroke of deliberate policy by which Henry VII. had
mated his eldest daughter to the Scots King James IV. bore its fruit when,
precisely a hundred years later, the crowns of England and Scotland were
united by the accession of Margaret's great-grandson to the southern
throne.
APPENDIX C
THE QUEEN OF SCOTS
The life of Mary Tudor has been in its place described as supremely tragic;
that of Mary Stewart presents a tragedy not greater but more dramatic--
whatever view we may take of her guilt or innocence with regard to Darnley,
to Bothwell, to the conspirators who would fain have made her Queen of
England. Of the misdeeds laid to her charge, that of unchastity has no
colourable evidence except in the case of Bothwell, for whom it may be
considered certain that she had an overwhelming passion; and even there the
evidence is not more than colourable. That she was _cognisant_ of the
intended murder of Darnley can be doubted only by a very warm partisan: but
in weighing the criminality even of that, it must be remembered not only
that Darnley himself had murdered her secretary before her eyes, and had
insulted her past forgiveness, but that _political_ assassinations
were connived at by the morals of the times. Henry VIII. had preferred to
commit his murders through the forms of law, but had encouraged the
assassination of Cardinal Beton which John Knox applauded. In Italy, every
prominent man lived constantly on his guard against the cup and the dagger.
Philip, Parma, Alva, Mendoza, encouraged the murder of Elizabeth, and
incited or approved that of Orange. The royal House of France was directly
responsible for the slaughter of St. Bartholomew. Henry III. of France
assassinated Henry of Guise; the Guises in turn assassinated Henry. Many of
the Scottish nobility, including certainly Lethington and Morton, if not
Murray, were beyond question as deep as Mary, if not deeper, in the murder
of Darnley. And in England it may be said frankly that there was no
sentiment against political murder, but only against murder without
sanction of Law. Given a person whose life was regarded as possibly
dangerous to the State, the public conscience was entirely satisfied if any
colourable pretext could be found on which the legal authorities could
profess to find warrant for a death sentence, though the proof, on modern
theories of evidence, might be wholly inconclusive. In plain terms, if
Mary had not followed up the murder by marrying the "first murderer," the
deed would not have been regarded as particularly atrocious, or as placing
her in any way outside the pale. But that marriage was fatal. Darnley was
killed because while he lived his intellectual and moral turpitude were
perfectly certain to wreck his wife's political schemes; but the new
marriage was equally destructive politically and drove home the belief that
passion, not politics, was the real motive of the murder. Whether politics
or passion were the real motive, whether either would have sufficed without
the other, whether even together they would have sufficed without the third
motive of revenge for Rizzio, no human judgment can tell. But if under
stress of those three motives in combination, Mary connived at the murder,
it proves indeed that her judgment failed her, but not that according to
the standards of the day she was unusually wicked.
As to her conduct in England--whatever it was--in connexion with the
Ridolfi, Throgmorton, and Babington plots. In the first place, she owed
Elizabeth no gratitude. She was perfectly well aware that the Queen kept
her alive because--unlike her ministers and her people--she thought Mary
alive was on the whole more useful than dangerous. Mary always without any
sort of concealment asserted throughout the eighteen years of her captivity
her quite indisputable right to appeal to the European Powers for
deliverance. She always denied that she had any part in or knowledge of
schemes for Elizabeth's assassination. Those denials were never met by any
evidence [Footnote: Cf. Hume in _State Papers, Spanish,_ III., iii.]
more conclusive than alleged copies of deciphered correspondence, or the
confessions of prisoners on the rack or under threat of it. But assuming
that her denials were false, that in one or other instance or in all three
she was guilty, she did only what Valois and Habsburg and half the leading
statesmen in Europe were doing, with the approbation of Rome, and without
Mary's excuse. For they had the opportunity of overthrowing Coligny,
Orange, Henry of Guise, and Elizabeth herself in fair fight; Mary had not:
her crime therefore at the worst was infinitely less than theirs. To a
caged captive much may be forgiven which in those others could not be
forgiven.
And if in her prison she did assent to her own deliverance by
assassination, and condescend (as no doubt she did) to use in some of her
dealings with her captor some of that duplicity whereof that captor was
herself a past mistress--if she used on her own behalf the weapons which
were freely employed against her--she displayed at all times other
qualities which were splendidly royal. She never betrayed, never disowned,
never forgot a faithful servant or a loyal friend. If she bewitched the men
who came in contact with her, she was the object of a no less passionate
devotion on the part of all her women; not that transient if vehement
emotion which a fascinating fiend can arouse when she wills, but a devotion
persistent and enduring. And withal she dreed her weird with a lofty
courage, faced it full front with a high defiance, which must bespeak for
ever the admiration at least of every generous spirit.
