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

Tags

Canon Law, Duke of Gloucester, Elizabeth Woodville, King Edward IV of England and Lord of Ireland, King Richard III of England and Lord of Ireland, Lady Eleanor Butler Talbot, Parliament, Prince Richard, Richard III Society, Titulus Regius, Usurper

When I began examining whether or not King Richard III was a usurper it seemed pretty cut and dried given the fact that Richard’s reputation as a usurper is well known. I’d even go as far to say that Richard III is the best known super in history.

As I’ve researched this topic I’ve realized that it’s isn’t as cut and dried as generally thought. I actually could drag this topic out over many more entries. In this entry I will examine the “pro-Richard III” stance. Then in the following entry next week I will examine the “anti-Richard III” stance. After that I will give you my assessment.

As I said in previous entries the legality of Richard III’s reign, as mentioned in the Titulus Regius document, rests on the core claim that when Edward IV married Elizabeth Woodville, he was already promised in marriage to Lady Eleanor Butler. This pre-contract, according to the laws of the day, would make his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville null and void.

However, the issues that Titulus Regius outlines which make King Edward IV’s reign illegal stretch beyond the pre-contract with Lady Eleanor Butler (Talbot). The issues which Titulus Regius claims makes Edward IV’s reign illegitimate are:

1) The kingdom was badly ruled and the laws and customs of the land flouted
2) The Queen (Elizabeth Woodville) was guilty of witchcraft
3) Edward got married secretly against the customs of the church
4) Edward was already bethrothed – so the marriage and its offspring were illegitimate
5) George, Duke of Clarence was attainted by parliament- so his son is also illegitimate
And so in conclusion, Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester and his line has the only rightful claim to the throne.

Were these claims valid? If based on fact, the petition had a case to be answered.

In my research I’ve read a considerable amount of information from the Richard III Society.

The Richard III Society was founded in 1924 by Liverpool surgeon Samuel Saxon Barton (1892-1957) as The Fellowship of the White Boar, Richard’s badge and a symbol of the Yorkist army in the Wars of the Roses. Its membership was originally a small group of interested amateur historians whose aim was to bring about a re-assessment of the reputation of Richard III.

The Fellowship of the White Boar was renamed The Richard III Society in 1959.

In 1980, Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester, became the society’s Patron. (Richard III was Duke of Gloucester before ascending the throne, therefore he was before his accession (Prince) Richard, Duke of Gloucester).

In 1986, the society established the Richard III and Yorkist History Trust, a registered charity, to advance research and publication related to the history of late medieval England.

The society publishes a scholarly journal, The Ricardian.

The Richard III Society supports the Titulus Regius document along with validity of the pre-contract. However, the Society does admit that the historical accuracy of the pre-contract cannot be proven:

“The fact of the pre-contract cannot now be proved, although it could have been known to many persons in 1483, but there is no doubt that Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth was clandestine.”

Marriage and betrothal was easy in the middle ages – no need for priests, banns all the rest of it – you just had to tell each other you married each other. So, secret or not, a pre-contract was valid. However, the process of banns being proclaimed did work in favor of those that supported Richard III.

Despite that, Edward’s secret marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was held against them; because it suggested bad faith by the king and/or Queen – they went ahead and got married without the light of publicity that might have exposed the existence of an impediment, namely, the pre-contract.

Although Lady Eleanor Butler was dead by the time the Queen Elizabeth gave birth, that didn’t matter back then; for if Edward IV was in fact a bigamist, this stain on his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville could have been cleared and forgiven if reviewed in some way by an ecclesiastical court, which hadn’t happened.

The fact that an ecclesiastical court did not address the marriage could help the pro-Richard III” stance with their claim that the pre-contract remained was valid. The fact that an ecclesiastical court did not address the marriage could help the pro-Richard III” stance by claiming there was no need for the examination of the Royal marriage because the pre-contract was a work of fiction.

The Richard III Society also states that the fact that the marriage between King Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville was Clandestine is another factor in the establishment of the illegality of the union.

Although a clandestine marriage (a marriage conducted in secret) was deemed legal in many cases and the children born of such a marriage were considered legitimate; what made a clandestine union like the marriage between King Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville suspect was because it blocked the legal repercussions in case there were pre-existing impediments such as the aforementioned pre-contract which would mean any such marriage was made in error and would be considered fraudulent.

If such a clandestine union that covered up legal impediments occurred any children produced by the union would be illegitimate.

Back in the day pre-contractual unions had the ritual of the “calling of banns” which aimed to publicise a proposed marriage and prevent such misfortunes, and to proclaim the good faith of the contracting parties. Edward’s hasty and secret marriage to Elizabeth proclaimed his bad faith: if the banns had been called and his councillors informed, the impediment of the pre contract might have been revealed and circumvented.

It is theorized that had their marriage obeyed the church’s laws and had not been clandestine, their many years which Edward IV and Elizabeth lived together openly as man and wife would have been in favour of the legitimacy of the children of their union.

But because of the Clandestine nature of their union, Canon Law allowed questions of legitimacy to be raised after the parent’s deaths. Immoral or wrong behavior, such as adultery or bigamy, was not excused by the passage of time. Medieval Canon Law allowed Richard, Duke of Gloucester to raise the question of the children’s legitimacy as late as 1483.

