Was He A Usurper? King Richard III. Part III

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Bishop of Bath, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Bishop Robert Stillington, Eleanor Butler, Elizabeth Woodville, King Edward V of England, King Richard III of England, Lady Eleanor Talbot, Lord Protector of England, Titulus Regis

Shortly after the death of King Edward IV, Bishop Robert Stillington, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, is said to have informed Richard that Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid because of Edward’s earlier union with Eleanor Butler, making Edward V and his siblings illegitimate.

Bishop Stillington asserted Eleanor Butler had had a legal precontract of marriage to Edward, which invalidated the king’s later marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. According to Richard Duke of Gloucester, this meant that he, rather than Edward’s sons, was the true heir to the throne.

A precontract is a legal contract that precedes another; in particular it can refer to an existing promise of marriage with another. Such a precontract would legally nullify any later marriages into which either party entered. The practice was common in the Middle Ages, and the allegation of a precontract was the most common means of dissolving a marriage by the medieval ecclesiastical courts.

The identity of Stillington was known only through the memoirs of French diplomat Philippe de Commines. On June 22, a sermon was preached outside Old St. Paul’s Cathedral by Ralph Shaa, declaring Edward IV’s children bastards and Richard the rightful king. Shortly after, the citizens of London, both nobles and commons, convened and drew up a petition asking Richard to assume the throne.

Richard accepted the throne on June 26 and was crowned at Westminster Abbey on July 6. Richard then persuaded Parliament to pass an act, Titulus Regius, which debarred Edward V from the throne and proclaimed him as King Richard III. The Titulus Regius was confirmed by Parliament in January. Also at a meeting held on January 23, 1484 the former king’s marriage was declared illegal.

The princes, who were still lodged in the royal residence of the Tower of London at the time of Richard’s coronation, disappeared from sight after the summer of 1483. Although after his death Richard III was accused of having Edward and his brother killed, notably by More and in Shakespeare’s play, the facts surrounding their disappearance remain unknown. Other culprits have been suggested, including Buckingham and even Henry VII, although Richard remains a suspect.

After the coronation ceremony, Richard and Anne set out on a royal progress to meet their subjects. During this journey through the country, the king and queen endowed King’s College and Queens’ College at Cambridge University, and made grants to the church. Still feeling a strong bond with his northern estates, Richard later planned the establishment of a large chantry chapel in York Minster with over 100 priests. He also founded the College of Arms.

Was He A Usurper? King Richard III. Part I.

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Anne Neville, Cecily Neville, Duke of Gloucester, Duke of York, Fotheringhay Castle, House of York, King Edward IV of England, King Henry VI of England, King Richard III of England and Lord of Ireland, Richard Plantagenet, Wars of the Roses

From the Emperor’s Desk: I would like to get back to the series on examining who was or was not a usurper to the English or British throne. The next person to focus on is King Richard III. This should be a no-brainer because he is famously known for usurping the throne from his 12-year-old nephew. However, I would like to focus on some evidence and information that may cast a little doubt on this. First I would like to provide a little background information on Richard.

Richard III (October 2, 1452 – August 22,1485) was King of England from June 26, 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marked the end of the Middle Ages in England.

Richard was born on October 2, 1452, at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire, the eleventh of the twelve children of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the youngest to survive infancy.

King Richard III of England and Lord of Ireland

Like his father and brother, King Edward IV, Richard was born with a strong claim to the throne. Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York (also named Richard Plantagenet) was a leading English magnate and claimant to the throne during the Wars of the Roses. He was a member of the ruling House of Plantagenet by virtue of being a direct male-line descendant of Edmund of Langley, King Edward III’s fourth surviving son.

However, it was through his mother, Anne Mortimer, a descendant of Edward III’s second surviving son, Lionel of Antwerp, that Richard inherited his strongest claim to the throne, as the opposing House of Lancaster was descended from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the third surviving son of Edward III.

Richard’s mother, Cecily Neville, also strengthened the House of York’s claim to the English throne. Cecily Neville was the youngest of the 22 children of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, in this case born to his second wife Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland.

Her paternal grandparents were John Neville, 3rd Baron Neville de Raby, and Maud Percy, daughter of Henry de Percy, 2nd Baron Percy. Her maternal grandparents were John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, and his third wife Katherine Swynford. John of Gaunt was the third surviving son of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault

The future King Richard III’s childhood coincided with the beginning of the ‘Wars of the Roses’, a period of political instability and periodic open civil war in England during the second half of the fifteenth century, between the Yorkists, who supported Richard’s father (a potential claimant to the throne of King Henry VI from birth), and opposed the regime of Henry VI and his wife, Margaret of Anjou, and the Lancastrians, who were loyal to the crown.

Crown of Richard III (made for his funeral)

In 1459, his father and the Yorkists were forced to flee England, whereupon Richard and his older brother George were placed in the custody of their aunt Anne Neville, Duchess of Buckingham, and possibly of Cardinal Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury.

His eldest brother Edward inherited the Yorkist claim when his father, Richard, Duke of York, died at the Battle of Wakefield on December 30, 1460. After defeating Lancastrian armies at Mortimer’s Cross and Towton in early 1461, Edward deposed King Henry VI and took the throne as King Edward IV of England.

His marriage to Elizabeth Woodville in 1464 led to conflict with his chief advisor, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known as the “Kingmaker”. In 1470, a revolt led by Warwick and Edward’s brother George, Duke of Clarence, briefly re-installed Henry VI.

When their father and elder brother Edmund, Earl of Rutland, were killed at the Battle of Wakefield, Richard and George were sent by their mother to the Low Countries. They returned to England following the defeat of the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton.

Richard and George participated in the coronation of their eldest brother King Edward IV on June 28, 1461, when Richard was named Duke of Gloucester and made both a Knight of the Garter and a Knight of the Bath. Edward appointed him the sole Commissioner of Array for the Western Counties in 1464 when he was 11. By the age of 17, he had an independent command.