All this we may say and yet do justice to the attitude towards her of the
people of England. For to them, her life was a perpetual menace. The idea
of her succession was to half of them unendurable, yet if Elizabeth died it
could be averted only at the cost of a fierce civil war, aggravated almost
certainly by a foreign invasion. About her, plots were eternally brewing
which if they came to a head must involve the whole nation in a bloody
strife. She engaged when she could in negotiations which could not do
otherwise than imperil the peace of the realm. If no law or precedent could
be found applicable to such a situation, there was clear moral
justification for removing such a public danger in the only possible way.
Mary's release would only have aggravated it; her death was the one
solution. England had no hesitation in assuming the grim responsibility
which the Queen of England was fain to evade at her servants' expense.
APPENDIX D
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The works enumerated in this bibliography are such as may usually be found
in the larger public libraries, or are available to members of the London
Library. In most cases a few words of description are added, and the whole
list has been so classified that the reader--it is hoped--will be able
without much difficulty to pick out those volumes which will best help him
whether to a general view or in gathering detailed information on specific
points.
* * * * *
To a student "taking up" the Tudor period, the best brief general
introduction, as a preliminary survey of the whole subject is to be found--
judging from the writer's early experiences--in two small volumes in the
"Epoch" Series (Longmans), Seebohm's _Era of the Protestant
Revolution,_ and Creighton's _Age of Elizabeth._
The continuous narrative, _in extenso,_ is presented consecutively in
_The Tudor Period,_ vol. i., by W. Busch (translated by A. M. Todd)
for Henry VII.: Brewer's _Henry VIII._ (2 vols.) for Henry VIII. to
the fall of Wolsey: Froude's _History of England_ (12 vols.) from the
fall of Wolsey to the Armada--cautious though the reader must be; with
Major Martin Hume's _Treason and Plot_ for Elizabeth's closing years.
Proceeding to the detailed list; the first division gives authorities
covering all sections of the Tudor Period. Then, under each reign, are the
authorities for that reign, selected as being on the whole the most
prominent or the most informing. These are divided into contemporary,
_i.e._ Tudor; Intermediate; and Modern, _i.e._ publications
(roughly) of the last half century. Further classification is introduced,
where it seems likely to be of assistance.
TUDOR PERIOD CONTEMPORARY
The _Carew Papers_ (Ireland).
_Four Masters, Chronicle of The:_ Celtic Chronicles, collated and
translated _circa_ 1632 by four Irish Priests. Hakluyt's
_Voyages_.
The _Hatfield Papers_ (Historical MSS. Commission). The period before
Elizabeth occupies only half of vol. i.; the rest of which, with the
following volumes of the series, is devoted to that reign. Rymer's
_Foedera_. Stow, _Annals_ and _Survey of London and
Westminster_.
INTERMEDIATE
Hallam's _Constitutional History of England_. A valuable study of the
constitutional aspects of the period; and especially of the attitude of the
Government to the great religious sections of the community.
Hook's _Lives of the Archbishops_; a work somewhat coloured by the
author's ecclesiastical predilections.
Lingard's _History of England_; a fair-minded account written avowedly
from a Roman Catholic point of view. Valuable data have however been
brought to light since Lingard wrote.
Von Ranke's _Englische Geschichte_, translated as "_History of
England principally in the seventeenth century_": not a detailed history
of this period, but marked by the Author's keen historical insight.
------ _History of the Popes_, for those aspects of the period
suggested by the title: see also Macaulay's _Essay_ on this work.
Strype's _Ecclesiastical Memorials_, containing transcripts of many
important documents. The compiler however occasionally went astray; as in a
remarkable instance noted at p. 129.
MODERN
Ashley, W. J., _Introduction to English Economic History_. Brown,
P. Hume, _History of Scotland_.
_Cambridge Modern History_: vol. ii., The Reformation. Useful for
reference, and containing a very full bibliography of the subject. Cc.
xiii.-xvi. deal more particularly with England. Also vol. iii., The Wars of
Religion.
Prev
Next
All
Printer Friendly Version | Send this page to a friend | Discuss this Book
Your email address is safe with us. View our Privacy policy.
 |
 |
|
|
Category: Plays Sections: 12 What's this? Table of Contents |
 FictionShort StoriesPoetryPlaysSci FiPhilosophyReligionBiography |
FIND JOBS