Was He A Usurper? King Richard III. Part IV

Tags

1st Duke of Clarence, Bishop Stillington, George Plantagenet, King Edward IV, King Edward V, King Richard III, Lady Eleanor Butler, Lady Eleanor Talbot, Parliament of England, Philippe de Commines, Titulus Regius, Usurper

From the Emperor’s Desk: As I focus on the issues surrounding Richard III becoming King I will not be addressing the fate of the Princes in the Tower. Although it is a related topic, I view it as a separate issue, for their fate was a result of Richard taking the throne, therefore I will address that in another blog entry in the near future.

King Richard III succeeded to the English throne based on the claims of Titulus Regius. Titulus Regius (“royal title” in Latin) is a statute of the Parliament of England issued in 1484 by which the title of King of England was given to Richard III.

The act ratified the declaration of the Lords and the members of the House of Commons a year earlier that the marriage of King Edward IV of England to Elizabeth Woodville had been invalid and so their children, including King Edward V, Richard and Elizabeth, were illegitimate and thus debarred from the throne.

Richard III had been proclaimed the rightful king. Since the Lords and the Commons had not been officially convened as a parliament, doubts had arisen as to its validity and so when Parliament convened, it enacted the declaration as a law.

Edward’s marriage was invalidated because Bishop Robert Stillington testified that the king had precontracted a marriage to Lady Eleanor Butler. The document also claimed that Elizabeth Woodville and her mother had used witchcraft to get the king to marry her.

Since Richard’s brother George, Duke of Clarence, had been executed and attainted, his descendants forfeited all rights to the throne, leaving Richard the true heir. For good measure, the document also hinted that George and Edward (born in Ireland and Normandy, respectively) were themselves illegitimate and stated Richard, “born within this land” was the “undoubted son and heir of Richard, late Duke of York”.

If Bishop Robert Stillington was correct and King Edward IV had pre-contract with Lady Eleanor Butler (Talbot) then his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville would have been invalid.

After the overthrow and death of King Richard III at the hands of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, the precontract alleged by Richard was presented as a fiction to justify Richard’s usurpation of power and to cover his murder of the princes. Some historians have agreed with this view. Supporters of Richard, however, have argued that the precontract was real and that it legitimised his accession to the throne.

What do we know of Lady Eleanor Butler (Talbot)?

Lady Eleanor Talbot (c. 1436 – June 1468), also known by her married name Eleanor Butler (or Boteler), was an English noblewoman. She was a daughter of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury.

In 1449, 13-year-old Eleanor married Sir Thomas Butler (or Boteler), son of Ralph Boteler, Lord Sudeley. Thomas died at an unknown date before Edward IV of England’s overthrow of the House of Lancaster on 4 March 1461. Her father-in-law Lord Sudeley took back one of the two manors he had settled on her and her husband when they married, even though he did not have a license for the transfer. Edward seized both properties after he became king.

Eleanor died in June 1468. She was buried on 30 June in Norwich.

Because author Philippe de Commines does not name the “beautiful young lady”, and the official copy of Titulus Regius in parliament had been destroyed, Tudor historians confused Talbot with Edward’s long-standing mistress Elizabeth Lucy (also known as Elizabeth Wayte). Elizabeth Lucy was probably the mother of Edward IV’s bastard son, Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle.

Thomas More in his life of Richard III states that Lucy was interrogated at the time of Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, because Edward’s mother was strongly opposed to the marriage and had suggested that Edward was pre-contracted to Lucy. But Lucy denied that any contract had been made. He says that Richard revived the claim of Lucy after Edward’s death.

This threw further doubt on the case, but later historians correctly identified her. George Buck, who found the only surviving copy of Titulus Regius, was the first to identify Eleanor Talbot as the woman in question. Buck, a defender of Richard, accepted the validity of the precontract. His view has been followed by many defenders of Richard since, including Horace Walpole and Clements Markham.

Later Ricardians have also either accepted it as fact, or argued that Richard sincerely believed it to be true. It is also commonly argued by Ricardians that Stillington was imprisoned by Edward IV in 1478 because he incautiously spoke of the precontract to George, Duke of Clarence.

Part V will come next week.

April 4, 1819: Birth of Queen Maria II of Portugal

Tags

Brazil, Emperor Pedro I of Brazil, Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, House of Braganza, Infanta Maria de Gloria of Portugal, King John VI of Portugal, King Miguel I of Portugal, King Pedro IV of Portugal, Queen Maria II of Portugal, Usurper

Maria II (April 4, 1819 – November 15, 1853) was Queen of Portugal from 1826 to 1828, and again from 1834 to 1853. One of the two surviving children born when future King Pedro IV was still heir apparent to Portugal, she inherited Portuguese titles and was placed in the line of succession to the former Portuguese throne, even after becoming a member of the Brazilian imperial family, from which she was excluded in 1835 after her definitive ascension to the Portuguese throne.

Birth

Maria II was born Infanta Maria da Glória on April 4, 1819 in the Palace of São Cristóvão in Rio de Janeiro, Kingdom of Brazil. She was the eldest daughter of Prince Dom Pedro de Alcântara, future King of Portugal as Pedro IV and first Emperor of Brazil as Pedro I, and his first wife Archduchess Caroline of Austria, herself a daughter of Franz II, Holy Roman Emperor and his second wife, Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily.