Richard married Anne Neville on July 12, 1472. Anne had previously been wedded to Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales and only son of Henry VI, to seal her father’s allegiance to the Lancastrian party, Edward died at the Battle of Tewkesbury on May 4, 1471, while Warwick had died at the Battle of Barnet on 14 April 1471.

Richard’s marriage plans brought him into conflict with his brother George. John Paston’s letter of February 17, 1472 makes it clear that George was not happy about the marriage but grudgingly accepted it on the basis that “he may well have my Lady his sister-in-law, but they shall part no livelihood”.

The reason for George not supporting the marriage was the inheritance Anne shared with her elder sister Isabel, whom George had married in 1469. It was not only the earldom of Warwick that was at stake; Richard Neville had inherited it as a result of his marriage to Anne Beauchamp, 16th Countess of Warwick. The Countess, who was still alive, was technically the owner of the substantial Beauchamp estates, her father having left no male heirs.

The Croyland Chronicle records that Richard agreed to a prenuptial contract in the following terms: “the marriage of the Duke of Gloucester with Anne before-named was to take place, and he was to have such and so much of the earl’s lands as should be agreed upon between them through the mediation of arbitrators; while all the rest were to remain in the possession of the Duke of Clarence”.

The date of Paston’s letter suggests the marriage was still being negotiated in February 1472. In order to win George’s final consent to the marriage, Richard renounced most of the Earl of Warwick’s land and property including the earldoms of Warwick (which the Kingmaker had held in his wife’s right) and Salisbury and surrendered to George the office of Great Chamberlain of England. Richard retained Neville’s forfeit estates he had already been granted in the summer of 1471: Penrith, Sheriff Hutton and Middleham, where he later established his marital household.

Michael Hicks has suggested that the terms of the dispensation deliberately understated the degrees of consanguinity between the couple, and the marriage was therefore illegal on the ground of first degree consanguinity following George’s marriage to Anne’s sister Isabel.

There would have been first-degree consanguinity if Richard had sought to marry Isabel (in case of widowhood) after she had married his brother George, but no such consanguinity applied for Anne and Richard. Richard’s marriage to Anne was never declared null, and it was public to everyone including secular and canon lawyers for 13 years.

In 1482, King Edward IV backed an attempt to usurp the Scottish throne by Alexander Stewart, 1st Duke of Albany, brother of James III of Scotland. Gloucester invaded Scotland and took the town of Edinburgh, but not the far more formidable castle, where James was being held by his own nobles. Albany switched sides and without siege equipment, the English army was forced to withdraw, with little to show for an expensive campaign, apart from the capture of Berwick Castle.

Edward’s health began to fail, and he became subject to an increasing number of ailments; his physicians attributed this in part to a habitual use of emetics, which allowed him to gorge himself at meals, then return after vomiting to start again. He fell fatally ill at Easter 1483, but survived long enough to add codicils to his will, the most important naming his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as Protector after his death. King Edward IV died on April 9, 1483 and was buried in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. His twelve-year-old son succeeded him as King Edward V of England and Lord of Ireland.

March 20, 1412: Death of Henry IV, King of England and Lord of Ireland

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Duke of Lancaster, Henry Bolingbroke, Henry IV of England, Joanna of Navarre, John of Gaunt, King Edward III of England, King Richard II of England, Lord of Ireland, Mary de Bohun, Usurper

Henry IV (c. April 1367 – March 20, 1413), also known as Henry Bolingbroke, was King of England from 1399 to 1413. His grandfather King Edward III had claimed the French throne as a grandson of Philippe IV of France, and Henry continued this claim. He was the first English ruler since the Norman Conquest, over three hundred years prior, whose mother tongue was English rather than French.

Early Life

Henry was born at Bolingbroke Castle, in Lincolnshire, to John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster. His epithet “Bolingbroke” was derived from his birthplace. Gaunt was the third son of King Edward III. Blanche was the daughter of the wealthy royal politician and nobleman Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster.

Henry of Grosmont was the only son of Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster (c. 1281–1345); who in turn was the younger brother and heir of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster (c. 1278–1322). They were sons of Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster (1245–1296); the second son of King Henry III (ruled 1216–1272) and younger brother of King Edward I of England (ruled 1272–1307).

Henry of Grosmont was thus a first cousin once removed of King Edward II and a second cousin of King Edward III (ruled 1327–1377). His mother was Maud de Chaworth (1282–1322). On his paternal grandmother’s side, Henry of Grosmont was also the great-great-grandson of King Louis VIII of the Franks.

John of Gaunt enjoyed a position of considerable influence during much of the reign of his own nephew, King Richard II. Henry’s elder sisters were Philippa, Queen of Portugal, (wife of King João I of Portugal) and Elizabeth, Duchess of Exeter. His younger half-sister, the daughter of his father’s second wife, Constance of Castile, was Katherine, Queen of Castile wife of King Enrique III of Castile.

Henry Bolingbroke also had four natural half-siblings born of Katherine Swynford, originally his sisters’ governess, then his father’s longstanding mistress and later third wife. These illegitimate children were given the surname Beaufort from their birthplace at the Château de Beaufort in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France.

Henry’s relationship with his stepmother, Katherine Swynford, was a positive one, but his relationship with the Beauforts varied. In his youth, he seems to have been close to all of them, but rivalries with Henry and Thomas Beaufort proved problematic after 1406. Ralph Neville, 4th Baron Neville, married Henry’s half-sister Joan Beaufort.

Neville remained one of his strongest supporters, and so did his eldest half-brother John Beaufort, even though Henry revoked Richard II’s grant to John of a marquessate. Thomas Swynford, a son from Katherine’s first marriage, was another loyal companion. Thomas was Constable of Pontefract Castle, where Richard II is said to have died.

Henry’s half-sister Joan was the mother of Cecily Neville. Cecily married Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and had several offspring, including Edward IV and Richard III, making Joan the grandmother of two Yorkist kings of England.

