My understanding is that after the 3rd Succession Act, the line of succession after Henry VIII was his children in the order Edward, Mary and Elizabeth then the line of Mary Tudor thereby passing Who should have been after Elizabeth - Margaret Tudor. If Edward VI had not tried to bypass his sisters, would the crown have passed to Mary’s line whoever was in line in 1603 or would it have ended up with the Stuarts like it actually happened or would there have been a battle for the crown?
It went:
Edward VI - died without natural born heir
Mary - died without nb heir
Elizabeth - died without nb heir
Frances Grey ( Lady Jane’s mother ), followed by her three daughters
Jane Grey - died without nb heir
Catherine Grey - died without legitimate nb heir ( marriage declared illegitimate )
Mary Grey - died without nb heir
Eleanor Clifford, followed by her daughter
Margaret Clifford, followed by her eldest son
Ferdinand Stanley, then his daughter
Anne Stanley
Elizabeth outlived all of the above but Anne Stanley. Anne was passed over in favour of James Stuart in defiance of Henry VIII’s act. He was actually a little more closely related to Elizabeth than Anne and had been the established successor before Elizabeth’s death.
Edward VI not promoting Jane should have made little difference in the succession that followed, except if Jane had lived long enough to have a legitimate heir, they or their heir may have succeeded Elizabeth instead of the Stuarts. Pretty speculative.
Redacted.
The big issue was legitimacy. Henry, as you may have heard, had marital issues. An heir was supposed to be the result of a legitimate marriage (which took Henry’s oldest son, Henry Fitzroy, out of the line of succession).
Mary was the daughter of Henry and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. When Henry decided he wanted to marry Anne Boleyn (who would become the mother of Elizabeth) he had his first marriage declared invalid. So if his marriage to Catherine was invalid then Mary was illegitimate and not a possible heir. And if his marriage to Catherine had been valid, then his marriage to Anne was not valid so Elizabeth was illegitimate and not a possible heir. It’s pretty much impossible to come up with a legal argument under which both daughters were legitimate. From a legal standpoint, it would be a lot easier to make the claim that both marriages were invalid and neither daughter was legitimate. And if you were in the line of succession and wanted to jump ahead a couple of places, you had reason to make such a claim.
The Stuart line did have a legitimate claim to have precedence over the Brandon/Grey and Clifford/Stanley lines. The Stuart claim came down through Henry’s older sister Margaret while the other claims came down through his younger sister Mary. Margaret being the elder, her descendants should have been ahead of Mary’s descendants.
Sure. But they had been specifically excluded by the Third Succession Act. This was thrown overboard when James came to the thrown, but it dictated the line of succession for a number of decades.
Exactly, hence the OPof what would have happened if the Grey/Cliffords line had outlived Elizabeth I
There’s a joke in here somewhere about “dying,” “lady’s,” “grey,” and “heir,” but I’m still working on finding it.
True. But what one act established another act could overturn. My point was that the Stuarts did have a legitimate claim to the throne - they didn’t just pop out of nowhere (or in this case Scotland) and grab it when Elizabeth died.
Well, they did :). The Clifford line in the form of Anne Stanley and the Grey line in the form of Catherine Grey’s lovechild, Edward Seymour ( declared illegitimate, as proof of the marriage was scarce, Elizabeth disapproved of the match and she wanted no rivals ). So three potential claimants at Elizabeth’s death:
James Stuart - best technical claim as Little Nemo notes, but legally from a disinherited line, that of Margaret Tudor.
Edward Seymour - senior claimant from the line of Mary Tudor through the Grey line, but had been declared an illegitimate heir.
Anne Stanley - junior claimant from the line of Mary Tudor through the Clifford line and by the Third Act of Succession the best legal claim.
Edward VI monkeying around with the succession ultimately changed nothing, other than getting Jane Grey killed. It would only have been of great significance if it had succeeded. Had he not done so and Jane lived and produced a line of legitimate heirs that achieved great prominence and wealth and were then formally adopted by Elizabeth ( as she purportedly toyed with doing with Catherine Grey ), maybe they could have superseded James. Maybe.
But it is too highly speculative to really say what would have happened. Succession war with Scotland? Possible, but I wouldn’t think likely. If a putative Grey heir was strongly enough established to have Parliament’s support I think it would have been a done deal.
Is there not some controversy about whether a King can lawfully disinherit his rightful heirs? BTW, did any of Anne Stanley’s heirs actually claim the throne?
Here is a page which shows who the rightful Kings of England were, using a wide variety of theories!
It is a curious genealogical fact that the Stuart Kings were supposedly the rightful heirs of King Alfred the Great, so their claim didn’t even depend on the Norman conquest! However, Alfred’s Kingship itself was irregular – the throne belonged to his nephew – and the above website claims the rightful Kingship of Wessex, using Alfred’s nephew, passed through King Harold II to various Rurikid Princes of Russia!
Is that why she became Dark Phoenix?
I’ve wondered why Frances Grey, Jane’s mother and Henry VIII’s niece, waived her own rights in favor of Jane. Anyone know? From what I’ve read she was ambitious in her own right and would have had access to books on Alexander the Great/Nero/Isabel [wife of Edward II/mother of Ed3] that would inform her “ambitious mothers of a monarch don’t always get to rule through them”.
I’m not sure anyone knows, but two hypotheses, depending on who was the motive force:
1.) It was primarily Edward VI’s scheme - he and Jane were supposedly close and at one time a marriage had been considered. He may have simply preferred her and/or wanted Frances ( a not very lovable woman ) partially neutralized, with Dudley having joint control over the new monarchs.
2.) It was primarily Dudley’s scheme, manipulating Edward - it may have been Dudley’s price to arrange the whole thing. That way both Frances and Dudley could exercise a level of rule through their adolescent children and he wasn’t as vulnerable to Frances’ caprices.
My guess is that was John Dudley’s idea. Dudley was a powerful figure in England at the time. He couldn’t conveniently bring Frances into his family but he could arrange for Jane to marry his son.
Dudley could conceivably have worked indirectly through Frances but there would have been disadvantages. First, Frances was only 36 when Edward died and could be expected to have a long reign (although as it turned out she died at the age of 42). Frances wouldn’t have been part of the Dudley family and probably would have acted more independently than Jane would have. If she were ruling she’d have had the possible option of disinheriting Jane for one of her other daughters. Or worse yet, she might have had a son.
I saw a pop-up video presentation of Lady Jane once many years ago on History Channel (when they still occasionally let in historically themed shows). The scene where Dudley (Cary Elwes) pledges his undying love and devotion to Jane (Helena Bonham-Carter) as they’re taking him to die had a great pop-up, something to the effect of
A valid concern as after her daughter and husband were executed she remarried (to a man of much lower station) and had at least two children with him.
Came in to post my initial comical misread of the thread title. Found Revtim’s funnier riff on the same gag. Leaving satisfied. thanks!
Can someone explain why Henry disinherited Margaret’s line?
I think it was as simple as he didn’t want a Scottish monarch ascending the throne of England. The rapprochement between James IV and Henry VII that had allowed for the marriage of Margaret to the Scottish king quickly broke down under Henry VIII. James IV was defeated and killed fighting an English army at Flodden Field in 1513. Likewise Margaret’s son James V of Scotland died in the aftermath of a English victory over the Scots at Solway Moss in 1542 ( the death may or may not have been coincidental, but still ).
Given the piss-poor relations, Henry VIII was probably none to keen on England potentially becoming an appendage of Scotland. Of course the opposite sort of happened, but it is unlikely Henry would have been farsighted enough to grasp that liklihood. To him the Scots were hostile foreigners.