Infanta Maria da Glória was titled Princess of Beira upon her birth. Born in Brazil, Maria was the only European monarch to have been born outside of Europe, though she was still born in Portuguese territory.

Her father, Infante Pedro of Portugal, living in Brazil after the Portuguese Royal Family escaped there in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, was acclaimed Emperor Pedro I on his 24th birthday, which coincided with the inauguration of the Empire of Brazil on October 12. He was crowned on December 1 in what is today known as the Old Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro.

Succession crisis

The death of Maria’s grandfather, King João VI of Portugal in March 1826 sparked a succession crisis in Portugal. Before his death, the king had nominated his favourite daughter, Dona Isabel Maria, to serve as regent until “the legitimate heir returned to the kingdom” — but he had failed to specify which of his sons was the legitimate heir: the liberal Emperor Pedro I or the absolutist, exiled Miguel. However, Infante Miguel, had been exiled to Austria after leading a number of revolutions against his father and his liberal regime.

Most people considered Pedro to be the legitimate heir, but Brazil did not want him to unite Portugal and Brazil’s thrones again. Aware that his brother’s supporters were ready to bring Miguel back and put him on the throne.

The Emperor was proclaimed King on March 10, 1826, and succeeded his father on the Portuguese throne as King Pedro IV.

Aware that a reunion of Brazil and Portugal would be unacceptable to the people of both nations. Pedro decided for a more consensual option: he would renounce his claim to the Portuguese throne in favor of his eldest daughter Maria (who was only seven years old). His abdication on May 2 was conditional: Portugal was required to accept the Constitution which he had drafted and Maria II was to marry his brother Miguel (her uncle) who would accept the liberal constitution and act as a regent until his niece reached the age of majority.

Miguel pretended to accept, but upon his arrival in Portugal, he immediately deposed Maria II and proclaimed himself King of Portugal on June 23, 1828. Then began the Liberal Wars that lasted until 1834. King Miguel abrogating the liberal constitution in the process. During his reign, Maria traveled to many European courts, including her maternal grandfather’s in Vienna, as well as London and Paris.

After a three-year civil war, Miguel I was forced to abdicate at the Concession of Evoramonte (May 26, 1834). Miguel embarked on June 1, 1834 on a British warship from Sines bound for Genoa; he lived in exile first in Italy, then in England, and finally in Germany. He never returned to Portugal.

Maria was thereupon restored to the throne, and obtained an annulment of her betrothal. Soon after her restoration to the throne, her father died from tuberculosis.

Occupying the Portuguese throne, Maria II was still heir presumptive to her brother Emperor Pedro II of Brazil as Princess Imperial of Brazil, until her exclusion from the Brazilian line of succession by law no. 91 of October 30, 1835.

Queen Maria II married Auguste, Duke of Leuchtenberg, son of Eugène de Beauharnais and grandson of the Empress Josephine of France, on 26 January 26, 1835, at the age of fifteen. However, he died only two months later, on March 28, 1835.

On April 9, 1836, Maria married the cultured and able Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Saalfeld, eldest son of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and his wife Princess Maria Antonia Koháry de Csábrág et Szitnya, heiress to the House of Koháry.

In accordance with Portuguese law, he had a right to be King of Portugal through jure uxoris as the husband of Queen Maria II. However, according to the law he would not be proclaimed King until the birth of their first child and heir, Pedro. He was Co-sovereign as King Fernando II rom the birth of their first son in 1837 to her death in 1853.

In 1842, Pope Gregory XVI presented Maria with a Golden Rose.

Maria’s reign saw a revolutionary insurrection on May 26, 1846, but this was crushed by royalist troops on February 22, 1847, and Portugal otherwise avoided the European Revolution of 1848. Maria’s reign was also notable for a public health act aimed at curbing the spread of cholera throughout the country. She also pursued policies aimed at raising the levels of education throughout the country.

Death

From her first pregnancy at the age of eighteen, Maria II faced problems in giving birth, with prolonged and extremely difficult labor. An example of this was her third gestation, whose labor lasted 32 hours, after which a girl was baptized in articulo mortis with the name of Maria (1840).

At 25 years of age and in her fifth gestation, Maria II became obese and her births became even more complicated. In 1847, the fetal distress that preceded the birth of her eighth child – the Infante Augusto, Duke of Coimbra – brought to the world a child “quite purple and with little breathing”.

The dangerous routine of successive pregnancies, coupled with obesity (which eventually caused her heart problems) and the frequency of dystocic births (worrisome, especially as a multiparous woman) led doctors to warn the queen about the serious risks she would face in future pregnancies. Indifferent to the warnings, Maria II merely replied: “If I die, I die at my post.”

On November 15, 1853, thirteen hours after the onset of labor of the stillborn Infante Eugénio, her eleventh child, Maria II died at the age of 34.

Queen Maria II was succeeded by her eldest son as King Pedro V of Portugal. As the eldest son of Queen Maria II and King Fernando II, Pedro was a member of the House of Bragança. As heir apparent to the throne he was styled Prince Royal and was also the 23rd Duke of Braganza (Duque de Bragança.

Pedro V, along with his brothers Fernando and João and other royal family members, succumbed to typhoid fever or cholera in 1861.

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

Tags

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.

Was He A Usurper? King Edward IV: Conclusion.

Tags

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.

Was He A Usurper? King Edward IV of England. Part I.