John of Gaunt died in February 1399. Without explanation, Richard cancelled the legal documents that would have allowed Henry to inherit Gaunt’s land automatically. Instead, Henry would be required to ask for the lands from Richard.

Henry was involved in the revolt of the Lords Appellant against Richard in 1388, resulting in his exile by King Richard II.

Accession

After some hesitation, Henry met the exiled Thomas Arundel, former archbishop of Canterbury, who had lost his position because of his involvement with the Lords Appellant. Henry and Arundel returned to England while Richard was on a military campaign in Ireland. With Arundel as his advisor, Henry began a military campaign, confiscating land from those who opposed him and ordering his soldiers to destroy much of Cheshire.

Henry initially announced that his intention was to reclaim his rights as Duke of Lancaster, though he quickly gained enough power and support to have himself declared King Henry IV, imprison King Richard (who died in prison under mysterious circumstances) and bypass Richard II’s 7-year-old heir-presumptive, Edmund de Mortimer, 5th Earl of March.

Henry’s coronation, on October 13, 1399 at Westminster Abbey, may have marked the first time since the Norman Conquest that the monarch made an address in English.

As king, Henry faced a number of rebellions, most seriously those of Owain Glyndŵr, the self-proclaimed ruler of Wales, and the English knight Henry Percy (Hotspur), who was killed in the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. The king suffered from poor health in the latter part of his reign, and his eldest son, Henry of Monmouth, assumed the reins of government in 1410. Henry IV died in 1413, and his son succeeded him as King Henry V.

Marriages and issue

First marriage: Mary de Bohun

The date and venue of Henry’s first marriage to Mary de Bohun (died 1394) are uncertain but her marriage licence, purchased by Henry’s father John of Gaunt in June 1380, is preserved at the National Archives. The accepted date of the ceremony is February 5, 1381, at Mary’s family home of Rochford Hall, Essex.

The near-contemporary chronicler Jean Froissart reports a rumour that Mary’s sister Eleanor de Bohun kidnapped Mary from Pleshey Castle and held her at Arundel Castle, where she was kept as a novice nun; Eleanor’s intention was to control Mary’s half of the Bohun inheritance (or to allow her husband, Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, to control it). There Mary was persuaded to marry Henry.

Henry had four sons from his first marriage, which was undoubtedly a clinching factor in his acceptability for the throne. By contrast, Richard II had no children and Richard’s heir-presumptive Edmund Mortimer was only seven years old. The only two of Henry’s six children who produced legitimate children to survive to adulthood were Henry V and Blanche, whose son, Rupert, was the heir to the Electorate of the Palatinate until his death at 20.

All three of his other sons produced illegitimate children. Henry IV’s male Lancaster line ended in 1471 during the War of the Roses, between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists, with the deaths of his grandson Henry VI and Henry VI’s son Edward, Prince of Wales.

Second marriage: Joanna of Navarre

Mary de Bohun died in 1394, and on February 7, 1403 at Winchester Cathedral Henry married Joanna of Navarre, the daughter of Charles II of Navarre, the daughter of Jean II of France (called The Good), and Bonne of Luxembourg.

She was the widow of Jean IV, Duke of Brittany (known in traditional English sources as Jean V), with whom she had had four daughters and four sons; however, her marriage to the King of England was childless.

Final illness and death

The later years of Henry’s reign were marked by serious health problems. He had a disfiguring skin disease and, more seriously, suffered acute attacks of a grave illness in June 1405; April 1406; June 1408; during the winter of 1408–09; December 1412; and finally a fatal bout in March 1413. In 1410, Henry had provided his royal surgeon Thomas Morstede with an annuity of £40 p.a. which was confirmed by Henry V immediately after his succession.

This was so that Morstede would ‘not be retained by anyone else’. Medical historians have long debated the nature of this affliction or afflictions. The skin disease might have been leprosy (which did not necessarily mean precisely the same thing in the 15th century as it does to modern medicine), perhaps psoriasis, or a different disease.

The acute attacks have been given a wide range of explanations, from epilepsy to a form of cardiovascular disease. Some medieval writers felt that he was struck with leprosy as a punishment for his treatment of Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York, who was executed in June 1405 on Henry’s orders after a failed coup.

According to Holinshed, it was predicted that Henry would die in Jerusalem, and Shakespeare’s play repeats this prophecy. Henry took this to mean that he would die on crusade. In reality, he died in the Jerusalem Chamber in the abbot’s house of Westminster Abbey, on March 20, 1413 during a convocation of Parliament. His executor, Thomas Langley, was at his side.

March 12, 1270: Birth of Charles, Count of Valois

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Catherine of Courtney, Charles of Valois, Empress of Constantinople, House of Capet, House of Valois, Infanta Isabella of Aragon, King Frederick III of Sicily, King Louis X of France, King Philippe III of France, King Philippe IV of France, Pope Boniface VIII, Pope Martin IV

Charles, Count of Valois (March 12, 1270 – December 16, 1325), the fourth son of King Philippe III of France and Infanta Isabella of Aragon, was a member of the House of Capét and founder of the House of Valois, whose rule over France would start in 1328.

Charles ruled several principalities. He held in appanage the counties of Valois, Alençon (1285), and Perche. Through his marriage to his first wife, Margaret, Countess of Anjou and Maine, he became Count of Anjou and Maine. Through his marriage to his second wife, Catherine I of Courtenay, Empress of Constantinople, he was titular Latin Emperor of Constantinople from 1301 to 1307, although he ruled from exile and only had authority over the Crusader States in Greece.

As the grandson of King Louis IX of France, Charles of Valois was a son, brother, brother-in-law and son-in-law of kings or queens (of France, Navarre, England and Naples). His descendants, the House of Valois, would become the royal house of France three years after his death, beginning with his eldest son King Philippe VI of France.

Life

Besides holding in appanage the counties of Valois, Alençon and Perche, Charles became in 1290 the Count of Anjou and of Maine by his first marriage with Margaret of Anjou, the eldest daughter of King Charles II of Naples, titular King of Sicily; by a second marriage that he contracted with the heiress of Emperor Baldwin II of Constantinople, last Latin emperor of Constantinople, he also had pretensions to the throne of Constantinople.

