Tags
Catherine Gray, Elizabeth I of England, Henry VIII, Isabella of Spain, James I of England, Lord Beauchamp, Philipe II of Spain
As I mentioned previously James VI, King of Scots was the heir of Elizabeth I of England via the principle of primogeniture. Even though he did eventually become King James I of England it wasn’t as cut and dried as it seems. Henry VIII had barred the Scottish line in his will and an Act of Succession. There was also a law on the books barring foreigners from inheriting property. Some ministers thought to get around that last rule by claiming that Scotland was a part of England as many Scottish kings had paid homage to English kings which demonstrated that Scotland was a fiefdom of England.
If James VI of Scotland was barred from the succession who else were the possible heirs to Elizabeth’s throne? One was Lady Catherine Gray the younger sister of the ill-fatted 9 day Queen, Jane Gray. She was the senior heir of Henry VIII’s sister Mary. Catherine Gray married Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, a descendant of King Edward III of England. They married and had their first son, Edward, Lord Beauchamp, and this infuriated Queen Elizabeth who often feared that those who saw her rule as illegitimate would replace her on the throne with one of these hires.
For that reason Elizabeth had Catherine and the Earl of Hertford thrown in the Tower of London. Evidently they were not watched too much because they were able to have another child, Thomas, while imprisoned in the tower. Since the only witness that this marriage had actually occurred had died, Elizabeth considered the marriage illegal and had the couple separated and Lord Beauchamp was considered illegitimate. However, after Catherine’s death in 1568 many considered Lord Beauchamp to be Elizabeth’s heir.
Another candidate was Infanta Isabella of Spain, daughter of King Felipe II of Spain and Princess Elizabeth de Valois of France. Infanta Isabella had a stronger claim to the throne than Elizabeth I. As we have seen the Tudor dynasty descends from a third marriage of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, son of King Edward III of England. At first the children of that union were born illegitimate but later legitimized with no succession rights. Isabella, on the other hand, descended from the first two legal marriages of John of Gaunt.
John of Gaunt’s first marriage was to Blanch of Lancaster (a descendent of King Edward I of England) and their daughter, Philippa, married King John I of Portugal. From them descended Isabella of Portugal wife of Holy Roman Emperor Karl V (Carlos I of Spain) the grandparents of Infanta Isabella of Spain. John of Gaunt’s second marriage to Infanta Constance of Castile produced a daughter, Catherine, who married her cousin, King Enrique III of Castile. Catherine of Lancaster’s great-granddaughter Catherine of Aragon, first of the six wives of Henry VIII of England, was named after her. From this line descends the Kings of Spain culminating in the English heir, Isabella of Spain.
By the end of 1602 when it became apparent that Elizabeth I was dying the need for her to name her successor was crucial. The problem was that not many wanted to point out to the queen that she was dying, it had also become treason to discuss the succession issue!
Stay tuned for Part III!
European Royal History 
I’m still enjoying reading your posts regarding the succession to the English throne through time, in this installment has left me baffled. I cannot work out how the senior genealogical heir of John of Gaunt’s first marriage would have been Infanta Isabella of Spain. As a result of a previous blog of yours about Henry IV, and how he had claimed his right to the throne actually arose from the bizarre assertion that Edward I’s marriage (or marriages?) were invalid, I set about working out the alternative succession, via Henry III’s second son (Edward I’s brother), Edmund Crouchback, and his two sons and their issue, which does then end up with Henry’s IV, V and VI as heirs. Following the death of Henry VI the next Lancastrian heir would be descended from Henry IV’s elder sister, Philippa (d1415), who married John I of Portugal and had 6 sons before her death, the eldest of whom Affonso had died young in 1400, and the second, Edward I of Portugal had died in 1438. Edward i of Portugal had 4 sons, the eldest John had died by 1433, the second, Affonso V of Portugal was still living in 1471 and thus became the next Lancastrian heir after Henry VI. Affonso V died in 1481 and was succeeded by his eldest surviving son John II of Portugal. John II of Portugal had two son who predeceased him, and no daughters, and all but his youngest brother also predeceased him without having any issue, so on his death in 1495 the Lancastrian claim was inherited by his youngest brother Manoel I of Portugal. Manoel I of Portugal had 9 sons, the eldest, Michael, predeceased his father in 1500 whilst still a toddler, and thus the second son, John III, succeeded his father, at the latter’s death in 1521, as the Lancastrian heir. John III had 6 sons, and the eldest four predeceased him without having issue. John III’s fifth son, John, also predeceased him, in 1554, but left a single child, his newborn son, Sebastian, who inherited the Lancastrian