Tags

5th Earl of March, Anne Mortimer, Edmund Mortimer, House of Lancaster, House of York, Joan of Kent, King Edward IV of England and Lord of Ireland, King Henry IV of England, King Henry V of England, King Henry VI of England, King Richard II of England, Usurper, Wars of the Roses

With the usurpation of the throne of England by Henry Bolingbroke as King Henry IV of England and Lord of Ireland this event brought instability to the Monarchy and planted the seeds for further usurpations during the period of the Wars of the Roses.

To get to the reign of King Edward IV of England we need to examine the complex genealogy of the descendants of King Edward III of England and the ancestry of King Edward IV.

The heir presumptive to childless King Richard II of England was Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, a great-grandson of King Edward III’s second surviving son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence.

Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March

Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, was born at New Forest, Westmeath, one of his family’s Irish estates, on November 6, 1391, the son of Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, and Eleanor Holland. He had a younger brother, Roger (1393 – c. 1413), and two sisters: Anne Mortimer; and Eleanor, who married Sir Edward de Courtenay (d. 1418), and had no issue.

Edmund Mortimer’s mother was Alianore Holland, born October 13, 1370 in Upholland, Lancashire, as the eldest child of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent, and Lady Alice FitzAlan, who herself was the daughter of Richard de Arundel, 10th Earl of Arundel, and his second wife, Eleanor of Lancaster, daughter of Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster, grandson of King Henry III.

Alianore Holland’s paternal grandparents were Thomas Holland, 1st Earl of Kent, and Joan of Kent, mother of King Richard II by her third marriage to Edward, the Black Prince. As such, Alianore’s father was a maternal half-brother to King Richard II.

Incidentally, Joan of Kent, was the daughter of Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent (1301-1330), by his wife, Margaret Wake, 3rd Baroness Wake of Liddell. Edmund of Woodstock was the sixth son of King Edward I of England by his second wife, Margaret of France, daughter of King Philippe III of France.

Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March was thus a descendant of King Henry III and King Edward I and a half-great-nephew of Richard II through his mother, and more importantly a direct descendant of King Edward III through his paternal grandmother Philippa of Clarence, the only child of King Edward III’s second surviving son, Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence.

Because King Richard II had no issue, initially Edmund’s father, Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, was heir presumptive during his lifetime, and at his death in Ireland on July 20, 1398 his claim to the throne passed to his eldest son, Edmund, 5th Earl of March.

Thus in terms of male primogeniture, Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March was heir to the throne over and above the House of Lancaster, including the children of Edward III’s third son John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

However, on September 30, 1399, when Edmund Mortimer was not yet eight years of age, his fortunes changed entirely. King Richard II was deposed by Henry Bolingbroke, the new Duke of Lancaster, who became King Henry IV and had his own son, the future King Henry V, recognized as heir apparent at his first Parliament.

The King put the young Edmund, 5th Earl of March and his brother Roger into the custody of Sir Hugh Waterton at Windsor and Berkhamsted castles, but they were treated honourably, and for part of the time brought up with the King Henry IV’s own children, John and Philippa.

The White Rose, Symbol of the House of York

Edmund Mortimer’s claim to the throne was the basis of rebellions and plots against Henry IV and his son Henry V, and was later taken up by the House of York in the Wars of the Roses, though Edmund Mortimer himself was an important and loyal vassal of Henry V and Henry VI.

Edmund Mortimer’s sisters, Anne and Eleanor, who were in the care of their mother until her death in 1405, were not well treated by Henry IV, and were described as ‘destitute’ after her death.

On his accession in 1413, King Henry V set Edmund Mortimer at liberty, and on April 8, 1413, the day before the new King’s coronation, Edmund Mortimer and his brother Roger were made Knights of the Bath.

King Henry V was succeeded by his nine-month-old son, King Henry VI, and on December 9, 1422 Edmund Mortimer was appointed to the Regency Council of the regency government, 1422–1437.

On May 9, 1423 he was appointed the King’s lieutenant in Ireland for nine years, but at first exercised his authority through a deputy, Edward Dantsey, Bishop of Meath, and remained in England.

However, after a violent quarrel with the King’s uncle Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and the execution of his kinsman, Sir John Mortimer, Edmund Mortimer was “sent out of the way to Ireland”. He arrived there in the autumn of 1424, and on January 18 or 19, 1425 died of plague at Trim Castle.

Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March left no issue and his nephew, Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, the eldest surviving son of his sister, Anne Mortimer and her husband, Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge, had a better claim to the throne of the English kings of the House of Lancaster.

It was her line of descent which gave the Yorkist dynasty its claim to the throne. Anne was grandmother of kings Edward IV and Richard III.

Her dynastic marriage with Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge, another descendant of King Edward III, increased her family’s claim to the throne of England. That will be addressed in the next entry.

Were They A Usurper? Henry IV of England. Conclusion

Tags

5th Earl of March, Adam of Usk, Edmund Crouchback, John of Gaunt, King Edward III, King Henry IV of England and Lord of Ireland, King Richard II of England and Lord of Ireland, Parliament, Philippa of Clarence, Roger Mortimer, Usurper

One of the initial problems King Henry IV had to face after his usurpation of the throne from King Richard II was to manufacture the illusion that his coming to the throne was lawful and legitimate.