From his early years, Charles of Valois dreamed of more and sought all his life for a crown he never obtained. Starting in 1284, Pope Martin IV recognized him as King of Aragon (under the vassalage of the Holy See), as the son of his mother, Infanta Isabella of Aragon, in opposition to King Pedro III of Aragon, who after the conquest of the island of Sicily was an enemy of the Papacy.

Charles hence married Margaret, the daughter of the Neapolitan king, in order to re-enforce his position in Sicily which was supported by the Pope. Thanks to this Aragonese Crusade undertaken by his father King Philippe III against the advice of his elder brother Philippe the Fair, he believed he would win a kingdom and however won nothing but the ridicule of having been crowned with a cardinal’s hat in 1285, which gave him the alias of the “King of the Cap.” He would never dare to use the royal seal which was made on this occasion and had to renounce the title.

His principal quality was to be a good military leader. Charles commanded effectively in Flanders in 1297. Thus his elder brother, King Philippe IV of France, quickly deduced that Charles could conduct an expedition in Italy against King Frederick III of Sicily. The affair was ended by the Treaty of Caltabellotta.

Dreaming at the same time for an imperial crown, Charles married secondly to Catherine I of Courtenay in 1301, who was the titular Empress of Constantinople. But it needed the connivance of Pope Boniface VIII, which he obtained by his expedition to Italy, where the Pope supported Charles’s father-in-law King Charles II against King Frederick III, his cousin.

Named papal vicar, Charles of Valois lost himself in the complexity of Italian politics, was compromised in a massacre at Florence, and in sordid financial extremities, reached Sicily where he consolidated his reputation as a looter and finally returned to France discredited in 1301–1302.

Charles was back in shape to seek a new crown when the German King, Albrecht I, King of the Romans, was murdered in 1308. Charles’s brother King Philippe IV, who did not wish to take the risk himself of a check and probably thought that a French puppet on the imperial throne would be a good thing for France, encouraged him.

The candidacy was defeated with the election of Heinrich VII of Luxembourg as German king, for the electors did not want France to become even more powerful. Charles thus continued to dream of the eastern crown of the Courtenays.

He did benefit from the affection which his brother King Philippe, who had suffered from the remarriage of their father, brought to his only full brother, and Charles thus found himself given responsibilities which largely exceeded his talent. Thus it was he who directed, in 1311, the royal embassy to the conferences of Tournai with the Flemish; he quarreled there with his brother’s chamberlain Enguerrand de Marigny, who openly defied him. Charles did not pardon the affront and would continue the vendetta against Marigny after his brother King Philippe’s death.

In 1314, Charles was doggedly opposed to the torture of Jacques de Molay, grand master of the Templars.

The premature death of Charles’s nephew, King Louis X of France, in 1316, gave Charles hopes for a political role. However, he could not prevent his nephew Philippe the Tall from taking the regency while awaiting the birth of his brother King Louis X’s posthumous son. When that son (Jean I of France) died after a few days, Philippe took the throne as King Philippe V of France. Charles was initially opposed to his nephew Philippe’s succession, for Philippe’s elder brother King Louis X had left behind a daughter, Joan of France, his only surviving child. However, Charles later switched sides and eventually backed his nephew Philippe, probably realizing that Philippe’s precedent would bring him and his line closer to the throne.

In 1324, Charles commanded with success the army of his nephew, King Charles IV of France (who succeeded his elder brother King Philippe V in 1322), to take Guyenne and Flanders from King Edward II of England. He contributed, by the capture of several cities, to accelerate the peace, which was concluded between the King of France and his sister Isabella, the queen-consort of England as the wife of King Edward II.

The Count of Valois died on December 16, 1325 at Nogent-le-Roi, leaving a son who would take the throne of France under the name of Philippe VI and commence the branch of the Valois. Had he survived for three more years and outlived his nephew King Charles IV, Charles might have become king of France. Charles was buried in the now-demolished church of the Couvent des Jacobins in Paris – his effigy is now in the Basilica of St Denis.

March 8, 1702: Death of William III-II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic.

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Convention Parliament, Duke of York, Glorious Revolution, King James II-VII, King William III-II, Prince of Orange Mary, Princess Royal of England, Queen Mary II of England, Willem II, William III of Orange

William III-II (William Henry; Dutch: Willem Hendrik; November 4, 1650 – March 8, 1702), also widely known as William of Orange, was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from the 1670s, and King of England, Ireland, and Scotland from 1689 until his death in 1702.

William III-II was born in The Hague in the Dutch Republic on 4 November 4, 1650. Baptised William Henry (Dutch: Willem Hendrik), he was the only child of Mary, Princess Royal, and stadtholder Willem II, Prince of Orange. His mother was the eldest daughter of King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Princess Henrietta Marie de Bourbon of France. The Princess Royal was also the sister of King Charles II and King James II-VII.

Willem II, Prince of Orange and Mary, Princess Royal of England

Eight days before William was born, his father died of smallpox; thus William was the sovereign Prince of Orange from the moment of his birth as Prince William III of Orange. Immediately, a conflict ensued between his mother and paternal grandmother, Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, over the name to be given to the infant.

Mary wanted to name him Charles after her brother, but her mother-in-law insisted on giving him the name William (Willem) to bolster his prospects of becoming stadtholder.

Prince Willem II had appointed his wife as their son’s guardian in his will; however, the document remained unsigned at Willem II’s death and was void. On August 13, 1651, the Hoge Raad van Holland en Zeeland (Supreme Court) ruled that guardianship would be shared between his mother, his grandmother and Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg, husband of his paternal aunt Louise Henriette of Orange.

A Protestant, William participated in several wars against the powerful Catholic ruler King Louis XIV of France and Navarre in coalition with both Protestant and Catholic powers in Europe. Many Protestants heralded Prince William III of Orange as a champion of their faith.

