Like so many of us, I was taught at school that Henry VII's claim to the throne when he became king was rather weak. He was an ancestor of Henry VI, the last Lancastrian king, who died in 1471, but not through the royal line. His grandfather Owen Tudor had married Henry V's widow, Katherine of Valois and their sons Jasper and Edmund were looked on favourably by their royal half-brother, Henry VI, during his lifetime. Edmund Tudor then married Margaret Beaufort, and at the age of thirteen, she gave birth to Henry Tudor, the future Henry VII. This already tenuous link to the royal line hangs by another thin thread of credibility; that Margaret Beaufort, his mother, was an ancestor of the great Edward III. But, as my history teachers told me, the Beauforts were related to Edward III through an illegitimate relationship and then explicitly and legally removed from the succession by Henry IV.
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| Henry IV, Met Museum, Public Domain |
The Beauforts were born as a result of a relationship between Henry IV's father John of Gaunt (eldest son of Edward III) and his mistress, Katherine Swynford. They were therefore born out of marriage, and considered illegitimate in their status. They were legitimised later on, but on Henry IV's accession, the Beauforts were half-siblings of the king, and it is probably natural that the wily Henry IV looked to ensure that the royal line passed through his own descendants: by 1407 he already had four sons who could one day inherit the throne of England.
The document at the centre of all this was created on 10 February 1407 at Westminster during Henry IV's reign, who seized the throne from his cousin Richard II in 1399. It's printed, in its original Latin, in A.F. Pollard's The Reign of Henry VII From Contemporary Sources, published in 1914.
The document is an alteration of one initially made by Richard II. It starts off with a cordial greeting, mentions John Beaufort, Henry IV's half-sibling born to Katherine Swynford, and the service John has given to the crown. It then states that the Beauforts can inherit any 'honours and dignities', but the crucial point has been added that this excludes that of the royal dignity ('excepta dignitate regali').
Now. This all looks as if Henry IV wanted to make sure his own blood succeeded to the throne, rather than that of his half-brothers or sisters, approving their legitimacy but with a careful caveat. To be honest, it's probably something I'd have done if I was a medieval king and already had a brood of sons and daughters that I could bring up with my policies, training and values to rule after me. Henry had also just usurped Richard II, the anointed king. He's not going to want history to repeat itself before or after his own death. He's securing the throne and establishing peace in the kingdom. It makes sense. But Pollard, before his transcript of the original document, notes that the words 'excepta dignitate regali' were clearly added in a later hand, bringing into question whether Henry IV issued this command at all.
Pollard further adds that this amendment is not found in a copy in the official Parliament Rolls, but that the exception is still 'clearly implied' in the wording of both documents even with these crucial words removed. It is sometimes stated that Henry VII addressed Parliament on his accession celebrating his right to the throne by conquest alone, but the records for November 1485 show that he also acknowledged his 'lawful title of inheritance'. Did he consider his claim fully legitimate, rendering Henry IV's 'alterations' void? And if so, what purpose did the exclusion written into the document have and who was motivated to add it? Of course in the end, it didn't matter, because Henry VII definitely became king, although their claim as a Tudor couple was boosted by marrying Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of a previous King of England.
Do you know more about this document or the Beaufort 'barring' of inheriting the throne? Let me know your thoughts below.
Sources:
Pollard, A.F. The Reign of Henry VII From Contemporary Sources, Volume 2, Longmans Green and Co., London 1914
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