Adam of Usk was a medieval canonist, clergyman and historian of Welsh origin who used pro-Lancastrian propaganda with bias against Richard II to justify why the throne was empty in order to promote Henry as a legitimate ruler. Usk also used the elements of Biblical prophecy and rumour to further that legitimation.

Parliament was still in its early stages of development and this body was not seen as a means to legitimize Henry’s reign. After 1399 there is no clear sign that Henry IV thought that he owed his position to a Parliament that had cooperated in the downfall of King Richard II.

King Henry IV of England and Lord of Ireland

In 1406 Parliament simply recorded the fact that the descent of the crown was now in the hands of the Lancasterian family. This recording of the was fact was not establishing the legitimacy of Henry IV’s reign it was merely establishing where the hereditary succession to the crown now resided.

Despite Henry IV not viewing his crown as coming from Parliament he did try to use that institution to his advantage. The first Parliament called during his reign found it necessary, in the best interests of the Lancastrian party, to tweak the narrative to emphasize that Richard II had renounced the crown of his own free-will. They did so quite effectively through both the Record and Process and the rolls of Parliament, which were to be taken as the official word on the matter.

King Richard II of England surrendering the Crown to Henry Bolingbroke 2nd Duke of Lancaster

However, the nature of kingship in fourteenth and fifteenth century England was viewed as sacred and in the spirit of the divine right of kings it was believed by the vast majority that who sat on the trine was ordained by God himself. This meant that Richard II most probably never ceased to believe that he was the true king and would have fought for his title, shattering the Lancastrian illusion of a voluntary abdication.

However, the question of the succession never went away. The problem lay in the fact that Henry was only the most prominent male heir, but not the most senior in terms of agnatic descent from Edward III.

Although he was heir to the throne according to Edward III’s entail to the crown of 1376, Dr. Ian Mortimer has pointed out in his 2008 biography of Henry IV that this entail had probably been supplanted by an entail made by Richard II in 1399 (see Ian Mortimer, The Fears of Henry IV, appendix two, pp. 366–9). Henry thus had to overcome the superior claim of the Mortimers in order to maintain his inheritance.

The heir presumptive to King Richard II was Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, great-grandson of Edward III’s second surviving son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence.

Henry IV’s father, John of Gaunt, was Edward’s third son to survive to adulthood. One way to solve the problem of Henry’s place in the succession was solved by emphasising Henry’s descent in a direct male line, whereas Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March’s descent was through his grandmother, Philippa of Clarence.

Philippa of Clarence the only child of Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, and Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster. As mentioned her father was the third son, but second son to survive infancy, of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault. She was the eldest grandchild of King Edward and Queen Philippa, her namesake.

Henry IV furthered his right to the throne in the direct male line further back in history by not just claiming his descent from John of Gaunt the third surviving son of King Edward III, Henry rather ridiculously claimed the throne as the right heir to King Henry III by direct male descent.

Henry IV claimed that Edmund Crouchback was the elder son of King Henry III and not the younger son of King Henry. He asserted that every monarch from King Edward I was a usurper, and he, as his mother Blanche of Lancaster was a great-granddaughter in the male line from Edmund Crouchback, was the rightful king.

Despite attempts to legitimize his reign through Parliament, propaganda or hereditary descent, Henry IV of England was clearly a usurper.

Were They A Usurper? King Henry IV. Part I.

Tags

1st Earl of Northumberland, Archbishop of Canterbury, Duke Lancaster, Duke of York, Edmund of England, Henry Bolingbroke, Henry Percy, House of Lancaster, John of Gaunt. King Charles VI of France, King Henry IV of England and Lord of Ireland, King Richard II of England and Lord of Ireland, Lords Appellant, Usurper

John of Gaunt, uncle of the King, occupied the role of a valued counsellor of King Richard II and loyal supporter of the Crown. He did not even protest, it seems, when his younger brother Thomas was murdered at Richard’s behest. It may be that he felt he had to maintain this posture of loyalty to protect his son, Henry Bolingbroke, who had also been one of the Lords Appellant who rebelled against the King, from Richard’s wrath.

Henry Bolingbroke experienced an inconsistent relationship with King Richard II than his father, John of Gaunt had. First cousins and childhood playmates, they were admitted together as knights of the Order of the Garter in 1377, but as mentioned, Henry participated in the Lords Appellants’ rebellion against the king in 1387.

After regaining power, Richard did not punish Henry, although he did execute or exile many of the other rebellious barons. In fact, Richard elevated Henry from Earl of Derby to Duke of Hereford.

The relationship between Henry and King Richard II met with a second crisis. In 1398, a remark regarding Richard II’s rule by Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk, was interpreted as treason by Henry who reported it to the king.

Henry and Thomas de Mowbray agreed to undergo a duel of honour (called by Richard II) at Gosford Green near Caludon Castle, Mowbray’s home in Coventry. Yet before the duel could take place, Richard decided to banish Henry from the kingdom (with the approval of Henry’s father, John of Gaunt) to avoid further bloodshed. Mowbray was exiled for life.

King Richard II of England and Lord of Ireland

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.

While in exile in France, and 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. In England King Richard II went on a military campaign against Ireland.

In June 1399, Louis I, Duke of Orléans, gained control of the court of the insane Charles VI of France. The policy of rapprochement with the English crown did not suit Louis’s political ambitions, and for this reason he found it opportune to allow Henry Bolingbroke to leave France for England.