William III, Prince of Orange

At the age of fifteen, Princess Mary of England became betrothed to her cousin, Prince William III of Orange. At first, King Charles II opposed the alliance with the Dutch ruler—he preferred that Mary wed the heir to the French throne, the Dauphin Louis, thus allying his realms with Catholic France and strengthening the odds of an eventual Catholic successor in Britain—but later, under pressure from Parliament and with a coalition with the Catholic French no longer politically favourable, he approved the proposed union.

Mary’s father, the Duke of York, agreed to the marriage, after pressure from chief minister Lord Danby and the King, who incorrectly assumed that it would improve James’s popularity among Protestants. When James, Duke of York told Mary that she was to marry her cousin, “she wept all that afternoon and all the following day”.

Marriage

William and a tearful Mary were married in St James’s Palace by Bishop Henry Compton on November 4, 1677. The bedding ceremony to publicly establish the consummation of the marriage was attended by the royal family, with her uncle the King himself drawing the bed curtains.

Mary II, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, Princess of Orange

Mary accompanied her husband on a rough sea crossing to the Netherlands later that month, after a delay of two weeks caused by bad weather. Rotterdam was inaccessible because of ice, and they were forced to land at the small village of Ter Heijde, and walk through the frosty countryside until met by coaches to take them to Huis Honselaarsdijk. On December 14, they made a formal entry to The Hague in a grand procession.

In 1685, his Catholic uncle and father-in-law, James, Duke of York became king of England, Scotland, and Ireland as King James II-VII. James’s reign was unpopular with the Protestant majority in Britain, who feared a revival of Catholicism.

In June 1688, two events turned dissent into a crisis. Firstly, the birth of James’s Catholic son and heir, Prince James Francis Edward on June 10, with his second wife Princess Mary of Modena, raised the prospect of establishing a Roman Catholic dynasty and excluding his Anglican daughter’s Mary and her sister Anne and Mary’s Protestant husband William III of Orange from the line of succession.

James II-VII, King of England, Scotland and Ireland

Secondly, the prosecution of the Seven Bishops for seditious libel was viewed as further evidence of an assault on the Church of England, and their acquittal on June 30 destroyed his political authority in England. The ensuing anti-Catholic riots in England and Scotland led to a general feeling that only James’s removal from the throne could prevent another Civil War.

Supported by a group of influential British political and religious leaders, William III of Orange was invited to invaded England in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. In 1688, he landed at the south-western English port of Brixham; King James II-VII was deposed shortly afterward.

William’s reputation as a staunch Protestant enabled him and his wife to take power. On February 13, 1689 the Convention Parliament proclaimed both William and Mary as equal joint sovereigns as King William III and Queen Mary II of England and Ireland. William and Mary were declared King and Queen by the Parliament of Scotland on April 11, 1689. As King of Scotland, William is known as William II. Under the 1542 Crown of Ireland Act, the English monarch is automatically king of Ireland as well.

King William III-II and Queen Mary II of England, Scotland and Ireland

During the early years of his reign, King William III-II was occupied abroad with the Nine Years’ War (1688–1697), leaving Queen Mary II to govern Britain alone.

In late 1694, Queen Mary II contracted smallpox. She sent away anyone who had not previously had the disease, to prevent the spread of infection. Anne, who was once again pregnant, sent Mary a letter saying she would run any risk to see her sister again, but the offer was declined by Mary’s groom of the stool, the Countess of Derby. Several days into the course of her illness, the smallpox lesions reportedly disappeared, leaving her skin smooth and unmarked, and Mary said that she felt improved.

Her attendants initially hoped she had been ill with measles rather than smallpox, and that she was recovering. But the rash had “turned inward”, a sign that Mary was suffering from a usually fatal form of smallpox, and her condition quickly deteriorated. Queen Mary II died at Kensington Palace shortly after midnight on the morning of December 28 at the young age of 32.

William III-II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland. Prince of Orange

The death of Queen Mary II left William III-II to rule alone. William deeply mourned his wife’s death. Despite his conversion to Anglicanism, William’s popularity in England plummeted during his reign as a sole monarch.

During the 1690s rumours grew of William’s alleged homosexual inclinations and led to the publication of many satirical pamphlets by his Jacobite detractors.

King William III-II never remarried. Had he remarried his new wife would not have been a joint sovereign, or a Queen Regnant, as Queen Mary II had been; she would have been a Queen Consort, the traditional role of women married to a reigning British King.

In 1696 the Jacobites, a faction loyal to the deposed King James II-VII plotted unsuccessfully to assassinate William and restore James to the throne. William’s lack of children and the death in 1700 of his nephew Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, the son of his sister-in-law Anne, threatened the Protestant succession.

The danger was averted by placing distant relatives, the Protestant Hanoverians, in line to the throne with the Act of Settlement 1701.

On March 8, 1702, King William III-II died of pneumonia, a complication from a broken collarbone following a fall from his horse, Sorrel. William was buried in Westminster Abbey alongside his wife. His sister-in-law and cousin, Anne, became Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland.

William’s death meant that he would remain the only member of the Dutch House of Orange to reign over England.

With the death of William III as sovereign Prince of Orange, the legitimate male line of Willem the Silent (the second House of Orange) became extinct. Prince Johan Willem Friso, the senior agnatic descendant of Willem the Silent’s brother and a cognatic descendant of Prince Frederik Hendrik of Orange, grandfather of William III, claimed the succession as stadtholder in all provinces held by William III. This was denied to him by the republican faction in the Netherlands.

Under William III-II’s will, Johan Willem Friso stood to inherit the Principality of Orange as well as several lordships in the Netherlands. He was William’s closest agnatic relative, as well as grandson of William’s aunt Countess Henriette Catherine of Nassau.

Countess Henriette Catherine of Nassau

Countess Henriette Catherine of Nassau was a daughter of Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange, and Amalia of Solms-Braunfels. She was princess of Anhalt-Dessau by marriage to Johann Georg II, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, and regent of Anhalt-Dessau from 1693 to 1698 during the minority (and then the absence) of her son Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau.

