Interesting fact I hadn’t known: Henry VII of England was a direct descendant of Harold Godwinson. So in a sense, Henry’s ascension to the throne in 1485 was an overturning of the Norman Conquest.
Of course someone had to come and Godwinson the thread. :rolleyes:
Pedantry alert! Hide your eyes!
Richard was older than Geoffrey - of those who survived to adulthood it went Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, John. Richard was never at a threat of being displaced by Arthur, controversy around the two arises because he declared Arthur his heir before setting out on the Crusade much to John’s disgruntlement. It is claimed that on his deathbed he changed that to John, which is probably a coin-flip proposition. On the one hand Richard seems to have been genuinely fond of John despite his rebellious impulses, John was far more suited to the empire as a full adult and it was witnessed. On the other hand said deathbed witnesses were arguably biased to favor John, including Eleanor of Aquitaine who always ardently backed her sons.
That’s what Charles I said, and look how far it got him.
I don’t get it. Edward took the throne by force from Henry VI. And then Edward died. And instead of letting his son Edward V become king, his younger brother Richard had the boy killed and himself crowned instead. In neither direction do I see how the legitimacy of Edward IV would come into play at all.
Here’s another. 
The Kingdom of England ceased to exist in 1707 when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
But just to make things more confusing, I do recall now Richard was also younger than Geoffrey at the same time. His illegitimate half-brother Geoffrey ;). Henry II did us no favors when he insisted on honoring his father with not one, but two living namesakes.
If you’re taking the legitimist position, I don’t think you will accept that a law is valid on the basis that the legitimate monarch would have assented to it, if in a position to do so. The legitimate monarch didn’t in fact assent to it; the only assent it received was from an illegitimate pretender; that’s not sufficient to give it the force of law; QED.
The correct answer, I think, is the one offered by Melbourne. Legitimacy is a legal concept, and the concept includes a presumption of legitimacy. Edward IV benefits from the presumption of legitimacy, which in his case has never been rebutted in a legally effective way. Therefore he was the lawful and valid monarch, regardless of his genetic parentage.
You know who else didn’t get to rule England?
The idea is that with Edward illigitmate than the line should have gone through his brother george who did have surviving offspring. Henry VII had a very shaky claim to the throne through a line that apparently had been specifically excluded from the line of sucession. So his biggest claim of legitimacy was through his marriage to Edward’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth. But if Edward was illigitmate then his daughter would have been also.
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Mary, Queen of Scots?
The argument in the original TV documentary was that Henry VII’s claim to legitimacy depended on his marriage to Edward IV’s daughter, his own connection to the Lancastrian line being much shakier, through his mother, and his grandfather’s marriage to Henry V’s widow.
Trumped completely, in my view, by the simple fact that Henry and Elizabeth were, in effect, the last man and woman standing in each line. DNA was irrelevant beside the simple political fact that, in the then accepted pool of potential claimants, there was no-one else.
Obviously, I was thinking of Napoleon.
Henry Tudor’s biggest claim to legitimacy was winning at Bosworth Field and killing Richard III. Being descended from Henry V’s widow and marrying Elizabeth of York was just window dressing.
Is there actually any precedent for the claim that statutory instruments are invalidated, just because the assenting monarch was not lawfully the monarch despite having completed all the formalities (coronation, oath of office, etc.)?
Exactly right. You’re the king when everyone agrees you’re the king. That’s what makes you the king. As well as Richard III, you could also ask Charles I or James II what happened when people stopped agreeing that they were the king.
Following the conclusion of one stage of the War of the Roses, Parliament passed a statute based on exactly this point - to ratify all previous Acts of Parliament assented to by Henry VI and Edward IV, regardless of their legal status as king at the time. The statute is often cited as the first recognition of the de facto doctrine in English law.
Busy at the moment, but if I have time later on I’ll see if I can find the cite.
Why wasn’t she the lawful queen? Didn’t the “normal” line of succession cease when Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector, and then “restarted” with William and Mary?
No, the normal succession continued with the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, followed by James II in 1685. James II was overthrown in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and replaced by William and Mary.
James II had a son, who came ahead of Mary and Anne by the rules of male primogeniture.
Mary and Anne both came ahead of William, their cousin by James’ sister, for the same reason.
So James’s son James should have come to the throne before all three of them.