With a small group of followers, Henry Bolingbroke and Thomas Arundel, landed at Ravenspur in Yorkshire towards the end of June 1399.

With Arundel now 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 solely to reclaim his rights as Duke of Lancaster,

Men from all over the country soon rallied around him. Meeting with Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, who had his own misgivings about the King, and Bolingbroke insisted that his only object was to regain his own patrimony.

Percy took him at his word and declined to interfere. The king had taken most of his household knights and the loyal members of his nobility with him to Ireland, so Bolingbroke experienced little resistance as he moved south.

Keeper of the Realm Edmund, Duke of York, had little choice but to side with Bolingbroke. Meanwhile, King Richard II was delayed in his return from Ireland and did not land in Wales until July 24. The King made his way to Conwy, where on August 12 he met with the Earl of Northumberland for negotiations.

On August 19 Richard surrendered to Henry Bolingbroke at Flint Castle, promising to abdicate if his life were spared. Both men then returned to London, the indignant king riding all the way behind Henry. On arrival, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London on September 1.

Henry was by now fully determined to take the throne, but presenting a rationale for this action proved a dilemma. It was argued that Richard II, through his tyranny and misgovernment, had rendered himself unworthy of being king.

However, Henry was not next in line to the throne; the heir presumptive was Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, great-grandson of Edward III’s second surviving son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence.

Bolingbroke’s father, John of Gaunt, was Edward’s third son to survive to adulthood. The problem was solved by emphasising Henry’s descent in a direct male line, whereas March’s descent was through his grandmother, Philippa of Clarence.

Henry Bolingbroke, Duke Lancaster and later, King Henry IV of England and Lord of Ireland

According to the official record, read by the Archbishop of Canterbury during an assembly of lords and commons at Westminster Hall on Tuesday September 30, King Richard II gave up his crown willingly and ratified his deposition citing as a reason his own unworthiness as a monarch.

On the other hand, the Traison et Mort Chronicle suggests otherwise. It describes a meeting between Richard and Henry that took place one day before the parliament’s session. The king succumbed to blind rage, ordered his own release from the Tower, called his cousin a traitor, demanded to see his wife, and swore revenge, throwing down his bonnet, while Henry refused to do anything without parliamentary approval.

When parliament met to discuss Richard’s fate, John Trevor, Bishop of St Asaph, read thirty-three articles of deposition that were unanimously accepted by lords and commons. On October 1, 1399, Richard II was formally deposed. On October 13, the feast day of Edward the Confessor, Henry Bolingbroke was crowned as King Henry IV of England and Lord of Ireland.

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

King Henry IV had agreed to let Richard live after his abdication. This all changed when it was revealed that the earls of Huntingdon, Kent, and Salisbury, and Lord Despenser, and possibly also the Earl of Rutland – all now demoted from the ranks they had been given by Richard – were planning to murder the new king and restore Richard in the Epiphany Rising.

Although averted, the plot highlighted the danger of allowing Richard to live. Richard is thought to have been starved to death in captivity in Pontefract Castle on or around February 14, 1400, although there is some question over the date and manner of his death. His body was taken south from Pontefract and displayed in St Paul’s Cathedral on 17 February before burial in King’s Langley Priory on March 6.

Were They A Usurper? King John. Part II.

Tags

Château de Falaise, Duke Arthur I of Brittany, Eleanor of Aquitaine, King John of England and Lord of Ireland, King Philippe II Auguste of France, King Richard I of England, Male Preferred Primogeniture, Treaty of Le Goulet, Usurper

Conquest of Cyprus

In April 1191 Richard left Messina for Acre, but a storm dispersed his large fleet. After some searching, it was discovered that the ship carrying his sister Joan and his new fiancée, Berengaria of Navarre, was anchored on the south coast of Cyprus, along with the wrecks of several other vessels, including the treasure ship. Survivors of the wrecks had been taken prisoner by the island’s ruler, Isaac Komnenos.

Before leaving Cyprus on crusade, Richard married Berengaria, the first-born daughter of King Sancho VI of Navarre. Richard first grew close to her at a tournament held in her native Navarre. The wedding was held in Limassol on May 12, 1191 at the Chapel of St George and was attended by Richard’s sister Joan, whom he had brought from Sicily. The marriage was celebrated with great pomp and splendour, many feasts and entertainments, and public parades and celebrations followed commemorating the event.

When Richard married Berengaria he was still officially betrothed to Alys, and he pushed for the match in order to obtain the Kingdom of Navarre as a fief, as Aquitaine had been for his father. Further, Eleanor championed the match, as Navarre bordered Aquitaine, thereby securing the southern border of her ancestral lands.

Richard took his new wife on crusade with him briefly, though they returned separately. Berengaria had almost as much difficulty in making the journey home as her husband did, and she did not see England until after his death. After his release from German captivity, Richard showed some regret for his earlier conduct, but he was not reunited with his wife. The marriage remained childless.

Death of the King

In March 1199, Richard was in Limousin suppressing a revolt by Viscount Aimar V of Limoges. Although it was Lent, he “devastated the Viscount’s land with fire and sword”. He besieged the tiny, virtually unarmed castle of Châlus-Chabrol. Some chroniclers claimed that this was because a local peasant had uncovered a treasure trove of Roman gold.