However, King Friedrich I in Prussia also claimed the Principality as the senior cognatic heir, his mother Louise Henriette of Nassau being Henriette Catherine’s older sister.

Countess Louise Henriette of Nassau was forced to marry Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg (1620-1688), “the Great Elector,” at The Hague on December 7, 1646, her nineteenth birthday. She was the eldest daughter of Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange, and Amalia of Solms-Braunfels and they were the parents of King Friedrich I in Prussia.

Under the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Friedrich I’s successor, King Friedrich Wilhelm I in Prussia, ceded his territorial claim to King Louis XIV of France and Navarre, keeping only a claim to the title. Friso’s posthumous son, Willem IV, succeeded to the title at his birth in 1711; in the Treaty of Partition (1732), Willem IV agreed to share the title “Prince of Orange” with King Friedrich Wilhelm I.

Incidentally, Prince Willem IV of Orange also married a British Princess. On March 25, 1734 he married at St James’s Palace Anne, Princess Royal, eldest daughter of King George II of Great Britain and Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach. They had five children and are the ancestors of the present Dutch Royal Family.

History of The Kingdom of East Francia: Emperor Elect and King of the Romans

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Emperor Charles V, Emperor Friedrich III, Emperor Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, King of the Romans, Kingdom of East Francia, Pope Clement VII, Pope Julius II

Although this series was to track the history of the Kingdom of East Francia and we’ve been recently focusing on how the Carolingian Kingdom of East Francia transitioned into a Germanic Kingdom. With that change the title of the King, prior to being crowned Emperor once the Ottonian Dynasty were granted the imperial title, was known as King of Germany or King of the Romans.

Although it is beyond my original intent of this series to continue to discuss the later usage of the title “King of the Romans” I will mention how the usage of that title evolved.

The title Romanorum Rex King of the Romans ceased to be used for ruling kings after 1508, when the Pope Julius II permitted King Maximilian I to use the title of Electus Romanorum Imperator (“elected Emperor of the Romans”) after he failed in a good-faith attempt to journey to Rome. This ended the centuries-old custom that the Holy Roman Emperor had to be crowned by the Pope.

Emperor Maximilian I

Maximilian’s predecessor Friedrich III was the last to be crowned Emperor by the Pope in Rome.

At this time Maximilian also took the new title “King in Germania” (Germaniae rex), but the latter was never used as a primary title.

Maximilian’s titles at this time were: by God’s grace Elected Roman Emperor, always Augustus, in Germany, of Hungary, Dalamatia, Croatia etc King […]”

After the death of Maximilian I his paternal grandson, Charles of Burgundy in 1519, inherited the Habsburg monarchy. Charles also became King Carlos I of Spain in 1516. Charles was also the natural candidate of the electors to succeed his grandfather as Holy Roman Emperor.

Pope Clement VII

He defeated the candidacies of Elector Friedrich III of Saxony, King François I of France, and King Henry VIII of England. According to some, Charles became emperor due to the fact that by paying huge bribes to the electors, he was the highest bidder.

Charles won the crown on June 28, 1519. On October 23, 1520, he was crowned in Germany and some ten years later, on 24 February 24, 1530, he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Clement VII in Bologna, the last emperor to receive a papal coronation.

Beginning with his brother and successor, Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, the rulers of the Empire no longer sought the Imperial coronation by the Pope and styled themselves “Emperors” without Papal approval, taking the title as soon as they were crowned in Germany or, if crowned in their predecessor’s lifetime, upon the death of a sitting Emperor.

Emperor Charles V

Heirs designate

As I mentioned previously the Holy Roman Empire was an elective monarchy. No person had an automatic legal right to the succession simply because he was related to the current Emperor. However, the Emperor could, and often did, have a relative (usually a son) elected to succeed him after his death.

With the Emperor no longer needing the title “King of the Romans” now that a Papal Coronation had become obsolete, the Emperor’s newly elected heir apparent henceforth bore the title “King of the Romans”.

During the Middle Ages, a junior King of the Romans was normally chosen only when the senior ruler bore the title of Emperor, so as to avoid having two, theoretically equal kings.

Only on one occasion (1147-1150) was there both a ruling King of the Romans (King Conrad III) and a King of the Romans as heir (Heinrch Berengar).

The election was in the same form as that of the senior ruler. In practice, however, the actual administration of the Empire was always managed by the Emperor (or Emperor elect), with at most certain duties delegated to the heir.

The Life of Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg. Part II.

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Emperor Alexander II of Russia, Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna of Russia, Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg, Queen Olga of the Hellenes

In 1867, Alexandra’s eldest daughter, Olga, married King George I of the Hellenes. She was only sixteen, and her father Grand Duke Constantine was initially reluctant for her to marry so young. In July 1868, Olga’s first child was born and was named Constantine after his grandfather. The beginning of their daughter’s family coincided with the start of the breakdown of Alexandra and Constantine’s marriage.

Although he was only forty, Constantine’s struggles and travails of the previous decade— naval and judiciary reforms, the freeing of the serfs—had prematurely aged him. As his brother Emperor Alexander II turned away from the reform that had marked his first decade on the throne, Constantine’s influence began to wane and he began to focus more on his personal life.

Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg

After twenty years of marriage he had drifted away from his wife. Constantine’s heavy workload, and the couple’s divergent political views and interests had over the years slowly torn away at their relationship. Alexandra was as conservative as her husband was liberal, and she had learned to concern herself with her own society and mysticism. Soon, Constantine turned elsewhere for sexual intimacy.

At the end of the 1860s, Constantine embarked on an affair and conceived an illegitimate daughter, Marie Condousso. In the 1880s, Marie was sent to Greece, later serving as lady in waiting to her half sister, Queen Olga. Marie eventually married a Greek banker.