claim after the death of John III in 1557. Sebastian was thus the Lancastrian claimant when Elizabeth I took the Tudor throne in 1558. Sebastian died in 1578 without having had issue, and there was no more male line issue descended from John III, as his only other son, Antony had died in infancy. John III also had 3 daughters, the eldest of whom, Maria had been the first wife of Felipe II of Spain, who later married Mary I of Tudor England. Maria had died in 1545 aged about 18, and had only given Felipe one child, his eldest son, Carlos, Prince of the Asturias, who had died childless in 1568. John III’s 2 younger daughters had both died in infancy so his issue was now extinct, and the Lancastrian claim needed to pass to the next genealogical line from Manoel I. (continued in the next reply)
Continuing where I left off, we have just seen the last descendant of John III of Portugal, his grandson Sebastian, die in 1578 without issue, and thus we now need to look to the other descendants of John III’s father Manoel I for the next Lancastrian heir. John III had been the second son of Manoel I, and Manoel I’s third son Louis had died in 1555 leaving only illegitimate (as far as I can gather) issue. Manoel’s fourth son Ferdinand and his two infant children had all died during 1534, and Manoel’s fifth son, Affonso, had died in 1540 without having issue, so the claim passes next to Manoel’s sixth son, Henry, who was by now around 66 and an Archbishop, and had, unsurprisingly, no issue. He died two years later in 1580. It’s at this point that I think the actual line of the Lancastrian claim to the throne of England differs from what you have traced down to Isabella. Henry had been Manoel I’s sixth son, and Manoel’s seventh son, Edward, had died in 1540, but had left three children, Edward, Maria and Catherine. Edward Jr had died childless in 1576, and his elder sister Maria had died in 1577. Maria had married Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, and had 3 children with him. The eldest child, Ranuccio (would the anglicized version be Raynauld/Ronald?) thus became the Lancastrian heir to the English throne in 1580 and remained so until his death in 1622, many years after Elizabeth I Tudor’s death. So to summarise the alternative Lancastrian reigns during the real reign of Elizabeth I Tudor were: Sebastian I (r 1557-78), Henry VII (r 1578-80) and Ranuccio [Ronald?] (r 1580-1622).
And to give a potted history of the later Lancastrian claimants:
Edward II (Edward I of Parma), Ranuccio’s son, (r 1622-46),
Ranuccio II (Ranuccio II of Parma), Edward’s son, (r 1646-94),
Elizabeth I (Elizabeth of Parma), only surviving child of Edward’s eldest son, Edward, who had predeceased him. Elizabeth (r 1694-1722), she married Felipe V of Spain and senior male of the Bourbon royal family,
Charles I (Charles III of Spain), Elizabeth’s son, (r 1722-88),
Charles II (Charles IV of Spain), Charles’ son, (r 1788-1819),
Ferdinand I (Ferdinand VII of Spain), Charles’ son, (r 1819-73),
Maria I (Maria Isabel II of Spain), Ferdinand’s daughter, as he had no sons. Maria (r 1873-1904),
Alfonso II (Alfonso XIII of Spain), Maria’s grandson, son of her only son Alfonso XII who had predeceased her. Alfonso (r 1904-41),
James I (James, Duke of Segovia), Alfonso’s son, (r 1941-75),
Alfonso III (Alfonso, Duke of Cadiz and Anjou), James’ son (r 1975-89), and finally,
Louis I Alfonso (Louis Alfonso, Duke of Anjou and Bourbon), surviving son of Alfonso, (r since 1989).
This line relies on the fact that although Alfonso XIII of Spain’s son James renounced his succession rights to the Spanish throne he didn’t renounce rights to any other thrones (mainly as his chances of succeeding were basically nil anyway), so I consider him and his heirs the rightful Lancastrian Kings of England. King Louis I Alfonso currently has three children, twin boys, Louis and Alfonso (aged 3) and a girl, Eugenie (aged 6), who are the first three in line to his Lancastrian throne, the elder twin (Louis?) being Lancastrian Prince of Wales. Should the issue of Louis I fail (or if you feel that James, Duke of Segovia’s renouncement ought to be applied to any throne he might have become heir to) then the Lancastrian claim passes to Juan Carlos I King of Spain, son of James’s brother, Juan, Count of Barcelona, and his heirs.
I find it interesting that the would be heir to the Spanish throne (missing out purely due to his grandfather’s renouncement before his birth), and the French legitimist claimant, as senior male of the house of Bourbon, is also the Lancastrian claimant to the throne of England!
Sorry I think I’ve written more than your original post now, hope you don’t feel like I’m hijacking your blog.
Whoopsy, one rather massive correction to make to my previous posts, when John II of Portugal died, in 1495, he was in fact the last surviving descendant of Affonso V of Portugal, and the next heir was the youngest (but only surviving) son of Alfonso’s brother, Ferdinand, who had died in 1570. My badly handdrawn tree made me think that Affonso V and his brother, Ferdinand’s children were all one continuous family, as I had joined them all up by accident. It doesn’t however change that Manoel I became the Lancastrian claimant in 1495 and all the other claimants thereafter are still his descendants.