On March 26, 1199, Richard was hit in the shoulder by a crossbow bolt, and the wound turned gangrenous. Richard asked to have the crossbowman brought before him; called alternatively Pierre (or Peter) Basile, John Sabroz, Dudo, and Bertrand de Gourdon (from the town of Gourdon) by chroniclers, the man turned out (according to some sources, but not all) to be a boy.

He said Richard had killed his father and two brothers, and that he had killed Richard in revenge. He expected to be executed, but as a final act of mercy Richard forgave him, saying “Live on, and by my bounty behold the light of day”, before he ordered the boy to be freed and sent away with 100 shillings.

Richard died on April 6, 1199 in the arms of his mother, and thus “ended his earthly day.” Because of the nature of Richard’s death, it was later referred to as “the Lion by the Ant was slain”. According to one chronicler, Richard’s last act of chivalry proved fruitless when the infamous mercenary captain Mercadier had the boy flayed alive and hanged as soon as Richard died.

Richard produced no legitimate heirs and acknowledged only one illegitimate son, Philip of Cognac. His French territories, with the exception of Rouen, initially rejected John as a successor, preferring his nephew Arthur. The lack of any direct heirs from Richard was the first step in the dissolution of the Angevin Empire.

A Game of Thrones

After Richard’s death on April 6, 1199 there were two potential claimants to the Angevin throne: John, whose claim rested on being the sole surviving son of Henry II, and young Arthur I of Brittany, who held a claim as the son of John’s elder brother Geoffrey.

Richard appears to have started to recognise John as his heir presumptive in the final years before his death, but the matter was not clear-cut and medieval law gave little guidance as to how the competing claims should be decided.

With Norman law favouring John as the only surviving son of Henry II and Angevin law favouring Arthur as the only son of Henry’s elder son, the matter rapidly became an open conflict.

John immediately claimed the throne of England, but much of the French nobility were resentful at recognising him as their overlord. They preferred Arthur, who declared himself vassal of Philippe II Auguste of France.

John was supported by the bulk of the English and Norman nobility and was crowned at Westminster Abbey, backed by his mother, Eleanor. Arthur was supported by the majority of the Breton, Maine and Anjou nobles and received the support of Philippe II Auguste, who remained committed to breaking up the Angevin territories on the continent.

With Arthur’s army pressing up the Loire Valley towards Angers and Philip’s forces moving down the valley towards Tours, John’s continental empire was in danger of being cut in two.

Philippe II Auguste recognised Arthur’s right to Anjou, Maine, and Poitou. From April 8, Arthur he styled himself as Duke of Brittany, Count of Anjou and Earl of Richmond.

Treaty of Le Goulet

The Treaty of Le Goulet was signed by the kings John of England and Philippe II Auguste of France in May 1200 and meant to settle once and for all the claims the Norman kings of England had as Norman dukes on French lands, including, at least for a time, Brittany.

Under the terms of the treaty, Philippe II Auguste recognised John as King of England as heir of his brother Richard I and thus formally abandoned any support for Arthur. John, meanwhile, recognised Philippe II Auguste as the suzerain of continental possessions of the Angevin Empire.

After the signing of the Treaty of Le Goulet, and feeling offended by Philippe II Auguste, Arthur fled to John, his uncle, and was treated kindly, at least initially. However, he later became suspicious of John and fled back to Angers. Some unidentified source said that in April 1202, Arthur was again betrothed, this time to Marie of France, a daughter of Philippe II Auguste and Agnes of Andechs-Merania.

After his return to France, and with the support of Philippe II Auguste, Arthur embarked on a campaign in Normandy against John in 1202. Poitou revolted in support of Arthur. Arthur, Duke of Brittany besieged his grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, John’s mother, in the Château de Mirebeau.

John marched on Mirebeau, taking Arthur by surprise on July 31, 1202. Arthur was captured by John’s barons on August 1, and imprisoned in the Château de Falaise in Falaise, Normandy.

Imprisonment and disappearance

Arthur was guarded by Hubert de Burgh at the Chateau de Falaise. According to contemporaneous chronicler Ralph of Coggeshall, John ordered two of his servants to blind and castrate the duke. De Burgh could not bring himself to let Arthur be mutilated.

Fearful of John, de Burgh leaked news that Arthur had died of natural causes. This news infuriated Brittany, who suspected that Arthur had been murdered. The following year Arthur was transferred to Rouen, under the charge of William de Braose. Arthur vanished in April 1203, in the background of several military victories by Philippe II Auguste of France against King John.

Arthur’s disappearance gave rise to various stories. One account was that Arthur’s gaolers feared to harm him, and so he was murdered by John directly and his body dumped in the Seine.

William de Braose is also rumoured to have murdered Arthur. After the young man’s disappearance, he rose high in John’s favour receiving new lands and titles in the Welsh Marches. Many years after Arthur’s disappearance, and just prior to a conflict with King John, de Braose’s wife Maud de Braose accused the king of murdering Arthur.

Not only the Bretons, but even Philippe II Auguste were ignorant of what actually happened, and whether Arthur was alive or dead. Whatever his fate, Arthur left no known issue. William promised to direct the attack of Mirebeau on condition he was consulted on the fate of Arthur, but John broke the promise, causing him to leave John along with Aimeri of Thouars and siege Angers.

