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the descent in the female line was not formally denied, no Queen Regnant had ever, in fact, sat upon the throne.[1] Even Henry VII. refused to strengthen his title by advancing the claims of his wife: and the uncertainty of the laws of marriage, and the innumerable refinements of the Romish canon law, which affected the legitimacy of children,[2] furnished, in connection with the further ambiguities of clerical dispensations, perpetual pretexts, whenever pretexts were needed, for a breach of allegiance. So long, indeed, as the character of the nation remained essentially military, it could as little tolerate an incapable king as an army in a dangerous campaign can bear with an inefficient commander;
- ↑ Nor was the theory distinctly admitted, or the claim of the house of York would have been unquestionable.
- ↑ 25 Hen. VIII. c. 22. Draft of the Dispensation to be granted to Henry VIII. Rolls House MS. It has been asserted by a writer in the Tablet that there is no instance in the whole of English history where the ambiguity of the marriage law led to a dispute of title. This was not the opinion of those who remembered the wars of the fifteenth century. 'Recens in quorundam vestrorum animis adhuc est illius cruenti temporis memoria,' said Henry VIII. in a speech in council, 'quod a Ricardo tertio cum avi nostri materni Edwardi quarti statum in controversiam vocâsset ejusque heredes regno atque vitâ, privâsset illatum est.'—Wilkins's Concilia, vol. iii. p. 714. Richard claimed the crown on the ground that a pre-contract rendered his brother's marriage invalid, and Henry VII. tacitly allowed the same doubt to continue. The language of the 22nd of the 25th of Hen. VIII. is so clear as to require no additional elucidation; but another distinct evidence of the belief of the time upon the subject is in one of the papers laid before Pope Clement.'Constat, in ipso regno quam plurima gravissima bella sæpe exorta, confingentes ex justis et legitimis nuptiis quorundam Angliæ regum procreatos illegitimos fore propter aliquod consanguinitatis vel affinitatis confictum impedimentum et propterea inhabiles esse ad regni successionem.'—Rolls House MS.; Wilkins's Concilia, vol. iii. p. 707.