Soon after the birth of Marie, Constantine began a new liaison. Around 1868, he began to pursue Anna Vasilyevna Kuznetsova, a young dancer from the St Petersburg Conservatoire. She was the illegitimate daughter of ballerina Tatyana Markyanovna Kuznetsova and actor Vasily Andreyevich Karatygin. Anna was twenty years younger than Constantine and in 1873 she gave birth to their first child. Four more would follow.

Princess Alexandra’s daughter, Queen Olga of the Hellenes

Constantine bought his mistress a large, comfortable dacha on his estate at Pavlovsk; thereby lodging his second family in close proximity to his wife Alexandra, whom he now referred to as his “government–issue wife”.

By this act Constantine gave ammunition to his political enemies, with Russian society reacting to the scandal by siding with his suffering wife, Alexandra, who tried to bear his infidelity with dignity.

In 1874, a fresh scandal erupted when it was discovered that Alexandra and Constantine’s eldest son, Grand Duke Nicholas Konstantinovich, who had lived a dissipated life and had revolutionary ideas, had stolen three valuable diamonds from an icon in Alexandra’s private bedroom, aided by his mistress, an American courtesan.

Alexandra’s twenty-four-year-old son was found guilty, declared insane, and banished for life to Central Asia. Alexandra suffered another bitter blow when in 1879, her youngest son, Vyacheslav, died unexpectedly from a brain haemorrhage.

February 7, 1301: Edward of Caernarfon is Created Prince of Wales

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Caernarfon Castle, Dafydd ap Gruffydd, Duke of Cambridge, Edward of Caernarfon, King Charles III of the United Kingdom, King Edward I of England, King Edward II of England, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, Prince William

King Edward II of England and Lord of Ireland was born in Caernarfon Castle in North Wales on April 24, 1284, the son of King Edward I of England and Lord of Ireland and Infanta Eleanor of Castile daughter of King Fernando III of Castile and Joan, Countess of Ponthieu.

Edward of Caernarfon was born in North Wales less than a year after Edward I had conquered the region. The king probably chose Caernarfon Castle deliberately as the location for Edward’s birth as it was an important symbolic location for the native Welsh, associated with Roman imperial history, and it formed the centre of the new royal administration of North Wales.

King Edward II of England and Lord of Ireland

One of the last independent Princess of Wales was Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (Llywelyn the Last), who was killed at the Battle of Orewin Bridge in 1282.

His brother, Dafydd ap Gruffydd, was executed the following year. After these two deaths, Edward I of England invested his son Edward of Caernarfon as the first English Prince of Wales on February 7, 1301.

The title was later claimed by the heir of Gwynedd, Owain Glyndŵr (Owain ap Gruffydd), from 1400 until 1415 (date of his assumed death) who led Welsh forces against the English. Since then, it has only been held by the heir apparent of the English and subsequently British monarch. The title is a subject of controversy in Wales.

Coat of Arms of the Prince of Wales

According to conventional wisdom, since 1301 the Prince of Wales has usually been the eldest living son (only if he is also the heir apparent) of the King or Queen Regnant of England (subsequently of Great Britain, 1707, and of the United Kingdom, 1801).

The title is neither automatic or heritable; it merges with the Crown when its holder eventually accedes to the throne, or reverts to the Crown if its holder predeceases the current monarch, leaving the sovereign free to grant it to the new heir apparent (such as the late prince’s son or brother).

King Charles III of the United Kingdom

Since 1301, the title ‘Earl of Chester’ has generally been granted to each heir apparent to the English throne, and from the late 14th century it has been given only in conjunction with that of ‘Prince of Wales’. Both titles are bestowed to each individual by the sovereign and are not automatically acquired.

The current sovereign, King Charles III of the United Kingdom, was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester on July 26, 1958. He was the longest serving Prince of Wales for 64 years and 44 days from his creation as Prince of Wales in 1958 until his accession to the throne on September 8, 2022.

HRH The Prince of Wales

King Charles III was also heir apparent for longer than any other heir to the throne in British history.

Upon the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on September 8, 2022, Charles became King and the title, along with other titles connected to the Prince of Wales merged with the Crown. The following day, King Charles III bestowed the title Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester upon his elder son, Prince William, Duke of Cornwall and Cambridge.

When Did Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland Become King? Part II.

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Convention Parliament, Declaration of Breda. George Monck, King Charles II of England Scotland and Ireland, Lord Halifax, Restoration, Rump Parliament

After the failed attempt to maintain the Scottish throne, Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands.

The major motivator in restoring Charles to the throne was George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle JP KG PC (December 6, 1608 – January 3, 1670) who was an English soldier, who fought on both sides during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Monck was also a prominent military figure under the Commonwealth.

George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle

When Oliver Cromwell died in September 1658, Monck transferred his support to Cromwell’s son Richard, who was appointed Lord Protector. The Third Protectorate Parliament elected in January 1659 was dominated by moderate Presbyterians like Monck and Royalist sympathisers, whose main objective was to reduce the power and expense of the military.

In April, army radicals led by John Lambert and Charles Fleetwood dissolved Parliament and forced the resignation of Richard Cromwell. Sometimes known as the Wallingford House Party, the new regime abolished the Protectorate, reseated the Rump Parliament dismissed by Cromwell in 1653 and began removing officers and officials of suspect loyalty, including many of those serving in Scotland.

Monck was left in place largely because rumours of another Royalist rising made it preferable to retain him. Both his cousin John Grenville and brother Nicholas were connected with the Royalist underground and in July 1659, Nicholas brought him a personal appeal from Charles II, asking for his help.

When Booth’s Uprising broke out in August 1659, Monck considered joining it but the revolt collapsed before he had the time to commit himself. In October, the Wallingford House group dismissed the Rump Parliament before being forced to reinstate it in early December.

King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland

By the end of 1659, England appeared to be drifting into anarchy, with widespread demands for new elections and an end to military rule. Monck declared his support for the Rump Parliament against the Republican faction led by Lambert, while co-ordinating with Sir Theophilus Jones, a former colleague in Ireland who seized Dublin Castle in late December.