Nothing is recorded of Arthur after his incarceration in Rouen Castle in 1203, and while his precise fate is unknown, it is generally believed he was killed by John.

Assessment: I do not consider King John a usurper. Male preferred primogeniture was still developing and the fact is the monarch did have the power to name thier successor. King Richard I did at one point proclaim his nephew Arthur as his heir but in later years he changed his mind and supported his brother John as his heir. With Richard naming his brother as his heir John did become the legal King of England upon the death of his brother.

Where They A Usurper? King Stephen. Part III

Tags

Empress Matilda, Geoffrey of Anjou, Henry of Huntingdon, King Henry I of England, King Stephen of England, Robert of Gloucester, Stephen of Blois, The Anarchy, Theobald of Blois, Usurper, Westminster Abbey

From the Emperor’s Desk: I couldn’t find any contemporary portrait of King Stephen that I liked so I’m using shots of King Stephen from the TV mini series “Pillars of the Earth” which I highly recommend!

Relations among King Henry, Empress Matilda, and Geoffrey became increasingly strained during the King’s final years. Matilda and Geoffrey suspected that they lacked genuine support in England. In 1135 they urged Henry to hand over the royal castles in Normandy to Matilda whilst he was still alive, and insisted that the Norman nobility swear immediate allegiance to her, thereby giving the couple a more powerful position after Henry’s death.

Henry angrily declined to do so, probably out of concern that Geoffrey would try to seize power in Normandy. A fresh rebellion broke out amongst the barons in southern Normandy, led by William III, Count of Ponthieu, whereupon Geoffrey and Matilda intervened in support of the rebels.

Henry campaigned throughout the autumn, strengthening the southern frontier, and then travelled to Lyons-la-Forêt in November to enjoy some hunting, still apparently healthy. There he fell ill – according to the chronicler Henry of Huntingdon, he ate too many (“a surfeit of”) lampreys against his physician’s advice – and his condition worsened over the course of a week.

Once the condition appeared terminal, Henry gave confession and summoned Archbishop Hugh of Amiens, who was joined by Robert of Gloucester and other members of the court. In accordance with custom, preparations were made to settle Henry’s outstanding debts and to revoke outstanding sentences of forfeiture.

The King died on December 1, 1135, and his corpse was taken to Rouen accompanied by the barons, where it was embalmed; his entrails were buried locally at the priory of Notre-Dame du Pré, and the preserved body was taken on to England, where it was interred at Reading Abbey.

When news began to spread of Henry I’s death, many of the potential claimants to the throne were not well placed to respond. Geoffrey and Matilda were in Anjou, rather awkwardly supporting the rebels in their campaign against the royal army, which included a number of Matilda’s supporters such as Robert of Gloucester.

Many of these barons had taken an oath to stay in Normandy until the late King was properly buried, which prevented them from returning to England. Stephen’s elder brother Theobald was further south still, in Blois. Stephen, however, was in Boulogne, and when news reached him of Henry’s death he left for England, accompanied by his military household.

Robert of Gloucester had garrisoned the ports of Dover and Canterbury and some accounts suggest that they refused Stephen access when he first arrived. Nonetheless, Stephen probably reached his own estate on the edge of London by December 8 and over the next week he began to seize power in England.

On December 15, Henry of Huntingdon delivered an agreement under which Stephen would grant extensive freedoms and liberties to the church, in exchange for the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Papal Legate supporting his succession to the throne. There was the slight problem of the religious oath that Stephen had taken to support the Empress Matilda, but Henry of Huntingdon convincingly argued that the late King Henry had been wrong to insist that his court take the oath.

Furthermore, the late King had only insisted on that oath to protect the stability of the kingdom, and in light of the chaos that might now ensue, Stephen would be justified in ignoring it. Henry of Huntingdon was also able to persuade Hugh Bigod, the late King’s royal steward, to swear that the King had changed his mind about the succession on his deathbed, nominating Stephen instead.

Meanwhile, the Norman nobility gathered at Le Neubourg to discuss declaring Theobald king, probably following the news that Stephen was gathering support in England. The Normans argued that the count, as the more senior grandson of William the Conqueror, had the most valid claim over the kingdom and the duchy, and was certainly preferable to Empress Matilda.

Theobald met with the Norman barons and Robert of Gloucester at Lisieux on December 21. Their discussions were interrupted by the sudden news from England that Stephen’s coronation was to occur the next day.

Theobald then agreed to the Normans’ proposal that he be made king, only to find that his former support immediately ebbed away: the barons were not prepared to support the division of England and Normandy by opposing Stephen, who subsequently financially compensated Theobald, who in return remained in Blois and supported his brother’s succession.

The crowds in London proclaimed Stephen the new monarch, believing that he would grant the city new rights and privileges in return. Henry of Blois delivered the support of the church to Stephen: Stephen was able to advance to Winchester, where Roger, Bishop of Salisbury and Lord Chancellor, instructed the royal treasury to be handed over to Stephen.

Stephen’s coronation was held a week later at Westminster Abbey on December 22.

Assessment: Stephen of Blois was clearly a usurper. King Henry I designated the English throne to his only surviving legitimate child, Empress Matilda. Barrons and other nobles swore an oath of allegiance to the Empress Matilda which they renounced upon the death of King Henry. Ignoring thier oaths, the nobility supported Stephen in the battle for the crown.