At the same time, he marched his army to the English border, supported by a force raised by former New Model Army commander Sir Thomas Fairfax. Outnumbered and unpaid, Lambert’s troops melted away; and on February 2, 1660 Monck entered London.

Monck forced the Rump Parliament to re-admit members of the Long Parliament who had been excluded in December 1648, during Pride’s Purge. Parliament dissolved itself, and there was a general election for the first time in almost 20 years. The outgoing Parliament defined the electoral qualifications intending to bring about the return of a Presbyterian majority.

The restrictions against royalist candidates and voters were widely ignored, and the elections resulted in a House of Commons that was fairly evenly divided on political grounds between Royalists and Parliamentarians and on religious grounds between Anglicans and Presbyterians. The new so-called Convention Parliament assembled on April 25, 1660.

While Monck’s backing was essential to the Restoration, modern historians question whether the policy was initiated by Monck as opposed to following majority opinion, which by now was overwhelmingly in favour of reinstating the monarchy.

Charles sets sails for home

Although elected MP for Devon, external observers noted Monck had little interest in politics while the lack of a regional power base in England and the proposed reduction of the army mitigated his future influence.

Nevertheless, the Declaration of Breda issued by Charles on April 4, 1660 was largely based on Monck’s recommendations. It promised a general pardon for actions committed during the civil wars and Interregnum, with the exception of the regicides, retention by the current owners of property purchased during the same period, religious toleration and payment of arrears to the army.

Charles promised to rule in cooperation with Parliament, and on May 8, the Convention Parliament proclaimed Charles as King and further stated that King Charles II had been the lawful monarch since the execution of Charles I on 30 January 30, 1649. Historian Tim Harris describes it: “Constitutionally, it was as if the last nineteen years had never happened.”

In Ireland, a convention had been called earlier in the year and had already declared for Charles. On May 14, he was proclaimed king in Dublin.

Charles returned from exile, leaving the Hague on May 23 and landing at Dover on May 25. The King triumphantly entered London on May 29, 1660, his 30th birthday. To celebrate His Majesty’s Return to his Parliament, 29 May was made a public holiday, popularly known as Oak Apple Day. He was crowned at Westminster Abbey on April 23, 1661.

Tomorrow I will give my personal opinion on when Charles II assumed the title of King.

Was He A Usurper? King Edward IV: Conclusion.

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Duke of Lancaster, Duke of York, Edmund Crouchback, Henry Bolingbroke, House of Lancaster, House of York, King Edward IV of England and Lord of Ireland, King Henry IV of England, King Henry VI of England, Usurper, Wars of the Roses

This is the concluding post to whether or not King Edward IV of England, Lord of Ireland was a usurper. I took the long and winding road through many posts to demonstrate that King Edward IV had a much more superior claim to the throne than King Henry VI.

For a long time I did not consider King Edward IV a usurper. However, over the last several years I have run into many other historians who do consider King Edward IV a usurper and I have changed my mind.

The main reasons why I did not consider Edward IV a usurper for many years was because his assuming the crown restored the superior claim to the throne via primogenitor that was broken when Henry Bolingbroke usurped the throne.

In other words, I viewed that when Edward IV became king he restored the line of hereditary succession to how it would have been had Henry IV never usurped the throne. For myself there was a sense of justice with the superior claim of Edward IV being restored which negated any claim of illegality

Or so I thought.

Edward IV took the throne during the Wars of the Roses which is generally considered the conflict for the crown that began with the reign of Henry VI and concluded with Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond becoming King Henry VII after defeating King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth field in August of 1485.

We have seen however, that the seeds for the War of the Roses were actually sown a few generations prior with the usurpation of Henry Bolingbroke as King Henry IV who stole the crown from King Richard II.

It is clear that Henry IV was a usurper. The definition of a usurper being someone who does not have the legal right to the throne. King Henry IV tried to legitimize his succession by outrageously claiming that Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster and Earl of Leicester (1245 – 1296) the second son of King Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence, was actually the eldest son of King Henry III and that King Edward I was, in reality, a younger son of King Henry III and therefore all Kings of England from Edward I to Richard II were usurpers.

In this scenario Henry Bolingbroke claimed that his right to the throne stemmed from his descent from his mother and not his father.

Henry Bolingbrook descended twice from King Henry III. The first line of descent was through the male line from King Edward I through to Edward III who was Henry Bolingbrook’s grandfather via his father, John of Gaunt fourth son of King Edward III of England.

The second line of descent was through the female line from King Henry III through to Bolingbrook’s mother, Blanche of Lancaster, a great-great granddaughter of King Henry III via Henry III’s second son Edmund Crouchback Earl of Lancaster.

This is the line which Henry Bolingbroke asserted gave him hereditary right to the throne. Again, Bolingbroke, erroneously claimed that Edmund Crouchback was the eldest son of King Henry III and not King Edward I.

The usurpation of the throne by Henry Bolingbrook raises an interesting question for the House of Lancaster. Namely, when a king clearly usurps the throne how does that illegal reign affect the next king, the son and heir?

In other words, since Henry IV was a usurper shouldn’t that technically bar or disqualify his son, in this case King Henry V, from legally assuming the throne when it came his time to succeed?

Apparently not. As they say, when there is a revolution or a war, those that win are able to rewrite the rules. When Henry IV died on March 20, 1413 his eldest son succeeded to the throne is King Henry V despite the fact that there were others who had the superior hereditary claim.

When the young King Henry VI succeeded to the throne 9 years later upon the death of his father in 1422 he was regarded as the legal King of England.

Therefore, despite Edward IV and his father Richard, 3rd Duke of York, having had the superior hereditary claim to the throne; this fact was irrelevant because King Henry VI was the legal monarch of England.

So when Edward, 4th Duke of York, took the throne from King Henry VI basically by force, without any intervention of Parliament to legalize an altered succession, his assumption of the throne as King Edward IV of England was indeed a userpation.